National
Water Center, Eureka Springs,
Arkansas
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The union first became interested in this issue rather by
accident. Like most Americans, including many physicians and dentists, most of
our members had thought that fluoride's only effects were beneficial -
reductions in tooth decay, etc. We too believed assurances of safety and
effectiveness of water fluoridation? Then, as EPA was engaged in revising its
drinking water standard for fluoride in 1985, an employee came to the union with
a complaint: he said he was being forced to write into the regulation a
statement to the effect that EPA thought it was all right for children to have
"funky" teeth. It was OK, EPA said, because it considered that
condition to be only a cosmetic effect, not an adverse health effect. The reason
for this EPA position was that it was We tried to settle this ethics issue quietly, within the family, but EPA was unable or unwilling to resist external political pressure, and we took the fight public with a union amicus curiae brief in a lawsuit filed against EPA by a public interest group. The union has published on this initial involvement period in detail.1 Since then our opposition to drinking water fluoridation has grown, based on the scientific literature documenting the increasingly out-of-control exposures to fluoride, the lack of benefit to dental health from ingestion of fluoride and the hazards to human health from such ingestion. These hazards include acute toxic hazard, such as to people with impaired kidney function, as well as chronic toxic hazards of gene mutations, cancer, reproductive effects, neurotoxicity, bone pathology and dental fluorosis. First, a review of recent neurotoxicity research results. In
1995, Mullenix and co-workers2 showed that rats given fluoride in
drinking water at levels that give rise to plasma fluoride concentrations in the
range seen in humans suffer neurotoxic effects that vary according to when the
rats were given the fluoride - as adult animals, as young animals, or through
the placenta before birth. Those exposed before birth were born hyperactive and
remained so throughout their lives. Those exposed as young or adult animals
displayed depressed activity. Then in 1998, Guan and co-workers3 gave
doses similar to those used by the Mullenix research group to try to understand
the Another 1998 publication by Varner, Jensen and others4
reported on the brain and kidney-damaging effects in rats that were given
fluoride in drinking water at the same level deemed "optimal" by
pro-fluoridation groups, namely 1 part per million (1 ppm). Even more pronounced
damage was seen in animals that got the fluoride in conjunction with aluminum.
These results are especially disturbing because of the low dose level of
fluoride that shows the toxic effect in rats - rats are more resistant to
fluoride than humans. This latter statement is based on Mullenix's finding that
it takes substantially more fluoride in the drinking water of rats than of
humans to reach the same fluoride level in plasma. It is the level in plasma
that determines how much fluoride is "seen" by particular tissues in
the body. So when rats get 1 ppm in drinking water, their brains and kidneys are
exposed to much less fluoride than humans getting 1 ppm, yet they are
experiencing toxic effects. Thus we are compelled to consider the likelihood
that humans are experiencing damage to their brains and kidneys at the
"optimal" level of In support of this concern are results from two epidemiology studies from China5,6 that show decreases in I.Q. in children who get more fluoride than the control groups of children in each study. These decreases are about 5 to 10 I.Q. points in children aged 8 to 13 years. Another troubling brain effect has recently surfaced: fluoride's interference with the function of the brain's pineal gland. The pineal gland produces melatonin which, among other roles, mediates the body's internal clock, doing such things as governing the onset of puberty. Jennifer Luke7 has shown that fluoride accumulates in the pineal gland and inhibits its production of melatonin. She showed in test animals that this inhibition causes an earlier onset of sexual maturity, an effect reported in humans as well in 1956, as part of the Kingston/Newburgh study, which is discussed below. In fluoridated Newburgh, young girls experienced earlier onset of menstruation (on average, by six months) than girls in non-fluoridated Kingston.8 From a risk assessment perspective, all these brain effect data are particularly compelling and disturbing because they are convergent. We looked at the cancer data with alarm as well. There are
epidemiology studies that are convergent with whole-animal and single-cell
studies (dealing with the cancer hazard), just as the neurotoxicity research
just mentioned all points in the same direction. EPA fired the Office of
Drinking Water's chief toxicologist, Dr. William Marcus, who also was our local
