ARTIFICIAL WATER FLUORIDATION:
MORE THAN JUST FLUORIDE
OVERVIEW
Few issues pertaining to the public health
have generated as much passionate debate as the issue of artificial
water fluoridation. This issue of "Health E-Bytes" will
not endeavor to determine or debate whether such fluoridation is desirable.
However, recent information has emerged that brings into serious question
the safety of the specific agent being used for fluoridating most
of the cities with water fluoridation programs in the United States
today.
INDUSTRIAL WASTE
The primary water-fluoridating agent
used today is known as hydrofluosilicic acid (HFSA). This acid is
generated most commonly as a toxic waste by-product from the fertilizer
industry. Smokestack scrubbers remove most of this acid and other
toxic by-products before they escape into the air. These scrubbers
were initially placed in response to environmental regulations enacted
to prevent air pollution. Somehow, the deliberate placing into the
water supply of a substance considered to be toxic in the air is not
considered by many to be toxic for the water supply.
The HFSA undergoes NO pharmaceutical
purification after it is removed from the smokestack scrubbers. In
fact, assays of the HFSA consistently show the presence of arsenic,
lead, mercury, and chromium. These are toxic metals that are generally
regarded as cumulative in nature, meaning that it is a scientifically
ill-founded argument to assert that the amounts of these toxins are
too small to be of concern. Furthermore, individual sensitivities
to different toxin levels vary widely. One person’s immune system
may cope just fine, while another’s may become significantly compromised
over time, further facilitating the emergence and development of some
chronic degenerative diseases. Cancer and heart disease are two of
the more common chronic degenerative diseases that would prosper in
the face of lessened immune system strength.
HFSA AND BLOOD LEAD
Presently, over 91% of the artificially
fluoridated water in the United States is treated with either hydrofluosilicic
acid or a related compound, sodium silicofluoride. Together, these
two agents are termed the silicofluorides. Masters et al. (2000) found
that water treated with silicofluorides was consistently associated
with the elevation of the heavy metal lead in the blood of the many
children tested who drank this water. The mechanisms by which silicofluorides
elevate blood lead levels is in some dispute, but the fact that the
blood lead levels do nevertheless increase is not. Drinking water
fluoridated with HFSA clearly results in the elevation of blood lead
for many children.
Less than 10% of the fluoridated water
in the United States is treated with sodium fluoride rather than HFSA.
It is this agent, not HFSA, which underwent extensive animal testing
for safety. It seems that HFSA has never been subjected to any human
or animal safety studies. And, certainly, there is no information
available that can even begin to support the notion that the ingestion
of HFSA-fluoridated water for decades is harmless.
Quite the contrary, as noted above, the
ingestion of HFSA-fluoridated water has now been shown to be related
to significant increases in the blood lead levels of many of the children
tested. Furthermore, Masters et al. analyzed the blood specimens of
over 150,000 children. This is a study of mammoth proportions. To
summarily dismiss this elegantly conducted study as bad science, as
many water fluoridation supporters have done, brings into serious
question both the intelligence and motivations of such supporters.
Some fluoridation supporters are just listening to the unfounded statements
of their scientific leaders and taking the debunking of this study
at face value. The scientists, however, have no excuse for trying
to ignore and/or downplay this extensive and scientifically valid
research by Masters and his co-researchers.
THE AMOUNT OF LEAD IN QUESTION
Lanphear et al. (2000) studied the ability
of lead to impair the ability to think in children and teenagers.
Although lead had long been known to be toxic to the brain and nervous
system, the lowest blood lead concentrations still capable of clinically
affecting the nervous systems were not well defined. Lanphear and
his co-researchers found that among 4,853 children with ages ranging
from 6 to 16 years cognitive function was impaired at levels of lead
in the blood even lower than 5 ug/dL. Specifically, arithmetic skills,
reading skills, nonverbal reasoning, and short-term memory were all
negatively affected at these low blood lead levels. In the study of
Masters et al., noted above, many children who were drinking the HFSA-fluoridated
water had blood levels greater than 10 ug/dL, well past the blood
lead levels that Lanphear et al. had documented as being toxic to
the brain.
