Raise the Hammer

Bob - as valid as your argument may otherwise be, bringing up the old bugaboo of Flouride causing Down Syndrome, only seves to discredit the rest of your points. There are only a handful of studies claiming any link between the two - all of which are riddled with structural flaws, and scored very low on validity tests http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/1... As much as many of us would like to think that conditions like Down Syndrome are the result of a damaged world gone mad, DS has been part of the human population for as long as there has been a human population. It is the result of an error that occurs (probably during Meiosis) around the time of conception, and the only factor that has ever been proven to affect rates of DS is maternal age. Once you control for this - the rate of birth of babies with DS has been pretty consistent for a very, very long time.

Rates appear to be higher now in our age of flouridated water, but this is simply because so many more women are delaying having children until later in life. A clear case of correlation not equalling causality.

As I said, your argument may have some validity to it - but raising the pseudoscience spectre of flouride as a cause for DS, puts you squarely in the camp with other specious arguments such as Vaccines causing Autism. It only serves to damage your credibility.

Full Disclosure: I am the Communications Coordinator of the Down Syndrome Association of Hamilton, and Hamilton's representative on the Affiliate Council of the Canadian Down Syndrome Society. I also have a 4 yr old with DS. The views expressed here are my own.

The most successful campaigns to stop fluoridation are ones which bring the information to the people because fluoridation just is not interesting enough or understandable to the average person for them to become engaged in the discourse.

Petitioning in real life (not on the internet) allows you to explain in a few sentences why ingesting fluoride is unhealthy, unnecessary, money-wasting and/or a violation of freedom of choice. People will take a few minutes out of their day to listen to you and sign the petition.

There's no easy way out. People need to be told over and over that fluoridation is not a good thing and why to wash away all the positive stuff that's been ingrained in their brain probably since reading kindergarten books about going to the dentist and watching toothpaste commercials during children's programming. It's not their fault. It's up to us to patiently educate people whenever we can.

Those that need more in depth information can go to website such as http://www.FluorideAction.Net or http://waterloowatch.com/home.html

Plus, before presenting an argument it is necessary to gather the facts. For instance, just obtaining bottled drinking water is not going to protect you from your bathwater. German scientists knew back in the 1930s that an overactive thyroid could be blocked by bathing patients in water containing minute amounts of fluoride. Poisoning from fluoride affects every part of the body, and acute poisoning will usually result in death from either cardiac arrest or renal failure, regardless of "genetic disposition." Fluoride is a poison, and the body recognizes it as a poison, with the kidneys filtering it and eliminating as much as possible from the blood. The kidneys are damaged in the process.

I was raised without fluoride in our water, and my teeth are full of cavities. My kids have been raised on water with fluoride, and they haven't had a cavity yet. Their country cousins, on the other hand, have lots of cavities. I like the fluoride. It keeps our dentist bills down, which is the intent, after all.

My position on this issue is simple.

Many people believe that medication with fluoride is beneficial for public health.
Many people believe that medication with fluoride is not beneficial for public health.

Like many medications, taking said medication in low doses might not be harmful. I understand that. Yet when fluoride is added to public water supply in unknown quantity, what control do we have over the dose?

Let those who wish to be medicated with fluoride take fluoride. But please also let those who wish to be able to drink water that doesn't contain this medication to make their own choices.

Comment edited by arienc on 2011-03-25 11:48:50

I hold the same view arienc. I can't think of any other medication that is so poorly administered. The dose that an individual gets varies immensely from one person to the next. If I drink 10 glasses of tap water a day, is that safe? If someone only drinks bottled water, are they not getting enough? I'm with you. Let people choose and for those that do choose to take it, make sure they are getting the proper dose.

Jason - Since I'm not a doctor, I have no problem dropping the Down's thing, but I'm wondering if the many doctors who believe in fluoridation would dispute all the other problems too. Hmm. Maybe I can ask you this - if you were to plan for another child, would your family be drinking/ using fluoridated water? Do you drink it now?

Ryan's links deserve more study than the quick scan I gave them, especially Dr Mitchel's. May take a few days with a fine tooth comb. My first quick reaction is that I believe the mistake most are making is to analyze averages instead of the margins per #2 above. Since I live at the margins, being susceptible to osteoporosis (family history), my main concern is that while the fluoride medicine may be ok for most, it will probably exacerbate my problem. Far better to have a few cavities than risk my bones. Arienc answers this aspect.

