Call to Action as Portland, Oregon Readies to Vote on Water Fluoridation

By Dr. Mercola

Water fluoridation is considered one of the most notable advancements in public health, and cities around the US spend millions adding fluoride to communal water supplies each year.

But, as stated in the video above, 99 percent of that fluoridated water ends up on your lawn and in your toilet, where it's really nothing but an environmental pollutant. Then there's the issue of safety when ingested on a daily basis...

An increasing number of dentists and scientists are raising serious concerns about these chemicals, which by the way have never been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — the agency responsible for food and drug safety.

Many do not realize that fluoride is a drug that is available only with a prescription. Yet it's added to municipal water supplies used by more than 180 million Americans, including infants and the elderly without any attention to personalized dosing or potential interactions.

This is a significant problem, because once you add it to the water supply, you have no way of determining how much of the drug any particular person will consume on any given day.

Also consider this: It is illegal, medical malpractice, and unethical for a physician to prescribe a drug without specifying dosage, and to fail to monitor your health for side effects from the drug.

Yet, your water authority is not only allowed, but encouraged to add a toxic drug — fluoride — to your drinking water without your consent and without any way of knowing who in your household is drinking it, how much, and the effect it is having.

Worse yet, while scientific studies have been done on pharmaceutical grade fluoride, none have been made on the fluoride that is actually used for water fluoridation. This chemical (hexafluorosilicic acid) is an industrial waste product that is likely to be even more toxic than medical grade fluoride.

It's illegal to dump it into rivers and lakes or release the parent gases into the atmosphere. In fact, municipalities that decided to stop fluoridating their water had to keep going until all the chemicals were used up because they couldn't afford the hazardous waste disposal fees!

Dr. William Hirzy from the EPA has even pointed out that if it goes into the air, it's a pollutant. If it goes into the local water, it's pollution. But if the public water utilities buy it and purposely pour it in our drinking water, it's no longer a pollutant. All of a sudden, by some magic sleight of hand, it's a beneficial public health measure...

Concerns About Water Fluoridation Safety Keep Mounting

One of the latest outspoken critics of fluoridation is Daniel M. Merfeld, Ph.D. Professor of Otology and Laryngology at Harvard Medical School, who has stated that:¹

"Most European countries do not fluoridate their water, because such mass medication is considered ineffective and unethical."

After reviewing the evidence, Professor Merfeld agrees that water fluoridation is indeed a form of unchecked mass medication. According to Merfeld, there are "three indisputable facts" with regards to fluoridation that makes it a highly questionable practice:

1) Fluoridation provides an uncontrolled fluoride dose.

2) Fluoridation began before research showed that fluoride's benefits were due to topical application not ingestion.

3) Fluoridation began before all its side effects were known. When water is fluoridated, the dose is uncontrolled as the amount ingested varies with water intake. Can you imagine your health care professional telling you to just put your prescription drugs in your water, ingest the drugged water when you are thirsty, and go ahead and share your drugged water with others? Of course not!

For those who listen to the propaganda that dental health improved after water fluoridation was instituted should take note that dental health actually improved across the board even in areas that did not add fluoride to their water, simply because better dental care and dental hygiene became available around the same time.

"In fact," professor Merfeld says, "research shows no significant difference in the number of cavities for US communities with and without fluoride in the drinking water. As another example, the vast majority of West European countries do not fluoridate; yet the dental health of Western Europe is no worse than for US communities that fluoridate."

The Health Ramifications of Mass Medicating with Fluoride

In the early 1990's Dr. William Marcus, a senior scientist with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), released a memorandum outlining the adverse effects of fluoride in drinking water. For example, tests showed fluoridated drinking water caused bone and liver cancer in animals. Dr. Marcus was subsequently terminated from his position with the EPA. He later won a wrongful termination suit against the agency and was reinstated, as it was determined that "his employment was terminated solely because he questioned and opposed the EPA's fluoride policy."

So much for scientific freedom and public safety. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 41 percent of American adolescents now have dental fluorosis — unattractive discoloration and mottling of the teeth that indicate overexposure to fluoride. But that's not all. Evidence suggests that swallowing fluoride can also cause:

Weakened bones, and fatal bone cancer (osteosarcoma)	Impaired mental development, lowered IQ, and dementia	Gastrointestinal problems
Hyperactivity and/or lethargy	Arthritic symptoms	Kidney issues
Lowered thyroid function	Chronic fatigue	Disrupted immune system

 

This is what the science is telling us about the ramifications of fluoride use. And yet, rather than taking the precautionary approach and stopping fluoridation until we know more, our policymakers continue to blindly forge ahead; refusing to give the scientific evidence the attention it deserves. Interestingly enough, a toxicology review is actually required by statute to ensure that fluoride-delivery agents, such as Hexafluorosilicic acid, are safe. But no such review exists for Hexafluorosilicic acid... It is a man-made, bioaccumulative toxin, and you cannot use dilution as a defense for adding a contaminant to public drinking water.