At the annual meeting of the Pediatric
Academic Society in 2001, Dr. Lanphear presented additional evidence
of the severe toxicity of virtually any degree of lead exposure. Children
with lead concentrations even less than the 10 ug/dL level noted above
were found to have an average score of 11.1 points lower than the
average score of the other children tested on the standard Stanford-Binet
IQ test. Furthermore, Dr. Lanphear found that every additional 10
ug/dL increase of lead in the blood robbed the child of another 5.5
IQ points. Not surprisingly, Dr. Lanphear concluded that there was
no safe level of blood lead. The obvious further conclusion from this
was that no avoidable factor that can increase blood lead levels to
any degree should be ignored as being of no clinical consequence.
For a little further perspective, it should also be realized that
prior to 1970, scientists believed that the clinical effects of lead
poisoning did not take effect before a blood lead level of 60 ug/dL
was reached. It can now be said that this high blood lead level is
well over 600% higher than the level of blood lead that is now known
to be quite toxic.
LEAD REMOVAL: TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE
To make matters even worse, Rogan et
al. (2001) published in The New England Journal of Medicine
that the effective removal of lead from the blood of children who
had already demonstrated impaired neurological function did not result
in the restoration of that function. In other words, Rogan et al.
found that once lead could be demonstrated to negatively affect cognition,
behavior, and neuropsychological function, the damage was done, even
if the lead was successfully removed. A great deal of vigilance must
be maintained to make sure that children (and everyone else) are not
subjected to any preventable exposure to lead or to other toxins that
are known to raise blood lead, such as HFSA. Indeed, this reasoning
should apply as well to preventable exposures to all heavy metals
and all other known toxins.
MORE LEAD EXPOSURE, MORE DENTAL
CAVITIES
Moss et al. (1999) published in The
Journal of the American Medical Association that greater amounts
of lead exposure resulted in an increased incidence of dental cavities.
This is especially ironic, since the water fluoridation program is
aimed at decreasing this incidence. Perhaps this is at least one reason
why large epidemiological studies have not universally concluded that
water fluoridation always does what it is supposed to be doing, namely,
decreasing dental cavities.
CONCLUSIONS
If water fluoridation must be continued
in the United States, a pharmaceutically pure form of fluoride must
be used as a fluoridating agent. The evidence cited in this report
should be properly evaluated, and the research should even be repeated
if need be. However, water fluoridation is not necessary for the delivery
of fluoride to the public, and HFSA should be immediately discontinued
as a fluoridating agent nationwide, even if the water must go unfluoridated
for the time being. This toxic fluoridation program is truly an epidemic
of widespread proportions that must be stopped immediately. Our children
have enough difficulty coping and growing up as it is without having
critical IQ points forever deleted from their brains. In a very real
sense, the United States is poisoning its most critical asset. No
one should have the right to poison the brain of the susceptible child
for the purported dental health of another child, especially when
there are simple alternative ways to obtain fluoride, if that is desired.
Bibliography
Lanphear, B., K. Dietrich, P. Auinger,
and C. Cox. (2000) Cognitive deficits associated with blood lead concentrations
<10 ug/dL in US children and adolescents. Public Health Reports
115(6):521-529.
Masters, R., M. Coplan, B. Hone, and
J. Dykes. (2000) Association of silicofluoride treated water with
elevated blood lead. NeuroToxicology 21(6):1091-1100.
Moss, M., B. Lanphear, and P. Auinger.
(1999) Association of dental caries and blood lead levels. The
Journal of the American Medical Association 281(24):2294-2298.
Rogan, W., K. Dietrich, J. Ware, D. Dockery,
M. Salganik, J. Radcliffe, R. Jones, N. Ragan, J. Chisolm, and G.
Rhoads. (2001) The effect of chelation therapy with succimer on neuropsychological
development in children exposed to lead. The New England Journal
of Medicine 344(19):1421-1426.