North America's water fluoridation debate: Battleground Austin

Dees Illustration

NaturalNews

As a result of a year-long public outcry against water fluoridation in Austin, TX, the City Council held its second public meeting on the issue May 18, which attracted a standing-room only crowd.

Water fluoridation is a policy endorsed by numerous global health organizations, most notably the American Dental Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Controversy surrounding the practice has grown in recent years, however, as an increasing number of scientists and health professionals argue that fluoride in drinking water causes many negative health effects, especially when looked at beyond dental health to the impact on the whole body.

(City of Austin water policy concern grows) 

Areas in the U.S. and Canada, most recently Calgary with 1.1 million people, have already stopped fluoridation and U.S. cities such as Austin, Denver, CO and Boulder, CO, which are considering the fluoridation issue currently, may follow suit. This could cause a domino effect across North America and bring water fluoridation to a halt permanently, according to Fluoride Action Network Executive Director Dr. Paul Connett, who attended Austin's meeting.

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Are my young children getting too much fluoride?

Editor Note:  The "corporate media" finally admits, under increasing exposure in the alternative media, that the addition of sodium fluoride to our drinking water is dangerous.  Unfortunately, they stop short of telling their viewers the full truth.  Additives, toxins, and other food poisons literally alter brain chemistry to create docility and apathy.  Fluoride in drinking water has been proven to lower IQ; Aspartame and MSG are excitotoxins which excite brain cells until they die; and easy access to the fast food that contains these poisons generally has created a population that lacks focus and motivation for any type of active lifestyle.  Most of the modern world is perfectly groomed for passive receptiveness -- and acceptance -- of the dictatorial elite.  And if you choose to diligently watch your diet, they are fully prepared to spray the population.

PLEASE TAKE  TIME TO READ THE RELATED ARTICLES SECTION BELOW.

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Could your youngster be getting too much fluoride? U.S. health officials think some young kids might be. They want to change the recommended levels of fluoride in drinking water, primarily to prevent a condition called fluorosis.

Some questions and answers:

Q: What is fluorosis?

A: It's a dental condition that can result from consuming too much of the mineral fluoride. It mostly results in tiny white flecks or streaks on teeth. In extreme cases, it causes discoloration and pitting of the tooth enamel.

Q: Who can get it?

A: Only children under 8. That's when permanent teeth are developing under the gums. Once those teeth emerge, the enamel is no longer susceptible to fluorosis.

Q: Is it serious?

A: In most cases, no. The majority of cases are mild, and barely noticeable. But it has become more common. An estimated 41 percent of kids 12 to 15 have it. It's a cosmetic condition and can be treated with whitening or other procedures.

Q: How do you get too much fluoride?

A: Water, soft drinks and juices are the main source of fluoride in the United States, according to health officials. Some water supplies contain natural fluoride; it's added to the drinking water in many communities to prevent tooth decay. Other sources are toothpaste, mouthwashes, gels and supplements.

Q: Are there ways to prevent fluorosis?

A: Read the toothpaste label and limit the amount of toothpaste used by kids under 6. They should only use a pea-sized amount. Watch them brush and make sure they spit out the toothpaste — not swallow it.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends consulting a dentist before using fluoride toothpaste for a child younger than 2.

Check the fluoride level in your water supply. Public water systems are required to provide annual reports that include fluoride levels. Check their website or the CDC's My Water's Fluoride at http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/MWF/Index.asp

Health officials say if the level is above 2 milligrams per liter, consider other sources of drinking water for young children. If there isn't enough, fluoride supplements might be considered.

___

Online:

CDC: http://tinyurl.com/2ep8743

Fluorosis: http://tinyurl.com/fluorosis

http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/MWF/Index.asp

http://tinyurl.com/2ep8743

http://tinyurl.com/fluorosis

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Report: Harmful chemical found in tap water of 31 U.S. cities

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Study: Toxin Found in 31 of 35 U.S. Cities’ Tap Water (VIDEO)

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A study from the nonprofit Environmental Working Group found carcinogenic chromium-6 in 31 U.S. cities.

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Report: Harmful chemical found in tap water of 31 U.S. cities

Millions of Americans in at least 31 U.S. cities could be drinking tap water contaminated with the harmful chemical hexavalent chromium, according to a report released Monday by the non-profit Environmental Working Group.

While the dangerous carcinogen, otherwise known as chromium-6, may sound foreign to most people, perhaps the name Erin Brockovich will ring a bell.

After chromium-6 was discovered in the water supply of Hinkley, California, Brockovich helped bring about a lawsuit that ultimately ended in 1996 with the utility company, Pacific Gas & Electric, paying more than $330 million in damages.  Norman, Oklahoma; Honolulu, Hawaii; and Riverside, California, top the non-profit organization's list of cities with water supplies contaminated by chromium-6.

The Environmental Protection Agency has classified the toxin as a carcinogen to humans if it is inhaled.  The EPA is proposing to classify it as "likely to be carcinogenic to humans" if ingested as part of a risk assessment the agency is currently conducting. The agency says water utilities are required to test for total chromium levels in the water but not explicitly for chromium-6. Chromium-6 is a natural byproduct of total chromium.

