You don’t really expect to see a defense of fluoride on a website devoted to a healthy, green lifestyle. But there it was, in all its glory:
Yet the very day this piece claimed that fluoride “causes people to have fewer and less severe cavities and suffer less pain associated with tooth decay,” this story appeared in the USA Today:
According to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry,
the rate of tooth decay in the baby teeth of children aged 2 to 5 years increased almost 17% from the period 1988-1994 to 1999-2004.
Currently, by the age of 3 years, almost 1 in every 10 US children has oral health issues, and 40% of children entering kindergarten have dental caries, a chronic, infectious, and transmissible disease that results from exposure to bacteria through contact with saliva.
In fact, early childhood caries is the most common disease among children – 5 times more common than asthma, 7 times more than hay fever.
At the same time, roughly 2/3 of us get fluoridated water – and where in many stores, it’s impossible to get non-fluoridated toothpaste. Indeed, lack of access is hardly an issue. Even the CDC acknowledges that we’re exposed to more fluoride than ever before.
Tooth decay is epidemic. And still many insist that fluoride is effective?
It just doesn’t add up.
The writer of the pro-fluoride piece above does acknowledge one problem caused by the stuff – the staining and pitting of the teeth from fluorosis – but only to immediately downplay it, disregarding the fact that fluorosis rates have skyrocketed in recent decades.
Similarly, she disregards the well-established fact that ingesting fluoride does nothing at all to prevent tooth decay but does raise the risk of a range of systemic health problems, including children’s neurological development.
The author, of course, quotes a few studies in defense of her position. But there is more than 80 years’ worth of research on issues related to fluoride and fluoridation – now easy to explore with the Fluoride Action Network’s new Study Tracker. Cumulatively, the record shows – at minimum – there is legitimate cause for concern about the health effects and risks of fluoride.
Or as one massive report to the Irish government and European Commission put it last year,
All of the evidence is convergentand demonstrates that fluoride compounds should not be added to public water supplies. When examined collectively the evidence clearly demonstrates that fluoridation of drinking water supplies is both unsafe and having significant negative health implications for human health, society and the natural environment.
Can it get any more clear cut than that?
For more on why fluoridation is a truly bad idea, see our previous posts Why Choose Poison? And Fluoridation: Forced Medication Without Representation.