Fighting Over Fluoride in the ’50s

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49 Comments July 14, 2011 at 3:00 pm

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Cartoon, the Telegram, March 5, 1955.

Communist conspiracy. Poison worse than arsenic. Crime against God. Gross violation of civil liberties. Evil plot hatched by aluminum companies to dump waste. These were among the charges civic politicians heard when water fluoridation was debated in Metropolitan Toronto’s municipalities in 1955.
Another frequently cited demerit point back then was rehashed this week when KPMG mentioned fluoridation in the Core Services Review: a potential waste of taxpayer money. While movements to end fluoridation like Calgary, Kitchener, and other municipalities haven’t gained momentum (yet) in Toronto, and while the KPMG consultants note the possible detrimental effects on public health if city council decides the program is worth hacking, we’re already seeing fears from the “Fabulous Fifties” resurface.

While discussion about fluoridating city water to reduce tooth decay had occasionally reached the floor of Old City Hall, it wasn’t until 1955 that Toronto’s councillors voted on it. Or, more accurately, passed the buck—by an 11-8 vote on March 1, council recommended that the issue be passed to Metropolitan Toronto Council, who could organize a plebiscite on fluoridation. The debate leading to the vote went so deep into the night that when the decision was reached at 2:45 a.m. the Star observed that “the usually energetic pro- and anti-fluoridation groups greeted the decision with no demonstration. They appeared just too tired to get excited.”

Fluoridation opponent Dorothy Cureatz and various police officials in the hallway of (Old) City Hall. Photos by Peter Dunlop. The Telegram, March 3, 1955.

Among those observing the vote was zealous fluoridation opponent Dorothy Cureatz, who described herself as a “voluntary civic affairs observer” and a “fearless and God-fearing spinster.” Cureatz regularly handed out pamphlets and stickers bearing the motto “Let’s Keep Our Water Pure” at public meetings. Perhaps the apex of her protests came during a meeting of the City’s health committee on March 3, 1955. During the session, she was warned several times by meeting chair Philip Givens to keep quiet. When Cureatz demanded that Alderman Jean Newman shut up so that she could hear soft-spoken chief city medical official Dr. L.A. Pequegnat, Givens asked her to leave. Cureatz refused, so the police were called in. As a constable dragged her out by the arm, she yelled, “I have a right to hear the meeting.” In the hallway, she tried to break free while repeatedly crying, “I don’t want to leave.” She struggled with three police officers for five minutes as she attempted to sit on the floor, before finally departing the premises. Cureatz continued her battle to keep water pure (sometimes under the banner of the “Pure Water Universal Individual Plea”), even coming out against chlorination because it implied that people were drinking dead germs. As a perennially unsuccessful candidate for public office over the next two decades, anti-fluoridation was a key platform plank. When she died in 1995, her death notice in the Star noted that the always-smiling Cureatz was “well-known for her testimonials along the TTC and her evangelical messages outside of Honest Ed’s.”

General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) explains his views on fluoridation to British officer Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) in Dr. Strangelove.

While Stanley Kubrick played up General Jack D. Ripper’s anti-communist paranoia regarding fluoridation’s effects on his “precious bodily fluids” in Dr. Strangelove, the officer’s fears weren’t far removed from some of the deputations Metro Council heard. During a forum on April 4, 1955, A. Herridge of the Anti-Contamination League told councillors that poisonous fluoride was promoted by “powerful hidden forces” and that it was a devious method of Communist warfare to reduce the will of freedom-loving Canadians.
The session Herridge spoke at saw six deputations in favour of fluoridation and eight against. Some opponents, such as the Anti-Vaccination and Medical Liberty League of Canada (who believed that next to arsenic, fluoride was the most dangerous substance found in food), had names straight out of a satirist’s notebook. A taxpayer group claimed municipalities lacked the right to spend money on a program that would benefit few. A Christian Scientist representative believed that fluoridation was the first step toward state medicine. Proponents tried to ease the fears of opponents by listing numerous studies and testimonies of medical officials, and reflecting that similar paranoia greeted water chlorination and milk pasteurization.

Advertisements, (left) the Toronto Star, February 26, 1955, (right) the Toronto Star, March 3, 1955.

