Like Israel, U.S. Should Ban Fluoride Amid Health Concerns (as well as the UK)

Thyroid Dysfunction, Fibromyalgia & Neurotoxicity 
Top List of Adverse Effects From Fluoride

By Jason Uttley
April 21, 2015
 email: jason_uttley@outlook.com

Nearly half a century after Minnesota passed legislation requiring the addition of fluoride to municipal water supplies, fluoride is under fire due to health concerns.[1]  Evidence that the additive is not only a contributor to the epidemic of thyroid dysfunction, but also a likely neurotoxin linked to a range of conditions associated with cognitive impairment, has come as a shock, even to members of the scientific community who have reviewed the growing research.[2] On Aug. 26, 2014, faced with such disturbing evidence, Israel’s Health Minister Yael German ordered an end to the practice of water fluoridation.[3] While German has been criticized for her decisive action, the move comes as little surprise to the handful of experts in the U.S. who have been aware of the dangers associated with fluoride for years.

Reversing course on water fluoridation

Despite safety assurances from the American Dental Association (ADA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who have long advocated dumping fluoride into the water supply in the interest of dental health, new studies have made it hard to deny the evidence of long-term damage from fluoride ingestion.

Studies that showed lower IQ levels in children exposed to too much fluoride received little attention initially, even as additional research demonstrated a gradual build-up of fluoride in specific areas of the brain.[4] [5] [6] That changed when the Head of Neurotoxicology at the one of America’s most prestigious dental research facilities, the Harvard-affiliated Forsyth Institute, confirmed that cognitive impairment from fluoride appears very real indeed.[7]

By the time investigative journalist Christopher Bryson brought the story of neurotoxicologist Dr. Phyllis Mullenix into the public eye, with his 2004 book The Fluoride Deception, U.S. scientists had already uncovered similar studies that pointed to the same disturbing conclusion.[8] [9] The EPA confirmed that even at the so-called “optimal” level of 1 part per million — a concentration widely accepted for water fluoridation programs in most states — the cumulative effect of fluoride on humans is deleterious, at times resulting in brain and kidney damage.[10]

As with the majority of Americans, most officials failed to take the issue seriously at first due to decades of promotion that had convinced nearly everyone that fluoride had been proven safe to swallow.  Massive marketing campaigns by the ADA, CDC and others equated fluoride opposition to quackery and conspiracy theories, which in-turn were messages reinforced by a media whose health stories have long been generated by a handful of journalists overly reliant on talking points provided by public health officials.  

Those charged with reviewing the emerging evidence were among the first to realize that both the scientific community and general public had been profoundly misled regarding the safety of fluoride.  As health officials slowly began to accept the evidence presented by their own scientists, they faced the daunting task of overcoming public perception, which their predecessors and colleagues had helped shape.

Ending fluoridation with no reason would inevitably trigger an avalanche of criticism not only from the dental community with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, but from the media and public as well. On the other hand, completely revealing the full extent of scientific concerns might not only trigger widespread outrage, but a profound loss of trust in the institutions responsible.  Health officials on opposite sides of the Atlantic decided to address this catch-22 scenario in very different ways.

Israel’s Health Minister German decided, in the fall of 2014, to be relatively forthcoming about some of the growing concerns when she implemented the recommendation of scientists by fully halting fluoridation.  By contrast, U.S. Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius decided, in the winter of 2011, on a much less transparent approach..........................................