Gullchasedship makes the same point as Dr Ryding, mentioned in my blog (4th para after subtitle Basics). I've come to believe that city/ country comparisons and anecdotal evidence are unreliable - too many other variables affect the situation. Further, I've also come to believe that financial incentives, just like in other scientific areas, bias results. Huge financial incentives operate in this area, so at best, I believe honest studies show little or no difference either way.

Part of the problem is in order to placate opponents, fluoride levels are being lowered. Ryan's post in 2008 mentioned 4 ppm max, 1ppm average, Hamilton was at .7ppm and I believe reduced it even further fairly recently - .6ppm? Everywhere, cities are reducing concentrations because of the fluorosis problem, said by some to be an epidemic. Dr Limeback (formerly a supporter) said that more of his income is treating fluorosis than treating cavities. Does not this money also talk? Many people dismiss the money angle as conspiracy - I say it's business. Caveat Emptor.

Anyway, the reductions in concentration muddle the argument, especially given that fluoride is naturally occurring (.15 - .2ppm in L Ontario). At some point, one loses the ability to say anything at all, evidence wise. But that works both ways - if it isn't doing any harm (except at the margins), then it probably isn't doing much good either, so why don't we just save the money and drop it? Brush your teeth instead. That's precisely where I've come to believe that money incentives operate to keep fluoridation going. If you were the marketing manager or salesman for KC Industries, what would you be telling all your customers?

Nyscof makes good points, even as I shudder at the daunting work ahead. My own kids are certainly resisting the message - the brainwashing in school (and habit) is powerful indeed - on all subjects, and not just by the teachers! Even for myself, given that tea packs far more fluoride than tap water, I'm not looking forward to the summer heat when home made, unsweetened tea, sitting in the fridge has been my/our absolute favorite for years. Cold coffee anyone??

I have had flouride in my water (in Calgary) since I was a teenager - it's the main thing I credit my almost total lack of cavities to, despite my (admittedly) atrocious dental hygeine habits. I have no plans to have other kids, but we are all voracious consumers of Hamilton tap water. Having done much of the research on this topic while I was in Calgary - I'm inclined to agree with Ryan.

The potential harm seems to lie entirely with the outliers - and while I sympathize with their difficulty, I feel that the overall health benefits to the majority, far outweigh the small potential risk for a very small number of people.

I don't mean to sound cavalier, but we make trade-offs all the time when it comes to public good vs. the needs of small groups of individuals. It's part of living in a population large enough to be called a society.

We know that some people suffer adverse effects from living/playing near high voltage transmission lines - for most people, however, it is not an issue. So then does it make sense to no longer transmit electricity long distances, because of the health dangers to a small number of people? Or does it make sense to encourage those people to live far away from electriciy corridors.

In the same way, if there are people who find their health to be affected by flouride, they have the bottled water option, and I think we should go one step further than encouraging it, and probably subsidize it, with proper medical documentation. However for the majority of people - the risk is so low, and the benefit of greater dental health is so high, that it seems to be worth the trade-off.

Comment edited by JasonAAllen on 2011-03-25 15:07:51

Hi Jason Firstly, I wonder how your research would have gone if you were still living in Calgary - given that they just decided to eliminate fluoride. As nyscof notes, it's awfully difficult not to go with the flow, even for me.

I'll take issue with your basic argument on several grounds. First, every post menopausal woman is warned about osteoporosis. I assume all females are hoping for a nice long life, so to term widespread health concern as 'outlier' doesn't stand up. Is cancer an outlier? I think this is something everybody, especially taxpayers trying to pay for our health care system, should be concerned about - but it's hard for folks under say 50 to appreciate the slow acting nature of such problems.

Power lines are not a good analogy since electromagnetic effects decrease exponentially through distance, while fluoride builds up in one's bones, brain, etc - isn't that sort of the opposite? Plus we all have wires throughout our houses - ie unavoidable.

The issue of essentially having 'you' medicate me, via politics, I address below. Unfair to say the least. And ineffective, despite your personal good luck.

I might agree to the bottled water approach if the city were to provide me a place to fill up with free water taken from upstream of the fluoridation equipment. My position is that the city is responsible for providing wholesome water. For me, fluoridated water is deleterious not wholesome.

