Water Fluoridation Harmful to Health, Ineffective

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Water FluoridationHarmful to Health, Ineffective
Unethical

• Dr Mark Diesendorf
• Sustainability Centre Pty Ltd
• and Institute of Environmental Studies, UNSW
• Web www.sustainabilitycentre.com.au

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WHAT IS FLUORIDATION?

• Most water supplies contain 0.1 to 0.2 ppm of
  fluoride (F- ) naturally.
• Fluoridation increases the natural F-
  concentration to 1 ppm (i.e. 5 to 10 times
  natural level). It is not a small adjustment.
• Purpose is to try to reduce tooth decay.
• Some well water and bore water supplies contain 1
  ppm or more naturally.
• Fluoridation is mass medication.

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FLUORIDATION IS MASS MEDICATION

• Fluoridation is administered to treat people, not
  to make water safer to drink. So it is a
  medication.
• Medical dictionaries and practice establish that
  preventive medicines are medicines.
• F- in mg/day doses is not an essential nutrient.
• Natural substances may be medicines e.g.
  penicillin, digitalis, salicylates,
  radioisotopes, etc.
• Mass medication violates two principles of
  medical ethics.

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VIOLATIONS OF MEDICAL ETHICS

• Principle of informed consent to medication
• Principle of controlled dose.

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DAILY F- DOSE IS NOT CONTROLLED

• Even when F- concentration is controlled (e.g. at
  1 ppm), daily dose (mg/day) cannot be.
• Large variations in tap-water intake. In
  fluoridated areas, high F- intake groups are
• - formula-fed infants get 100x dose of
  breast-fed infants
• - young children who drink mostly soft drinks
• - labourers and athletes
• - people with diabetes insipidus, kidney
  disease, etc.
• - heavy tea drinkers get double dose.

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WHICH COUNTRIES ARE MORE THAN 50 FLUORIDATED?

• Only USA
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Ireland
• Singapore
• Columbia
• Malaysia
• Israel

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INDUSTRIAL WASTE AS MEDICATIONPure fluoride is
dangerous enough, but

• Most water supplies are fluoridated with waste
  from phosphate fertiliser industry.
• Contains traces of arsenic, lead other toxics.
• Never subjected to chronic safety tests in
  animals.

Manufacture of phosphate fertiliser
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DOES FLUORIDATION REDUCE TOOTH DECAY?
Only one point of agreement between pro- and
anti- cases

• Big reductions in tooth decay occurred in most
  industrialised countries in 1960s and 70s.
• But they occurred in both unfluoridated and
  fluoridated countries.
• What was the cause? Reductions occurred before F-
  toothpaste was widely used.

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TOOTH DECAY IN SYDNEY, 1961-1972, (fluoridated
1968)
1968
Source Lawson et al. (1978)
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THE MYSTERY OF DECLINING TOOTH DECAY
Diesendorf M 1986, Nature 322 125-129

• Abstract
• Large temporal reductions in tooth decay, which
  cannot be attributed to fluoridation, have been
  observed in both unfluoridated and fluoridated
  areas of at least 8 developed countries over the
  past 30 years. It is now time for a scientific
  re-examination of the alleged enormous benefits
  of fluoridation.

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DOES F- REDUCE TOOTH DECAY?

• There are no randomised controlled trials to
  determine the benefits of fluoridated water.
• Reductions claimed for fluoridated water of up
  to 50 (ADA) are flawed by inadequate design
  (see critiques by Drs Philip Sutton, John
  Colquhoun, and Mark Diesendorf).
• Some large studies find negligible or even no
  benefits (e.g.Armfield Spencer 2004)

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Jason M. Armfield and A. John Spencer 2004,
Consumption of nonpublic water implications for
childrens caries experience, Community
Dentistry Oral Epidemiology, 32 283

• The effect of consumption on nonpublic water on
  permanent caries experience was not significant.

Now the pro-fluoridation authors claim that their
result is being taken out of context!
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WHO ORAL HEALTH IN 12 YEAR-OLDS (DMFT)
DMFT
Not fluoridated
gt50 fluoridated
25-50 fluoridated?
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AVERAGE TOOTH DECAY IN 10-YEAR-OLDS BY CAPITAL
CITY, 1977 1987
School Dental Service data (Diesendorf, 1990).
All cities except Brisbane fluoridated for at
least 10 years by 1987.
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HOW DOES FLUORIDE ACT ON THE TEETH?

• Early notion that ingested F- was incorporated in
  tooth structure and strengthened it. WRONG!
• Nowadays mechanism predominantly topical
  (surface) even pro-fluoridation US Centers for
  Disease Control admit this.
• So, people are being misled that they have to
  ingest fluoridated water.

