Have your say – Yay or nay: Fluoride in the water supply
As we reported early this month, the City is currently asking for public input on whether or not to fluoridate the water supply in Kingston.
The City is looking into this as part of City Council’s five strategic priorities, specifically the priority to “foster healthy citizens and vibrant spaces,” and Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington (KFL&A) Public Health supports community water fluoridation “as an effective way to prevent tooth decay.” However, many Kingstonians have voiced opposition to this concept, and for a variety of different reasons.
We thought it would be interesting to see what our readers think about this issue, so we’ve created a (entirely non-scientific) poll where readers can share their position on the matter. Have your say in the poll, and let us know your reasoning in the comments.
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Fluoridating the water is a wasteful expense. I personally drink a lot of filtered water not bottled. Most people don’t drink water straight out of the tap anymore. Kids these days seem to be drinking others fluids that taste better than water. Toothpaste has fluoride in it. Why waste money on fluoride in water for people to water their lawns and plants.
Everyone wants safe, clean water and not the added drug fluoride.
The solution for the fluoridation issue is very simple.
SIMPLE SOLUTION:
1. Take the toxic waste fluoride chemical out of the drinking water.
2. It is still legal and available, so those who wish to take it can then put fluoride in their own glass of water (as much as they wish).
3. Leave the rest of us out of it, giving everyone the freedom of choice.
PROBLEM SOLVED.
JR – Public health measures, like water treatment processes, are designed and implemented to improve and protect the health of citizens. Only those who care more about their personal opinions than the overall health of everyone in their community will sink to the level of misrepresenting and fabricating evidence to scare people into believing the science and health communities are deliberately &/or ignorantly trying to harm them. Anti-disinfection activists, anti-vaccine activists all employ the same disingenuous fear-mongering tactics.
The solution for the fluoridation issue is indeed very simple:
SIMPLE SOLUTION – TRUST THE EXPERTS
1. Leave the fluoride ions in the water at 0.7 ppm.
2. Distillation, RO and activated alumina are available for those who have been duped into fearing the process of fluoridation by deceptive practices of fluoridation opponents.
3. Leave the rest of the population out of it, providing everyone in the community, particularly the disadvantaged, the benefits of strengthened enamel.
PROBLEM SOLVED.
Experts are not necessarily experts at common sense.
1)Government agencies are not doctors or dentists.
2)Prescribing ‘fluoride’ for human ingestion by unqualified agencies is not a safe medical practice.
3) The dosage in the water is the same whether a small child or a large grownup. Would a doctor prescribe the same dosage of any drug for both body types?
4) In 2010 Ontario Health circulated a memo to health professionals advising that NO child under the age of six should be given fluoride.
5) Fluoride is recognized as a Class 1 Hazardous material. (highest level) It’s flagged with a skull & crossbones, and corrodes the metal.
6) 99% of fluoridated water is used for everything else but drinking.
7) Simple solution. Provide free tooth paste to anyone who cannot afford it.
8) Imagine the savings!
There are many more points to be made – just use COMMON SENSE!!
please
Where to begin…..
1. Responsible government officials making decisions on water fluoridation don’t have to be “doctors or dentists”. They rely on the best available, credible, scientific evidence, and recommendations from doctors and dentists. Antifluoridationists, on the other hand, rely on false claims, misinformation, and standard talking points from little antifluoridationist groups.
2. Fluoridated water is not prescribed.
3. Provided the dose of “any drug” prescribed has been determined save and equally effective for “both body types”, as has the amount of fluoride in optimally fluoridated water, then yes, the doctor would prescribe the same dosage for both.
4. An unsubstantiated claim about what Ontario Health purportedly advised in 2010, is meaningless and irrelevant
5. Fluoride is the anion of the element fluorine. An anion is a negatively charged atom. These ions have existed in water forever, and have never been “recognized as a Class 1Hazardous material” by anyone, are not “flagged with a skull and crossbones”, and do not corrode metal.
6. 99% of chlorinated water is also used for everything else but drinking. So what? Just as fluoride in water, chlorine does the job it’s supposed to do, in the most cost-effective manner possible, with no adverse effects on anyone. Should we cease chlorinating the water because of this?
7. At less than $1 per person, per year for fluoridation, providing free toothpaste to everyone would be astronomically more expensive for taxpayers. Good thing you’re not in charge of public expenditures!
8. Feel free to bring out any more of the standard antifluoridationist “points to be made” as you wish, and I’ll gladly expose the false and misleading nature of each and every one.
Steven D. Slott, DDS
Exactly!
Complete waste of taxpayers money. Teach your kids to brush their teeth
Fluoridation and brushing with fluoridated toothpaste help reduce the risk of dental decay and related health issues.