As the Metro Council vote approached, the controversy kept editorial page writers busy. The Globe and Mail had the most reservations, believing that adding fluoride was an individual choice—if anyone really wanted it, they could add tablets to their water or bring back fluoridated supplies from Brantford or Stratford. They encouraged more time to gather evidence on both sides of the debate. The Star and the Telegram were stridently pro-fluoridation. One Star editorial declared, “If fluoridation is rejected it will be a victory of fear and prejudice over common sense and professional knowledge. The public can win a victory for the children by taking a little time and trouble to get expert advice”. The Telegram published many editorials attacking those who couldn’t see the health benefits fluoridation would bring, taking particular glee in knocking the Globe and Mail for publishing pieces that hinted at Communist plots.

Headlines, the Toronto Star, May 18, 1955.

Despite fierce opposition from officials such as Forest Hill Reeve C.O. Bick (who would only accept fluoridation of school water systems, conveniently ignoring that children didn’t spend the entire day in a scholastic setting) and Scarborough Reeve Oliver Crockford (who felt medical officials were “a little overenthusiastic about this”), Metro Council voted 15-8 in favour of fluoridation on May 17, 1955. Metro Chairman Frederick Gardiner felt it was time to “stop looking for someone to take us off the hook.” Despite the vote, eight years passed before fluoridation began. Bick and Crockford threatened legal action, claiming Metro Toronto had no right to interfere in public health, which was the responsibility of the individual municipalities. Gardiner received anonymous threats of “dire consequences” if he continued to promote fluoridation. Efforts of anti-fluoridation crusaders like broadcaster/writer Gordon Sinclair helped delay implementation efforts. A plebiscite in 1962 barely settled the issue, as citizens split evenly on the issue (fluoridation won with 50.1 per cent of the vote).
While KPMG’s reference to fluoridation is just a suggestion, and despite assurances from Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 34, Don Valley East) that fluoridation’s likely not on the chopping block, the fact that it was mentioned at all in the Core Services Review provides fuel for modern opponents to seek public forums for their misgivings. It also provides the opportunity to debate what effects on public health fluoridation has had over the past half-century, whether in civilized settings or in verbal jousts in online comment sections. If the city decided to cut fluoridation, we wonder how long it would take before somebody shoved their child’s dental bill in front of a councillor’s face.
Additional material from the May 3, 1955, and June 23, 1955, editions of the Globe and Mail, the March 1, 1955, March 3, 1955, April 4, 1955, April 25, 1955, and November 25, 1955, editions of the Toronto Star, the March 3, 1955, and May 17, 1955, editions of the Telegram, and the May 19, 1955, edition of the Willowdale Enterprise.

Comments

GRgal

Please enlighten this professional nutritionist and mother of children with dental fluorosis (proof of fluoride toxicity to thyroid and developing tooth enamel from overdose before age 2) AND a pile of dental bills for repeated cavities (that turned out to be due to vitamin D deficiency from keeping them slathered in sunscreen and in school with fluorescent light), how much Toronto tap water fluoridated with this Canadian Environmental Protection Agency-regulated Class 1 hazardous pollutant oops I mean Health Canada-unregulated, unapproved magic tooth medicine called hydrofluorosilicic acid from the wet scrubbers of the phosphate fertilizer industry, were they supposed to drink? -Nutrimom
Roy Murray

Fluoridation is another of the issues that separates the scientifically minded from those who believe the fearmongers.
@GRgal, if your children have dental fluorosis you should remind them not to swallow their toothpaste. It's highly unlikely they acquired this any other way.
Fluoridation is a proven additive and works well – especially in society's most vulnerable. Unfortunately it's easy to manipulate people into believing otherwise and is a pet peeve of the Tea Party in the U.S.
sparrowdancer

I find it interesting that the fluoride promoters cannot ever back their stand up with facts or statistics, only the same old “commie plot,” and “Dr. Strangelove,” as though these 2 goofy references prove something. Here's a statistic: Kentucky is almost 100% fluoridated and has been for a while. What is their resulting dental health score? Kentucky has the highest and worst degree of cavities in toddlers in the US, the highest degree of complete tooth loss in adults (but at least that gets rid of the cavities), and sadly, the highest rate of cancer in the US. Who has the best dental health score? Utah and Hawaii, both of which have primarily refused fluoridation.
Mary Sparrowdancer

BTW, Roy, since you apparently think of yourself as “scientifically minded,” please explain to us when and where fluoridation became a “proven additive,” and who approved it as such? Great comment, GRgal. I am a medical and health writer with extensive laboratory science training, and I have seen clinical evidence that fluorosis can occur even in adulthood. The promoters' claim that fluorosis can only occur in developing enamel or from “swallowing toothpaste” is incorrect, as is their US list of “approved” signs and symptoms of fluoride poisoning. In addition, there are at least two types of commonly used fluoride tests that test for F- toxicity. ISE (Ion Specific Electrode), which is cheap and will give a false low reading, and IC (Ion Chromatography), which is an expensive forensic test and will give an accurate reading. The bottom line is, no one knows what the level of fluoride is in most people in North America.
GRgal

