by Lauren Ayers
It’s true that Yolo County kids suffer too much dental decay. Many agree that local government has a role to play in bringing that down. However, the Davis plan will not only fail in lowering dental decay but will harm children, adults, and the environment.
Instead of slapping fluorosilicic acid on the problem like a bandaid, we should get to the source of the problem – the tidal wave of sugar that inundates children every day. UCSF pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig, MD, explains in “The Bitter Truth” — three million hits on YouTube!
In the USDA breakfast and lunch program, 50 to 65% of the calories are from carbohydrates. Sugar is added to everything from applesauce to taco sauce because sugar hits the opiate receptors in the brain, making children addicts. Posters of veggies can’t make kids “Just Say No” to the sugar-added foods. It’s up to adults to get rid of sugary non-foods.
Lobbyists Rule In The Case Against Fluoride, Paul Connett, PhD, explains how the American Dental Association, one of the wealthiest lobbies in DC, influences political campaigns and public agencies with millions they receive from the huge chemical corporations that need to find a use for fluorosilicic acid, a byproduct from both aluminum smelting (Alcoa) and manufacturing phosphate fertilizer (Cargill).
Sugar companies also donate to the ADA and similar groups. In 1949 the Sugar Research Foundation proclaimed their mission: “to find out how tooth decay may be controlled effectively without restriction of sugar intake.” Coincidentally, a year later the U.S. Public Health Service endorsed fluoridation.
‘Our Way or the Highway’ From the ADA’s own website: “We met with the four commissioners individually…. After four months of intense scientific efforts, they each told us that they would not change their votes. So we moved into the political arena to help bring fluoridation back to Pinellas County.” In the election, two Democratic candidates beat Republican incumbents, thanks to the ADA. Remind you of the NRA’s tactics? (1)
Babies & Fish If fluoridation is so safe, why does the CDC and the ADA warn parents not to mix powdered baby formula in fluoridated water for children under six months? How can fluorosilicic acid be safe if it is more toxic than lead and almost as toxic as arsenic? (2) After sewage treatment, 99% of faucet water returns to the environment. Even fluoride at 0.2 mg/L can harm salmon (3); if fluoridation passes, Davis water would have 0.7 mg/L, three times as much!
The Hippocratic Oath & Liability Would any doctor say, “Here’s your prescription– take as much — or as little — as you want.” That would be malpractice! Which is another reason fluoridation could result in class action suits, as happened to Big Tobacco. Government agencies would be especially good targets because their safety standards should be the strictest. Police misconduct suits with just one or two victims have impoverished local governments; imagine the cost of guilty verdicts for harming all the county’s children!
Effective & Safe? Research shows that fluoride reduces cavities when applied topically, but not when ingested. Until recently, the state of California paid for any child’s topical fluoride treatment. Let’s get back to that option!
Proponents claim decay rates go down in fluoridated areas. But all around the world decay is dropping at the same rate in unfluoridated areas. Two towns side by side, one fluoridated and one not, have similar declines in decay. Ditto for European nations compared to American states. Why spend hundreds of thousands for something that is already happening?
In fact, while improving school food would take years, and free topical fluoride varnish might not come back soon, daily xylitol mints for every student could provide more protection from decay, at a far lower cost, than fluoridation. (4)
Grassroots efforts got rid of leaded gasoline, asbestos, trans fat, and DDT. Now let’s stop fluoridation, and, instead, make school food healthier.
Lauren Ayers is a former resident of Davis. A retired teacher, she chapter leader of the Sonoma County Chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation. See FluorideFreeSonomaCounty.org and WestonAPrice.org.
1. http://www.ADA.org/news/8002.aspx
2. www.fluoridedebate.com/question02.html
3. http://fluoridationfreeottawa.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/79/
4. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12693818
http://www.kansas.com/2012/10/14/2530169/letters-to-the-editor-on-neighborhood.html
“Grassroots efforts got rid of leaded gasoline, asbestos, trans fat, and DDT. Now let’s stop fluoridation, and, instead, make school food healthier.”
