The Fluoride Myth
Debunking the Controversy
By Anthony J. Baker
Copyright 2011 Anthony J. Baker
Smashwords Edition
ISBN 978-0-615-51853-4
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. You may contact the author at ajbakerdds@gmail.com.
Disclaimer
All information contained in this book is intended for informational and educational purposes only. The information is not intended to be a replacement or substitute for professional dental treatment or for professional dental advice relative to a specific question or condition.
We urge you to always seek the advice of your dentist or physician with respect to your dental condition or questions. As a recipient of information from this book, you are not establishing a doctor/patient relationship with any dentist. There is no replacement for personal dental treatment and advice from your personal dental professional.
Table of Contents
Chapter One: The History of Fluoride
Phase One – Learning about the Benefits
Phase Two – Uncovering the Relationships
Phase Three – Getting Fluoride to the People
Chapter Two: How Fluoride Works
Examples of Natural Substances that Can Be Harmful
Fluoride Supplement Schedule for Children
Causes Down Syndrome and Autism
Is NOT advocated by leading agencies:
Causes Brain Damage in Regular Doses
Statements of Fact and Authority on Fluoride
Getting your Fluoride: List of Products and Solutions
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all the scientists, dentists, dental hygienists, physicians, engineers, and lab assistants who have devoted their time, energy, and/or personal funds to the research and development of safe and dependable fluoride delivery systems for the masses.
Furthermore, this book is dedicated to any child who has been denied access to fluoridated water, one of the 20th century’s greatest public health triumphs, as a result of the paranoid misinformation campaigns that abound on the internet and elsewhere.
About this Book
I am a general dentist. Patients, parents, friends, and acquaintances often ask me if the rumors they hear and read about fluoride and water fluoridation are true.
"Is fluoride bad for me? Do I really need fluoride? Can fluoride make my cavities worse? I read on the internet that water fluoridation is a government conspiracy. My brother told me fluoride causes brain damage. I will never let my kids have fluoride!"
I wrote this book to address these and many other questions and concerns relating to fluoride and fluoridated community water.
I hope you enjoy reading this book and find it informative. Please send any feedback you have to ajbakerdds@gmail.com.
Foreword
“The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recognized the fluoridation of drinking water as one of ten great public health achievements of the twentieth century. Water fluoridation has helped improve the quality of life in the United States by reducing pain and suffering related to tooth decay, time lost from school and work, and money spent to restore, remove, or replace decayed teeth. An economic analysis has determined that in most communities, every $1 invested in fluoridation saves $38 or more in treatment costs. Fluoridation is the single most effective public health measure to prevent tooth decay and improve oral health over a lifetime, for both children and adults.” Richard H. Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.C.S., VADM, USPHS, United States Surgeon General, 2002-2006
“The possibility of adverse health effects from continuous low level consumption of fluoride over long periods has been studied extensively. As with other nutrients, fluoride is safe and effective when used and consumed properly. No charge against the benefits and safety of fluoridation has ever been substantiated by generally accepted scientific knowledge. After 60 years of research and practical experience, the preponderance of scientific evidence indicates that fluoridation of community water supplies is both safe and effective.
While large doses of fluoride may be toxic, it is important to recognize the difference in the effect of a massive dose of an extremely high level of fluoride versus the recommended amount of fluoride found in optimally fluoridated water. The implication that fluorides in large doses and in trace amounts have the same effect is completely unfounded. Many substances in widespread use are very beneficial in small amounts, but may be harmful in large doses – such as salt, chlorine, and even water itself.” ADA Council on Access, Prevention and Interprofessional Relations, 2005
Introduction
Did you know that fluoride can give you cancer? That it is a ‘mutagen’ that leads to permanent changes in the biological structures of life forms? That it will cause Down Syndrome? That it causes hip fractures in seniors? That it makes virile men infertile? And that many public agencies advocate it being dumped into the public water supplies?
If you said that you didn’t know these things, it is probably because they are all lies! Of course you may have heard these brash statements, but you need to know that all of them are totally false.
