Anti-Fluoride Press Release Draws Ire from Readers
OPINION August 11, 2011 – A number of our readers have raised concerns about the press releases published by The Lund Report that call into question the effectiveness of water fluoridation.
As editor of The Lund Report, I do not take positions on such issues, however do believe it’s critically important to allow divergent viewpoints in this publication to help create a more accountable and transparent healthcare system focused on the Triple Aim.
Publishing press releases is one way to achieve this goal but they can never replace the news articles written by our professional freelance reporters or thoughtful opinion pieces from you, our readers.
On the fluoride issue, I’d like to draw your attention to the article written by Christen McCurdy -- one of our freelance reporters -- that drew attention to the city of Philomath, which is taking another look at fluoridating its water, and also discussed a recent survey conducted by Northwest Health Foundation which found that 63 percent of Oregonians support adding fluoride to their drinking water. You can read that story by clicking here.
As readers, I value your opinions. For that reason we’ve always allowed comments on the articles and press releases that appear in The Lund Report. Our policy has been to publish all comments unless they are derogatory or unsolicited advertising. We also intend to continue publishing anonymous comments, but, in the interest of full disclosure, we encourage you to include your name.
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One question to win the argument is;
Even if fluoride was good for you dose the Government have the right to force medicate people with out their informed consent?
where is my right not to be fluoridated? (back up question)
Everyone should be charging the government for having to remove added fluoride from their water or for purchasing of clean water.
Like statistics, scientific studies can be used to uphold the tenets of truth and honest scientific inquiry and they can be skewed, quoted, misquoted, spewed as authority from 'prestigious' institutions and organizations. All of these.
Quoting studies and esteemed institutions has little to do with Truth and information. Give the public honest information. Not marketing, not public relations, not politics, not moneyed-interests disguised as for the public good, e.g., as Northwest Health Foundation’s statement on water fluoridation “as a health equity, reducing health disparity, social justice perspective.” These are public relations ‘newspeak’ words for justifying jobs and cash flow.
Authority figures such as dentists, doctors, public health practitioners, government lobbyists/vested interests and revolving-door institutions -- most of whom, perhaps unknowingly -- have benefited from and have been heavily influenced by the Rockefeller/Carnegie/Ford foundation “philanthropic formula.”
Instead of trusting authority figures, were the public to study the issues with an inquisitive mind, they would learn -- in a very short bit of time and research -- the facts and history of fluoride. They would learn that fluorosilicic acid was misspelled in reporter Christen McCurdy’s article (which featured retired dentist, Ferre, in nearly half the article) and that it is what is most-used in municipal fluoridated water. That it is a corrosive, highly toxic, volatile waste by-product of the phosphate-fertilizer and metal/aluminum manufacturing industries -- that there are some very serious concerns with water fluoridation. They might be surprised to find that the FDA (the FDA, originally the USDA Division of Chemistry, renamed the USDA Bureau of Chemistry from 1901 until 1927) has not approved fluoride as a drug, yet it is used as a drug in our water with no dosage oversight by any administrator, municipality or agency responsibility/culpability.
The public might be more aware of possible adverse health effects were they told the truth: that there were many biologists appalled and distressed at the thought of fluoride being put into their water supply. These scientists used fluoride in their research as a means of killing cell tissue. Hello!?!
The public (of color, lower-income, et al) most vulnerable to lead and arsenic toxicity is the very same population that is most “philanthropically” being targeted as ‘needing’ fluoridated water in their community. This is a serious issue worth an open-forum, public debate. And is a young mother told she should not give her child (our granddaughter!) fluoridated water to drink or in the formula or cereal? She was NOT IN OUR COMMUNITY here in Cedar Mill, nor by her pediatrician, nor by any other accountable authority! And even if she IS told, does this mean she has to ‘haul’ water (on the bus? or does she have a car?) or take out a loan (if she qualifies) to buy an R.O. water filter?
Or perhaps the March 1993, affidavit of Safe Water Association advocate, Dr Hans Moolenburgh vs. the Wisconsin city of Fond du Lac would offer some enlightenment:
http://www.efii.org/support-files/moolenburgh_affidavit.pdf
Water is an essential for life! We already have a tremendous number of toxins, pollutants and additives in our water supplies. Further toxifying it by adding highly reactive, corrosive fluorosilicic acid, aka, fluoride, as a drug is a criminal offense to any healthy body and further compromises any that are not. Who needs a scientific study to prove that?
