By Dr. Mercola
We are beginning to win the battle. The tide seems to have
turned as a major victory was achieved late last month when
Portland voted against fluoride
- thanks much in part to the national support they received.
Because of your support, I was able to help fund this effort
and took a few lumps in the media as self-serving, as I sell a
non-fluoride toothpaste. Desperate campaigns go to
desperate measures, making personal attacks the norm.
It would have been a dangerous victory for the CDC had they
won, Portland was a prime target as it is the largest
unfluoridated city in the US.
Fluoride, of course, is a toxic substance that is
biologically active in the human body. It accumulates in
sensitive tissues over time, wreaking havoc with enzymes, and
producing a number of serious adverse health effects —including
neurological and endocrine dysfunction. Fluoride should
never be ingested intentionally.
Yet despite the scientific evidence against the
practice, the United States lags far behind other nations in
acknowledging the mistake and ending this tragic “public health”
measure. As usual, the big lie must continue to protect
faith in long term public health policies and agencies.
As a result, individual communities around the US have taken
up the fight to end water fluoridation in their own local areas.
On many occasions, I’ve asked you to support such efforts and
today, I’m very pleased to report that the latest fight has
ended in victory. Your hard work to share this information
or contribute to the campaign proved essential, and I am so
proud and grateful to our motivated supporters.
Science and Integrity Wins in Portland, Oregon
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.
On May 21, Portland residents voted on whether or not to
fluoridate their unusually pristine water supply, with “No”
getting 61 percent of the votes.
It’s been a rocky ride for Portlanders who even had to fight
for the right to vote on the issue—for the fourth time!
Citizens had already voted 'no' on water fluoridation for
Portland in 1956, 1962, and 1980. But after more than a year of
secretive planning, fluoride lobbyists finally convinced the
Portland city council to begin fluoridating Portland's water
supplies. The decision was set to take effect by March 2014.
Luckily, the citizens of Portland stood together by gathering
enough signatures to force the decision to a vote yet again. As
reported by Fluoridealert.org1:
“'We are proud of our Portland colleagues who used
science and integrity to defeat fluoridation and the public
relations blitzkrieg that backed it,’ says Paul Connett,
PhD, FAN’s Executive Director.
... Fluoride chemicals are the only chemicals added
to public water for the purpose of medication. Most western
countries, including the vast majority of Europe, do not
fluoridate their water.
“Most of Portland’s media falsely reported that
fluoridation promoters had science on their side and that
opponents used emotion,” says Connett. ‘Those opposed did
their homework, relying on recent scientific findings from
the National Research Council (NRC) and Harvard that raise
serious questions about the safety of current fluoride
exposures.’
Six months ago, fluoridation was also rejected by voters in
Wichita, Kansas by a 20 percent margin. In April, Israel
announced it will end its mandatory fluoridation program, and
Ireland has proposed legislation2
that would make water fluoridation a criminal offense! Canada
has also seen a 25 percent drop in fluoridation programs over
the past five years as a result of increasing public awareness
about the associated dangers.
Coordinated Smear Campaign Lost Out to the Truth
Portland residents did face a very tough battle. The American
Dental Association (ADA), Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) and the PEW Charitable Trusts spent significant
time coordinating their lobbying efforts to the Portland City
Council, which eventually led to the Council unanimously voting
to force fluoridation chemicals on their citizens.
Fluoridation proponents
also spent close to $1 million on their propaganda efforts
leading up to the May 21 vote—four times the amount raised by
the anti-fluoridation campaign—which they used to flood Portland
with misleading ads and editorials touting fluoridation as “an
urgently needed tool for solving the dental crisis in the city’s
poor neighborhoods3.”
Portland was the largest non-fluoridated city in the US,
making it a major target for pro-fluoridation advocates.
Fortunately, they failed big time. Portland has now set the tone
for other cities’ campaigns to rid themselves of this toxic and
unnecessary chemical.
Proper diet, dental practices and access to mercury-free
dental services are the solutions to the problem of dental
cavities. Since we know that sugar causes cavities, perhaps if
the ADA, CDC, PEW and others really wanted the fluoride to go to
the right people, maybe they could lobby the junk food companies
to add fluoride to their soda and candies, opposed to
fluoridating drinking water. That would make more sense if you
believe fluoride can solve the problem of tooth decay, wouldn’t
it?