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DENTAL FLUOROSIS

• Caused by F- damage to tooth-forming cells.
• Original claim that 1 ppm F- would only produce
  mild mottling in 10 of people.
• Actually 50 of people mottled not only mild.

Mild dental fluorosis
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DENTAL FLUOROSISModerate and Severe
Categories
lt-- Photo Hardy Limeback DDS
Pitting
Photo John Colquhoun BDS, PhD --gt
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SKELETAL FLUOROSIS IN NATURALLY FLUORIDATED
REGIONS e.g. INDIA, CHINA

• Occurs at F- concentrations as low as 0.7 ppm.
• F- accumulates in bone, adding mass but
  destroying structure.
• X-rays show structural damage to bones, and
  calcification of joints and ligaments.
• Mild skeletal fluorosis has similar symptoms to
  arthritis.
• Prevalence of arthritis increasing in USA and
  Australia.
• Could some arthritis actually be early stage of
  fluorosis?
• .

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HIP FRACTURES IN THE AGED

• Disabling may be fatal.
• Cumulative lifetime F- dose exceeds dose where
  osteoporosis patients developed hip fractures.
• Majority of epidemiological studies find more hip
  fractures in fluoridated areas.
• In China, fracture rate doubled _at_ 1.5 ppm and
  tripled _at_ 4.3 ppm.

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INTOLERANCE or HYPERSENSITIVITY

• Large body of clinical reports, e.g. by Waldbott,
  Grimbergen, Petraborg, and Feltman Kosel.
• Several blind double-blind studies.
• Symptoms include excessive fatigue thirst,
  stomach ache, muscular weakness.
• Never followed up by proponents.

Dr George Waldbott
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BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS

• F- is highly active biologically, not inert.
• In lab., F- inhibits enzymes induces genetic
  changes increases uptake of aluminium by
  brain.
• In lab., AlFx complexes disrupt G-proteins. This
  could change homeostasis, metabolism, growth
  differentiation of living organisms. (NEW)
• F- concentrates in pineal gland causing earlier
  onset of puberty in animals. (NEW)

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SUMMARY RISKS OF FLUORIDATION
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CAN SIMILAR BENEFITS BE OBTAINED WITH LESS RISK
BY OTHER METHODS?

• It is possible to have low caries without F
  intake
• e.g. Australian Aborigines on original diet
  Hopewood orphanage Australia in 1950s most of EU
  today.
• Public health officials can influence childrens
  diet, e.g. by public education and
  controls on foods sold in school shops
  canteens.
• Daily, supervised F toothbrushing and/or rinsing
  (at say 2 ppm) programs in elementary schools are
  low-risk (for children older than 5 years) and
  assist low-income groups.

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FORCES PUSHING FLUORIDATION

• F-, a major pollutant from aluminium smelting,
  gains healthy image.
• Dentists gain status in public health.
• Sugary food industry gains from notion that
  fluoridation protects teeth, whatever junk food
  ingested.
• Phosphate fertiliser industry sells waste
  silicofluoride to water authorities.

Fluoridation is not a conspiracy, just
conjunction of vested interests!
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POLITICAL EQUITY ASPECTS

• The principal risk factors for dental caries are
  poverty and poor diet, not the absence of
  fluoridation.
• Governments use fluoridation to justify cuts to
  dental health programs for school children
  aged.
• They cynically peddle myth that fluoridation
  helps the poor.
• But the poor have highest prevalence of dental
  caries, with or without fluoridation (even in
  Sydney).
• The poor ingest a chronic poison that they cannot
  afford to avoid.
• The poor are more susceptible to fluoride-induced
  diseases.
• Governments use fluoridation to distract
  attention away from real causes of tooth decay
  that are politically too hard.

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CONCLUSION

• Fluoridation is mass medication with uncontrolled
  dose. Unethical.
• Negligible benefit from ingesting F- .
• At best fluoridated water, acting at tooth
  surfaces, reduces tooth decay in a fraction of 1
  of tooth surfaces.
• Ingestion of F- damages teeth via dental
  fluorosis and damages bones via skeletal
  fluorosis and hip fractures.
• Worrying biological effects and lab animal
  experiments.
• Chronic toxicity from impurities in
  silicofluoride wastes from phosphate fertiliser
  industry.
• Given this evidence, Local and State Govts would
  be socially irresponsible and open to litigation
  for supporting fluoridation.

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FURTHER READING

• Web site of of Fluoride Action Network, convened
  by Dr Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry, St
  Lawrence University, USA www.fluoridealert.org
  
• Mark Diesendorf, 2003, A kick in the teeth for
  scientific debate, Australasian Science volume
  24, no. 8, pp 35-37, September.(A referenced
  version may be downloaded from www.sustainbilityce
  ntre.com.au/FluoridePublics.html)