It is clear from postings here that fluoridation proponents cannot provide the science to support their beliefs
Thanks for reporting our side of this issue, Diane. Why should we care about some casual observations alleging the safety and effectiveness of hydrofluorosilicic acid from third-party members of a trade organization? We want to see a first-hand statement from each manufacturer that tells us hydrofluorosilicic acid, and any of its derivatives, is safe and effective for everybody's ingestion.
Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind-in-the-mass through some pet formula of their own…The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters, and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon human beings by the professional ‘do-gooders,’who attempt to set themselves up as gods and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others... (Ezra T. Benson, quotes Henry G. Weaver, An Enemy Hath Done This, p. 140)
Travis L Orback
McMinnville Citizens for Safe Drinking Water
http://macsaferwater.wordpress.com/
Let’s consider a few facts about fluoridation. Fluoride is a powerful chemical agent that is added to water ostensibly to treat dental decay, a disease caused primarily by a diet high in sugar. This makes fluoride a drug, one that is delivered through mass medication and with no concern to age, gender, individual differences or contraindications.
Thanks to a convenient loophole in federal regulations, no safety research has been conducted on the fluoride varieties widely used as drugs. Our leaders have seen fit to label them as “unapproved”, meaning there’s little oversight of their use in public water. Mid-level managers at EPA, concerned with research data showing harm, have repeatedly called on Congress to declare a moratorium on fluoridation while an extensive analysis of the practice is conducted. And yet our esteemed leaders refuse to act.
Apparently, most of them, like the majority of Americans, are unaware of the origins of the fluoride they consume, whether it be through drinking, cooking or bathing. Nearly all of the fluoride chemicals added to North American water supplies are waste byproducts of the phosphate fertilizer, steel and aluminum smelting industries. Known as sodium fluorosilicate or hydro-fluorosilicic acid, it contains impurities that include heavy metals and radioactive particles. Were it not politically expedient to add it to water supplies, legal disposal requires it to be treated as a hazardous waste.
Most of Europe has either banned fluoridation or simply stopped it. Polling indicates people in Europe favor informed consent. They believe anything as personal as taking a drug to treat disease requires an individual decision, not one that is mandated by the state. This concept remains weak in America.
Of course, Europeans are also aware of the health effects of chronic low doses of fluoride. These include brittle bones, bone deformities, higher risks for cancer, diminished IQ in children and hormone disruption. Most pro-fluoridationists either don’t know of these consequences or they ignore them. No wonder Europeans enjoy greater health than people in the US, including dental health.
Those who defend fluoridation appear ignorant of the CDC’s and the American Dental Association’s 2006 alert calling on parents and caregivers to avoid using fluoridated tap water when mixing infant formula. Feeding programs using tap water means an infant’s consumption of fluoride exceeds limits based on a six-foot-tall, 200-pound adult male. A nursing infant, by contrast, receives 250 times less fluoride in mother’s milk than one raised on formula mixed with tap water.
Last month, in Fairbanks, Alaska, after a year-long task force analyzed the issue, the panel of four PhDs (chemistry and biology), a pediatrician and a dentist concluded that fluoridation is neither safe or effective. The task force recommended to the city council that the 50-year-old practice stop.
During the July 4 weekend, the water utility, so ordered by the city, turned off the fluoride pump. Fairbanks water is now free of added fluoride, joining Juneau, Ketchikan and dozens of towns and villages across Alaska.
Read the City of Fairbanks fluoridation report here:
http://www.fairbanksalaska.us/boards-and-commissions/fluoride-task-force...
To learn more about the science of fluoride, visit the web site produced by Fairbanks residents seeking to end fluoridation. Fluoridefreefairbanks.org was instrumental in building community consensus and influencing the city council and the local newspaper.
Douglas Yates
Ester, Alaska
The passion on this forum underscores my previous post that this is a wedge issue. My direct experience as a PH dentist, professor and advocate lends to an interpretation that some of these posts remind me of comments in Missouri about the satanic evils of stem cell research while by day I was interacting with dedicated scientist from the Stowers Institute.
It reminds me of statements about the evils of homosexuality by people who did not have the close friendships and neighborhood camaraderie with individuals who happened to have same sex partners.
It all reminds me of a patient I had about 1 year back who quoted many of the previous written things to me when he found out I supported community water fluoride. Had multiple draining abscesses in his mouth and ended up in the hospital due to his rejection of specific things I recommended. He was so worried about the Fluoride in his body (the same Fl that I, my wife, my children....enjoy the benefit of) that Samaritan cost shifted about 2000 dollars to others in society to drain his abscess and force him to take IV antibiotics to most likely save his life.