Grassroots efforts have indeed been helpful in environmental and other health related issues. Society, when shown enough verifiable evidence, has through changes in attitude made great strides in individual and public health improvements such as decreased smoking rates. However in each of these cases, citizens at the grass have taken positive steps to address
the problem rather than repetitively quoting studies that lack scientific validity and misrepresenting completely incomparable medical practices between countries and communities as evidence that fluoride is not beneficial in reduction of tooth decay. Please note that I said beneficial, not
A panacea or the only approach.
Much of Ms Ayers article implies that doctors are saying that fluoride is the only step that needs to be taken. Nothing could be further from the truth. At the vast majority of my appointments I discuss healthy eating practices with my patients. Nothing is more important to me as a doctor than prevention. So I find it very difficult to hear repetitively the incorrect assessment that fluoride is being promoted as a band aide. What the majority of the medical community is advocating for is one step in a comprehensive approach to addressing a common problem in a country in which there is tremendous resistance to viewing health care as a right that would strengthen not only individuals but the country as a whole.
Ms Ayers rightfully points out that “many agree that local government has a role to play in bringing that down” in reference to dental decay.
What she neglects to mention is that there are also a number of people who do not believe they should have to pay anything for any public health measures and are very vocal on these and other venues, grabbing arguments from the FAN site to bolster their position regardless of the validity of the findings.
When Ms Ayers and those who choose to speak out against fluoride propose a realistic, economically sustainable, proposal to provide dental care and or reduce the amount of sugary beverages and foods consumed, then, and only then will I be convinced that they are sincere in caring about Individual and community health rather than solely having an interest in blocking any possibility of having to pay for a public health measure.
If you are sincere, make a fleshed out realistic proposal which is actually supported by the people you would have implement it, and you would find that I would be a very enthusiastic supporter. But please don’t just sit back and repost canned insults and scare tactics regarding the
Hippocratic oath ( no longer taken by doctors for many years by the way) and liability.
Thank you, Lauren, for this thoughtful piece. It is encouraging to see the problem of sugar finally getting some attention in this discussion.
As I have said many times on this site, I believe it is going to take public policy to restrict the sales of sugar, especially sugary HFCS drinks, to children to begin to effect a change in dental disease and many other modern health problems. In this regard, Dr. Lustig has many innovative ideas in the public policy area, and the Davis City Council would be well advised to consult with him and other experts in this field to begin to formulate rational and effective policies to address these problems. To continue to focus on outdated and failed water fluoridation policies is to continue down the road of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and dental disease.
seems like there are a lot of substances that are safe at some levels but not others, and safe for some population classes but not others.
If we stop spending all this money and time in the public education system teaching all this racial and sensitivity crap, and instead focused on teaching real life skills like personal hygiene, good nutrition, how to balance a checkbook and complete a tax form, much of this macro social justice / social do-gooder bullcrap would go away.
I have ask you to quantify how much money are we spending on teaching “racial and sensitivity crap” and how many classes in Davis schools are devoted to it. Specific evidence and examples please.
Medwoman,
After reading 7 books and a huge number of articles on fluoridation, I have concluded that it’s neither safe nor effective. The best book I read is [b][i]Fluoridation: The Great Dilemma,[/i][/b] by George Waldbott, MD. It’s fully documented, and available as a free online download here: [url]http://www.whale.to/b/Waldbott_DILEMMA_ocr.pdf [/url] Dr. Waldbott treated some 500 patients who became seriously ill after their water supplies were fluoridated. One chapter of the book, “Illness from Artificially Fluoridated Water,” details some of their case histories (page 110).
