Bronze-level articleWater fluoridation

From RationalWiki
(Redirected from Fluoride)
Jump to: navigation, search
Some dare call it

Conspiracy

link=:category:
Secrets revealed!
The revealers

Since its inception in the 1940s, the idea of fluoridating water has given rise to fear and suspicion.

Fluoride works by converting the outer layer of tooth enamel made of hydroxylapatite, Ca5(PO4)3OH, to fluoroapatite, Ca5(PO4)3F. The latter chemical is less soluble in acidic solutions. The three most commonly added fluoride chemicals are sodium fluoride, fluorosilicic acid, and sodium fluorosilicate.[1] Fluorosilicic acid is a byproduct of phosphate fertilizer manufacture, a fact which fluoride opponents repeat ad absurdum in an attempt to scare you.

Contents

[edit] History of fluoridation

There are three periods concerning the history of water fluoridation:

  1. Before 1933, the study of mottled tooth enamel, later known as fluorosis.[2]
  2. From 1933 to 1945, the study of the relationship between fluorine and tooth decay. (No, not in Nazi Germany.[3])
  3. From 1945 onward, which focused on deployment of water fluorides, creating pretty rainbows in garden sprinklers ...which definitely weren't there before and certainly are not caused by the refraction of light.

In the United States, the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) of 1974 confers the authority for ensuring the safety of public drinking water to the Environmental Protection Agency.[4]

[edit] Arguments for fluoridation

Centralized fluoridation is a safe, simple, and effective way to improve the dental health of the population at large (especially children in the candy cavity-prone years). It is also extremely cost-effective: one study estimated that for every $1 a city invested in fluoridation it saved the average citizen (with a mean dental health cost) $38 on dental care.[5] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers water fluoridation to be one of the top 10 public health advances of the 20th century.[6] The American Dental Association "unreservedly endorses the fluoridation of community water supplies as safe, effective and necessary in preventing tooth decay."[7] The World Health Organization states that "fluoridation of water supplies, where possible, is the most effective public health measure for the prevention of dental decay."[8]

Having been around for 70-odd years and having been the focus of much research, water fluoridation has literally been studied to death (the number of studies seem to peak around the late 1960s followed by a general decline[9]). Arguments along the lines of "the jury is out" or "the science is incomplete" are wrong. Thousands of studies and years of actual implementation have not upset the scientific consensus.

[edit] Arguments against fluoridation

Most of the arguments against fluoridation are based on ethical and moral issues, namely that water fluoridation is medicating large numbers of people without their explicit consent. Despite fluoride naturally occurring in food and water,[10] a common argument against it is the appeal to nature. Most health effect arguments against water fluoridation (such as toxicity and mottled teeth) base their assumptions on much higher doses of fluoride than are allowed in tap water and the excessive cherry-picking of studies. Additional studies on links between fluoride and cancer, and fluoride and bone fractures have been shown to be invalid.[11] Other arguments are based on the false assumption that if fluoridation worked, there would be no tooth decay.

The favourite adverse effect of the anti-fluoride crowd, dental fluorosis, is a scary-sounding but rather benign condition in which the teeth become slightly stained. It is a purely cosmetic issue that does not lead to tooth decay, whereas removing fluoride from water does. In all but the most severe cases, the mottling is barely noticeable, and it's only significant in children whose teeth have not finished developing. (By comparison, drinking a lot of coffee or tea can also make your teeth yellow, though this is reversible.) Dental fluorosis is a potential risk but is not problematic if the dosage is controlled.

[edit] Some prominent figures against fluoridation

[edit] Conspiracy theories

Impurifying your precious bodily fluids for more than half a century.
"Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?"
—General Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove, shortly before blowing the world to kingdom come

Water fluoridation as a commie plot started among the wingnut paranoids during the Cold War, most notably the John Birch Society. The conspiracy theory gained currency among far-left moonbats after it mutated in the early 1990s into a plot by the aluminium industry to dispose of their fluoride wastes by dumping them into the water supply for profit.[15] The implication that Big Pharma is out to poison you and that the scientific consensus is proof of a massive world-wide conspiracy of scientists/dentists makes reasoning with conspiracy theorists particularly difficult.