Fluoridation opponents seem to believe there would be no consequences to stopping or preventing CWF. In fact, three recent studies showed an increase in dental decay in cities after CWF was halted:
~> Juneau, AK – Consequences of community water fluoridation cessation for Medicaid-eligible children and adolescents in Juneau, Alaska: Jennifer Meyer, et al., BMC Oral Health201818:215
~> Windsor, Ontario – Oral Health Report 2018 Update, Windsor-Essex County Health Unit
~> Calgary, Alberta – Measuring the short?term impact of fluoridation cessation on dental caries in Grade 2 children: Lindsay McLaren, et al., Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology, June 2016
The U.S. National Toxicology Program recently reviewed hundreds of studies & described fluoride as a presumed neurodevelopmental hazard to humans: http://fluoridealert.org/wp-content/uploads/neurath.comments-for-NAS-meeting.nov-6-2019.ver2_.pdf
Like the City of Calgary, Kingston and the KFL&A PH Medical Officer, Dr. Moore, have been citing a CADTH (Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health) report as a reference on so-called “safe and effective” water fluoridation. Despite their name, CADTH is not a gov’t agency; this is made clear on their website.
CADTH is noted in peer-reviewed lit as secretive & unaccountable: “adherence..to the principles of accountability, transparency..is poor..the agency’s status as not-for-profit corporation under federal law protects it from standard forms of accountability”: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5702169/
CADTH refuses to name the authors of their water fluoridation reports: https://twitter.com/Christi45657364/status/1227737952266092544/photo/1
All of CADTH’s water fluoridation report begin with an extensive Disclaimer: “…no representations or warranties are made… The information in this document should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice…”
CADTH’s determination to ignore adverse effects of fluoride is made clear on page 15 etc. They only consider human (no animal) fluoride-IN-WATER studies …excluding all studies not specifically of F in water, as if F toxicity depends on the source: https://www.cadth.ca/sites/default/files/pdf/HT0022%20CWF%20-%20Clinical%20report.pdf
CADTH’s inclusion/exclusion criteria allowed them to ignore crucial research (i.e. Bashash et al’s IQ & ADHD studies in which mothers’ F exposures were virtually identical to those of F’d mothers in Canadian cities, also Malin et al. 2018 indicating adverse thyroid effects), and their chosen time-frame allowed them to exclude the findings of the most important F review ever published, the NRC National Academies of Science Fluoride in Drinking Water Review, published on March 22, 2006.
CADTH admitted that the evidence shows water fluoridation increases dental fluorosis (white/brown discolourations and pits on teeth caused by overexposure to F during tooth formation), but completely ignored the enamel harm done by moderate/severe fluorosis, & ignored the Wiener study published within their review period that showed (using NHANES data) huge increases in fluorosis and moderate/severe over 25%.
Expose on secretive, unaccountable CADTH – which not a government agency) and their contrived, biased and irresponsibly misleading water fluoridation reports: https://www.fluoridefreepeel.ca/cadth/
The CADTH review is just one of numerous reviews and studies over the last decade that have concluded fluoridation is a safe and effective public health measure to reduce the risk of dental decay and related health issues:
the 2018 National Toxicity Program fluoride study, An Evaluation of Neurotoxicity Following Fluoride Exposure from Gestational Through Adult Ages in Long-Evans Hooded Rats: At these exposure levels, we observed no exposure-related differences in motor, sensory, or learning and memory performance on running wheel, open-field activity, light/dark place preference, elevated plus maze, pre-pulse startle inhibition, passive avoidance, hot-plate latency, Morris water maze acquisition, probe test, reversal learning, and Y-maze. T3, T4, and TSH levels were not altered as a function of 10 or 20 ppm F- in the drinking water. No exposure-related pathology was observed in the heart, liver, kidney, testes, seminal vesicles, or epididymides. Mild inflammation in the prostate gland was observed at 20 ppm F-. No evidence of neuronal death or glial activation was observed in the hippocampus at 20 ppm F-. (McPherson, et al., Neurotox Res. 2018)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29404855
the 2018 study, Water Fluoridation and Dental Caries in U.S. Children and Adolescents: These findings confirm a substantial caries-preventive benefit of CWF for U.S. children and that the benefit is most pronounced in primary teeth. (Slade, et al., J Dent Res. 2018)
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022034518774331
the 2018 Water Fluoridation Health Monitoring Report for England:
Dental health:
Five-year-olds in areas with water fluoridation schemes were much less likely to experience tooth decay, and less likely to experience more severe decay than in areas without schemes
The chances of having a tooth/teeth removed in hospital because of decay were also much lower in areas with water fluoridation schemes
Children from both affluent and deprived areas benefitted from fluoridation, but children from relatively deprived areas benefitted the most.