In fact, many of these claims are well beyond the limits of outrageous! This book is going to explain the basic truths about the all-natural material known as fluoride and the benefits it brings to human beings, as well as debunk all of the totally ludicrous misinformation that has been tied to fluoride use.
You might ask yourself why so many conspiracy theories abound for something as simple and beneficial as fluoride, and the simplest answer is paranoia.
Just consider that there is often distrust whenever additives are officially sanctioned for use in food or drinking water supplies. When control over our diet and/or health is challenged and essentially removed from our hands, overreaction is only natural.
Most people respond with a “why” or “is fluoride really necessary?” For example, there are groups who claim that fluoridation is “mass medication” and others that insist it is a way for fertilizer manufacturers to get rid of their leftover waste (fluoride can be a byproduct of fertilizer manufacturing).
Are these folks correct? No, and this book is going to take a close look at all of the accusations, paranoia, slander, misinformation, and lies in order to debunk them.
For many years, the addition of fluoride to drinking water and the application of it to children’s teeth as part of a standard dental protocol have led to the kind of paranoia described above. While many rational people can understand the cause for the nervousness, the real mystery is why these horrible untruths about fluoride persist.
This book is going to look at the major myths surrounding fluoride and uncover the pleasant truths about fluoride supplementation and the astounding overall health benefits it provides.
Chapter One: The History of Fluoride
As early as the 16th century, scientists were becoming aware of what would one day be referred to as fluoride. Their interest in this material began as an industrial one rather than as a dental treatment. For instance, the use of fluoric acid for glass etching was one of the first methods in which fluoride was officially discussed in scientific works.
It was German physicist Georg Bauer who first identified and named fluorine, the element from which fluoride is derived. He was working on a paper that detailed the ways to prepare metals from ores and used the Latin phrase “lapides igni liquescentes fluores” (stones which become liquid in fire) to describe a material that was beneficial to the smelting process.
What was it he had discovered? The mineral then known as ‘fluorspar.’ Over the next centuries, a multitude of industrial scientists scrutinized this multicolored stone. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many scientists considered the processes by which the hard tissues in the human body were formed and began testing samples of ancient and prehistoric bones and teeth to learn why they were hard and seemingly impervious to some types of decay. Out of their work came many theories about fluoride and how supplementation might increase bone or tooth durability.
Fluorspar. Notice its crystalline structure, much like tooth enamel.
Taken from http://www.fluorspar.com/home_files/fluorite1.gif
Toward the end of this period of research, around the year 1901, Dr. Frederick S. McKay began his dental practice in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Almost as soon as he began seeing patients, he noticed that many of them had what he would call, ‘mottled enamel’ on their teeth. Enamel is the outside layer of human teeth, and the hardest substance in the human body when healthy. Mottled enamel was a condition characterized by brown staining and some malformation of the teeth, and yet very little evidence of dental ‘caries’ or decay was present. Dr. McKay named this condition ‘Colorado brown stain.’
Severe fluorosis
Colorado brown stain most likely looked like this photograph of severe fluorosis. Amazingly, teeth with severe fluorosis may have little decay – though it would appear that there is a great deal of it.
Mild fluorosis
Patients with mild fluorosis have a barely perceptible amount of whitening in the front teeth. This is the type of almost invisible fluorosis most common in the modern era.
Caries: The Enemy Within
What is dental caries? It’s just a fancy scientific word for the more common terms ‘tooth decay’ or ‘cavities.’ (Note: the word ‘caries’ is both singular and plural, like ‘moose’ or ‘deer’).
The Centers for Disease Control in the United States defines caries as, “an infectious, communicable, multifactorial disease in which bacteria dissolve the enamel surface of a tooth. Unchecked, the bacteria then may penetrate the underlying dentin and progress into the soft pulp tissue. Dental caries can result in loss of tooth structure and discomfort. Untreated caries can lead to incapacitating pain, a bacterial infection that leads to pulpal necrosis, tooth extraction and loss of dental function, and may progress to an acute systemic infection. The major etiologic factors for this disease are specific bacteria in dental plaque (particularly Streptococcus mutans and lactobacilli) on susceptible tooth surfaces and the availability of fermentable carbohydrates.”
Illustration of a healthy tooth.