When you said “scientifically minded” and “most vulnerable” I thought for a moment you meant the 2006 National Research Council Report to the EPA on the toxicology of fluoride in drinking water. But oh dear, you haven't done the reading, have you. NRC report identified a number of subgroups that are most vulnerable to increased intake, endocrine disruption and accumulated body burden of fluoride from water with more than 0.35 mg/L including bottle fed infants, children on antibiotics, diabetics, high intake consumers, those with a variety of diseases both acquired and genetic, those with nutrient deficiencies especially iodine and D, black and Hispanic races, and the poor who are most likely to be nutritionally deficient and unable to afford low fluoride foods and water while suffering disproportionally from being black, Hispanic, diabetic or otherwise more vulnerable. Those scientists, such fearmongers! So perhaps you would explain your ethical rationale for increasing the fluoride dosage and toxicity based on race and income? Dental fluorosis of the first permanent incisors at age 7 is a developmental effect of systemic fluoride toxicity to tooth buds in infancy. Once the enamel has become hypomineralized and splotchy, there has already been damage to the developing bones as well and no amount of reduced fluoride intake later from not swallowing toothpaste will undo it. Fluoride's half life in bones, displacing nutrient minerals there, is estimated to be more than 20 years. Dental fluorosis has affected 40% of Toronto children by age 7 due to fluoride overdose most commonly from fluoridated water used to mix formula and prepare weaning and toddler foods consumed before age two – not from toothpaste. Fluorosis on later teeth reflects fluoride toothpaste swallowing or certain medications – which is not the case with my children. Fluoridated toothpaste should not be used on young children due to their immaturity and the risk of swallowing more than a pea sized amount at each brushing. A pea sized amount provides about .25 mg, the same amount of fluoride as in a large glass of Toronto tap water. Infants regularly consume more than this in a day on milk formula. Please explain scientifically why you believe this dose from water containing unregulated, unapproved drug from diluted hydrofluorosilicic acid benefits teeth and does not cause dental fluorosis to children when you admit this same dose from swallowed toothpaste with approved (for topical use) sodium fluoride, regulated by Health Canada as a drug, does. -Nutrimom
http://paul.kishimoto.name Paul Kishimoto

I've never figured out what would prompt people to pick possible overfluoridation over other much greater public health concerns—car accidents, smoking, non-GHG pollutants from fossil fuel use—that far better deserve our attention.

GRgal, you are not scientifically minded. If you were, you would have linked directly to the EPA regulatory review you refer to, and let others draw their own conclusions. From what I read the EPA revised its recommended level of fluoridation but to a non-zero value, i.e. it continued to endorse the practice in general. Why do you omit this, if not to distort science?

Mary, part of the reason for health assessments is that “no one knows what the level of [anything] is in most people in North America,” and it would be prohibitively expensive to find out. Estimates must suffice instead, and lack of precise & complete measurements implies nothing about whether there are safe or non-safe levels of any particular chemical or compound, or whether policies can or should be taken to increase or reduce levels.
istoronto

@roymurray It seems as though GRgal and Mary Sparrowdancer have responed to your statement with some well researched facts. Can you do the same with their questions? I would especially like to see the science that confirms this - Fluoridation is a proven additive and works well – especially in society's most vulnerable. Please, no dental association propaganda., or papers from the 1950's. Just the facts and recent, real, science.
andrew97

Let me jump in here with an observation! “Scientifically minded” is not equivalent to “I have scientific evidence to back up my beliefs”. If you start with a hypothesis and then ONLY look for scientific evidence that REINFORCES the hypothesis, you are not scientifically minded.
GRgal