Dental fluorosis, at a level that may effect the appearance of teeth, was observed in 10% of children/young people examined in fluoridated cities. However, there was no difference between children and young people surveyed in fluoridated and nonfluoridated cities when asked about their opinion on the appearance of their teeth, taking into account concerns which have resulted from any cause (eg poor alignment, decay, trauma or fluorosis).
Non-dental health outcomes: Taken alongside the existing wider research, our results do not provide convincing evidence of higher rates of hip fracture, Down’s syndrome, kidney stones, bladder cancer, or osteosarcoma (a cancer of the bone) due to fluoridation schemes.
Conclusion: The findings of this report agree with the view that water fluoridation is an effective and safe public health measure to reduce the frequency and severity of dental decay, and narrow differences in dental health between more and less deprived children and young people.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/water-fluoridation-health-monitoring-report-for-england-2018
the 2018 study, Contemporary evidence on the effectiveness of water fluoridation in the prevention of childhood caries – Australia: Analysis of contemporary data representative of the Australian child population found consistent associations between %LEFW and childhood caries, which persisted when socioeconomic differences were adjusted across exposure groups, supporting the continued effectiveness of water fluoridation. (Spencer, et al., Community Dent Oral Epidemiol. 2018)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdoe.12384
the 2018 Food Safety Authority of Ireland Fluoride Report: Based on the results of this study, the FSAI Scientific Committee concluded that there is currently no scientific basis for concerns about the safety of children and adults in Ireland from exposure to fluoride from foods and beverages.
https://www.fsai.ie/news_centre/tds_fluoride_30042018.html
This is a reference to about 30 more reviews:
https://www.cyber-nook.com/water/FluoridationInformation-Reviews.html
So, Christine, because of some obvious personal vendetta against CADTH, guised as a “study”, we should just disregard the recommendations of this highly respected Canadian Health Agency, in lieu of nonsense posted on little antifluoridationist websites and twitter pages?
Hmmmm…… that’s some “logic” you have there.
Steven D. Slott, DDS
We don’t need drugs in our drinking water, there is enough of that already. The council should do their homework and REALLY investigate the truth about fluoridation. Fibromyalgia is on the rise with younger people being diagnosed. Could it be fluoride toxicity? A lot of the same symptoms.
http://fluoridealert.org/articles/limeback/
http://www.life-enthusiast.com/fluoride-the-cause-of-fibromyalgia-a-3782.html
https://fluoridealert.org/news/how-much-fluoride-is-too-much/
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/02/05/breaking-news-us-finally-admits-too-much-fluoride-in-the-water.aspx
http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2011/02/fluoride-your-water-how-much-too-much
If you think fluoride is effective use toothpaste. Fluoride does not need and should not be ingested, Why do you think your dentist makes you spit it out when they do the treatment.
Really? Your “evidence” that fluoride contributes to fibromyalgia is an opinion piece on “Life Enthusiast” (an “advanced life-energy SuperFood” marketing site) that tries to link Sarin gas exposure to fibromyalgia and then decide that fluorine was responsible and from that leap to the conclusion that community water fluoridation is responsible for fibromyalgia. That, folks, is the “logic chain” supporting the opinions of fluoridation opponents. Take a look at Pubmed (the primary source of health-related studies) and notice that there are no published papers that have linked fibromyalgia with either fluoride or Sarin gas exposure.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Fibromyalgia+fluoride
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Fibromyalgia+Sarin
You have provided absolutely no evidence to prove your opinion that fluoridation is a drug because there is none. You provide nothing but unsupportable opinions. The fact is fluoridation is not a drug or a form of medication – it is a water treatment method like disinfection, pH adjustment, corrosion control and flocculation/coagulation to protect the health of citizens.
The FDA regulates fluoridated bottled water as a “Food for Human Consumption”, and there are no warnings required on fluoridated bottled water that the fluoride ions could cause any harm whatever — in fact, someone who binged on fluoridated water (bottled or otherwise) would die from overexposure to the toxic H2O molecules long before the fluoride ions would cause any harm.
As noted above, brushing with fluoridated toothpaste and drinking fluoridated water are both effective at reducing the risk of dental decay, and using one method does not mean the other is ineffective – they compliment each other, as does a good, sugar-reduced diet and other methods.