Union's treasurer at the time, for refusing to remain silent on the cancer risk
issue.9 The judge who heard the lawsuit he brought against EPA over
the The type of cancer of particular concern with fluoride, although not the only type, is osteosarcoma, especially in males. The National Toxicology Program conducted a two-year study10 in which rats and mice were given sodium fluoride in drinking water. The positive result of that study (in which malignancies in tissues other than bone were also observed), particularly in male rats, is convergent with a host of data from tests showing fluoride's ability to cause mutations (a principal "trigger" mechanism for inducing a cell to become cancerous) e.g.11a,b,c,d and data showing increases in osteosarcomas in young men in New Jersey,12 Washington and Iowa13 based on their drinking fluoridated water. It was his analysis, repeated statements about all these and other incriminating cancer data, and his requests for an independent, unbiased evaluation of them that got Dr. Marcus fired. Bone pathology other than cancer is a concern as well. An excellent review of this issue was published by Diesendorf et al. in 1997.14 Five epidemiology studies have shown a higher rate of hip fractures in fluoridated vs. non-fluoridated communities.15a,b,c,d,e Crippling skeletal fluorosis was the endpoint used by EPA to set its primary drinking water standard in 1986, and the ethical deficiencies in that standard setting process prompted our union to join the Natural Resources Defense Council in opposing the standard in court, as mentioned above. Regarding the effectiveness of fluoride in reducing dental
cavities, there has not been any double-blind study of fluoride's effectiveness
as a caries preventative. There have been many, many small scale, selective
publications on this issue that proponents cite to justify fluoridation, but the
largest and most comprehensive study, one done by dentists trained by the
National Institute of Dental Research, on over 39,000 school children aged 5-17
years, shows no significant differences (in terms of decayed, missing and filled
teeth) among caries incidences in fluoridated, non-fluoridated and partially John Colquhoun's publication on this point of efficacy is especially important.18 Dr. Colquhoun was Principal Dental Officer for Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, and a staunch supporter of fluoridation - until he was given the task of looking at the world-wide data on fluoridation's effectiveness in preventing cavities. The paper is titled, "Why I changed My Mind About Water Fluoridation." In it Colquhoun provides details on how data were manipulated to support fluoridation in English-speaking countries, especially the U.S. and New Zealand. This paper explains why an ethical public health professional was compelled to do a 180-degree turn on fluoridation. Further on the point of the tide turning against drinking
water fluoridation, statements are now coming from other dentists in the
pro-fluoride camp who are starting to warn that topical fluoride (e.g. fluoride
in tooth paste) is the only significantly beneficial way in which that substance
affects dental health.19,20,21 However, if the concentrations of
fluoride in the oral cavity are sufficient to inhibit bacterial enzymes and
cause other bacteriostatic effects, then those concentrations are also capable
of producing adverse In any event, a person can choose whether to use fluoridated
tooth paste or not (although finding non-fluoridated kinds is getting harder and
harder), but one cannot avoid fluoride when it is put into the public water
supplies. So, in addition to our concern over the toxicity of fluoride, we note
the uncontrolled - and apparently uncontrollable - exposures to fluoride that
are occurring nationwide via drinking water, processed foods, fluoride pesticide
residues and dental care products. A recent report in the lay media,23 that,
according to the Centers for Disease Control, at least 22 percent of America's
children now have dental fluorosis, is just one indication of this Thus, we took the stand that a policy which makes the public
water supply a vehicle for disseminating this toxic and prophylactically useless
(via ingestion, at any rate) substance is wrong. We have also taken a direct
step to protect the employees we represent from the risks of drinking
fluoridated water. We applied EPA's risk control The implication for the general public of these calculations is clear. Recent, peer-reviewed toxicity data, when applied to EPA's standard method for controlling risks from toxic chemicals, require an immediate halt to the use of the nation's drinking water reservoirs as disposal sites for the toxic waste of the phosphate fertilizer industry.24
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National Water
Center Barbara Helen
Harmony :: email:
peace@ipa.net
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