Fluoride and Toothpaste: A New Look

One day last week, I rushed into the bathroom only to find that I should have taken reading material. I began to read the bottles and boxes found in an attempt to entertain myself. When I picked up the toothpaste tube, I was amazed at what I found on the back. It's a health warning that suggests you seek medical help if you accidentally swallow more than a pea sized amount necessary for brushing. Sometimes when I was on the road, particularly hungry and late for an appointment, I'd not stop to brush but would put a huge glob of toothpaste on my finger and finger brush. Of course when you're going 65 + MPH you're not going to spit, you swallow. It was often this small taste treat, which gave me just enough energy to make it through my last appointment. Now, I find that might have been a dangerous decision.

The Warning on the Tube

The back of the tube contains the warning that you need to keep the toothpaste out of the reach of children and if you accidentally swallow the toothpaste, you should call the Poison Control Center right away. What could this mean? Are we poisoning ourselves daily and did my snicker-snack of minty goo damage my health? The label said, use a pea-sized portion and yet the toothpaste tube in the commercials is heavily laden with the toxic material. I had to find more. Was the government simply imposing another warning label that was simply a CYA and precautionary or is there something to this warning. The tube warning suggests you call the poison control center immediately if you accidentally swallow the minty frosting in a tube.

The Studies

No one is certain that fluoride helps prevent cavities. We accept it as fact because someone told us it was true. After making my way back to the computer, I found that when there was a side-by-side comparison to the amount of fluoride in the water and dental carries, there was no correlation. There was, however a direct correlation between the amount of fluoride and the increase bone cancer according to a study done by the Department of Health in New Jersey. The study showed that the increase in bone cancer was from 2 to 7 times higher in areas where the municipal unit fluoridated the water.

The fallacy may have followed a study done on two cities in New York, Newburgh and Kinston. One city had fluoridated water and the other didn't. By the 1950's 10 years after the start of the study, there was a decrease in dental carries in children between the ages of 5 and 9 in Newburg, the area that had fluoride. There was, however also an increase cancer and heart disease in the fluoridated city of Newburg. It started much earlier than that however, it started as early as 1922 when aluminum became popular.

Early smelters in Germany had to pay reparations to the surrounding villages because of injury and illness caused by the emission of fluoride. This occurred as early as 1850. When aluminum products became popular in 1922, manufacturers needed to find ways to get rid of the waste material fluoride. Andrew W Mellon, founder and the major stockholder in ALCOA Aluminum was the Treasury Secretary. The 1928 equivalent to the Department of Health was under the Treasury Department at the time. Mellon used H. Trendley Dean, the dentist from the Public Health Service to look into the possibilities that there was a benefit to the teeth from fluoride and sent him to small towns in the Western US that have higher naturally occurring concentrations of calcium fluoride. Dean published results that were favorable to fluoride, although he skewed the results of the tests to show that.

Could it be that we are taking fluoride as a result of industry not knowing what to do with its waste? Scientists at that time were attempting to get the fluoride out of the drinking water for fear that it caused damage to the body. Studies at that time showed it had a mottling effect on the teeth., inhibited some enzyme actions, crossed the placental barrier into the blood stream of fetuses, inhibited pancreatic activity and there were more. However, Dr. Cox, backed by the ALCOA Institute traveled throughout the country and favored the addition saying he found evidence it worked in rats. By 1939, IG Farban, an affiliate of ALCOA in Germany, works on using fluoride for nerve gas.

By 1940 studies emerged that linked fluoride to neuromuscular damage. However, the most chilling revelation came from two things that occurred during WWII. The first was the stockpile of fluoride found in Nazi concentration camps. The Nazis soldiers admitted to the incoming American forces that they used the fluoride in the water of the concentration camps to placate prisoners and make them docile. The second came with the creation of the atomic bomb. Fluoride was the chemical waste from that production, according to the declassified documents from the Manhattan Project. In order to reduce adverse ramifications from outlying communities where the "bomb" was produced, the scientists were ordered to find "evidence useful in litigation" if it occurred because of injury to local citizens.

So, was the myth that fluoride good for the teeth simply started because of industry covering their tracks or government? Did the addition of fluoride to the water make citizens more docile so they accepted any changes? What about the reports that fluoride reduced the dental carries in children and adults alike? It was true that tooth decay dropped since the 1950's when municipalities added fluoride to the water. One man that was New Zealand's leading proponent of fluoride John Colquhoun, School of Education, University of Auckland noted that after revisiting the issue of fluoride, he found that all children had improvement in dental health since that time and it started to improve even before cities put fluoride in their water. In this article entitled "Why I Changed My Mind About Water Fluoridation" he notes that improved eating patterns that included refrigeration of fresh fruits and vegetables probably accounted for most of the improvement. The improvement began after refrigeration but before fluoride toothpaste and water.

Dr. John Colquhoun looked into newer studies that show there's evidence that fluoridation might be responsible for the increase in hip fractures among the elderly. He also found studies that link it to bone cancer in men from the interruption of the male hormone testosterone only involved in the bone growth in men and not women. The most shocking report came from China that shows lower IQ scores in children with dental fluorosis, a mottling of teeth from over fluoridation.

While some people choose to believe that ingesting the toxic substance is good for the teeth, I have to question mass doses to the public. If your doctor wrote the same prescription for a child of three as he did for a 300-pound man, he would loose his license, and yet that's what the municipalities across the United States are doing. People that drink more water receive more fluoride. Small children receive higher doses. We still don't know the true effects of this toxin, but I for one am taking fluoridated toothpaste off my list of quick snacks and throwing away all the toothpaste in the house. I'll be writing more articles on toothpaste, the hazards of glycerin in toothpaste and recipes for homemade toothpaste in the coming days and weeks. I'm mixing up my own as I slowly walk down the isolated path that Howard Hughes must have traveled. Little by little, I find that the knowledge I pick up along the way make me less eager to participate in the products and services offered in the marketplace. The next thing you know, I'll be growing really long fingernails, hiding from germs and avoiding washing for days.

"A Brief Report On The Association Of Drinking Water Fluoridation And The Incidence of Osteosarcoma Among Young Males", NJ Depart. of Health, Environ. Health Service, 1992, 1- 17 by PD Cohn

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1620388

Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1953 August; 43(8): 1011-1015. "Newburgh-Kingston Caries Fluorine Study. V. Pediatric Aspects-Continuation Report" by Edward R. Schlesinger, David E. Overton, and Helen C. Chase

http://fluoride-journal.com/98-31-2/312103.htm#John%20Colquhoun

"Why I Changed My Mind About Water Fluoridation" by John Colquhoun, School of Education, University of Auckland © 1997 University of Chicago Press

http://www.loveforlife.com.au/node/777

Fluoride - The Drugging Of America With Fluoride - Includes A Wide Range Articles & A Chronoligical History Of Fluoride by Arthur Cristian

Wed, 06/27/2007

http://www.curezone.com/dental/fluoride.html"A Chronology of Fluoridation" By Val Valerian (c) 1996,1997 Leading Edge Research Group. All Rights Reserved.
P.O. Box 7530, Yelm, Washington 98597