[edit] Stop reading the data wrong

[edit] 2006 National Research Council Review of Fluoridation in Drinking Water

In 2006 the National Research Council published a review of the EPA's drinking water standard for fluoride.[16] The report noted potential negative effects due to fluoridation, including cognitive impairment, impaired thyroid functioning, and increases in bone fractures, in addition to the fluorosis of children's teeth. The NRC called for a reduction of the EPA's limit of 4.0 mg/L of fluoride in drinking water.

It should be noted that this was a much higher standard than the recommended levels for water fluoridation (targeting levels from 0.7 to 1.2 mg/L).

[edit] 2012 Harvard study

In 2012, some news organizations[17] transmitted a press release by the "NYS Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc." which suggested that a 2012 Harvard meta-study of studies on the effects of water fluoridation and child IQs found "significantly lower IQ" in children. What a ghastly thing to see coming from real scientists, doing real science!

However, if you actually read the paper and look at Table 1, the study compared children in areas with recommended levels of fluoride in water — the same levels that are introduced in the process of water fluoridation (0.5 to 1.5 mg/L) — to children in areas with high fluoride levels (above 1.5 mg/L). In other words, and yet again, this paper documents the risks of chronic fluoride toxicity, not water fluoridation.

In 2014, a study conducted in New Zealand examined the relationship between fluoridation and IQ directly on a cohort of people born in Dunedin in the 1970s. It found no statistically significant link. The authors suggest that the earlier Harvard study might have been affected by confounding variables, especially urban or rural status.[18]

[edit] Portland, Oregon

Since widespread community water fluoridation began in earnest in the 1940s in the United States, one last bastion of hope for modern anti-fluoridationists has been the city of Portland, Oregon. As of 2014, it is the last of the largest metropolitan cities in the United States to remain unfluoridated,[19] despite four popular vote attempts to add the *ahem* chemical.[20]

[edit] A word of advice

If you're the type of person who freaks out about the fluoride in the water supply, it is advised that you never drink tea; this is because the tea plant — both black or green — is exceptionally good at soaking up fluoride in its soil.[21] If you're sane, then well, drinking tea without sugar is a good way to improve your dental hygiene because of its high fluoride concentration. People in China commonly used to brush their teeth with tea as an alternative, though their teeth were still significantly worse off than those of the modern toothpaste user.[22]

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Water Fluoridation: A Manual For Engineers and Technicians, CDC
  2. See the Wikipedia article on History of water fluoridation.
  3. Truth about fluoride doesn't include Nazi myth, PolitiFact
  4. Basic Information about Fluoride in Drinking Water, EPA
  5. Do cities really save $38 for every $1 they spend on fluoridation?, PolitiFact
  6. Here, here, here and here
  7. What the National and International Experts Say About Water Fluoridation, Ontario Dental Association
  8. Water Fluoridation, WHO
  9. PubMed has over six thousand citations to studies regarding water fluoridation, and this is by no means a complete registry of every study ever done.
  10. Naturally occurring hazards: Fluoride, WHO
  11. Review of Fluoride: Benefits and Risks, US Department of Health and Human Services
  12. "Ralph Nader on Water Fluoridation" (Sigh)
  13. "Water fluoridation DEFEATED in Portland"
  14. Ludwik Gross, a Trailblazer in Cancer Research, Dies at 94, The New York Times
  15. Fluoridation of water, The Skeptic's Dictionary
  16. Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA's Standards, National Research Council
  17. What the fuck is wrong with you, Reuters?
  18. Community Water Fluoridation and Intelligence: Prospective Study in New Zealand, American Journal of Public Health
  19. Water Fluoridation Status of the 50 Largest Cities in the United States, Wisconsin Dental Association (San Jose, which ranks above Portland in population, was unfluoridated until 2012.)
  20. Why Portland Is Wrong About Water Fluoridation, Scientific American
  21. Do fluoride levels in cheap tea pose a health risk?, NHS
  22. Concerns over China's teeth, BBC
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Community
Tools
support