MP
Even if fluoride was helpful to teeth, trying to distribute any drug in drinking water is the most expensive and wasteful way to do it.
People drink only 1/2% (one-half percent) of the water they use. The remaining 99 ½ % of the toxic fluoride chemical is dumped directly into our environment through the sewer system. I am a Civil Engineer, so I am very familiar with community water systems.
For example, for every $1000 of fluoride chemical added to water, $995 would be directly wasted down the drain in toilets, showers, dishwashers, etc., $5 would be consumed in water by the people, and less than $0.50 (fifty cents) would be consumed by children, the target group. Your local water department can confirm all of this.
That would be comparable to taking 1 gallon of milk, using six-and-one-half drops of it, and pouring the rest of the gallon in the sink.
Can you think of a more wasteful government program? Giving away fluoride tablets free to anyone who wants them would be far cheaper and certainly more ethical because then we would have the freedom to choose.
Let me declare my bias first: I want safe drinking water and that means water that does not have the industrial waste hydrofluorosalic acid, or its additionally processed salt, sodium fluorosilicate or sodium fluoride added. Christen McCurdy's article was in "my opinion" ho hum. The article gave a smattering of positions of those supportive and opposed to fluoridation. It was ho hum neutral. I'm more accustomed to the media blasting the views and demeaning those opposed to the water supply being used to deliver a drug in uncontrolled amounts to an entire population.
The second article "Fluoride Opposition Growing" in a media of wider format would have been a "side bar" to a more intense article on the controversial practice of fluoridation. I am more accustomed to seeing in the conventional media, side bars of all the endorsements of the policy of fluoridation. So in that respect the second article is unique but adds greatly to the overall understanding that there indeed good reasons to be concerned about the fluoride chemicals added to the drinking water.
For all those who believe "the science speaks in the myth of absolute proof" only have to go back 10 years and read the words of the Review team chaired by Trevor Sheldon of the York Review. The York Review was the most extensive meta-analysis of 60 years worth of the primary fluoridation literature to occur since WWII.
"The review team was surprised that in spite of the large number of studies carried out over several decades there is a dearth of reliable evidence with which to inform policy. Until high quality studies are undertaken providing more definite evidence, there will continue to be legitimate scientific controversy over the likely effects and costs of water fluoridation."
The Lund Report, just presented more pertinent information for those who realize for the scientific controversy to continue for over 70 years, there has to be substance and as the second article pointed out the "Opposition [is] Growing".
In my opinion, the second Lund Report provided information that the corporate media grossly fail to even mention. It is precisely the reason that people turn to the Lund Report to gain "all" the information.
I continue to be amazed at the number of respected health authorities who put their reputations on the line with endorsements of water fluoridation. In their passionate support of this medically and ethically indefensible public policy they reveal their ignorance of either (a) the existing body of research or (b) how to evaluate the quality of that research. Health professionals who do read the research and know how to evaluate it do not voice such support.
Janet Nagel
Fluoride compounds added to water are considered a "drug" by the FDA, but they have never been approved for ingestion for the purpose of preventing dental caries. These compounds are the only chemicals added to the water for the purpose of treating humans as opposed to treating the water to make it potable.
Fluorides are regulated by the EPA, but only as a pollutant. The EPA does not regulate "water additives" and the FDA doesn't regulate it because it is a non-approved drug.
Consistently, the Oregon state legislature has refuses to pass a mandatory fluoridation bill for a number of reasons: significant questions concerning safety, efficacy and quality of the fluoride products used, lack of accountability by the manufacturers and distributors of these products, and lack of any federal, state or local authority regulating or taking responsibility for these products.
There is also a genuine concern that the government should not be in the business of distributing a non-FDA approved drug through the drinking water supply. In addition, there is growing body of peer-reviewed scientific evidence that compounds used for fluoridation have sever adverse health effects including, bone cancer, hip fracture in the elderly, depressed thyroid function and lowered I.Q. in children.
A recently published study from Harvard Dental School (Bassin, 2006) found that young boys between the ages of five and ten years old who drink fluoridated water at so called “optimally fluoridated” levels (1 ppm) are 500% more likely to develop a rare and often fatal bone cancer (osteosarcoma) than boys who do not drink fluoridated water. This study corroborates earlier studies on the fluoride/osteosarcoma link by the National Cancer Institute (1990) and the New Jersey Health Department (1992).
