FAN Bulletin 833
July 8, 2007

Dear All,

The total number of signers pf the Professionals’ statement calling for an end to water fluoridation (see bulletins #830 and 831) has risen to 139. Meanwhile, members of the health community continue to promote fluoridation like clockwork oranges oblivious of the major events summarized in this statement. One such example is Dr. Ann Lindsay, who is the health officer of Humboldt County, California. Her ill-informed editorial was published in a local newspaper today (see below).

To date, the editorial has generated three responses. The second came from NYSCOF and the third came from myself. I have printed these after the editorial.

You can leave your own comments.

Paul Connett
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Times-Standard Online

Let all benefit from fluoridation
My Word by Ann Lindsay
Article Launched: 07/08/2007 04:25:10 AM PDT

I feel passionate about oral health in our community. Therefore, I am a supporter of teaching children how to brush their teeth and eat healthy foods and expanding access to dental services. I am also a supporter of water fluoridation.

Preventing dental decay is cheaper than treating it. Prevention is one of the principal aims of public health. Health of the public should be the goal of all public officials, whether they work in health and human services or serve the public by overseeing its water supply.

Untreated dental decay is linked to malnutrition and anemia, both of which make it harder for children to do well in school and succeed in life. A pregnant woman with dental disease is more likely to deliver her baby prematurely, putting the baby in danger. Dental disease is also linked to heart disease, diabetes and some types of cancer.

A thousand to one. That is the ratio of children with dental decay to those with mild fluorosis seen by Dr. Francisco Ramos Gomez, pediatric dentist at University of California San Francisco. Fluorosis is white spots on otherwise healthy teeth caused by too much fluoride.

Twenty-four percent. That is the percent of children out of 3,000 who had tooth decay when examined by dental experts at Humboldt County schools over the last several years. Nine percent of these children needed immediate referral to a dentist for severe decay. For many children, treating cavities is out of the question since they don’t have access to a dentist or money to pay for dental services.

We could reduce this huge number of children with tooth decay by as much as 12-25 percent simply by adding fluoride to drinking water throughout Humboldt County. Adults with receding gums also benefit from fluoridated water.

Water districts and cities add chlorine to water to protect the public from disease, namely infections. Chlorine in high concentrations can be unhealthy, but our drinking water is carefully maintained and regulated. Arcata, Eureka, Scotia and Hoopa independently add fluoride to their water to protect the public from disease, namely dental disease.

Fluoride in high concentrations can be unhealthy, but fluoride added to drinking water in communities like ours without naturally fluoridated water is carefully monitored to ensure it is free from significant contaminants and diluted to one part fluoride per million parts water so it is safe.

Many people in the non-fluoridated districts buying water from Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District (HBMWD) have requested their water also be fluoridated to protect their health. Districts buying water from HBMWD that are not fluoridated are Fieldbrook, Blue Lake, McKinleyville, Manila and Cutten (Humboldt Community Services District).

HBMWD is considering adding fluoride centrally before selling water to its customers. The smaller districts most likely couldn’t afford to fluoridate on their own. The ongoing cost of water fluoridation district-wide would be a few dollars per customer per year. What a bargain!

Some people in the community prefer to drink non-fluoridated water. Babies do not benefit from fluoridation until they have teeth. If babies are not breast fed, but are fed exclusively powdered formula mixed with fluoridated water, they face the small risk of fluorosis (white spots on their teeth) without any benefit.

Their parents should consider using premixed formula or using non-fluoridated water to mix powdered formula. Non-fluoridated water can be purchased inexpensively. There are filters available at greater cost to remove fluoride from water. People who don’t want or need fluoridated water can be accommodated without denying the benefits of fluoridation to the rest of the population.

Opponents of water fluoridation say parents who want their children to benefit from fluoride should give them fluoride drops or pills prescribed by a doctor. This is expensive and labor intensive. Children who need drops the most due to poverty or poor diet are least likely to get them. It is known that people take less than half of what is prescribed to them. Relying on prescription fluoride, in fact, sentences some children to rotting mouths and other associated diseases.

Local supporters of water fluoridation include: The Humboldt-Del Norte Dental and Medical Societies, the California Nurses Association, First 5 Humboldt, Humboldt County Democratic and Republican Parties, Northcoast Children’s Services, Humboldt Child Care Council, Humboldt-Del Norte Head Start Policy Council, United Indian Health Services, Mad River Community Hospital, St. Joseph’s Hospital, Redwood Memorial Hospital, Mobile Medical Office, Open Door Health Centers, Six Rivers Dental Hygiene Component, Pediatricians of Humboldt County, the Arcata Eye, the Eureka Reporter and the Times Standard.

The Center for Disease Control named community water fluoridation one of the top 10 public health accomplishments of the whole 20th century. Isn’t it time all of us should benefit?

Dr. Ann Lindsay is the Humboldt County Health Officer, and she lives in Eureka.

Opinions expressed in My Word pieces do not necessarily reflect the editorial viewpoint of the Times-Standard.

To date there have been three posted comments:

1. Why is it appropriate to put a known cancer-causing substance into our children’s drinking water? Teach your kids to brush their teeth already! And keep that crap out of our drinking water! Quit forcing your toxins on the rest of us.

Anonymous | 07.08.07 - 7:13 am
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2. California Study Proves Fluoridation Ineffective

Californians need dentists not fluoride. Fluoridated California communities have huge cavity rates and large dentist-neglected populations,
according to a recent California study. (1)

Although it’s Ann Lindsay’s job to promise cavity reductions with fluoridation, that’s not evident in California (2) or elsewhere in the U.S.