You ask, “Why do you think your dentist makes you spit it out when they do the treatment?”. Perhaps, unlike fluoridation opponents, dentists are able to recognize that fluoride treatments (2.26% fluoride varnish = 22,600 parts per million F-) contain levels of fluoride ions that are thousands of times more concentrated than found in optimally fluoridated water (0.7 ppm). That is the same reason there are warning labels on fluoridated toothpaste (0.12% or 1,150 ppm F-) to not swallow.
https://ebd.ada.org/~/media/EBD/Files/ADA_Evidence-based_Topical_Fluoride_Chairside_Guide.pdf?la=en
Additional resources:
> American Dental Association, Fluoridation Facts:
https://www.ada.org/en/public-programs/advocating-for-the-public/fluoride-and-fluoridation/fluoridation-facts
> American Fluoridation Society
https://americanfluoridationsociety.org/
> Scientific discussion and evaluation of anti-F studies
https://openparachute.wordpress.com/fluoridation/
> https://www.cyber-nook.com/water/Fluoridationinformation-consensus.html
> http://www.cyber-nook.com/water/Fluoridation.html
> https://www.cyber-nook.com/water/FluoridationInformation-Reviews.html
> http://www.cyber-nook.com/water/FluoridationInformation-AntiScienceTactics.html
Nice array of sources you have there, Marianne….. the biased little website of the NY antifluoridationist faction, FAN……. some editorial nonsense posted on an activist website…… the dubious Mercola who has credibility with no one of any legitimacy….. and a biased activist “working group”.
Yes, the council, you, and everyone else should “do their homework”…..but from legitimate, reliable sources of accurate information, not from biased little antifluoridationist websites and blogs.
Steven D. Slott, DDS
Emotive language, Steven:
little
nonsense
dubious
little
The science of greendirt adjectives has no finer exponent. But if you want to put fluoride in people, and everything else that contains water, why don’t you say so? Why all this dubious little weasel-worded “community water” nonsense? This preoccupation with size suggests you know you’re going to lose, even if you win.
http://www.nfl.si/ed
I came across some info about flouride a while ago….apparently there was some problem in getting rid of it so they decided to put in in the drinking water. It was used in the concentration camps to slow people down so they would be more compliant. It can leave spots on the teeth too. There is no good reason why we should be using this product. Even dentists are pushing it and laugh in your face when you express concern. Don’t be bullied.
Anyone can come “across some info about fluoride” or anything else they wish to “come across” by doing a search. However, determining what scientific information is legitimate and what is fake and misrepresented takes a willingness and patience to examine the actual scientific evidence and the ability to fairly and accurately understand and evaluate the issue under investigation. Unfortunately, there are individuals who blindly trust “info they come across” because it seems to confirm their beliefs – not because it has been evaluated (which would expose it as false).
The “info about fluoride” you apparently “came across … a while ago” is an example of completely false claims fabricated to support the strongly held opinions of fluoridation opponents.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/oct/06/critics-water-fluoridation/truth-about-fluoride-doesnt-include-nazi-myth/
https://fullfact.org/online/fluoride-claims/
Also, your opinion that “there was some problem in getting rid of it [fluoride] so they decided to put in in the drinking water” is completely false. Fluoridation was added to drinking water first in 1945 because studies had linked levels of 1.0 ppm F- in drinking water to a significant decrease in dental decay – which at that time was even more of a problem than it is today. The results of the early studies (before there was such a thing as fluoridated toothpaste) clearly demonstrated a reduction in decay between newly fluoridated communities and similar control communities that weren’t fluoridated and had low fluoride levels in drinking water.
https://www.nidcr.nih.gov/health-info/fluoride/the-story-of-fluoridation
https://www.nature.com/articles/4812863
Undoubtedly you “came across” this erroneous nonsense on some little antifluoridationist website.
Steven D. Slott, DDS
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5285601/#!po=1.42857
I’m not sure what you are trying to demonstrate by referencing this outlier study, “Effect of fluoridated water on intelligence in 10-12-year-old school children: A. Aravind. et al. J Int Soc Prev Community Dent. 2016. Take a look at the conclusions, and remember that optimal fluoridation levels are 0.7 ppm.
Table 1
Fluoride concentration levels – Mean IQ levels
Fluoride (Low (2 PPM) – 31.59
If this study has even a remote possibility of legitimacy (highly unlikely):
1) The stated results “The present study showed low mean IQ in high fluoride concentration areas (31.59) compared to low fluoride concentration areas (41.03)”, completely ignore the fact that their evidence shows that water containing 1.2 – 2 ppm fluoride significantly increases IQ over both lower and higher fluoride levels.
2) it has never even remotely been replicated.
According to this study (not to be trusted), fluoridation should be more than doubled to maximize the IQ of those drinking the water.
Table 1 from the Aravind. et al. study didn’t print:
Fluoride concentration levels – Mean IQ levels
Low 2 PPM) – 31.59
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5285601/table/T1/