"In order to protect people's health, EPA has had drinking water standards for total chromium, which includes chromium-6," the agency said in a statement to CNN. "When this scientific assessment is finalized in 2011, EPA will carefully review the conclusions and consider all relevant information, including the Environmental Working Group's study, to determine if a new standard needs to be set."

"I was expecting to find hexavalent chromium in some of the cities we checked, but I didn't expect it to be so widespread," said Rebecca Sutton, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group and the lead author of the study.

Sutton said there is a well-documented corollary between exposure to chromium-6 and a greater risk of stomach cancer in humans. Additionally, there is ample animal evidence showing a broad risk of gastrointestinal tumors in rats and mice exposed to the toxin, she said.

Worse, skipping tap water in favor of bottled water does not guarantee you'll be protected.

"Bottled water is not necessarily any safer than tap water," said Sutton. "We just don't have any guarantee that hexavalent chromium isn't in that water."

So how can you protect yourself? Sutton says your best bet is buying an effective water filter.

"Getting the water filter is a great way to protect yourself and your family," says Sutton. "It's a step you can take yourself; you don't have to wait for government action."

Samples from the test provided a "one-time snapshot" of water systems that serve 26 million people, the Environmental Working Group said. But the organization said the results show that more federal regulation of the cancer-causing chemical is needed.

The National Toxicology Program has said that chromium-6 in drinking water shows "clear evidence of carcinogenic activity."

California's state environmental agency has proposed capping levels of the chemical in drinking water at 0.06 parts per billion. The Environmental Working Group said 25 of the cities it tested showed exceeded that level.

To conduct its test, the organization said it recruited volunteers in 35 cities to collect tap water samples "from unfiltered taps in homes or in public buildings such as hospitals, libraries and malls," the report said.

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Fluoride in Water Linked to Lower IQ in Children

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Fluoride in Water Linked to Lower IQ in Children

Is this the end of water fluoridation?

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NEW YORK-- Exposure to fluoride may lower children's intelligence says a study pre-published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a publication of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (online December 17, 2010).

Fluoride is added to 70% of U.S. public drinking water supplies.

According to Paul Connett, Ph.D., director of the Fluoride Action Network, "This is the 24th study that has found this association, but this study is stronger than the rest because the authors have controlled for key confounding variables and in addition to correlating lowered IQ with levels of fluoride in the water, the authors found a correlation between lowered IQ and fluoride levels in children's blood. This brings us closer to a cause and effect relationship between fluoride exposure and brain damage in children."

"What is also striking is that the levels of the fluoride in the community where the lowered IQs were recorded were lower than the EPA's so-called 'safe' drinking water standard for fluoride of 4 ppm and far too close for comfort to the levels used in artificial fluoridation programs (0.7 – 1.2 ppm)," says Connett.


In this study, 512 children aged 8-13 years in two Chinese villages were studied and tested – Wamaio with an average of 2.47 mg/L water fluoride (range 0.57-4.50 mg/L) and Xinhuai averaging 0.36 mg/L (range 0.18-0.76 mg/L).

The authors eliminated both lead exposure and iodine deficiency as possible causes for the lowered IQs. They also excluded any children who had a history of brain disease or head injury and none drank brick tea, known to contain high fluoride levels. Neither village is exposed to fluoride pollution from burning coal or other industrial sources.

About 28% of the children in the low-fluoride area scored as bright, normal or higher intelligence compared to only 8% in the "high" fluoride area of Wamaio.

In the high-fluoride city, 15% had scores indicating mental retardation and only 6% in the low-fluoride city. The study authors write: "In this study we found a significant dose-response relation between fluoride level in serum and children's IQ."

In addition to this study, and the 23 other IQ studies, there have been over 100 animal studies linking fluoride to brain damage (all the IQ and animal brain studies are listed in Appendix 1 in The Case Against Fluoride available online athttp://fluoridealert.org/caseagainstfluoride.appendices.html).

One of the earliest animal studies of fluoride's impact on the brain was published in the U.S. This study by Mullenix et. al (1995) led to the firing of the lead author by the Forsyth Dental Center. "This sent a clear message to other researchers in the U.S. that it was not good for their careers to look into the health effects of fluoride – particularly on the brain," says Connett.

Connett adds, "The result is that while the issue of fluoride's impact on IQ is being aggressively pursued around the world, practically no work has been done in the U.S. or other fluoridating countries to repeat their findings. Sadly, health agencies in fluoridated countries seem to be more intent on protecting the fluoridation program than protecting children's brains."

When the National Research Council of the National Academies reviewed this topic in their 507-page report "Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Review of EPA's Standards" published in 2006, only 5 of the 24 IQ studies were available in English. Even so the panel found the link between fluoride exposure and lowered IQ both consistent and "plausible."

According to Tara Blank, Ph.D., the Science and Health Officer for the Fluoride Action Network, "This should be the study that finally ends water fluoridation. Millions of American children are being exposed unnecessarily to this neurotoxin on a daily basis. Who in their right minds would risk lowering their child's intelligence in order to reduce a small amount of tooth decay, for which the evidence is very weak." (see The Case Against Fluoride, Chelsea Green, October 2010).

