DENTISTRY DEBATE

Dentistry - 21 March 2002.

Water fluoridation: Health benefit or concern?

This Dentistry Debate takes a look at water fluoridation to consider the possible side effects.

Tony Lees, director of The National Pure Water Association, and Robert Pocock of the Irish movement against fluoridation of water supplies present the case against water fluoridation.

The truth behind water fluoridation

Much of the controversy regarding the safety of fluoridation arises from what evidence those who promote the practice of water fluoridation are prepared to accept.

A recent example can be found in the report on water fluoridation by the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at York University (CRD) (see www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/fluorid.htm).

Whilst concluding that after 50 years of water fluoridation the science behind the theory is uniformly poor, the CRD inexplicably failed to scrutinise the nature of the fluoride chemical itself.

Virtually all of the research that has been used to promote fluoridation sidesteps the absolutely crucial fact that an industrial waste product, fluorosilicic acid, is used to fluoridate drinking water.

Typical of this attitude is the Irish Dental Health Foundation (IDHF) (www.dentalhealth.ie), with its information on fluoridation not only failing to declare that an industrial effluent is used to fluoridate Irish water but also implying that this pollutant is qualitatively the same as calcium fluoride (CaF2). As in Britain, so in Ireland, toxic fluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6) has been in use for years. This omission is particularly serious.

Firstly, the long term general effects of its ingestion have never been researched anywhere and, secondly, because the 1960 Health (Water Fluoridation Act), which made water fluoridation mandatory in Ireland, specifically required the Irish Health Minister to undertake this research. This research was never done (Irish Independent, 2000). The same is true in Britain; no research into the water fluoridation chemical has ever been done or, if it has, it has not been published.

Fluorosilicic acid is bioaccumulative. This acid is far more toxic than naturally occurring calcium fluoride (Roholm K, 1937). Over 30% is retained in the body, mainly in bone (Kick et al, 1935). Large bone retention levels are a very real cause for concern, especially because no tests on this product have ever been carried out as to whether there is a safe level of ingestion of this particular form of fluoride.

Fluorosilicic acid is not of pharmaceutical grade. The fluoride added to British and Irish drinking water is not pharmacologically tested or approved by any Government body (Irish Medicines Board letter to Dr D McAuley, 15 May 2000). Its other uses are in general industrial applications, such as electroplating (it etches glass), wood treatment and agricultural pesticide uses (supplier product information on www.coecant.es/derivadosdel nuor/english.htm).

It is a hazardous air pollutant and, according to supplier safety documentation, is known to damage tooth enamel and bone (Albatros Chemical Health & Data Safety Data Sheet Hydroflurosilic Acid, 6 June 1966 Rev O). This fluorosilicic acid is a waste product of fertiliser factory chimneys and is also contaminated with heavy metals such as arsenic and radio nucleides (Chemical analysis confidential report NOw8158-14.8.2000).

Recent research (www.npwa.freeserve.co.uk/mccormick_html) has shown that fluorosilicic acid is extremely volatile and bonds with a variety of minerals routinely detected in drinking water. Many Irish raw waters contain iron, to which water treatment plants add alum (aluminium) in the flocculation process but aluminium is known to complex with fluorides, thereby enhancing its ability to cross the blood/brain barrier (Varner et al). On leaving the treatment works the water may well travel through lead pipes, which have not yet been replaced in many parts of Ireland or Great Britain.

Fluoride/lead complexes give rise to concern alter the extensive research in the US where the same fluorosilicic chemical has been shown to cause higher blood levels of lead in children (Masters RD and Coplan MJ, 1999).

Fluoridated water transgresses basic drug safety. All drugs are normally expected to have a safety margin of one hundred. Fluoride safety exists on a mere four milligrams of fluoride per day. Any more than that risks permanent bone and ligament damage (Hodge HC, 1979), regardless of any other effects. In the fluoridated areas of Great Britain and Ireland, the average daily intake of fluoride is already more than four milligrams, which suggests that thousands of people are at permanent risk of skeletal damage (Mansfield P, 1997). Fluoridation clearly flouts standard drug safety procedures.

In Britain and Ireland, increasing numbers of dentists are becoming aware of this disturbing evidence. Surely we should pause to think that maybe there is a big down side to fluoride ingestion, whether it be from water, air, foods, pesticides or fertiliser residues and, yet increasingly, dental products.

No mention has been made of the moral argument as to whether Government or any other body has the right to add to our water supplies an industrial pollutant that has never been safety tested. It is time that even the dental profession take a stance against the obvious evil of mass medication with an untested cocktail of industrial waste products.

References

Groves B (2001) Fluoride: Drinking Ourselves to Death? p. 291, Gill & Macmillan, Sept 2001 (ISBN 0-7171-3274-9)

Hodge HC (1979) The safety of fluoride tablets or drops in continuing evaluation of the use of fluorides. American Association for the Advancement of Science, Boulder, USA

Kick et al (1935) Fluorine in animal nutrition. Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin 558: Nov. 61

Mansfield P (1997) We underestimate the damage done by fluorides. Irish Independent, 30 June 2001: Tapping into fury over fluoride.

Masters RD, Coplan MJ (1999) Water treatment with silicotluorides and lead toxicity. Intl. Journal of Environmental Studies 56: 435-449

Roholm K (1937) Fluorine Intoxication. Arnold Busck, Copenhagen

Varner et al. Studies on www.npwa.freeserve.co.uk

Fluoride in our water: Are we brushing with danger? Irish Independent, 29 March 2000