Fluoride and Controversy |
Why is fluoridation so controversial?
BFS suggested answer
There is no scientific controversy over fluoridation. A small number of determined, vocal, but misguided campaigners refuse to accept the incontrovertible facts that fluoridation is safe and effective. In the words of the US Consumer’s Union, ‘the survival of this fake controversy represents one of the major triumphs of quackery over science in our generation.’
National opinion surveys conducted by NOP and Gallup consistently show that around 70% of the public believe that fluoride should be added to water supplies to prevent tooth decay.
BFS suggested answer refuted
The point is that this is a legitimate scientific controversy. Proponents of fluoridation insist that there are no grounds for controversy at all, and with that, I totally disagree.
Dr Edward Groth III
The long-running nature of the controversy about fluoridation and the strength of feeling on both sides of the divide is caused by the unwillingness of those in favour of fluoride even to consider that there might be adverse effects in humans – despite the fact that there is no dispute that fluoride can and does harm plants, birds, fish, insects and mammals.
The fluoridation controversy is symptomatic of a deep-seated pathology in present-day science. The magnitude of that malady motivated the US Academy of Sciences to convene a Panel on Scientific Responsibility and the Conduct of Research.1 The Panel’s investigation, which cost $888,000, precluded consideration of certain kinds of scientific misconduct that apply specifically to fluoridation. This misconduct occurs, according to Joel Griffiths, ‘when new scientific evidence threatens fluoride’s protected pollutant status. The government immediately appoints a commission, typically composed of several veteran fluoride defenders and no opponents. Usually, these commissions dismiss the new evidence and reaffirm the status quo. When one didn’t in 1983, the government simply altered the findings.’2
The controversy about fluoridation is inevitable because fluoridation was, in a real sense, conceived in sin. Fluoride is one of industry’s most devastating pollutants. Yet the US government not only dismissed the danger and left industry free to pollute, it promoted the addition of that fluoride to drinking water. The same is happening in Britain, the Republic of Ireland and other countries. Since fluoridation was first sanctioned over half a century ago, millions of tons of fluoride have been pumped into the environment via the water supply. Don’t forget that these exact same chemicals, if allowed to escape into the atmosphere, are ‘hazardous air pollutants’.
Blatant disregard for people’s health
Before fluoride was considered as an anti-caries treatment, the American Dental Association recognised that it was toxic, that it caused fluorosis, that fluorosis was undesirable, and that fluoride should therefore be removed from drinking water. Now, as the result of sustained pressure from industry, fluorosis is a condition to be desired – so long as it is not too noticeable.
But the toxicity has not gone away. According to Dr Hobart T. Feldman, of the American Board of Allergy and Immunology:
Fluoride is capable of producing any number of symptoms . . . [they] include drowsiness, profound desire to sleep, dizziness, nasal congestion, sneezing, runny nose, sore throat, coughing, wheezing (asthma), chest pain, hives, and various intestinal symptoms. One reason for the lack of information in current medical literature, is the fact that these symptoms have been observed by private practising physicians, who accept such reactions as being related to specific chemical compounds, but are too busy in their practices to attempt to formulate a comprehensive investigative report which would satisfy the editorial positions of many of the journals and medical newspapers. Nevertheless, I can assure you that any of the above reactions can and do occur in significant numbers of people. Case reports are rarely accepted in the medical literature. Therefore, most of the information concerning specific reactions to fluoride, as seen in private practice, never reach publication.3
This secrecy has undermined any trust that could once have been placed in the word of a dentist. Fluoridation of water is only one source of fluoride in our environment. The amount that finds its way into our bodies from drinking fluoridated water is no longer even the major portion. In 1993, the Committee on Toxicology of the US National Research Council stated:
The most effective approach to stabilizing the prevalence and severity of dental fluorosis, without jeopardizing the benefits to oral health, is likely to come from more judicious control of fluoride in foods, processed beverages, and dental products, rather than a reduction in the recommended concentrations of fluoride in drinking water. But applying such a policy would be formidable; reduction of fluoride concentrations in drinking water would be easier to administer, monitor, and evaluate.4
Whichever way you look at it, there is now so much fluoride around that water fluoridation is unnecessary, and would still be unnecessary even if it worked.
Conclusion
Pro-fluoridationists don’t want water fluoridation debated, and, of course, after more than half a century of fluoridating water, there should by now be no reason for a debate. There is no debate within the scientific community that fluorides are toxic. Under the circumstances, safety tests should have been done decades ago and the whole business settled, before the first cities were fluoridated. But even now, those safety tests have yet to be done.
Those who maintain that fluoride is safe have only their faith to back their belief; there are no data to back their claims. Those who maintain that fluoride is toxic have a wealth of studies that strongly suggest that they are right. So long as this situation obtains, with neither side willing to give way, there will always be controversy.
1.Responsible science. Ensuring the integrity of the research process. Vol. I. US Academy of Sciences Panel on Scientific Responsibility and the Conduct of Research. Washington, DC, 1992.
2.Griffiths J. Covert Action 1992; 42: 26.
3.Feldman HT, American Board of Allergy and Immunology. Letter to Governor William Milliken’s Task Force on Fluoride, 9 May 1979. http://www.ia4u.net/~sherrell/book.html.
4.Health effects of ingested fluoride. Subcommittee on Health Effects of Ingested Fluoride, Committee on Toxicology, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, Commission on Life Sciences, US National Research Council, August 1993: 47–8.