SOURCE Fluoride Action Network

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The Case Against Fluoride: Toxifying the Tap

Rady Ananda, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

In July of this year, the United Nations declared access to clean water a human right. The United States was among 41 nations that abstained from supporting the resolution. Since October 15th is Blog for Water Day, a close inspection of a common US practice – fluoridating city water supplies – is in order.

The subject of water fluoridation has been controversial for decades, but a new book,The Case Against Fluoride, won the accolades of a Nobel Laureate:

Sweden rejected fluoridation in the 1970s and, in this excellent book, these three scientists have confirmed the wisdom of that decision. Our children have not suffered greater tooth decay, as World Health Organization figures attest, and in turn our citizens have not borne the other hazards fluoride may cause. In any case, since fluoride is readily available in toothpaste, you don’t have to force it on people.

 ~ Arvid Carlsson, Nobel Laureate in Medicine or Physiology (2000) and Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology, University of Gothenburg

Published on October 7th, The Case Against Fluoride: How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep It There, by Paul Connett, James Beck, and Spedding Micklem, warns that water fluoridation “receives no oversight from the Food and Drug Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency takes no responsibility for the practice.”

Carl Hays (a Booklist Online reviewer) also applauded the book:

On the eve of the new millennium, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), listed water fluoridation as one of the twentieth-century’s 10 greatest public-health achievements. Yet according to the authors of this painstakingly researched expose of fluoridation’s overall ineffectiveness and toxicity, endorsements such as these from the CDC and other health organizations are motivated more by face-saving politics than credible research.

Fluoridation advocates who have previously branded detractors as conspiracy theorists and shills for junk science will be hard pressed to debunk the hundreds of peer-reviewed studies and sound scientific reasoning presented here.

In March of this year, the issue again made news when workers in the Amesbury, Massachusetts water plant found that the bags of fluoride the city had bought from China contained an unknown, non-soluble substance. It comprised 40% of the product.

This month, the video caught the attention of bloggers who focused on the warning label on the sodium fluoride bag seen in the video:

TARGET ORGANS: Heart, Kidneys, Bones, Central Nervous System, Gastrointestinal System, Teeth. Do not get in eyes or on skin. Do not ingest or inhale.

Why are they putting this in our water?

Many scientists oppose adding such a toxic substance to our main drinking supply, yet powerful forces keep our water fluoridated. A short 30-minute film, Professional Perspectives on Water Fluoridation, provides some chilling information.

Even assuming that the given reason for fluoridating our water – to prevent tooth decay – is legitimate, pharmacologists, toxicologists, dentists, and medical doctors explain how mass drugging a population violates medical ethics since it lacks informed consent.

Among the 2,000-plus professionals who call for the ban of this practice, Dr Carlsson states: “It’s absolutely obsolete.” Modern pharmacology recognizes that individuals react differently to the same dosage of a given drug.

“Now in this case, you have it in the water and people are drinking different amounts of water. So, you have huge variations in the consumption.”

Dr Phyllis Mullenix concurs. “The whole name of the game [of pharmacology] is to deliver the right dose to the right person at the right time. And that’s not what fluoridation does.”

Any benefit from fluoride on teeth is only topical. As one scientist put it, “If you want to prevent sunburn, you don’t drink suntan lotion. You put it on your skin.”

Yet, fluoridated municipal water exposes our internal organs to a toxic substance. Children are especially vulnerable, because the blood-brain barrier is not fully developed. Fluoride lowers intelligence. One in three US adults has arthritis, which is a symptom of skeletal fluorosis.  Fluoride also causes depression and lethargy, they report.

The World Health Organization advised that a third of US children suffer from dental fluorosis caused by too much fluoride intake. 

Professionals in the film also cite a 2006 report by the National Research Council, which urges the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce the maximum amount of fluoride allowed in drinking water.

In the Amesbury news report, we saw bags of sodium chloride. But the form of fluoride added to most municipal water supplies is hexafluorosilicic acid, a waste product of the agricultural phosphate industry. It is not pharmaceutical grade sodium fluoride.

Both the book, The Case Against Fluoride, and the film, Professional Perspectives on Water Fluoridation, provide citizens with sound science to use when demanding that city officials end this “unethical, unnecessary, ineffective and dangerous” practice.

Meanwhile, fluoride filtration systems can be purchased for home installation, ranging from around $50 a year to several hundred dollars.

For more information, see www.FluorideAlert.org.

Rady Ananda’s work has appeared in several online and print publications. She holds a B.S. in Natural Resources from The Ohio State University’s School of Agriculture. Using years of editorial experience and web publishing, Rady now promotes the ideas and work of a select group of quality writers and artists at Food Freedom and COTO Report. 

  
Other Articles by Rady Ananda  
Alien Forest, Alien Ocean, Alien Sky
"Troubled Waters" Overcomes Censor Troubles; More Must-see Ag Films 

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