But really, carrying heavy bottles of water is completely contraindicated (borrowing a medical term) for folks with osteoporosis, no?** How much easier (and cheaper) is carrying a tube of toothpaste, not to mention the plastic waste issue? To me the simple and effective idea that brushing is best, as every dentist will tell you, really should trump all other arguments. Brushing allows one to choose the toothpaste that meets one's needs (fluoridated or not). The idea that 99.99999% of the water goes nowhere near your teeth but instead goes into the environment where it builds up to no good, is the silly part of this practice.

**Ok, i know the opposite argument can be made ?;-)
Cheers, Bob

I really don't know how concerned I am about flouride. Not going to stop brushing my teeth any time soon. I do have some concerns about simply adding chemicals to our drinking water, though. That is something which deserves a little public scrutiny, and should definitely be up for public debate.

Personally, though, I'm a lot more worried by chlorination.

I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject, but my understanding is that the effect of fluoridation on preventing dental caries is strongest in people who don't practice good oral hygiene and don't get regular dental care. In other words, it may be the poor who benefit most from fluoridation. The "just brush your teeth" argument is a bit of a non sequitur.

Fluoride is not the only micronutrient routinely added to food or water. Where is the campaign to stop iodizing salt, or to stop adding folate to flour? (Actually, the latter is building momentum.)

Hi John While the issue of the poor not bothering with brushing or dentists is real enough, there is actually a double irony here. Not only do the poor suffer (also) the most fluorosis (see below, blog, etc), but the very success of the fluoridation message over decades could easily persuade (bamboozle?) someone with less diligence/ education/ attention/ language skills to actually figure that brushing is not really necessary!!!

I too was wondering about the iodized salt thing, but then realized that one can sprinkle less or even no salt, which would also be good for one's heart health, but one can also buy natural sea salt.

Apparently the fluoride industry, being more or less shut out of Europe, is looking into making fluoridized salt. While I thought it a crazy idea at first, I now have to think its actually a good idea - that way we both can get what we want. Presumably we could all agree at that point, to take fluoride out of the water forever.
Bob

Comment edited by BobInnes on 2011-03-25 17:28:29

Sorry folks, I used another computer and got screwed up with another username. The comment above (by canbyte) http://www.raisethehammer.org/comment/61... is actually mine.

What occurs to me now,partly in relation to the question I posed to Jason, concerns the fact that it isn't just the water that one drinks that is the problem. Besides the bathwater issue, one has to keep in mind that cereals, pastas, etc are all usually processed with fluoridated water before they got to you. One then adds more fluoridated water in the cooking so one is getting a double dose. Nobody seems to be taking such 'off-label' or unaccounted fluoride intake into account into their thinking. See if you can find anything in your kitchen (other than spring water) labeled as to its fluoride content. Since people vary so widely in their habits (food, beverages, smoking, pollutants) how can any expert express a good opinion on anything? I believe this can explain why poor people experience a lot of fluorosis - if you'll excuse the unavoidable stereotyping for the moment, might there not be lots of pasta, pollution, beer, smoking in their lives? Bottom line is that mass medication is a poor way of solving individual problems.

My present thinking is that the 2 million or so that the city could save, should be put into the public health system to improve the dental clinics available to the people who need it most.

Comment edited by BobInnes on 2011-03-25 15:08:20

Isn't it strange, doctors cannot force one person to take a drug, yet the government wants to force everyone to be drugged with fluoride, a prescription drug, against their will and with no medical supervision, no control over how much you consume and no treatment for side effects.

If you want fluoride in your water, put it in your own glass of water, leave the rest of us out of it. People should not be medicated against their will.

I'm sorry but I don't buy into conspiracy theories. The fact is that flouride has helped reduce the incidence of tooth decay. We don't need studies to figure that out, just ask people over 70 who didn't have that benefit when they were children.

The fact is we live longer healthier lives now than any humans in the history of mankind. Until I start seeing the average lifespan of Canadians going down signifigantly I would think what we are doing is working. We don't need to fix things that are not broken, just to satisfy the few paranoid individuals who see conspiracies around every corner.

I try to understand what the conspiracy idea is all about (ie the business aspect) in the last paragraph of this link.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stopf...

Calling simple business and marketing strategy a conspiracy is a neat way to avoid reality, or to hide it from other people.

Keep in mind that the longevity we are seeing today are the people who grew up in the 1920's/1930's. There was no fluoride in the water then, nor were there hundreds of thousands of other environmental contaminants (in minute quantities) and synthetic "foods" whose long-term effects we know nearly nothing about.

We certainly don't know what the long-term effects of any of this stuff is, or what its impact will be on the longevity of the baby boom generation, or on the generations that followed them. We are essentially conducting the experiment as we speak.

