Fluoride as a Cumulative Poison |
Do you agree that fluoride is a cumulative poison that is more toxic than lead/arsenic?
BFS suggested answer
We do not agree. Water fluoridation is both safe and beneficial. It involves adjusting the naturally occurring level of fluoride to that which we know benefits dental health – 1 part of fluoride per million parts of water.
BFS suggested answer refuted
Fluoride is an accumulative poison which accumulates in the skeletal structures, including the teeth, when the body is exposed to small daily intakes of this element . . . it is like lead accumulation in the bone until saturation occurs and then lead poisoning sets in.
Dr P.H. Phillips, biochemist, University of Wisconsin
Dentists know that fluoride is toxic . . .
One has to wonder at the brazen cheek of the BFS’s suggested answer. How can dentists deny both that fluorides are as toxic as lead and arsenic and that the effect is cumulative, or claim that they are unaware of those facts, when it was the Journal of the American Dental Association, no less, that first made this statement in 1936? It said: ‘Fluoride at the 1 ppm concentration is as toxic as arsenic and lead . . . there is an increasing volume of evidence of the injurious effects of fluorine, especially the chronic intoxication resulting from the ingestion of minute amounts of fluorine over long period of time.’1
Other extracts from this paper illustrate clearly that before the first city was fluoridated, the dental profession took a very dim view of fluoride. In fact, dentists were all in favour of removing as much fluoride from water as they could:
The studies conducted by Dr Smith and her co-workers at the University of Arizona have shown that 1 ppm, and possibly 0.8 ppm, of fluorine will produce definite signs of enamel dystrophy in children born and reared in an endemic area.
. . . a comparison of toxicity data suggests that fluorine, lead and arsenic belong to the same group, as far as ability to cause some symptom of toxicity in minute dosage is concerned.
Fluorine, a general protoplasmic poison, exerts a strong inhibitory action on many enzymes. The more complex inorganic compounds containing fluorine are frequently toxic because of a direct action of the compound itself, or because of a conversion of the complex compound, as by hydrolysis [changing by taking up the elements of water], into simpler compounds, such as the simpler fluorides.
Despite such valid early studies, American Dental Association and US public health service literature today emphatically indicates that as long as your teeth are free of cavities, the longevity of the rest of your body is irrelevant.
. . . and so do doctors . . .
In 1942, before the first city was fluoridated, the editor of the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association told his readers:
Fluorides are general protoplasmic poisons, probably because of their capacity to modify the metabolism of cells by changing the permeability of the cell membrane and by inhibiting certain enzyme systems . . . The sources of fluorine intoxication are drinking water containing 1 part per million or more of fluorine, fluoride compounds used as insecticidal sprays for fruits and vegetables (cryolite and barium fluosilicate) and the mining and conversion of phosphate rock to superphosphate, which is used as fertilizer.2
So doctors knew too. They also knew about the fertiliser connection, which, ironically, was to play such a big part in water fluoridation in years to come.
. . . even pharmacists know
More recently, the US Dispensary,3 a reference book used by pharmacists, states:
[F]luorides are violent poisons to all living tissue because of their precipitation of calcium. They cause a fall in blood pressure, respiratory failure and general paralysis. Continuous ingestion of nonfatal doses (as in the water supply and fluoride in toothpaste) causes permanent inhibition of growth.
In yet another reference text book, the Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products: Acute Poisoning, lead is given a toxicity rating of 3 to 4, while fluoride is rated at 4 (3 = moderately toxic, 4 = very toxic). The authors say: ‘The fact is that fluoride is more toxic than lead and just slightly less toxic than arsenic.’4
A committee of the National Research Council of Canada declared:
Fluoride is a persistent bioaccumulator, and is entering into human food and beverage chains in increasing amounts. Careful consideration of all available data indicates that the amount of fluoride ingested daily in foods and beverages by adult humans living in fluoridated communities currently ranges between 3.5 and 5.5 mg . . . Long-term ingestion, with accumulation of fluoride in animals and man, induces metabolic and biochemical changes . . . It cannot be assumed that such changes are of no significance to human health . . . fluoride has displayed mutagenic activity in studies of vegetation, insects, and mammalian oocytes. There is a high correlation between carcinogenicity and mutagenicity of pollutants, and fluoride has been one of the major pollutants in several situations where a high incidence of respiratory cancer has been observed.5
Conclusion
This evidence of prior knowledge by the dental profession gives the lie to the BFS’s answer. The evidence dentists themselves cite should be enough to satisfy any sane person that fluorides are extremely toxic and that their adverse effects increase with time. Nevertheless, on 7 December 1992, the US Environmental Protection Agency set the maximum contaminant level (MCL) for lead at 0.015 ppm, with a goal of getting rid of it altogether. Yet the MCL for fluoride is currently set at 4.0 ppm – some 266 times as high. How does this make sense?
1.Editorial. Fluoride is not an essential nutrient. J Am Dent Assoc 1936; 23: 568–74.
2.Editorial. Chronic fluorine intoxication. J Am Med Assoc 1943; 123: 150.
3.US Dispensary. 24th ed, 1950, pp 1456–7.
4.Ambiance J. The clinical toxicology of commercial products: Acute poisoning. 5th edn. Baltimore, MD: Williams and Wilkins, 1984.
5.Associate Committee On Scientific Criteria for Environmental Quality. Environmental fluoride. NRCC No. 16081. National Research Council of Canada, 1977.