Dr. Waldbott also provides a detailed description of the suppression of information about fluoride dangers within the medical community. A well-known allergist and the author of 130 articles BEFORE he became interested in fluoride, Dr. Waldbott suddenly found, when he began to write about his patients poisoned by fluoride, that no US medical journal would publish his work. An article about this corruption of science can be found here: [url]http://www.slweb.org/hileman4.html[/url]
Dr. Waldbott also reviews the history of the corporations that promoted and benefited from fluoridation and the scientific enterprises they supported. His outline is filled in by Christopher Bryson in his book [i][b]The Fluoride Deception.[/b][/i] Though Bryson’s book is not of the same quality (Bryson is a journalist, not a medical doctor and scientist) the documents Bryson obtained using the Freedom of Information Act make it a page-turner.
When Dr. Waldbott published his book in 1978, the evidence for fluoride’s lack of effectiveness at reducing tooth decay was just beginning to come in. Now we have the work of John Colquhoun in New Zealand, Hardy Limeback in Toronto, the 2011 Iowa Fluoride study, the WHO data. In addition, the quality of the early studies done in Grand Rapids, Newburgh et al. has been thoroughly debunked. (See the work of Philip R.N. Sutton, who was both a dentist and a statistician, here: [url]www.whale.to/d/sutton_b.html[/url])
Simultaneously, we’re learning about the effect of fluoride on the developing brain, on bone strength, on the thyroid, on glucose metabolism, on cancer, as a cause of arthritis and osteosarcoma. Declan Waugh’s excellent Power Point [url]http://news-beacon-ireland.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Health-impacts-of-Fluoride-case-study-Ireland-Apr-2013.pdf [/url] compares the fluoridated Republic of Ireland with unfluoridated Northern Ireland and the EU. It is is very disturbing. It was one of the factors that recently convinced the Supreme Court of Israel to halt fluoridation there, and it also influenced four Canadian cities to sop fluoridation. I believe that when fluoridation finally ends in the USA, and I’m confident it will, we will see a huge drop in health care costs.
In addition, the blood lead levels of children drinking fluoridated water are higher than those of children drinking fluoride-free water. ([url]http://www.fluoride-class-action.com/tacoma[/url]). Increasing children’s blood lead levels with a fluoride product would not be acceptable even if fluoride [b][i]did[/i][/b] reduce tooth decay.
I am sufficiently convinced of the health dangers of fluoride that I would be opposed to adding it to the public water supply even if it did reduce tooth decay. But I have seen no evidence that it does. Medwoman, If you have some, I’d be very interested in reading it.Please post your sources.(to be continued)
So now we get back to the low-income children whose dental health is the alleged object of the fluoridation promoters. Poor children are the ones likely to be most severely harmed by fluoridation. Albert Schatz, (who discovered streptomycin in 1943) studied fluoridation in Chile in the 1960s, comparing unfluoridated and fluoridated communties that were very poor. He found that children who were malnourished, especially those with mineral deficiencies, were the most damaged by fluoride. Because of his work, Chile halted fluoridation. You can find more info about him and his work online if you’re interested. Dr. Chinoy in India did studies more recently that reached the same conclusions.
Former UN Ambassador and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, as well as several other Atlanta Civil Rights leaders, have asked the Georgia legislature to reverse the fluoridation mandate in that state. Ambassador Young (whose father was a dentist) wrote, “We have a cavity epidemic today in our inner cities that have been fluoridated for decades.” and he added: “I am most deeply concerned for poor families who have babies: if they cannot afford unfluoridated water for their babies’ milk formula, do their babies not count? Of course they do. This is an issue of fairness, civil rights, and compassion. We must find better ways to prevent cavities, such as helping those most at risk for cavities obtain access to the services of a dentist.”
He was referring to the fact that babies whose formula is mixed with fluoridated water get as much as 200 times more fluoride than a breast-fed baby. Some 50% of US babies are bottle fed after the first 3 months. This probably accounts in part for the high rate of dental fluorosis among teenagers, which the CDC estimates at 41%. In some areas it reaches 80%, among African-American youth. We know about fluorosis because it’s visible. But the invisible harm caused by fluoride has not been looked for (though diabetes and obesity may be partly caused by fluoride’s thyroid suppression and interference with glucose metabolism).