For example: fluoridated Long Beach children have more cavities (75%)
(3) than California state (71%) despite a state-wide fluoridation rate
one-fourth that of Long Beach.

Los Angeles County is 44% fluoridated, (4) yet 75% have tooth decay. (5)
Santa Clara County, where several cities fluoridate, (6) has a 72% cavity rate. (7)

Humboldt County is 35% fluoridated8 yet may have a higher cavity rate than California as a whole. (9) Despite five fluoridated districts,(6) Alameda County had double the statewide number of students needing urgent dental care. (10)

In contrast, NON-fluoridated Nassau County, New York, has a 50% cavity
rate. (11) and a lower rate than most of fluoridated NYS counties. See:
http://www.freewebs.com/fluorida…ation/ chart.htm

Illinois, where fluoridation has been state-mandated for years, 70% of third graders who speak Spanish only have cavities compared to 50% of third-graders who speak English only.
Clearly, fluoridation does not improve tooth decay in minority populations.

The California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) predicted that California preschoolers’ poor nutrition, soda drinking and poor dental care would lead to more tooth decay. (13)

Calcium, magnesium, vitamins A, C, D and other nutrients, not fluoride, are required to build and maintain healthy teeth. Many California preschoolers lack these nutrients because they do not consume recommended amounts of fruit, vegetables and milk while
drinking too much soda. (13)

With free and accessible dental care, military personnel’s dental health exceeds their civilian counterparts, reports the U.S. Surgeon General. (14)

Forty-percent of California’s uninsured schoolchildren have untreated decay. (1) Few California dentists accept Medicaid patients. (15) Yet, dental groups oppose allowing trained dental therapists to mitigate the oral health epidemic.(16a, b)

And many, if not all, fluoridated communities are experiencing cavity crises in the U.S. (17)

Forty-six percent of Americans don’t have dental insurance and 80% of dentists refuse low-income Medicaid patients.

People die from dentist-neglect. A 12-year-old Maryland boy who lived in a fluoridated community was turned away by over 20 dentists before entering a hospital for two weeks and $250,000 at taxpayers expense. His cavities abscessed, went up to his brain and killed him

A California nursing home resident died from dental abscess that led to cardiopulmonary arrest, according to the CDPH (NBC-TV 11).

Americans are dentist-deficient not fluoride-deficient. And The Centers for Disease Control reports that up to 51% of U.S. school children sport fluoride overdose symptoms - dental fluorosis, indicating most U.S. school children are getting enough and even too much fluoride already.

Fluoridation is organized dentistry’s attempt to divert your attention from the real problem - a tooth decay crisis has occurred on their watch. Yet, cavities are rising in our most fluoridated population - toddlers, according to the CDC.

References:
http://tinyurl.com/6kqtu

NYSCOF
| 07.08.07 - 9:59 am
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3. In her editorial touting the benefits of fluoridation, Ann Lindsay, admits that: “Fluoride in high concentrations can be unhealthy”, but says when it is “ diluted to one part fluoride per million parts water”… “it is safe.” However, such a claim is based more on wishful thinking than on any scientific demonstration. A matter born out by last year’s 500-page review of fluoride’s exquisite toxicity by the National Research Council (NRC, 2006).

This research arm of the National Academy of Sciences identified many important research studies in which animals or humans drinking water close to, at, or even lower than 1 ppm, showed numerous systemic adverse health effects. These included: bone fractures, decreased thyroid function, impaired glucose tolerance (pre-diabetes), brain cell damage, lowered IQ in children, kidney damage, arthritic-like conditions, symptoms characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease and cancer. Considering the substantial variation in individual water intake, and the wide range of human sensitivity to any toxic substance, fluoridation at 1 ppm provides no margin of safety to protect against these adverse health effects.

For those who, like Lindsay, think that 1 ppm is small consider this. 1 ppm is actually 250 times larger than the level of fluoride in mothers milk (0.004 ppm, NRC, 2006). One consequence of giving a baby fluoridated tap water, as acknowledged by Lindsay is an increased risk of dental fluorosis (a discoloration and mottling of the teeth). But of far more concern than this visible effect is that which is not visible. When a baby is born its blood brain barrier is not fully formed. We now have over 40 animal studies which indicate that fluoride can damage the brain’s delicate machinery, even at 1 ppm (Varner et a., 1998) and 18 human studies which have shown that a child’s IQ can be lowered at levels as low as 1.8 ppm in their drinking water (Xiang et al., 2003). Again there is no margin of safety here when exposing a whole population.

These are very, very serious concerns and for health officials to blindly pursue this practice with these documented risks are on the table is utterly irresponsible. Especially when they should also know that the predominant benefits of fluoride are TOPICAL not SYSTEMIC (CDC, 1999, 2001). In other words, as far as possible benefits are concerned, fluoride works on the outside of the tooth and not from inside the body. Thus to force people to drink fluoride makes no sense when fluoridated toothpaste is readily available. Nor is it acceptable that any political body do to the whole community what an individual doctor cannot do to an individual patient: force medication on them without their informed consent.

In short fluoridation is harmful and a violation of both common sense and basic human rights.

Paul Connett, PhD,
Professor Emeritus of Chemistry,
St. Lawrence University,
Canton, NY 13617.
315-379-9200
and
Executive Director,
Fluoride Action Network,
Canton, NY
http://www.FluorideAction.net