Fluoride paranoia: A toothless argument

Look out, folks, our collective health here in Columbia is in dire danger from fluoride in our water.

At this very second, fluoride is busy in your body damaging your kidneys and thyroid, harming your babies and kids, lowering testosterone in men and polluting our environment.

It also lowers IQ, and since I personally drink quite a bit of Columbia’s water, this article will devolve into a “Dick and Jane” story by the time it’s written.

At least that is the charge by Karyn French in “Five things residents should consider about fluoride” in Wednesday’s edition of The Daily Herald (Sept. 18). Outlandish scare tactics are nothing new, and neither is mass hysteria. When the city of Cleveland announced it was fluoridating its water back on June 1, 1956, strange phone calls to the city ensued. Callers insisted their goldfish had died, their houseplants wilted when watered, their coffee tasted strange or even that their dog was constipated.

The public backlash was beginning when it was discovered, to the embarrassment of those complaining, that last-minute technical problems had delayed the fluoridation project until July.

Lets take a closer look at some of the charges in that letter to the editor:

1. “Fluoride is a toxic chemical that doesn’t belong in our water.” Fluoride occurs naturally in much of our fresh water here in the United States. Back in our grandparents’ day, folks noticed that many people in Texas had stained-looking teeth that were curiously impervious to tooth decay. The phenomenon became known as “Texas teeth.” After ruling out coffee, tea, etc., a doctor by the name of Frederick S. McKay eventually discovered the cause in 1931 — naturally occurring fluoride in the water supply. The Public Health Service then investigated the phenomenon, and it was eventually determined that a low dose (1 part per million) of fluoride would help prevent tooth decay without the staining.

An important point to remember here is that absolutely everything is made out of chemicals. What makes a particular one “toxic” is the dose. Pure water itself is a chemical (H2O) and is indeed toxic if you drink gallon after gallon of it successively — some people have died doing that. Oxygen is a chemical which is toxic in its pure form — underwater divers breathe a blend.

2. “Fluoride damages your health — kidneys, thyroid, cancer, etc.” More than 50 epidemiological studies have been done since 1945 in the U.S., Japan, United Kingdom and Australia — and none of them found any correlation between fluoride and cancer.

One study was done to determine if fluoride affected the size and shape of the thyroid over a 10-year period; no correlation found. Two more studies were done concerning cancer and the thyroid — no correlation found.

In 1993, the National Research Council issued a report stating that it would take 12 times the current level of fluoride in our water to start seeing effects in the kidneys. The American Medical Association has found nothing of concern about fluoride in our water, but rather “urges state health departments to consider the value of requiring statewide fluoridation” (source: AMA website).

3. “Fluoride becomes a harmful pollutant when flushed in our toilets and sinks.” A study conducted under the Washington’s State Environmental Protection Act found no harmful environmental problems associated with fluoride in the water supply. The EPA finds no concern in fluoride, but rather stated “There exists no directly applicable scientific documentation of adverse medical effects of fluoride below 8 mg/liter” and “Fluoride in drinking water at levels about 1 ppm reduces the number of dental cavities.”

4. “Fluoride in drinking water does not decrease rates of tooth decay.” I really don’t know where this idea came from other than to label it an outright lie. Here is a quote from the U.S. Public Health Service: “Numerous studies, taken together, clearly establish a causal relationship between water fluoridation and the prevention of dental caries (cavities).” As a matter of fact, the fluoridation of the public water supply was hailed as one of the “Ten Great Public Health Achievements of the 20th century” by the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention). Literally thousands of studies have been done for more than 60 years, and all of them have found that fluoride helps prevent dental cavities, even in communities where brushing teeth with a fluoride toothpaste is the norm.

Consider the organizations that have publicly proclaimed their support for water fluoridation: The American Medical Organization, the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States Public Health Service, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Dental Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. All of these organizations, according to the scare tactics of conspiracy theorists, are trying to slowly poison the United States population with fluoride — for what purpose? Such mindless paranoia has been exposed by quackwatch (http://bit.ly/1gWk63H).

One of the favorite tactics of the conspiracy “true believers” concerning fluoride is to write letters to the editors of newspapers, since the scientific evidence is solidly against them. See Spot run. Let’s get real, folks.

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Stephen Rowland is a Columbia resident with a master of arts degree in Biblical Studies who writes on issues from a conservative, Christian viewpoint. E-mail him at mrstephenrowland@aol.com.