LULAC, the oldest Latino organization in the US, passed a resolution opposing fluoridation, which you can find here: [url]http://lulac.org/advocacy/resolutions/2011/resolution_Civil_Rights_Violation_Regarding_Forced_Medication/[/url]
I understand that children’s dental care will once again be covered by MediCal beginning Jan.1. But of course for poor children to get care, dentists will have to accept MediCal. Many of them don’t. Some monies for dental care can also be obtained from First Five, the State agency funded by the cigarette tax. But someone has to apply for the grants. A good task for a group of people who want to improve children’s dental health would be to recruit dentists to accept MediCal and perhaps to solicit grant money to pay the dentists a stipend over and above what MediCal pays (though that would probably mean changing MediCal rules—another job that could be taken on by those concerned).
Oral health education is a big step. Worldwide, the lowest levels of tooth decay are found in children from the families with the highest incomes. Short of providing a guaranteed income, like Brazil does, what can Davis and Woodland (and Sonoma and Marin counties) do to improve poor children’s teeth? Teach parents and children how to care for their teeth. Do it at Head Start and school. When I was a Head Start volunteer, it was happening. Every child had a toothbrush and a place to keep it, and every time they ate, they brushed their teeth. It was great to see! In New Zealand, children get dental exams and treatment at school twice a year–and they keep good records, which isn’t done in the USA.
Lauren Ayers’s diet suggestions should also be implemented. That will take years of work at many levels–in the schools, at City Councils, within community organizations.
Surely, the answer to children’s tooth decay can’t be poisoning them with fluoride–which only works topically, not systemically, as even the CDC concedes. It can’t be giving them dental fluorosis and a host of physical ailments with a substance that doesn’t reduce decay when ingested.
[i]I have ask you to quantify how much money are we spending on teaching “racial and sensitivity crap” and how many classes in Davis schools are devoted to it. [/i]
From a friend who will remain anonymous…
[quote]What a mentally draining day! …Day 2 of my mandatory teaching credential orientation, pathetic…all day guest speakers and credential advisers shoved down our throats that racism exists. I’m pretty sure we all know that by this time in our lives and we don’t need 7 hours of non stop talk about it. It’s sort of unbelievable some of the comments that were said today … for example, the speaker wanted us to play a “game” (as she called it) where she would put an ethic group on the board, and the class would have to shout out all of the stereotypes that are said about the group. What does that do? What does that show us? We already know people say those things…. and I’m even more irritated that everyone just shook their heads in approval, like dumb ignorant sheep!….. Instead the focus of today should have been to focus on the children we will be teaching. What factors could be different in their lives because of where they come from and how should we handle situations where discrimination occurs in our classes, whether it be cultural, gender or sexual orientation. Not the classes personal experiences of racism or what the stereotypes of cultures are… Completely ridiculous waste of time. **stepping off my soap box**[/quote]
US HISTORY RACE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE – is a required course to graduate from Davis High… why not replace it with a COMMON LIFE SKILLS COURSE.
“US HISTORY RACE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE – is a required course to graduate from Davis High… why not replace it with a COMMON LIFE SKILLS COURSE.”
So one class? A history class, one of the most popular in the school. Why not? Because then it wouldn’t be a history class.
One REQUIRED class in addition to the another required US History class.
I didn’t list the electives… the one that have been added while industrial arts classes have been cut.
And don’t forget the same crap inserted into chapters of every other social studies and humanities class… basically wasting more time in the classroom with unneeded and useless feel-good twaddle.
Medwoman, here’s a newly found article about fluorie increasing blood lead levels: [url]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17420053[/url]
Liltpads
Thanks for the reference. Before I decide whether to read the full article rather than just the abstract, and get my statistics consultant to look at it, I would want to know the potential relevance for our community. Do we have a problem with lead exposure locally ? If not, while this might have relevance for some communities, I would not consider it relevant for our town. If you know off the top of your head, that would make it easier. If not I can check in with the Yolo County lead for environmental health to see if this is an issue for us.