(A) Enamel. (B) Dentin. (C) Pulp or Nerve. (D) Gingiva or gum tissue. (E) Bone
Tooth Decay
Tooth Decay
In the illustrations of tooth decay, the first picture is of caries extending into the enamel. The second picture is the decay penetrating all the way through enamel and into dentin. As you can see, the decay is getting close to the pulp. Picture three illustrates what occurs when decay extends all the way through dentin and into the pulp. The pulp becomes infected and inflamed, leading to an abscess and extreme pain in some cases. A tooth at this stage needs a root canal.
Dental caries occurs as follows: the bacteria present in the human mouth consume fermentable carbohydrates (i.e. wheat, sugar, starchy foods, candy, soda) that are left in the mouth and on the teeth after eating. The by-products of the bacterial consumption or fermentation of these carbohydrates are plaque acids. These acids attack and ‘demineralize’ calcium and phosphate, the main components of tooth enamel, leading to cavities and tooth decay. So it’s not actually food or sugar that directly cause caries, but the acid produced by bacteria after it ferments carbohydrates left in the mouth following a meal. These bacteria and their by-products form a ‘biofilm’ known as plaque.
Colorado Brown Stain
Clearly, dental caries represented a serious and relatively common problem in the 1900s, but Dr. McKay’s patients with mottled teeth tended to have far fewer incidences of tooth decay.
This inspired the doctor to begin to investigate the ‘Colorado brown stain’ epidemic among his patients. He wanted to uncover what was causing the phenomenon and why it seemed to greatly reduce the amount of caries experienced by patients with the condition.
What he would eventually learn was that the natural ground water supply was high in fluoride, and he reasoned that this must be the underlying cause of the staining and decay resistance.
Naturally, a single dentist operating an investigation into a dental condition in the American West would not be able to make radical changes in global theory. What most experts today tend to say is that Dr. McKay’s research can be said to have initiated the first of the three phases of modern fluoride research by creating a link between mottled tooth enamel, fluoride, and resistance to dental caries.
Phase One – Learning about the Benefits
Dr. McKay spent more than 30 years researching Colorado brown stain and was able to identify fluoride as the material that created the situation in which patients with mottled teeth also tended to be cavity-free.
About thirty years after Dr. McKay began his investigations (around 1930), H.V. Churchill, a chemist working for ALCOA – the Aluminum Company of America, also decided to conduct an experiment. He too was motivated by cases of mottled enamel, but in this scenario, the mottling had suddenly appeared in the teeth of children living near Bauxite, Arkansas.
A very deep well had been created for Bauxite’s water supply around 1909. Local authorities feared that something in the well was causing a noticeable surge in cases of mottled teeth, and they decided to abandon the well in 1927. They did not yet know that the brown discoloration on the children’s teeth was actually making them almost entirely free of decay.
Churchill used the emerging science of ‘spectrographic analysis’ to identify the contents of the water from this well and found that it had very high concentrations of fluoride. The counts were off of the proverbial charts -- they measured around 14 ppm (parts per million), while the normal levels found in nature are around one part per million (one part per million would be equivalent to one teaspoon of fluoride in one million teaspoons of water, or one teaspoon in 1,300 gallons of water).
The release of this study prompted Dr. McKay to send Churchill many water samples gathered from his region, and other parts of the country where mottled teeth were considered endemic. All of the doctor’s samples tested very high as well – around 2 to 12 parts per million.
Phase Two – Uncovering the Relationships
Thus, the second period of fluoride research began and would focus intensely on the relationship between fluoride concentrations in drinking water, the incidences of mottled teeth, and the impact that these two factors had on levels of caries or tooth decay in the population.
With the evidence of Churchill’s measurements and Dr. McKay’s water samples clearly identifying fluoride as the culprit in the many cases of mottled teeth and low levels of decay, the United States National Institute of Health decided it was time to get involved and created its Dental Hygiene Unit in 1931.
This new unit was headed by Dr. H. Trendley Dean, and its work was aimed at investigating the relationship between fluoride and mottled enamel. The group gave the phenomenon the formal name ‘fluorosis’ and began an in-depth and extremely broad study into the condition.
