The Fluoride Dilemma

"We would not purposely add arsenic to the water supply. And we would not purposely add lead. But we do add fluoride. The fact is that fluoride is more toxic than lead and just slightly less toxic than arsenic." This is a quote from Dr. John Yiamouyiannis, a PhD biochemist who wrote the book Fluoride The Aging Factor. 

Several years after graduating from dental school, I had the pleasure of taking a course from Dr. Yiamouyiannis. He was a brilliant man and thoroughly researched his material. After hearing the documentation presented against fluoride, it was obvious that it should never have been allowed to be put in the drinking water of cities around the world. America led the way in convincing the unsuspecting public that fluoride was needed to prevent tooth decay.

Dr. Yiamouyiannis did a study with Dr. Dean Burk, former Chief Chemist of the National Cancer Institute that showed there were 10,000 or more fluoridation-linked cancer deaths occurring yearly in the United States. In court cases in Pennsylvania and Illinois, this study stood up to the scrutiny of top experts who tried to refute the data. The judge from Illinois stated that there were no credible studies that showed that fluoridation is safe.

Being from Michigan, I can recall the first study that was done between two Michigan cities, Grand Rapids and Muskegon. Grand Rapids became the first city to add fluoride to the drinking water on January 25, 1945. Muskegon was to be the non-fluoridated control city. The study was originally planned to last 10 years. Five years after fluoridation began in Grand Rapids, it was observed that the tooth decay rate of non-fluoridated Muskegon was decreasing at about the same amount as that of Grand Rapids. Muskegon was dropped as the control city and the only report made was that the tooth decay rate in Grand Rapids decreased after fluoridation. Other factors had to be a part of the decrease in tooth decay in both cities. Changes in diet and nutrition as well as more people seeing a dentist resulting in improved dental hygiene could have been other reasons for the reduction in tooth decay.

Christopher Bryson wrote the book The Fluoride Deception, which tells another side of the story about why fluoridation of public drinking water was pushed on the American people. Fluoride is so potent a chemical that it is a grave environmental hazard and potential workplace poison. Its toxicity was recognized at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when, in the 1850s iron and copper factories discharged it into the air and poisoned plants, animals, and people in the surrounding areas. By the 1920's, rapid industrial growth had exacerbated the problems of industrial pollution, and fluoride was one of the biggest problems. Fluoride is a chemical byproduct (toxic waste) of the aluminum, phosphate, cement, steel, and nuclear weapons manufacturing industries and a substance toxic enough to be used as rat poison.

There was a twofold goal to adding fluoride to drinking water. One was to prevent lawsuits from starting and fines from being accessed to these industries, the second was to find a way to dispose of this highly toxic waste product. Fluoride had to be whitewashed and made to look harmless to the public.

The town of Hereford in Deaf Smith county, Texas was "the town without a toothache". A story was fabricated by a local dentist that it was the high, naturally-occurring fluoride in the water that resulted in the low level of tooth decay there. Further examination of the drinking water in Hereford has pointed to the high levels of other minerals (calcium, magnesium and phosphorus) that may be responsible for the lower level of tooth decay.

Colorado Springs, Colorado was another city that had unusually high levels of fluoride in its drinking water.  In the early years of the 20th Century, a young dentist named Frederick McKay settled in Colorado Springs. There, he discovered that as many as 90% of lifetime residents of the town had grotesque brown stains on their teeth, and that the tooth enamel had an irregular, mottled surface texture. Locals referred to the familiar condition as "Colorado Brown Stain", but no one had a clue as to its cause. Research later showed that fluoride was the cause of Colorado Brown Stain. This would appear to make the assumption made about fluoride in Hereford, Texas, less desirable as an addition to drinking water.

Bryson’s book tells the story of Phyllis Mullenix, who, while working at the Forsyth Dental Center in Boston in the 1980s, made some unexpected discoveries about fluoride accumulation in the body. Her experiments with giving fluoridated drinking water to rats showed behavioral and neurotoxic effects. Pregnant rats gave birth to hyperactive offspring and the offspring, when given fluoridated water, had cognitive deficits (lowered IQ).

She presented this information to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1990 and nothing was done about further research on fluoride’s neurotoxic effects. The information was buried by the product/drug companies: Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive and Smith-Kline Beecham. Mullenix’s promising research career was also over.

These are only some of the many detrimental facts known about fluoride. I encourage you to read the books and decide for yourself if you think fluoridated drinking water is safe to ingest. You can also visit Gary Null’s website for his research on fluoridation. The link to his article is: www.garynull.com/storage/pdfs/UpdatedFluoride.pdf.

It is time that we rethink the fluoridation of our drinking water here in Grand Junction and elsewhere.

James M. Kennedy, DDS

 Mardy's note: I am happy to report mid-summer 2012 that this was another step toward what has resulted in the group of four of us locally which named our group "SWIG: Safe Water is Great", we have prepared a logo, mission statement and story of the group, and we have set out navigating our way to educate people 'out there' -- locally and beyond.  The three medical providers in SWIG Grand Junction, Colorado created education on Lumigrate, and then I reached out to include two medical/science experts from Lumigrate who live "beyond Colorado" too (North Carolina and Dallas, Texas).

Dr McCloskey then took the key concepts from ALL our educational pieces here at Lumigrate, after we had thoroughly discussed things over our FUN and challenging dinner conversations, and prepared a 'organization/business-level statement letter' to be used as needed in the future. I volunteered to work that into a multi-purpose "statement and story" about SWIG to post here at Lumigrate for all who come to find it.  

Therefore, please follow this link to that 'key document' from our group efforts:

 www.lumigrate.com/forum/swig-safe-water-great-our-official-statement

...(and I am putting a similar note in each topic we have at Lumigrate about this fluoride and water safety issue -- we have a growing number of topics, please look around if you're wanting to learn more details about fluoride and the history, topically/in toothpaste, or how we went about each step!) ~~ Mardy