I completely respect your amount of reading and investigation you have put into this topic. One commenter had made the point that there is “dueling research” with regard to this issue and that certainly remains the case. Given your credentials I am sure you are aware that this is the case for many controversial ares in a wide variety of scientific fields including global warming, contraception ( yes, there are still people claiming that the have evidence that birth control pill and IUDs are so dangerous that women should not use them), diets ( many books written stating that vegan diets are best for weight management, cardiovascular disease and diabetes prevention, and hosts of other books and articles promoting the Atkins diet, people claiming that silicon breasts implants caused autoimmune disease until the evidence was conclusive that this was not the cause, same for the arguments swirling around immunization and autism…….and so it goes. Like you, I have looked into the evidence of potential
Harm and, at the levels being proposed have simply come to a very different conclusion than what you have reached. I see the benefit for the entire population as outweighing the potential risks.
I certainly think we should take a comprehensive approach to dental health care including regularly provided dental care, elimination of our sugar and fat based diets, instruction in home dental care, and …….provision of fluoride.
Medwoman,
“According to a patent application that can be located through the US Patent and Trademark Office, the following statement was given as supporting evidence by researchers applying for patent #636150, filed on April 22, 1996: ‘We have found that fluoride, in the concentration range in which it is employed for the prevention of dental caries, stimulates the production of prostaglandins and thereby exacerbates the inflammatory response in gingivitis and periodontitis.’ The claim for which these researchers were seeking a patent was, ‘A method for preventing dental caries and at the same time controlling periodontal bone loss precipitated by the fluoride…'”
From [url]http://rense.com/general45/bll.htm[/url] A very interesting article!
Medwoman,
If Davis-Woodland doesn’t have a problem with blood lead levels now, that’s an excellent reason not to create one by adding hydrofluosilicic acid to the water. HFSA [i][b]contains[/b][/i] lead and arsenic, and also leaches lead from water pipes and fittings.
“John D. MacArthur states, ‘History repeats itself. Just like the acidic leaves that leached lead from the paint on that 18th century roof, flurosilicic acid leaches lead from plumbing. This was graphically demonstrated in two communities that stopped fluoridating their water systems. Their lead levels dropped significantly. During a 1992 drought in Tacoma, Washington, they temporarily stopped fluoridating their water and lead levels dropped from 32 ppb (parts per billion) to 17 ppb. When Thurmont, Maryland stopped fluoridating their drinking water in 1994, the lead level in homes dropped from 30 ppb to 7 ppb. (The EPA’s Maximum Contaminant Level is 15 ppb). (“Fluoride Banned in Thurmont, Maryland,” Frederick Post , Feb. 3, 1994, p. A-9.) Also see, 13-5: “Letter from C.R. Myrick, Water Quality Coordinator, Tacoma Public Utilities to Washington State Dept. of Health”, Dec. 2, 1992, in which he states: “It is interesting to note the 90th percentile lead concentration was 17 ppb this time compared to 32 ppb last time. We have not been using fluoride since the drought this summer.” Fluoride was held responsible for the high lead level.”
“In research funded in part by the Environmental Protection Agency Office of Criminal Enforcement, Forensics and Training (published in August 1999 in the International Journal of Environmental Studies), a survey of over 280,000 Massachusetts children, comparing a matched group in 30 towns that do not use silicofluorides to children in 30 communities that use these chemicals to fluoridate, showed that when silicofluorides were present in the water the children were more than twice as likely to suffer from blood lead above the danger level of 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood. The correlation with blood lead levels is especially serious because lead poisoning is associated with higher rates of learning disabilities, hyperactivity, substance abuse and crime. (See 13-6: “Water Treatment With Silicofluorides and Lead Toxicity,” by Roger D. Masters and Myron J. Coplan from the International Journal of Environmental Studies, 1999, Vol. 56. pp. 435-449).”