Like many of the so-called "break-through" technologies of the 1950's - DDT, thalidomide, leaded gasoline - it is time to recognize the policy of fluoridate for what it is: an outdated, ineffective and harmful practice.
Kimberly Kaminski, JD, Executive Director, Oregon Citizens for Safe Drinking Water
I challenge those who believe that science is on the side of water fluoridation to read the book I co-authored with James Beck, MD, PhD and Spedding Micklem D.Phil, entitled "The Case Against Fluoride" (Chlesea Green, 2010).
For over 60 years this program has been promoted via endorsements from "authorities." Endorsements are no substitute for references to the primary scientific literature.
Sadly most scientists are not interested in the subject and most doctors and dentists are too busy treating patients to spend the time reading this literature. Instead, they simply rely on (and repeat) reassurances from their professional bodies. They also rely on pronouncements from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). On some issues this might be a safe thing to do, but NOT on fluoridation. There is only one small group at the CDC that is responsible for the fluoridation program and that is the Oral Health Division (recently downgraded to a branch). This consists of 30 employees and most of their qualifications are dental. Very few (if any) have any qualifications in toxicology or specialized branches of medicine. Not only are they not qualified to review the literature on the harm posed by fluoride but they also have a huge conflict of interest in the matter. Their job is to PROMOTE fluoridation not QUESTION it. Essentially they act like an adjunct of the American Dental Association.
This is what the American Dental Association had to say about professional responsibilities of dentists with respect to fluoridation in a white paper from 1979:
“Individual dentists must be convinced that they need not be familiar with scientific reports and field investigations on fluoridation to be effective participants and that non- participation is overt neglect of professional responsibility.” (American Dental Association, “White Paper on Fluoridation,” Council on Dental Health and Health Planning, 1979, http://fluoridealert.org/ada.white.paper.1979.html )
Very little has changed. Behind the scenes many dentists tell us that they are OK with the use of fluoride in topical treatments but do not feel it is right to force it on people via the public water supply. However, they are loathe to express this opinion in public because of peer pressures from their colleagues.
I urge readers to look at our book to learn more about the history and science of this issue. If they haven't got time for that spend 28 minutes watching the videotape "Professional Perspectives on Water Fluoridation" which can be accessed for free online at www.FluorideAlert.org
Paul Connett, PhD, Director of the Fluoride Action Network
Your reporter cherry picked her data regarding fluoridation as the vast majority of science based opinion
supports fluoridation which she failed to note. It is OK to have an "opinion",but the reporter had a duty to acknowledge that her position does not reflect the consensus of science,let alone the vast majority of dental-medical professionals as any internet research would support. Michael Kaplan
Very timely that I read this today as I just came back from the dental office about two hours ago. The first thing the hygenist said to me was, "you're not from around here, are you?" The reason for the question was the condition of my teeth. In Nebraska I've ingested fluoridated water my whole life and I guess it shows. Too bad my daughter won't be as fortunate.
There is a difference between editorial writing and news writing. When teaching the public health and preventive dentistry course at OHSU I often have 1-3 students (out of 75) who very skeptically ask me my personal views on community water fluoridation. I reply that I agree with every surgeon general since Ike was in the white house.
Either NIH, HRSA, IOM CDC......others have instituted a grand hoax (to quote Senator Inhoff about another contentious issue) on the developed world or the science stands up to be the best we have at this time.
The anti-Fluoride political debate in OR reminds me of what I saw with stem cell research and gay marriage while living in other areas of the country. It is a wedge issue used by political groups to mobilize passionate believers in the interest of bolstering support for a platform of other issues that are much higher priority.
I would encourage the Lund Report to sharply distinguish between opinion and fact (based on the best body of science we have at this time). Otherwise your highly discriminate readership may begin to wonder if you are just another editorial page masquerading as a news site.
MP
I couldn't agree more with MP. There is a material difference between allowing "divergent opinions" and reporting on the state of the science of a particular subject. It needs to be acknowledged that not all "opinions" regarding public health policy are equally valid. Those that are grounded in the best science available must be given prominence and those not, not. Otherwise next we'll be talking about how it is a matter of opinion whether MMR vaccines cause autism or human evolution is a result of intelligent design. Surely the Lund Report doesn't want to be seen as neutral on such questions? That is neither good science nor good reporting.