USA - Letter: Dentists no experts on fluoride

To the editor:

As a chemical broker for 50 years, and owning my own chemical company for the last 35 years, I’ve had regular contact with material safety data sheets (MSDS). An MSDS for sodium fluoride reads like this:

“Danger! Chronic inhalation and ingestion may cause chronic fluoride poisoning (fluorosis) characterized by weakness, anemia, brittle bones and stiff joints. Effects may be delayed. Chronic exposure to fluoride may cause systemic toxicity. Skeletal effects may include bone brittleness, joint stiffness, teeth discoloration, tendon calcification and osteosclerosis. Animal studies have reported the development of tumors.”

Don’t take my word for it, check it out for yourself. You can google MSDS for sodium fluoride on the Internet to find out what chemical companies are saying about their own products used for fluoridation.

We get slow, steady doses of this chemical over many years through water fluoridation, so it may take a while to catch up with us. But remember, sodium fluoride is a cumulative toxin, and builds up in your system over time. It’s a neurotoxin more lethal than lead and slightly less lethal than arsenic. It’s not something we should be adding to our water supply.

If you ask your dentist about it, they won’t tell you about the dangers. But then, for more than 150 years the ADA supported and promoted amalgam fillings, calling them “silver” fillings, although they contain less silver than mercury, also a deadly toxin. Now more than 50 percent of dentists are switching over to composite fillings, by popular demand. But it was the public who had to lead the dentists, not the other way around.

Eventually dentists may catch up with reality on fluoride as well. But until they do, remember they’re hardly in the vanguard of product safety.

Since I obviously have no financial interest in reducing fluoride sales, my main concern is for the long-term health and safety of children, the elderly, and everyone else. No matter what your dentist or your government says, fluoride is a dangerous toxin that builds up in the body over time. This isn’t a scare tactic, it’s the truth.

The dentists are the ones using scare tactics, claiming that children will get more cavities if fluoridation stops. Cessation studies prove that this claim has no basis in reality.

There’s a presentation at the Sawyer Free Library in the Friends Room on Thursday, Oct. 29, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., for those who want more information about fluoridation.

I hope that Gloucester voters will make the wise and healthy choice in November, and not allow themselves to be misled by dentists whose thinking is, once again, obsolete and behind the times.

Terry H. Collins

Rockport

This drew out our favourite commentator Dr Slott. Proves it must be threatening to the pro fluoride lobby.