Water Fluoridation = Mass Medication Without Prescription
Fluoride is not a nutrient. And while there is
prescription-grade fluoride, the fluoride put into drinking
water is not a prescription drug but an industrial waste
product. However, it is put into the water as a "drug" to help
oral health, and it is done without the consent of those
receiving it. Even if you accepted the premise that it works
systemically, opposed to topically only, there is no
justification to force it on people under the premise of
slightly lowering tooth decay, as everyone has the option of
using it topically as a toothpaste if they so choose...
The fluoride chemical typically added to water is
hexafluorosilicic acid (HFSA), which is a byproduct of the
fertilizer industry. It is a hazardous material they cannot
easily dispose of. In fact, it’s illegal to dump it into rivers
and lakes or release the parent gases into the atmosphere. And
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 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... But dilution is not
the solution to pollution.
Fluoride Chemicals Also Pollute Drinking Water with Arsenic
A recent study also shows that 90 percent of toxic arsenic in
our tap water comes from fluoridation chemicals. As reported by
Living Green Magazine4:
“Industrial-grade fluoride chemicals added to US
public water supplies contain arsenic that the EPA
classifies as a human carcinogen. Switching to low-arsenic
pharmaceutical-grade fluoride will save society $1 billion
to $14 billion annually, according to research published in
Environmental Science & Policy, led by former EPA senior
scientists who are experts in chemical risk assessment,
reports the Fluoride Action Network (FAN).
Although never studied for safety or efficacy,
hydrofluorosilicic acid (HFSA) is added to public water
supplies as a purported cavity preventive. The
industry-funded group that regulates water additives, NSF
International5,
allows several toxins in HFSA, including arsenic.
We need to end this outdated practice. Adding
hexafluorosilicic acid to drinking water to prevent tooth decay
is based on politics, not 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.
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.
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. 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.
Why Water Fluoridation Is a Scam
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.
In his 2012 article Poison is Treatment—"Edward
Bernays and the Campaign to Fluoridate America"6,
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. The
oft-quoted phrase that water fluoridation is one of the greatest
public health achievements of the 20th
century was also created by a Public Relations firm,
not hard-core facts.
The Health Ramifications of Mass Medicating with Fluoride
Scientists from the EPA's National Health and Environmental
Effects Research Laboratory have classified fluoride as a
"chemical having substantial evidence of developmental
neurotoxicity,” and 25 studies have now reported an association
between fluoride exposure and
reduced IQ in children—including a recent
study out of Harvard, in which the authors noted:
“The results support the possibility of an adverse
effect of high fluoride exposure on children's
neurodevelopment.“
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.
Studies have shown fluoride toxicity can lead to the
wide-ranging problems listed below.
Increases lead absorption |
Disrupts collagen synthesis |
Hyperactivity and/or lethargy |
Crippling skeletal fluorosis and
bone fractures |
Genetic damage and cell death |
Increased tumor and cancer growth |
Disrupts immune system and inhibits antibody production |
Chronic fatigue |
Brain damage, and lowered IQ and dementia |
Gastrointestinal problems and kidney issues |
Arthritic symptoms |
Severe eye problems, including
blindness |
Impaired
thyroid function |
Weakened bones, and fatal
bone cancer (osteosarcoma) |
Inactivates 62 enzymes |
Muscle disorders |
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.
Congratulations on Keeping Portland’s Water Safe!
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.”
This is probably true, yet it’s shameful that the ADA, CDC
and other agencies would spend so much money trying to
coerce the continuation of this hazardous practice instead
of just yielding to the wishes of communities.
Clean pure water is a prerequisite to optimal health.
Industrial chemicals, drugs and other toxic additives really
have no place in our water supplies. So I urge you to join the
Fluoride Action Network’s efforts7
and your local anti-fluoridation movements in the US and Canada.
Please remember, people have been misled for generations - be
patient with your friends and families who have been improperly
educated about fluoridation chemicals. The tide is
turning, we are making a difference when we bring organic
consumers, environmentalists, and natural health advocates
together.
© Copyright 1997-2013 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.