Day 2: Deception

So we’ve established that everyone is exposed to a generous amount of fluoride, from numerous and various factors. But if fluoride is as toxic as I’m claiming, there has to be a plausible reason for why it is so widely utilized in dentistry practices and is still being pumped into our water systems. Let’s back up a bit, to the 1930’s. Then, fluoride was simply the waste of aluminum companies…and there was no shortage. A dentist noticed that in areas of the country where the water supply was slightly fluoridated as an accident, there were fewer occurrences of dental problems. Immediately, the aluminum factories began to use fluoride's excuse as a dental aid to combat any and all lawsuits regarding injuries caused by fluoride waste, and soon thereafter the Aluminum Company of America made a public proposal (accepted) to add fluoride to all municipal water systems. Conveniently, their toxic waste of silico-fluoride no longer had to be disposed of at a costly $8,000 per truckload and thus, public water became a vehicle for delivering a toxic drug. Then and there, fluoride emerged as the cheapest public health measure ever created, at a mere 50 cents per person per year. It's easy to see how the governments ate this up- they were protecting the economy by catalyzing the aluminum companies' success, and appeasing the public by “safeguarding” their health.
So, back to the present. I am willing to concede that there are some potential benefits of fluoride. I mean, something must be going right since it's still widely used in dentistry today. The intended purpose of fluoride is to remineralize tooth enamel while helping teeth develop shallower grooves; but this occurs only when it's applied topically, as in dentistry, and only upon children's teeth. Ironically, there are substantial oral health hazards of fluoride, the most prevalent being Dental Fluorosis (which will be the focus of Friday's post). In many studies, the prevalence of cavities has remained static with or without the use of fluoride, and in some cases has actually increased with fluoride use. One 2001 CDC study showed that children in communities with fluoridated water averaged only 1.4 fewer cavities than children in unfluoridated areas. The noticeable improvement in dental health spanning over the past 75 years is now seeming to originate from changing diets and improved dental cleaning habits, not necessarily the addition of fluoride to city water. In Western Europe, 17 out of the 21 countries refuse fluoridated water and have experienced just as sharp of a drop in cavities as the American countries who mandate it.
Maybe fluoride isn't the miracle drug we believed it to be in 1930? Friday we'll dive into what it really does to the mouth, before attacking the rest of the body.

Citations
Healthy Living in a Toxic World- Cynthia Fincher
The Hundred-Year Lie- Randall Fitzgerald
The Whole Tooth- Schissel and Dodes
"Not in My Water Supply"- Margot Roosevelt, Time Magazine.
Health Effects of Ingested Fluoride- Bernard Wagner
Review of Fluoride Benefits and Risks- US Department of Health and Health Services Report