Fluoride. Why.. oh.. why? Oh.. my!!
When you research fluoride you will definitely find articles on both sides of the spectrum. One telling you that fluoride is completely safe and the other explaining why it is poison.
In researching, I found information that indicated in the US, about 70 - 75% of the public water supplies are fluoridated. Since 1945, it has been widely accepted in the US that fluoride is safe and effective to prevent tooth decay, but many health experts and scientists disagree.
The first American commercial use of fluoride, in the form of sodium fluoride, was to kill insects, lice, mice, and other vermin and it was quite effective. At that time, the largest producer of fluoride was releasing vapors into the atmosphere that turned out to cripple or kill farm animals and scorch crops and other vegetation. By the 1950s and ’60s when that practice of releasing fluoride vapors in the air was reined in, fluoride had been added to the US drinking water. Does that mean those toxic vapors were reduced to toxic powder? I don’t know! In January 1945, Grand Rapids Michigan became the first city to add fluoride to its community water source, under the guise of preventing tooth decay. If you want to read more specifics you can read many articles at mercola.com.
As you read other online articles there is some really interesting info that I found on fluoridealert.org.
#1. FLUORIDATED COUNTRIES DO NOT HAVE LESS TOOTH DECAY THAN NON-FLUORIDATED COUNTRIES
It is often claimed that fluoridated water is the main reason the United States has had a large decline in tooth decay over the past 60 years. This same decline in tooth decay, however, has occurred in all developed countries, most of which have never added any fluoride to their water. According to data from the World Health Organization, there is no discernible difference in tooth decay between the minority of developed countries that fluoridate water and the majority that do not.
#2 FLUORIDE IS THE ONLY MEDICINE ADDED TO PUBLIC WATER (except for the pharmaceuticals that are now present in our recycled water systems.)
Fluoride is the only chemical added to water that doesn’t actually treat the water. Chlorine, for example, is added to kill bacteria so that we can drink the water without getting sick. Fluoride, by contrast, is added to prevent a disease (tooth decay) that is not caused by drinking water.
#3 SWALLOWING FLUORIDE PROVIDES LITTLE BENEFIT TO TEETH
When water fluoridation first began back in the 1940s, the medical profession believed fluoride needed to be ingested to be most effective in preventing cavities. This was why fluoride was added to water and pills—because these are things that people swallow.
Today, however, it is now widely recognized that fluoride’s main benefit does not actually come from ingestion, it comes from fluoride’s topical contact with teeth—a fact that even the CDC has now acknowledged. So, not only does fluoridation add medicine to water, it adds a medicine that does not actually need to be swallowed.
#4 FLUORIDE IS NOT AN ESSENTIAL NUTRIENT. No disease, not even tooth decay, is caused by a “fluoride deficiency.” Not a single biological process has been shown to require fluoride. On the contrary, there is extensive evidence that fluoride can interfere with many important biological processes. For instance, I read that fluoride interferes with numerous enzymes. In combination with aluminum, fluoride interferes with G-proteins. Such interactions give aluminum-fluoride complexes the potential to interfere with signals from growth factors, hormones, and neurotransmitters… More and more studies indicate that fluoride can interfere with biochemistry in fundamental ways. Again, more details can be found at fluoridealert.org.
#5 FLUORIDE ACCUMULATES IN THE BODY. Healthy adult kidneys excrete 50% to 60% of the fluoride ingested each day. The remainder accumulates in the body, largely in calcifying tissues such as the bones and pineal gland. Infants and children excrete less fluoride from their kidneys and take up to 80% of ingested fluoride into their bones. The fluoride concentration in bone steadily increases over a lifetime (NRC 2006).
#6 SWALLOWING FLUORIDE PROVIDES NO (OR VERY LITTLE) BENEFIT. ANY BENEFIT IS TOPICAL, NOT SYSTEMIC. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has now acknowledged that the mechanism of fluoride’s benefits is mainly topical, not systemic. There is no need whatsoever, therefore, to swallow fluoride to protect teeth. Since the purported benefit of fluoride is topical, and the risks are systemic, it makes more sense to deliver the fluoride directly to the tooth in the form of toothpaste. Since swallowing fluoride is unnecessary, and potentially dangerous, there is no justification for forcing people (against their will) to ingest fluoride through their water supply.
I have chosen to reduce my intake of fluoride by using filters that remove fluoride from my tap water (along with other chemicals and an overabundance of metals) and I choose to be alert to the products which have fluoride. I found a list of the Top Ten Ways to Reduce Fluoride Exposure at fluoridealert.org so be sure to go there to read all the details, but here are some important things to know about where fluoride can be found:
Dental Products: Many dental products now contain fluoride, including over 95% of toothpaste. If your kids are consuming fluoride in their water and swallow toothpaste, how much fluoride are they ingesting?
Processed Beverages & Foods: Even if you don’t live in a community that adds fluoride to its water supply, you will still be exposed to fluoridated drinking water. This is because once fluoride is added en masse to water it winds in almost all processed beverages and foods.
Pesticides: Due to its toxicity, fluoride is used in some pesticides to kill insects and other pests. As a result of fluoride pesticide use, some food products, particularly grape products, dried fruit, dried beans, cocoa powder, and walnuts, have high fluoride levels.
Tea Drinks: Tea plants absorb fluoride from the soil. As a result, tea leaves, particularly old tea leaves, contain high levels of fluoride.
Fluorinated Pharmaceuticals: Many pharmaceuticals are fluorinated, meaning they contain a carbon-fluorine bond. Although the carbon-fluorine bond in most drugs is strong enough to resist breaking down into fluoride within the body, this is not always the case as research has found that some fluorinated drugs, including Cipro, do break down into fluoride and can thus be a major source of fluoride exposure for some individuals.
Mechanically Deboned Meat: Foods made with mechanically separated meat (e.g., chicken fingers, nuggets, etc.), contain elevated levels of fluoride due to the contamination from bone particles that occurs during the mechanical deboning processed.
Teflon Pans: Cooking food, or boiling water, in Teflon pans may increase the fluoride content of food. In one study, it was found that boiling water in a Teflon pan for just 15 minutes added an additional 2 ppm of fluoride to the water.
As a final note, citizens of many cities have been successful in educating their local lawmakers to halt fluoride from being added to their local water.
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