But many of them are growing old without teeth. You also have to remember that 60% of them were smokers or doing something else that was supposed to be bad for their health and yet they are still living long lives.

I was speaking in more general terms. It seems that nowadays everything is going to kill us according to the various special interest groups. Thats probably true but the fact is that we live longer than our ancestors and eventually something is going to kill us. So just live, when your time comes it will come.

Comment edited by bigguy1231 on 2011-03-27 22:33:58

Re Bigguy said:"I was speaking in more general terms. It seems that nowadays everything is going to kill us according to the various special interest groups."

Amen. How many times have i said the same in my life. Margarine started it - butter bad! Yes, there are many hazards, we just can't pay attention to them all and as you say, when our time comes ....

The difference to me is that this hazard is not only man made (as is pollution, radiation) but I actually have to pay to be subjected to it, and unlike radiation, there is no undisputed benefit like electricity that is so useful. I'm certainly willing to take the bad with the good. I'm not complaining about chlorine, despite that somewhat similar hazards are said to exist and despite that alternatives to it exist, albeit expensively.

I hear ya too re special interest groups, like greens and their CO2 nightmare, but hope you will exempt me/ us. Paid lobbyists certainly exist on the pro-fluoride side, supported (directly or indirectly) by the corporate beneficiary (KC) or gummerment hacks, but so far, nobody has put so much as a nickel in the pot for those opposed to fluoridation, at least around here. Cheers. Bob

It's interesting (although frankly, I've only read half the comments) that no one is mentioning any of the other contaminants in our tap water -- everything from prozac to estrogen-analogues is in there, as is rust from the inside of pipes (zomg, iron poisoning!), lead (zomg, get your pipes replaced to the city supply, except if you're renting, then suck it), goo from Randle Reef (yo, cap that crap already), human, fish and bird poo (you really believe that the waterworks are 100%? our city has undercapacity waterworks as it is -- and it's not reverse osmosising all the water we use to flush toilets, water lawns and put out fires) AND EVERYTHING ELSE THAT ANYONE HAS FLUSHED INTO THE GREAT LAKES FROM CHICAGO THROUGH TO ST. CATHERINES.

In the water / water treatment biz (I've been exposed to it through my work on security in control systems) there is a very simple statement -- dilution is the solution. As long as the level of contaminant is sufficiently low, the water is considered good.

Civilization is always a balance between staving off the darkness of pre-history and celebrating the success of being a tool-using animal who dominates and wilfully changes her environment. Not all of civilization is good. Not all of pre-history is bad. I prefer upholstery, running water and the occassional mindless sitcom in exchange, I'm willing to accept the fact that I haven't had a cavity in over 30 years, none of my children have died before the age of 10 due to a completely preventable disease (yay vaccination! Go walk around the older parts of the cemetary and just imagine burying even one - let alone 3 or 4 of your children before the age that we send most of ours off to school - and then realize that the last child buried was buried the same day as it's mother and the story repeats on the next headstone and the next and the next), and I haven't had to scrabble in the dirt for the next meal to feed my family while I fight off the wild animal that sees me as a particularly delicious snack.

I'll say this though - if you're freaking out about government additives to your food and water (or the horrible dangers of low-level non-ionizing radiation), there's a solution for you too - airlift to a random lake north of Churchill and live like civilization doesn't exist - we'll miss you, but the bears need a snack now and then. Good luck with that flint chipping you've been practicing.

I'm in the same camp as Ryan and others who see the fluoride issue as something where a small and vocal minority is taking on the issue that a large majority seem to view slightly favourably, if not more or less benign.

I put this in the same category as wind turbine protestors who claim the "infrasonic waves disrupt the rhythm of your heart". I just don't buy that there is enough evidnece to support their claims.

That said, I'm open to convincing if the body of evidence builds such that there is a consensus that fluoridation is more dangerous and damaging than it is beneficial.


Frankly, I think we should all be much more concerned with obesity in our society. Unlike fluoridation there is no controversy or dispute that obesity leads to a variety of deadly and chronic conditions - and it also disproportionately effects the poor.

