Fluoride In Water

[Draigun]

I know I touched base back in August with fluoride in the United States water supply. That topic is located here.

So, I've been doing research here and there, and I've decided to refresh this black line discussion. My opinion: fluoridated water is not necessary to dental health and causes too many negative effects to the human body when ingested. Crater provided a good (however, possibly inaccurate) timeline for that video on the other topic.

Take a look at this page: http://www.fluoridealert.org/articles/50-reasons/ - This gives you 50 reasons as to why you should oppose adding fluoride into the water.

Some quick graphs to point out (on the website) and their meanings:

According to the graph, there is no difference whether a person drinks fluoridated water or not, the tooth decay numbers decrease as the years go forward.


"Modern research shows that decay rates were coming down before fluoridation was introduced in Australia and New Zealand and have
continued to decline even after its benefits would have been maximized."

Applying toothpaste will help to prevent cavities. But ingesting it will not. According to this, it has not been proven that fluoride in water helps prevent tooth decay (not my only source obviously).

Now, what I find most concerning, is that there is evidence that proves ingesting fluoridated water impacts the health of the organs. See Evidence of harm to other tissues area of 50 reasons page.

You only need fluoride within toothpaste. Why do we need to ingest it when it clearly does not help with tooth decay. I'm hoping that this will change some of the minds here.

Like I've said before, Distillation or Reverse Osmosis water filtration systems will remove fluoride from water, in addition to a lot of the other stuff in water supplies (lead, mercury, chlorine, copper, silver, etc.).

[THEWULFMAN]

I don't know if I agree or not. I guess I just don't see enough evidence pointing towards harm from it.

[Darth Crater]

Take a look at this page: http://www.fluoridealert.org/articles/50-reasons/ - This gives you 50 reasons as to why you should oppose adding fluoride into the water.

Excellent. This resembles an actual, reasoned argument. Much better than the manipulative, blatantly lying conspiracy video you posted last time. Not that this tells us anything about its accuracy, of course. I don't think I have the experience in the field to go through it point by point. So, instead I ask: Why do you think the people who have the experience, like the ADA and the CDC, would deliberately harm the population?

According to the graph, there is no difference whether a person drinks fluoridated water or not, the tooth decay numbers decrease as the years go forward.

That's because the graph doesn't take toothpaste or dentists into account, and only includes developed countries which have both of those. This suggests that the effect of fluoridated water/salt is less than the effect of those others, which is expected.

"Modern research shows that decay rates were coming down before fluoridation was introduced in Australia and New Zealand and have
continued to decline even after its benefits would have been maximized."

A thorough rebuttal to the paper that graph cites.

Applying toothpaste will help to prevent cavities. But ingesting it will not. According to this, it has not been proven that fluoride in water helps prevent tooth decay (not my only source obviously).

Then do you have a better source than someone posting some completely unsourced and unsupported arguments on about.com? As I linked last time, they started regulating the amount of fluoride in water because it was found to prevent tooth decay.

Now, what I find most concerning, is that there is evidence that proves ingesting fluoridated water impacts the health of the organs. See Evidence of harm to other tissues area of 50 reasons page.

Do any of these indicate that it does non-cosmetic harm to humans at anywhere near the CDC safe levels?

EDIT: by the way, they are decreasing the recommended level of fluoridation in water, mainly because Americans have better access to other sources now and the effect has been found to taper off after 0.7 mg/L .

[(=DK=)Samonuh]

Mom's a dental hygienist. She says it's good. I believe her.

[CommanderOtto]

Mom's a dental hygienist. She says it's good. I believe her.

a reasonable argument that didn't need an infinite post to prove the point.

and why the interest in fluoride water all of a sudden?

[THEWULFMAN]

You missed it Otto but we had a big talk on Fluoride awhile back.

[CommanderOtto]

You missed it Otto but we had a big talk on Fluoride awhile back.

oh =(

[Draigun]

Bump

The following video is considered great coverage on fluoridated water:



Timeline of video

Spoiler: show

0:50 - The United States has more people drinking fluoridated water than the rest of the world combined.
0:55 - Most industrial nations do not fluoridate their water
1:10 - The compound in fluoridated water is NOT the same as toothpaste fluoride
1:16 - The compound in fluoridated water is a by-product of phosphate fertilizer
1:23 - Elaboration of fluoridated water originating from phosphate fertilizer industry
1:49 - In 1944, the ADA (American Dental Association) published that water fluoridation is not worth the health risk
2:07 - Aluminum industry pushed practicing fluoridation of water whilst at the same time wanting to safely discard their fluoride pollution
2:15 - In 1947, Oscar Ewing, a paid attorney for Alcoa Inc. (biggest aluminum company in United States) was elected to be the overseer the Public Health Service (now known as the Department of Health & Human Services)
2:29 - Oscar Ewing's ties with the aluminum industry and fluoride was made transparent based on the fact that he wanted to promote fluoridated water as one of the "first policies" of the Public Health Service. The policy expanded to cities by tenfold, with an additional 87 cities in the United States within 3 years
2:59 - In 1987, the NIDR (National Institute of Dental Research (now the NIDCR)) examined 39,000 school children from 84 different fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities
3:10 - The study that NIDCR conducted showed that in fluoridated areas, the tooth decay rate did decline. However, they also found that in non-fluoridated areas, the tooth decay rate declined as well.
3:28 - Some health risks explained from over using fluoride
3:44 - Fifty-percent of the fluoride we consume is excreted; the other half is absorbed by the body - specifically, the bones and the pineal gland
3:56 - A study by the U.S Public Health Service found that a deadly type of bone cancer (osteosarcoma) was found to be higher in fluoridated communities than in non-fluoridated communities - the study was confirmed by Harvard Medical School
4:12 - Eighteen different studies done worldwide showed a substantial amount of lower IQs in heavily fluoridated areas
4:29 - Fluoride is a drug (the word drug itself can be a varied term, however adding a 'drug' in water doesn't sound as... helpful)

Water is an essential part of our daily lives. Why must there be a drug in our water? Even if the drug was helpful, regular water is still essential to life.

Sodium fluoride (toothpaste) is definitely helpful in preventing tooth decay when applied TOPICALLY - as in applying it via toothpaste to your teeth. The label on every toothpaste bottle/tube clearly says you should NOT swallow toothpaste. Even if fluoride in water is not the same, any drug classified by the FDA would often breed side effects. This is something that is public knowledge and is undeniable.

My opinion on the matter: Water fluoridation that is being practiced in the United States needs to stop. Studies show that it does not matter whether the water is fluoridated or not, but that tooth decay is still decreasing.

[Darth Crater]

I'll get to this eventually, but since you haven't even bothered to answer any of my previous points I'm in no great hurry.

[Draigun]

I'll get to this eventually, but since you haven't even bothered to answer any of my previous points I'm in no great hurry.

If you're implying that the post was for you, that's not correct. What I'm doing here is spreading the message out.

I do, however, see what you've implied in your post, Crater. I do apologize for taking a long time to even post on the subject, but I honestly didn't care to read that rebuttal you mentioned. Why? Because I know for a fact it nitpicks at the little details. What I've been attempting to get across are the more prevalent matters. There is no denying the fact that fluoride is a drug, and ALL drugs created by mankind have at least one long-term/short-term side effect. Also, I only provided the graphs to show the data on a website that's dedicated to fighting against fluoridated water.

You may think it's just another rational excuse for me by saying "I don't want to debate with Crater because he always finds someway to disprove of someone's opinion." No, that is definitely not the case. Even if you chose to refuse the facts I've given, at least I know that the information is still out there and readily available, and you've looked -- hell, even glanced at it.