And yet, it's being done...

According to the EPA's local's president, Bill Hirzy, a chemist in the EPA's Office of Toxic Substances, water fluoridation remains a government policy because of "institutional inertia [and] embarrassment among government agencies that have been promoting this stuff as safe."

In October last year, the world's leading expert on fluoride toxicity and author of "The Case Against Fluoride," Dr. Paul Connett, gave the following presentation in Wichita, Kansas. In it, he addresses the dangers of adding fluoride to communal water supplies, and the health risks associated with drinking fluoridated water. To learn more from the foremost expert in this field, I recommend listening to Dr. Connett's presentation.

Why is the American Dental Association Ignoring the Science?

According to a 2006 report on water fluoridation produced by the US National Research Council, the benefits from fluoride are topical only, and cannot be achieved through ingestion. It also detailed positive associations between fluoride ingestion and bone fractures, cancer, reduced IQ and dementia.

Meanwhile, the American Dental Association (ADA), which is mired in conflicts of interest with the amalgam industry, has had "amalgam safety" and "universal water fluoridation" as their top two highest goals for their National Oral Health Agenda² as of 2009. Furthermore, the ADA, one of the most influential trade lobbies in the US^{3, 4} believes that:⁵

"All communal water supplies containing less than the optimal level of fluoride should be adjusted to an optimum level. Toward this end, the ADA is urging Congress and state legislators to make capacity-building funds readily available to help communities establish, upgrade and maintain an effective public water fluoridation infrastructure."

The ADA spent $2.56 million on their lobbying efforts last year, and more than half of its lobbyists (11 out of 20) have previously held government jobs,⁶ again demonstrating the revolving doors between government and industry. This is a key feature found among most highly effective lobbying groups.

The ADA is also one of the most secretive when it comes to its funding. It was one of just a handful of groups that declined to provide information to The Chronicle about their responses to Senator Charles E. Grassley, who in 2009 asked 33 nonprofit health and medical groups to report how much money they received from pharmaceutical, medical-device, and insurance companies, and how they disclose such information to the public.^{7, 8}

The association has also spent much of its time defending the dental profession against lawsuits that charge the mercury used in fillings causes health problems.

The ADA has close ties with the world's leading supplier of dental mercury (amalgam) fillings, Henry Schein, and has steadfastly refused to admit that placing neurotoxic mercury in your mouth might not be a good idea. In recent years, many dentists have reconsidered this archaic practice and about half of all American dentists are now mercury-free, but the ADA's dismissal of the evidence has led to low-income children being disproportionately harmed. Amalgam is still the primary filling material used in many underprivileged children due to it being the least expensive alternative. Henry Schein also makes sure uninsured children receive their toxic wares via "charity" programs like the annual Give Kids a Smile program⁹ to which it donates dental supplies.

Is There a Better Way to Address Tooth Decay?

In a recent opinion piece by Lauen Ayers — a local chapter leader of the Weston A. Price Foundation — commenting on the proposed fluoridation plan for Sonoma County, CA, she writes:¹⁰

"Instead of slapping fluorosilicic acid on the problem like a band-aid, we should get to the source of the problem – the tidal wave of sugar that inundates children every day, as UCSF pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig, MD, explains in 'The Bitter Truth.'

In the USDA breakfast and lunch program, 50 to 65 percent of the calories are from carbohydrates. Sugar is added to everything from applesauce to taco sauce because sugar hits the opiate receptors in the brain, making children addicts. Posters of veggies can't make kids 'Just Say No' to the sugar-added foods. It's up to adults to get rid of sugary non-foods.

...Sugar companies also donate to the ADA and similar groups. In 1949 the Sugar Research Foundation proclaimed their mission: 'to find out how tooth decay may be controlled effectively without restriction of sugar intake.' Coincidentally, a year later the U.S. Public Health Service endorsed fluoridation. ... Even fluoride at 0.2 mg/L can harm salmon; if fluoridation passes, our water would have 0.7 mg/L, three times as much!"

