Despite dental pressure, Germany, Finland, Austria, China, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Hungary, Belgium and the Netherlands have rejected fluoride due to health, legal, environmental and ethical related concerns. Currently about 5% of the world population is fluoridated and more than 50% of these people live in North America. The Danish Minister of Environment recommended against fluoridation in 1977 because ‘no adequate studies had been carried out on its long-term effects on human organ systems other than teeth and because not enough studies had been done on the effects of fluoride discharges on freshwater ecosystems’.
So If fluoride really is the panacea for dental disease that it’s been portrayed as, then why are New Zealand and the United States two of the only developed countries still adding it to drinking water? It’s clearly not because other countries haven’t caught up with fluoride’s ‘miracle’ effect for your teeth. Many European nations have rejected fluoride just for the reason that delivering ‘medication’ via the water supply would be inappropriate. Water fluoridation is a form of mass medication, and it denies you the right to informed consent.
‘It works by stopping/reversing the tooth decay process— keeping tooth enamel strong and solid. When a person eats sugar and other refined carbohydrates, the bacteria produces acid that removes minerals from the surface of the tooth. So fluoride helps to remineralise tooth surfaces and prevents cavities from forming.’
– Centres for Disease Control and Prevention
This information taken from a US government website, tells us that fluoride is fantastic. How do these officials substantiate their claims once you ignore their important URLs? We like to believe it’s not just a bunch of easily rigged, measly statistics. When most ‘credible’ sources praise fluoride, it becomes very difficult to separate truth from rumour. I ask you to open up to a possibly bad truth, read carefully and then decide for yourself. Based on self-conducted investigative research, this is my personal verdict regarding fluoride.
Contrary to popular belief, fluoride added to the Wellington water is not a pharmaceutical grade substance, rather a noxious waste from factories, putting this substance in category 4 of the hazardous materials scale. Sodium fluoride, sodium silicofluoride and fluorosilicic acid are all used in dental practices, toothpastes and water fluoridation. They are waste by-products from the fertiliser, nuclear and metallic industry, captured in air pollution control devices. These artificial substances should not be confused with the naturally occurring fluoride element. This extremely toxic, hazardous chemical is illegal to dump and would cost companies a hefty price tag to properly dispose of it. Instead, the waste is sold to gullible cities and towns like our own, where they are then legally dumped into water supplies. Nice.
So to be clear, what you ingest through your tap water and brush on your teeth isn’t an element from the earth, rather one from the scrubbings of a chimney. I do understand that this is a rarely discussed fact. Because of this, when I refer to the ‘fluoride’ in water, it will be in quotations befitting these artificial substances.
Even if you’re a fluoride supporter, you can agree that you’re only consuming fluoride in order to maintain your dental health. But it’s highly possible these substances are partially accountable for some everyday health issues.According to a 500-page scientific review, fluorosilicic acid is an endocrine disruptor, which can affect your bones, brain, thyroid, pineal gland and your blood sugar levels. A topical application would be much more ‘effective’ for your teeth, a method already being used in toothpaste, which we’re actually told you spit out. There is no possible good that this chemical is doing once it enters the other areas of your body.
What further concerns me about the said benefits of fluoride, is that about 40 percent of American teens have dental fluorosis, a condition that refers to changes in the appearance of tooth enamel, caused by long-term ingestion of fluoride during the time teeth are forming. In some areas, fluorosis rates are as high as 70-80 percent, with some children suffering from advanced forms.
So It’s likely a sign that children are receiving large amounts of fluoride from multiple sources, including not only drinking water but fluoride toothpaste, processed beverages/foods, fluoride pesticides, tea, non-stick pans and fluorinated drugs. Not only do we need to address the issue of fluoridated water, but also how this exposure is magnified by other sources of fluoride that are now common due to factories who use the water.
Research comparing countries without fluoridation to places like the United States show the condition of children’s teeth declining at relatively similar levels, indicating that diet and lifestyle may be equally detrimental to dental health. Fluoridation may not be a factor at all.
It’s very important to understand that dental fluorosis is not just cosmetic. It can also be an indication that the rest of your body, like your bones, internal organs and your brain have also been overexposed to fluoride. So in other words, if sodium fluoride is having a visually detrimental effect on the surface of your teeth, you can be virtually guaranteed that it’s also damaging other parts of your body.
Infants who consume formula mixed with fluoridated tap water may consume up to 1,200 micrograms of fluoride, about 100 times more than the recommended amount. Such ‘spikes’ of fluoride exposure during infancy provide no known advantage to teeth, and has been linked to lowered IQ scores. A Harvard University meta-analysis concluded that children who live in areas with highly fluoridated water have ‘significantly lower’ IQ scores than those who live in low fluoride areas. Is it all that surprising that brain function is hindered by the consumption of an extremely hazardous substance? Most prominent dental researchers now advise that parents should not add fluoridated water to baby formula.
This brings me to my final contention, and it concerns the brain. In the 1990s, a British scientist discovered that the fluoride we ingest ends up accumulating at strikingly high levels in the pineal gland. It’s located between the two hemispheres of the brain, responsible for the synthesis and secretion of the hormone melatonin. Melatonin maintains the body’s sleep-wake cycle, regulates a female’s onset of puberty and helps protect from cell damage caused by free radicals. A calcified gland/deficiency of melatonin, is suggested to cause premature sexual development, cases of insomnia, cancer, Alzheimer’s and mental disorders such as bipolar and ADHD-like symptoms, and considering its effect on neurotransmitters, it’s also quite conceivable that it might promote depression and other neurological disorders. Dictators of our not so recent past have been known to use sodium fluoride to pacify their subjects, resulting in more submissive and less aggressive humans – Google it. A scary thought.
Sodium fluoride might just be to blame for the rampant calcification of the pineal gland- to those who always wonder why New Zealand is so apathetic.
So fluoricilic acid, or whatever you deem it to be, is delivered to your water supply at the recommended dose 0.7 milligrams per liter. But you don’t know what to do about it. If you don’t want fluoride in your water, it’s extremely costly to remove it with pricey filters. But for those who do want fluoride, well they could choose to buy a tube of toothpaste on special for $1.30. We all pay rates for this water to be delivered to our homes, but for those of us not satisfied with fluoride, we’re additionally forced to purchase expensive filters or bottled water, just to eliminate what should never have been added in the first place. Can every family financially obtain these luxury appliances? No, and they shouldn’t have to.
I oppose fluoridation because it is mass medication, and our government denied me my right to choose.
Now it’s important that you decide. Is water fluoridation a political and medical absurdity?
Written By V.R
Images attached to this article