“Children who are black or Hispanic given the same exposures as white children absorb significantly more lead. … This means that the level set by EPA is marginally safe for white adults, but unsafe for African American or Hispanic children.” (See 13-7: letter by William L. Marcus, Ph.D., D.A.B.T., Board Certified Consulting Toxicologist).”
“Herbert L. Needleman, of the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine, said, he “found much higher lead rates in a group of juvenile delinquents than in a control group. He used 416 youths-216 delinquents and 200 in a control group. Adjusting for such factors as race, parental education, occupation, family size and crime rate in the neighborhood the youths came from, he found those with high lead levels were twice as likely to be delinquent than those with low levels.” (“Chemicals and Crime: A Truly Toxic Effect,” by Judy Mann, May 26, 2000, page C 11, Washington Post.”
From: [url]http://www.fluoridedebate.com/question33.html[/url]
lilypads
What we seem to have here is a marked difference of opinion on what constitutes an “interesting article”.
Having read the referenced article “Fluoride- The Battle of Lightness and Dark” except as a case study in how differently we humans interpret the same information, I found it less than interesting on a number of levels.
1) Starting immediately with the title one can predict that this is not the work of an objective investigator reaching conclusions from a balanced search for the truth.
2) The first paragraph “it was due to my growing concerns about our country’s growing health problems as well as the erosion of our civil liberties” clearly links her health concerns to her political agenda. While she has a perfect right to do so, it does not speak well for her scientific objectivity.
3) The suggestion that something may be occurring is a far cry from demonstrating that it is occurring.
“are we silencing the divinely designed warning system that is trying to tell us that we are ingesting some
thing toxic, corrosive and dangerous”. A reasonable question until you get to the part about our system
being divinely designed. So now, we have not only her political view point, but also her belief in intelligent
design as the prism through which she is seeing this issue. Again, totally with in her rights, but hardly
objective. Especially as she concludes her article, ” It is time for us to try to remember God.”
4) Virtually all of the associations that she has made with regard to fluoride are just that, uncontrolled
observation and speculation about what might be happening within our bodies as evidenced by her own
frequently used expressions might, could be,maybe.
So I would like to share with you what I truly consider to be interesting articles. Original research articles in their entirely ( not just the abstract) and meta analysis of peer reviewed articles preferably in the journals of the
college of the appropriate medical or dental association. For me in my private life, matters of spirituality, religion, philosophy and political point of view may matter. For me as a doctor, in care of both my individual patients and in terms of public health, their personal spirituality, religion and philosophy matter, but my own does not. When I advise, science matters.
I would bet the bank that she is anti-vaccination too.
Medwoman
I think it is remarkable that you advise many of your patients about healthy eating practices. I am in my 70s and do not recall a single instance of a dentist advising me about healthy eating practices. Granted I have reasonably healthy teeth, but still – dentists overlooking an opportunity to tell me what to avoid if I want to preserve my healthy teeth.
I sense a problem here.
2cowherd
I apologize if I have mislead you. I am not a dentist. I am an obstetrician / gynecologist.
However, all three of my dentists ( family dentist, periodontist, and orthodontist have discusses nutritional factors with
me.
“It is time for us to awaken and move beyond America’s dark age of fluoride and time to strive for that wisdom which is so long overdue. It is wisdom that unfolds into enlightenment, and it is enlightenment that belongs to each of us. Enlightenment, along with our connection to the divine, belong to us. They are ours, by divine birthright.
It is time for us to remove the darkness of the false messenger known as F, the 6th letter of the alphabet, and to go forward so that we may reconnect with all that the next letter, G, represents.” (From the very interesting article.)
Are you claiming, medwoman, that you don’t find kind of scholarship convincing? (From the very interesting article.)
justSaying
It would be fair to add that to my rather long list of “non convincing” claims ; )