The NRC report may be accessed through the NAS itself or several non profit advocacy organizations. Obviously you also have not read it. The EPA tasked the NAS-NRC with examining the safety of its MAC of 4 ppm natural fluoride in drinking water. The NRC report produced by 12 scientists took 3 years to review 5,000 studies, selected nearly 2,000 that met criteria, and wrote in their report unequivocably that 4 ppm was unsafe for anyone because fluoride is cumulative, most toxic to the fetus and child, cannot be excreted by those with impaired kidneys and is made more toxic by the presence of other substances such as aluminum in water. The NRC panel was specifically forbidden from criticizing or evaluating fluoridation health effects but that did not stop them from evaluating plenty of scientific evidence of harm from low dosage to vulnerable subgroups. The panel did not find any increased level of fluoride in water over .4 ppm that was safe for all. The concentration in water may be limited but water intake and fluoride dose is not. This is a fundamental and scientific principle of pharmacology I gather you do not believe. The EPA administration endorses fluoridation over the formal signed objections of its scientific union members. Endorsement by the EPA is not science. It's a form of bullying so science will be suppressed.
GRgal

Right! No one knows how much fluoride we're getting, but somehow the True Believers in Fluoridation are sure it's not enough.
GRgal

Exactly. Scientifically minded means “impartially and completely observe, measure, report, compare, analyse and repeat until a hypothesis is supported or defeated.” Illogically minded means “car accidents and smoking are bad, therefore we should keep overdosing children and vulnerable subgroups with industrial waste fluoride in tap water.” Magically minded means “only the industrial waste kind of fluoride added by Toronto Water, that has the naturally inherent arsenic and lead from the phosphate factory pollution scrubbers, blessed by our Holy and Infallible Medical Officer of Health who does not know the difference between toxic waste and toothpaste, does the trick.” Torontoist minded means “sue your councillor for dental bills if the fluoridation is stopped.”
This scientific mind wants to ask Torontoist blogger Jamie Bradburn for the evidence underpinning his last paragraph, that childhood tooth decay is caused by lack of hydrofluorosilicic acid intake from tap water, evidence so strong that you could prove “hydrofluorosilicic acid deficiency” and it would somehow make a single Toronto councillor with only one vote out of 44 to be held legally responsible for causing cavities that the social democracies of Europe manage to prevent with basic social programs that include dental care and nutrition supplementation, and do not include fluoridation of water, milk or salt.
Roy Murray

I will simply state the following: fluoridation opponents remind me of people from the Flat Earth Society, the NRA and Creationists. Lots of pointers to studies but when you research the links, the connection isn't quite made or even worse, the actual studies demonstrate the opposing view. This perversion, distortion and misrepresentation of real scientific data is dishonest at best and downright malevolent at worst. Refutation simply leads to another batch of 'studies' and further outrageous innuendo.
http://piorkowski.ca qviri

Hi. Can your scientifically minded self can point to studies examining arsenic and lead content in municipal water attributable to fluoridation? Thanks.
tomwest

As a professional nutritionist, you should know that many foods contain flouride. Maybe you should look at how much flouride your kids get from their food versus how much they get from their water.

As for the vitamin D deficiency – as their mother, I presume you're the one who insisted they wear suncreen, so I can't see how you can blame the drinking water for that one.
(NB: incandescent lights emit next to no UV, so switching to fluorescent light doesn't affect your UV exposure.)

Also, you don't drink hydrofluorosilicic acid. You drink water conating flourdie ions. Big difference. (It's like the difference between driking hydrclhoic acid and water with a bit of table salt in it).

Finally, the source of the flouride ion doesn't matter to your health. A flourdie ion is a flouride ion, whether it came from some factory output or rocks in the ground.
tomwest

Toronto drinking water contains s 0.6 parts per million of flouride (http://www.toronto.ca/health/d… ). Multuiply that number by the number of litres you drink per day, and that's your intake.

So, you *do* know how much fluoride we're getting.
tomwest

I can't speak for the rest of Europe, but large parts of the UK add flouride to their water, and a lot of the rest has naturally high levels of flouride anyway.
dissident416

Congratulations. You just lost anyone following the thread who thought you might've had a point. Wrapping up with an insulting statement of faith (people opposed to fluoride in drinking water = creationists), and Paul K avoiding the topic because it makes him uncomfortable and he wants to talk about something else. Brilliant tactics, guys. Just brilliant.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_PB23V234OSCWUAPTHGYIAYAN4Q g d

All Trendly Dean's (“father of fluoridation”), research showed was that fluoride delays the eruption of individual teeth by six months to two years, therefore teeth are slower at getting cavities. If teeth haven't come through the gums yet, teeth will naturally not be capable of forming cavities. After the teenage
years, there are actually more cavities in those who use fluoridation.
Fluoride is toxic and makes both teeth and bones brittle. It's good
money for the dental industry. To paraphrase Dean's findings, “As children's teeth disintegrate, they may have few cavities”. There are over 500 peer-reviewed studies showing adverse effects from fluorides.