Clearly, this absurd practice of adding Hexafluorosilicic acid to drinking water to prevent tooth decay is based more on politics than science. Why should a water department be given the power to medicate anyone when they don't take a health history, they don't pass out a listing of side effects, monitor the dose or the effect? This is tantamount to gross negligence. In early 2011, the EPA announced¹¹ that 41 percent of American teenagers have dental fluorosis and recommended cutting the parts per million down to 0.7 ppm. At the time, EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water, Peter Silva, stated:

"EPA's new analysis will help us make sure that people benefit from tooth decay prevention while at the same time avoiding the unwanted health effects from too much fluoride."

The only safe level when considering the addition of fluoride to drinking/bathing water is ZERO. I predict that water fluoridation will become known as one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated against the public in the 20th and 21st century. That oft-quoted phrase that water fluoridation is one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th Century was created by a Public Relations firm, not hard-core facts. It's time to stop quoting that drivel.

In his 2012 article Poison is Treatment—Edward Bernays and the Campaign to Fluoridate America¹², James F. Tracy reveals the PR campaign that created this fake public health measure:

"The wide-scale U.S. acceptance of fluoride-related compounds in drinking water and a wide variety of consumer products over the past half century is a textbook case of social engineering orchestrated by Sigmund Freud's nephew and the "father of public relations" Edward L. Bernays," he writes. "The episode is instructive, for it suggests the tremendous capacity of powerful interests to reshape the social environment, thereby prompting individuals to unwarily think and act in ways that are often harmful to themselves and their loved ones."

I highly recommend taking the time to read Tracy's informative expose on how good PR can trump science and keep you in the dark for decades, lest you dig a bit deeper. In the future, water fluoridation will be compared to tobacco science, DDT science, asbestos science, and thalidomide science — all grossly manipulated to hide an incredibly costly truth.

Water fluoridation was invented by brilliant schemers who needed to get rid of toxic industrial waste that would cost them hundreds of millions of dollars for proper disposal. They duped politicians with fraudulent science and endorsements, which is not science, and sold them on a "public health" idea in which humans are utilized to filter this poison through their bodies, while 99 percent simply goes down the drain. Adding insult to injury, they now MAKE hundreds of millions of dollars selling this hazardous industrial waste, rather than having to pay for its disposal. Hexafluorosilicic acid manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors are laughing all the way to the bank, seeing how they've finagled municipalities across America to pay them for poison.

Children Tend to Suffer the Greatest Health Effects

Water fluoridation came about as the result of a massively successful PR campaign, originally aimed to protect aluminum and steel producers from lawsuits against the fluorine pollution coming from their plants. Fluoride is in fact a toxic substance that accumulates in the human body over time, where it has been shown to wreak havoc with enzymes and produce a number of serious adverse health effects, including neurological and endocrine dysfunction. No less than 25 human studies have also linked fluoride with lowered IQ in children, including recent research from Harvard. Approximately 50 percent of the fluoride that you ingest each day ends up accumulating in your bones over a lifetime.

Making matters worse, water fluoridation disproportionately harms young children, as they tend to suffer the greatest health effects. One important point to remember, which few pediatricians, dentists or other health professionals stress, is that you should NOT use fluoridated water when mixing infant formula.

According to Dr. David Kennedy, who produced and directed the documentary film Fluoridegate — An American Tragedy:

"One of California's highest paid and most prolific Fluoridation advocate admits that giving an infant a formula made with fluoridated tap water will overdose the baby and cause the teeth to come in spotted and fluorotic. One can only wonder why such insanity persists in our country when it has been banned in so many other more advanced democracies."

Call to Action as Portland Readies to Vote on Water Fluoridation

Portland, Oregon, gets its water from the Bull Run watershed, a 102-square mile protected watershed that is so pristine and pure the city was even granted a waiver from having to build a water treatment plant. In May, Portland residents will vote for or against adding risky fluoridation chemicals to their unusually pristine water supply. Not only will adding fluoride add to environmental chemical pollution and increase residents' risks of dental fluorosis and other health concerns, it will also raise monthly water bills since adding these industrial waste chemicals costs millions of dollars.

Portland rejected water fluoridation in 1956, 1962, and 1980. But after more than a year of secretive planning, fluoride lobbyists convinced the Portland city council to add this toxic waste for their public's consumption. Luckily, the citizens of Portland stood together by gathering enough signatures to force the decision to a vote on May 21, 2013.

Hopefully, with your help in spreading the message, Portland will once again stop this measure. If you live in Portland and want to sign up as a volunteer or pledge to vote No on water fluoridation on the City of Portland ballot, please do so on the Clean Water Portland Pledge Page.

Remember, these lobbyists are well funded, and we're going to see a campaign similar to Prop 37 in California. The citizens need your help to keep Portland free of this contaminant. So, regardless of where you live, please help by donating to their campaign to ensure Portland's pure water source remains that way.