Hi RobertD. Re:"That said, I'm open to convincing if the body of evidence builds such that there is a consensus that fluoridation is more dangerous and damaging than it is beneficial. "

There's lots of evidence out there, just follow some of the links above. Whether you are convinced depends on how open minded you are, plus, per some of the above comments, how susceptible you (or yours) might be to specific problems. Youth especially finds it very hard to be open minded, as any schoolyard demonstrates. That applies to me too - in my 20s, 30s, even 40s I dissed Kingston as being backward/dumb because they hadn't (and never did**) flouridate. Are cavities so bad in Kingston? Having made lots of mistakes in my life, I relate to lots of comments here.

But the evidence will never jump out at you/us, or ever seem to be the prevailing wisdom. There is too much self justification by bureaucrats (who would ever do such a thing!!) and too much business incentive that maintains the positive view of it. Caveat Emptor. Cheers. Bob

**Kingston did fluoridate water for the local army base, which apparently included some areas of the east city. Maybe this is a case of local people vs big central officialdom (the army). More and more, my vote is with local people, who try to resist deleterious stories on all sorts of agendas - globalist, corporate, interest groups, banksters, GM foods, etc.

Frankly, I think we should all be more concerned about a lot of things. That doesn't mean that fluoridation isn't worthy of discussion.

This is the place to discuss fluoridation. If you want to discuss obesity, I suggest writing an article on it for RTH.

How else are you planning on generating awareness of your petition?

I only ask because you seem to be in need of many more signatures.

Too true taxman, and I don't really have an answer. I might be able to do something during the election but only in my ward (4). Since a surprising number of folks here aren't really concerned about it, maybe i should just take a hint and get a filter, though I think they're expensive. I'm also hoping the passage of time (years?) might help if there's a bit of a snowball effect. Also, as other communities come to see the whole picture, staff may not need citizen prodding. Otherwise, any ideas are welcome. Cheers. Bob.

Bobby Innes contributing with the low down on fluoride, nice!

For me though it's sort of a "meh"... if fluoride is going to get me so be it ; )

If you find yourself nodding your head in agreement with this article I would suggest looking up the term 'Gish Gallop' to see how you're being manipulated by the author.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop

I also hope that clever RTH readers won't be taken in by the tidal wave of links presented in this article. It's interesting to note that not a single link is a direct link to peer reviewed scientific papers or reviews. Most are links to known Flouride FUD sites, natural health and holistic healing drivel and opinion pieces written for obscure news outlets.

And if anyone falls for that anonymous factless smear, well, ya deserve what yer drinkin'! Enjoy.

Anonymous or not, the criticism is still valid. If you prefer I can log in under my user account and repost. Can't find the password at the moment.

Repost your dribble all you want - peer to peer, especially the kind used to bamboozle the public in climate studies, is not the only kind of information I seek to address my problems. If you don't like my links, you can always post your own - there's a bazillion links, experts and studies proving beyond all doubt that fluoridation is effective and non harmful. Just I don't believe them (any more, along with a whole bunch of other expert crap I used to swallow), especially since this medicine does not address my situation. Each to his own but I wish others would medicate themselves (fluoride drops are available) and let others medicate as they see fit. Or is this concept too much for you?

Here's a question/challenge I just dreamed up to find out what all the supporters of fluoridation really think: When you travel to a non fluoridated area (Kingston, now Waterloo, soon Calgary), are you going to be taking your fluoride drops with you? ROFLMAO!!!

So you admit that the main thrust of your opposition to fluoridated public water supplies is not based on the available scientific evidence and more on your own ideological Libertarian opinions?

To write an article claiming to provide scientific justification for your opinions and then when faced with criticism to fall back on "I just don't believe the experts and scientific evidence" is disingenuous at least and dishonest at worst.

I completely understand your opinion, I acknowledge it and reject it as not based on good scientific knowledge and public policy.

Libertarian? Please reread before posting your trollish nonsense. Its time to put up your links or be ignored.

Do I really have to direct quote you?

Ok. Fine.

"but I wish others would medicate themselves (fluoride drops are available) and let others medicate as they see fit."

You. Said. This. This is textbook Libertarian Ideology.

Here. Canadian Dentists disagree with your opinion.

http://www.cda-adc.ca/en/oral_health/faqs_resources/faqs/fluoride_faqs.asp

Thank you for the link - it is recorded under 'experts'.

Most of the problems I see with water flouridation have nothing to do with teeth, and eveything to do with organs such as thyroid, kidneys, pineal gland....

I would not be willing to sacrifice my thyroid or kidneys for the limited benefit of reduced cavities, and I admit to having doubts about the competence of dentists to advise us about the health of thyroid or kidney. Is this part of their expertise ?