Trendley Dean, DDS, the original promoter of water fluoridation as an
effective tool in fighting dental decay, admitted over 50 years ago
under oath, that his data purporting to prove the fluoridation hypothesis were not valid. (H. Trendley Dean: Proceedings, City of Oroville vs. Public Utilities
Commission of the State of California, Oroville, California, Oroville,
California, October 20-21, 1955.)… also… (See 4-1: “Fluoridation
Benefits — Statistical Illusion.” Testimony of Konstantin K. Paluev,
Research and Development Engineer, Mar. 6, 1957).
GRgal

Oh dear. Another one who hasn't done the reading, but is bound and determined to teach me the lesson. As the NRC report and other studies have found, children with low vitamin D are more at risk of developing dental fluorosis and related bone fracture risk from fluoridated water. Fluorescent lights further inhibit the skin's ability to make vitamin D from sunlight. And I followed the Toronto Public Health directive regarding sunscreen for children in daycare; and the WHO directive to give nutrient dense fresh weaning foods, which are lower in fluoride than processed, bottled, boxed or canned. Toronto tap water, fluoridated at the time to 1 ppm was their main source of fluoride overdose and their main source of increased lead and arsenic. We are drinking all the components of the hydrofluorosilicic acid including the contaminants and their synergistic toxicity with aluminum and chloramine, as well as the increased lead leached from pipes and fittings. It is illogical-magical thinking to believe that fluoridation can't cause fluorosis but foods can; and that a hazardous waste, H2SiF6 strictly regulated by the Canadian Environmental Protection Agency and the Basel Convention as a dangerous, cumulative pollutant that must be kept out of air and surface water and must be isolated from soil, is a source of fluoride equivalent to natural ion from CaF2 without arsenic or lead.
But the bottom line is that Jamie Bradburn did not do his homework. There are thousands of children and young adults in Toronto with dental fluorosis caused directly by the obtuseness of councillors. They cannot be held financially liable until 2013.
GRgal

Most recent is Vukmanich 2009. This water chemistry engineer working for Thunder Bay conducted tests using treated, potable Lake Superior source water. Results of increased lead and corrosion made Thunder Bay council reject fluoridation. Confirms the studies of Maas, Patch Christian; Masters and Coplan; the before and after measurements of lead in cities in the US and Europe that have ended fluoridation; and the original Westendorf thesis. Assays of fluoridation chemical batches show arsenic up to 87 mg/L and up to 3.5 kg of lead per tanker. I have one from 2005 showing arsenic at 45 mg/L and lead at 2 mg/L. But if you want more current assays you will have to file FOIA requests and I can assure you, Toronto Water will respond with “no records”. Yes, that's right. Councillors are in favour of continuing to add a chemical with arsenic, that leaches 2-8x more lead from our aging infrastructure, based on blind ignorance of the law, and Toronto Water has “no records” of batch assays, in direct violation of Ontario Safe Drinking Water Act requiring verification that the chemicals meet Standard 60 through batch assays. Diluting arsenic and lead in drinking water is a violation of section 20 “dilution no defense” even when finished water leaving the plant meets regulations for arsenic and lead. Currently about ten percent of Toronto tap water tests do not meet regulations for lead, but meet regulations for arsenic. But the meets-regulation arsenic detectable with sensitive meter is 90% there due to fluoridation, not to L. Ontario source water content. So what should Toronto residents get with their democratic voice: tap water that meets regulations with 9 ppb lead and 1 ppb arsenic or 2 ppb lead and only a few parts per trillion arsenic?
The bottom line is Jamie Bradburn wrote a biased article and did not do his homework. Why?
GRgal

This is incorrect. For the current data on world water fluoridation, go to fluoridealert.org.
GRgal

