Fluoride...it doesn't go away

Look at this fluoride crystal, beautiful and yet disturbing. Seen one way it reminds of a hardened old man, pointing; frozen in a 'Lot's wife' gesture.
Every time an article appears anywhere discussing the problems connected with fluoride in our water supply you can be sure that a few weeks later there will be a counter article with 'scientific evidence' of its merits.
Such a recent article appeared in the Irish Examiner, Friday, 15 November, and it was an affront to intelligence. It was expected; a month or so before there had been an announcement that the percentage of fluoride in our water would be reduced.
The article was titled Fluoride in water reduces tooth decay. It cited a study commissioned by the government called North South Survey of Children's Oral Health in Ireland. However it omitted to mention which organization or company had been commissioned to do the study or what their interest might be. The article stated that children from 1984 to the present were compared, as though the addition of fluoride to water had been the only change in childrens' lives during that time. The article was also obscure in other ways, quoting the Irish Dental Association as questioning 'the department's credibility on dental issues.'
We need to know that there are only three countries left in the EU that continue to fluoridate their water supply, Ireland, the UK and Spain. Of these Ireland is the most heavily fluoridated. All other countries have found fluoridation to be ineffective at best and harmful at worst. We also need to know that recycling fluoride, a waste product of the chemical industry, is a lucrative business.
Switzerland has not had fluoridation with the exception of the city of Basel which ended its use in 2003 by overwhelming vote. To quote the GSK (Basel Health and Social Commission):
..serious doubts had arisen about the effectiveness of water fluoridation. Adding to these doubts were recent findings showing that tooth decay had risen in Basel's children since 1996, coupled with an absence of any evidence showing Basel to have a lower rate of tooth decay than other Swiss cities.
According to Board member Tobias Studer, 'the freedom of the individual to choose the appropriate prophylaxis method was also a major point in the debate.'
As noted in the GSK report, 'only a minimal part of so-called drinking water is used for drinking and cooking.' The GSK estimated that 'over 99% of the fluoride' added to water is never consumed by humans, leading in turn to 'an unnecessary load on the environment...Fluoride is a poison that loads our rivers.'
It was supposed that fluoridation of table salt has a much higher efficiency.
Moreover, when a medicinal product is added to the water supply there is an inability on the part of governments to control the dose each individual receives, due to the wide variation that exists not only in individual water consumption but also in exposures to fluoride from other sources. The inability to control the dose is particularly important considering:
* Exposure to fluoridated water doesn't just last a week or a month, but an entire lifetime.
* Individual susceptibilities to fluoride vary greatly (eg those with impaired kidney function or nutritional deficiencies are more vulnerable to fluoride's toxic effects).
*The margin of safety between the range of fluoride exposures typically found in fluoridated communities and the range of exposures associated with fluoride-related health problems (such as arthritis and bone fracture) are poorly defined and, if existent, remarkably narrow.
In the United States water fluoridation is touted by government authorites as being 'one of the top 10 public health achievements of the 20th century.' The Centers for Disease Control state that water fluoridation has been the key factor in the decline of cavities among US children during the past 50 years. Based on such statements from the US Government one could be forgiven for assuming that Western Europe has somehow suffered higher rates of tooth decay by not fluoridating its water.
However, according to extensive data compiled by the World Health Organization, unfluoridated countries in Western Europe including countries with little or no salt fluoridation have experienced, without exception, the same general decline in tooth decay over the past 30 to 50 years, as that experienced in the US...children today in unfluoridated countries such as Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands and Sweden have as low--or even lower--levels of tooth decay as US children.
The evidence from Europe, therefore, suggests that water fluoridation is an entirely replaceable and unnecessary means of reducing tooth decay--a fact consistent with the Basel Health and Social Commission's conclusions, but at profound odds with the massive promotion campaign by the US Government to fluoridate more water in the US.
The above information was reported by Michael Connett and can be accessed at http://fluoridealert.org/basel.htm
This brings us back to the beginning of this post and the wizened fellow in the photo. Fluoride is a powerful poison. It hardens, and not only teeth. Over time it will affect the hypermineralization of bone (NIA Workshop on Aging and Bone Quality, 1992, Bethesda Maryland) and who knows what hardening effect it has on the brain or other tissues. Such studies may perhaps exist, or they may not. In any case it is not responsible to inflict this poison on Ireland's water supply.