Little evidence fluoridation reduces tooth decay, according to government report.
Consuming fluoridated water doesn't prevent cavities, according to a new U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report, because fluoride is claimed to reduce tooth decay after, not before, teeth erupt. CDC's conclusion that "water fluoridation should be extended," is unsubstantiated by this report. In fact, CDC proves the opposite.
Further, health effects of most fluoridation chemicals are still untested.
For decades, medical groups and government agencies assured too-trusting legislators and unquestioning media that children need to swallow small amounts of fluoride daily, so their still-developing permanent teeth, forming under the gums, would eventually emerge with a fluoride shield to resist tooth decay. This mistaken belief launched water fluoridation in 1945.
New findings show, "Fluoride works primarily after teeth have erupted ..., "according to dentists/authors of "Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States," August 17, 2001.
Even though fluoride in saliva bathes teeth post-eruptively, CDC reports, this level is too low to prevent tooth decay. CDC also reports, it's unclear whether fluoride reduces the activity of Streptococcus mutans, the bacteria that, some believe, causes cavities. However, fluoride does build up in dental plaque.
"But dentists instruct us to brush off plaque twice-a-day and, professionally, twice-a-year," says attorney Paul Beeber, President, N.Y.S. Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation. "Swallowed fluoride doesn't incorporate into developing enamel, doesn't kill decay-causing microbes and doesn't reach levels high enough in saliva to reduce tooth decay. So basically, fluoridation is useless," says Beeber
More alarming are assurances that fluoridation is absolutely safe but the Environmental Protection Agency says fluoridation chemicals used by over 90% of fluoridating communities, silicofluorides, have never been tested for safety.
"The switch to silicofluorides about 50 years ago (from sodium fluoride) may have been an enormous mistake," say Roger Masters (Dartmouth Professor and President, Foundation for Neuroscience & Society) and Myron Coplan (chemical engineer, Intellequity Consulting), who have published extensively on the effects of these chemicals.
Summarizing their work, Masters says, "where silicofluorides are in use, there are higher rates of behavioral problems that have been linked to lead toxicity (including hyperactivity and other learning disabilities, substance abuse, and violent crime)."
Masters/Coplan further criticize CDC for not naming the fluoride compounds used for fluoridation while naming all fluorides used in other dental products.
"Why would CDC make this vital omission?," says Beeber. "It's incomprehensible that the dental profession would be advocating the trucking to and placement of tasteless, odorless, toxic hazardous chemicals, silicofluorides, nearby the unguarded water supplies in almost every town, city and hamlet in America at this most turbulent of times. Especially when their own report tells us it's useless in fighting tooth decay."
