Conclusion |
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas Paine, Introduction to Common Sense, 1776
No scientist is infallible and every scientist is entitled to his errors. But when he omits crucial facts in order to influence laymen, he does not become a dishonest scientist; he ceases to be a scientist.
Professor Petr Beckman
The philosophy behind the ‘search for truth’ by the proponents of water fluoridation is well illustrated by the famous Sufi story about Mullah Nasrudin, an enlightened, fabled teacher. While on his hands and knees, peering on the street for a lost key, he was approached by a friend.
‘You lost your key here, Mullah?’ his friend enquired.
‘No,’ said Nasrudin, ‘I lost it in my house.’
‘Then why are you looking here?’ asked his friend.
‘Because’, said Nasrudin, ‘the light is better here.’
Integrity in science
‘The keystone of professional conduct is integrity,’ says the National Association of Environmental Professionals’ Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice for Environmental Professionals (USA). What this means, among other things, is that professionals are responsible for the truth of their work, which must be conducted without ‘dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation or discrimination’. It also means that they must not allow bias to twist facts or conclusions to ensure a preconceived or desired outcome. But their responsibility does not cease when a paper is published: they must also ensure that it is not misrepresented by others, or altered to change its data or meaning.
When fluoridation was first proposed, individual fluoride intake was determined to be less than 1 mg per day. That is no longer the case. We could be charitable and accept that the original dental and public health promoters might not have anticipated that their actions would raise total fluoride levels to their present high values, or that in their haste to initiate the artificial addition of fluoride to drinking water, they failed to carry out the projections required to predict the consequences.
Fluoridation promoters consider the increased numbers of fluoridated communities ‘progress’ along the path to a society that will, ultimately, be freed from tooth decay. Those who are familiar with the historical development of the concept of fluoridation and the evidence of its lack of effectiveness and of its adverse effects on teeth, the skeletal system and soft tissues, must disagree. While lack of adequate information sixty years ago may excuse mistakes of the past, failure to learn from these mistakes and take appropriate action could now be interpreted as negligence.
Proceed with caution
The ‘precautionary principle’ has become an established argument in debates on the environment and health. There are various definitions, but in essence the principle says: If in doubt, err on the side of caution. If this principle were to be applied to fluoridation, it would be stopped tomorrow (if not yesterday). Instead, studies invariably conclude: ‘We’re not sure, more studies are needed. In the meantime, the evidence is not strong enough to stop fluoridation.’ This is doing things the wrong way round. If there is doubt about the effects of fluoridation, then it should be stopped, to be restarted only if and when research indicates that it is safe, effective and ethically defensible.
A growing number of scientists, dentists and activists assert that the United States has a large-scale public health disaster on its hands. There are even those in the dental profession who call for ‘a new baseline’ or a ‘change in traditional thinking’ and point to the general acceptance in continental Europe that the systemic use of fluoride to prevent dental caries is passé. There has also been an obvious switch on the part of the American Dental Association elite away from a ‘structural’ to a ‘remineralisation’ rationale. Despite this, orthodoxy regarding fluoridation remains entrenched in the USA, Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
In most medical research, the course follows a recognised pattern: a scientist has an idea and formulates a hypothesis. If it is thought plausible and worthwhile, studies and trials are set up to confirm or refute that hypothesis. If those studies confirm the hypothesis, all well and good. If they do not confirm the hypothesis, then the hypothesis is revised to fit the evidence provided by the studies, or it is rejected as unproven.
In the case of fluoride, however, a different philosophy obtains. If the studies and trials do not support the fluoride hypothesis (and they don’t), the fluoride hypothesis remains sound, and it is the follow-up confirmatory research that must be at fault. But water fluoridation has been practised for over half a century. During that time, as the York Review admits, there have been no properly conducted studies proving indisputably that fluoride is beneficial, and considerable doubt remains about the safety and efficacy of water fluoridation.
Fluoridation, especially in the United States, has been established as a ‘national goal’ or ‘mission’. Billions of US taxpayers’ dollars have been spent over the past fifty years to fulfil this mission – not only in the USA, but in other countries too, including Britain and Ireland. As is typical of so many government-sponsored endeavours, this mission will continue even though there is ample evidence that the fluoride–caries hypothesis is invalid and that fluoridation has created a major public health problem: endemic fluorosis. And in spite of the fact that fluoridation poses a definite threat to the environment.
The public is already against fluoridation and is increasingly likely to call for a halt to the programme when evidence emerges that:
•Dental fluorosis is not merely cosmetic but is a sign that we have poisoned our children.
•The adverse effects of fluoride are well-founded, especially when total fluoride intake is considered.
•Fluoridation is a failure and is costing us dearly in terms of treatment for adverse effects and losses in the ecosystem due to fluoride pollution.
•Fluoridation is a gross misuse of increasingly scarce healthcare resources.
There is a disturbing bias on the part of many in the research community to search only for ‘positive’ results. These, especially when they concern human health, are more likely than ‘negative’ findings to be accepted, true or not.
Once the idea that ‘1 ppm fluoride, artificially added to drinking water, prevents dental caries’ became accepted, only those studies supporting or enhancing it were acceptable. There had to be something wrong with research that produced results that were contrary. The early trials are a graphic example of research that was ‘at fault’. Whether intentionally or through ineptitude, arrogance or ignorance of scientific method, the early research of Dean and others is an example of manipulating the results to obtain positive support for the hypotheses underlying fluoridation.
Some defenders have intimated that these trials were not meant to be scientific studies comparing a fluoridated population with controls but were merely demonstrations that fluoride could be added to the water supply without any immediate mechanical problems or apparent adverse effects. Such is the quicksand upon which the whole fluoridation edifice is built.
Like any commercial product, fluoridation has been advertised and promoted over the past half-century to the point where to millions it is ‘the truth’. The companies manufacturing and marketing dental products commission their own research and fund dental meetings on the subject. The list of corporate sponsors of an international conference held in Pine Mountain, Georgia, USA, in 1989 included many familiar names: Cheesebrough–Ponds; Unilever; Johnson & Johnson; Procter & Gamble; Colgate–Palmolive; Bristol Myers; and others.1
And they are not the only ones with an interest in fluoride: the Princeton Resource Center publishes a magazine for dentists. This has nothing to do with the university of the same name – it is financed by the confectionery manufacturer M&M/Mars. Also in the background, letting these companies work for them, are those industries that supply the raw materials used for fluoridation or that benefit from fluoride’s benign image. Without fluoridation, millions of tons of hexafluorosilicic acid would have to be funnelled into holding ponds and treated at great expense. Instead, it is used to turn a profit.
This relentless promotion of fluoride as a ‘dental benefit’, and refusal to listen to any who say otherwise, is responsible for the huge neglect in proper assessment of its toxicity, an issue that has become a major concern for many nations. There is no substance as biochemically active in living organisms as fluoride. Uncontrolled consumption of fluoridated compounds might well be contributing to many modern diseases currently afflicting mankind, particularly those involving thyroid dysfunction. As the toxicity of fluoride is undisputed, why are its adverse effects disputed?
This myopic mentality also means that the real causes of dental caries are not addressed.
The truth, now becoming increasingly evident, is that fluoridation, and the proclaimed benefit of fluoride as a way of preventing dental decay, may well turn out to be the greatest scientific fraud ever perpetrated upon an unsuspecting public, a fraud perpetrated by a supposedly caring profession whose philosophy is arrogant and based entirely on the ignorance of its members.
1.Proceedings of the International Conference on Fluorides, 21–24 March 1989, Pine Mountain, GA, USA. J Dent Res (Special Issue), February 1990: 69.