Over the course of the next ten years, the organization gathered conclusive evidence that tracked dental fluorosis throughout the U.S. The available data allowed Dr. Dean to create a ‘Fluorosis Index’ in 1942, as follows:
Dean Fluorosis Index
Dean and his group then used the data available on the prevalence of dental caries occurring in children in 26 states and compared the condition of their teeth with this new index. What he discovered was illuminating because it depicted an inverse relation. The places in which fluorosis was prevalent were places in which caries was not, and vice versa.
This meant that kids living in towns and cities in which community water supplies had higher levels of fluoride (more than 1 part per million) tended to have fluorosis but also had far fewer cavities.
To further prove their findings, the group did a study of 21 cities and confirmed that those public water supplies with more than one ppm of fluoride had many more children with fluorosis. However, the numbers of cases of fluorosis began to decline when the levels reached one ppm or less, and most children had only mild fluorosis when the water supplies did not exceed that minimal level.
Distribution of Dental Fluorosis at Different Levels of Fl in Drinking Water
The graph titled Distribution of Dental Fluorosis at Different Levels of Fluoride in Drinking Water was compiled from results published by Dr. Dean in 1942. (Please note: mg/liter is the same as ppm.) As the graph shows, normal to mild fluorosis are the majority of cases even when fluoride reaches 4 ppm. We do however see the cases of moderate to severe fluorosis increase at around 4.5 ppm.
Phase Three – Getting Fluoride to the People
The unit decided to conduct a test of their hypothesis and did a field study in four areas beginning around 1945. This initiated the third and final phase of fluoride research – which was focused on adding fluoride to community water supplies.
This field study was conducted in partner cities that were labeled as either the ‘intervention’ city or the ‘control’ city. The intervention city received fluoridation of one part per million added to the public water supply whereas the control city continued to use water with no additives. The cities were:
* Grand Rapids and Muskegon, Michigan;
* Newburgh and Kingston, New York;
* Evanston and Oak Park, Illinois; and
* Brantford and Sarnia, Ontario, Canada.
This groundbreaking field study ran a very impressive 13 to 15 years and resulted in some amazing discoveries. The group published some findings in 1950, and the details included:
* The occurrence of caries was reduced 50%-70% among children in the intervention communities (those with fluoridated water); and
* The appearance of dental fluorosis in the intervention communities was comparable to cities where drinking water contained naturally occurring fluoride at 1 ppm.
What is so interesting is that the unit’s findings were backed up by other studies conducted at roughly the same time but in different areas of the world. In regions such as Canada, the Netherlands, the UK, and New Zealand, others were learning many of the same things about fluoride, teeth, and drinking water.
Such widespread advocacy of the use of supplementation led to new health policies in the United States, and by as early as 1951, the U.S. Public Health Service accepted water fluoridation as official policy. The American Dental Association, the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, as well as other professional and scientific organizations all endorsed water fluoridation. Grand Rapids became the first American city to implement water fluoridation over 60 years ago.
Soon many major American cities began following the recommended levels for supplementation (a recommended optimum range of fluoride concentration of 0.7-1.2 ppm, with the lower concentration recommended for warmer climates, where water consumption was higher, and the higher concentration for colder climates). Thereafter, scientists began gathering data about the results.
These results included:
* Dental caries declined dramatically during the second half of the 20th century as a result of several generations of children being raised with fluoridated water supplies;
* Mean DMFT (decayed, missing, or filled teeth) among children age 12 declined 68%, from 4.0 in 1966-1970 to 1.3 in 1988-1994. (DMFT is a system used by public health organizations to record and track oral health in populations);
* Other methods for the delivery of fluoride appeared including mouth rinses, tooth pastes and gels, dental applications, and tablets or drops; and
* Other nations apart from the U.S. adopted fluoride policies.
By 1992, over 135 million Americans were receiving fluoridated drinking water in the U.S. That constituted around 65% of the population, but it also meant there had been some interesting shifts in attitudes about dental health. Consider the data below before reading the next section on changing attitudes. Note the dramatic decline in decayed, missing, and filled teeth beginning at the time fluoride was added to water systems.