This is incorrect. It is also poor spelling. Toronto's water tests submitted to province show wide variation and occasional fluoride exceedence. The concentration has been repeatedly lowered from 1.2 mg/L because dental fluorosis is affecting nearly half the kids. Dental fluorosis is HARM. Fluoride is a hidden contaminant, varies in air pollution and workplace environment, is released in the body by various medications, and content in foods and beverages varies widely and is not listed in the nutrition facts label. Toronto water is used for commercial food manufacturing; fluoride is concentrated in products as hot processing water becomes steam. We do not know how much fluoride we are getting, have gotten, and have in our bones. Some people excrete 70% of the fluoride they swallow, others (like children) only 20%. Some people drink a lot of water. What we DO know is that 0.6 mg/L is too much fluoride for vulnerable subgroups including babies and 0.1 mg/L (L. Ontario source water) is not. Patients suffering overt signs of chronic fluoride poisoning are unable to get a simple 24 hour urine collection test for excreted fluoride in Ontario. You have to pay out of pocket to a US lab despite Toronto's Mt. Sinai research facility having the best available testing equipment. We get 1.2 mg of fluoride from every teaspoon of table salt. Baking powder, beer, tobacco, tea and wine can be high in fluoride. Our water intake must meet need for hydration and metabolism; and need varies with activity, health condition and excretion. Increased fluoride intake requires increased hydration as kidneys age.
As Health Canada waffles between identifying fluoride in anything other than toothpaste as a mineral nutrient, not a nutrient, a drug, not a drug, a natural health product, not a natural health product, needs regulation, does not need regulation, is safe in any amount for infants, should not be given to infants (in their responses to petitions filed with federal Auditor General), we have no credible yardstick to measure intake or accumulation let alone assurance of safety for lifetime consumption of the actual chemical we are forced to ingest. So to impose increased fluoride intake on everyone, from water which is a necessity for life and a UN-declared human right, is simply inhumane. What we DO know is that adding industrial waste fluoride at 0. 6 mg/L to Toronto Water is adding 3.2 million pounds of fluoride annually to Lake Ontario in gross exceedence of the Canadian Water Quality Guideline of 0.12 mg/L.All of this information was available to Jamie Bradburn. He deliberately avoided mentioning it. Why?
GRgal

See this example of the dishonest behaviour you attribute to others. It was performed by our Medical Officer of Health.
From his April 2007 report to council on why the Ashbridge's Bay Treatment Plant Neighbourhood Liaison Committee's motion of 2006 asking for compared measurements of lead and other heavy metals in treated sewage effluent and dewatered sludge before and after an interruption in fluoridation should not be approved:
“overall scientific assessment is that fluoride is not a likely cause of cancer at levels [sic] optimal for oral health” (p. 4) citing Douglas [sic] and Joshipura 2006, CDC, Reference (5) (page 9). The Report states: “the researchers [Bassin et al who found osteosarcoma increase from fluoridation] caution that this is the only study that has shown this association” (p. 4)
False: Bassin et al. did not caution this, but stated: “Our results are consistent with a pattern seen in the National Toxicology Program (NTP) animal study and two ecological studies”. The “caution” was in a letter to the editor from critic of Bassin’s article (Chester Douglass) who had attempted to suppress it, and had successfully prevented publication of the original thesis on which it was based because it made his own research look really bad. The CDC reference (5) on page 9 does not exist. The CDC has not conducted cancer studies on fluoridated water. Thus, the reference is invalid and appears to have been manufactured by our MOH to use the authority and prestige of the
Centers for Disease Control to prop up a statement that can not, in fact, be supported with science, so that our elected councillors will support continued fluoridation and not get suspicious about the overwhelming evidence that it causes increased lead in tap water, effluent and sludge cake. Did you notice, the ABTP-NLC only wanted to know about LEAD but our MOH blustered about fluoridation not causing CANCER? Our MOH continues:
“The study that gives the greatest indication of what might happen in Toronto if water fluoridation is discontinued, is a study conducted in
British Columbia, Canada. This study found that removing water fluoridation led to an increase in dental caries compared to the fluoridated control site.” (p. 7)
False: Maupomé G, Clark DC, Levy SM, Berkowitz. Patterns of dental caries following the cessation of water fluoridation. Community Dent Oral
Epidemiol 2001; 29:37-47 showed that in British Columbia “the
prevalence of caries decreased over time in the fluoridation-ended
community while remaining unchanged in the fluoridated community”.
Toronto Board of Health had asked MOH to report back on what the literature says about dental health risk from ending fluoridation. Dr. Amir Azarpazhooh of U of Toronto performed the review under supervision by Dr. Hazel Stewart. Azarpazhooh found the study by Maupomé et al.
is well corroborated. Several primary research papers show that ending fluoridation led to no change or a continued decrease in cavities (Burt et al 2000; Kalsbeck et al 2000; Kunzel et al 2000; Seppa et al 2000). A follow-up study to Maupomé et al 2001 (Clark et al, 2006) confirmed that dental fluorosis was reduced, with insignificant fluctuation or further decline in caries rates.
The analysis by Azarpazhooh and Stewart was omitted from the Toronto report. The Chair of Board of Health, John Filion, did not seem to mind even though he had motioned for it the previous year. Our MOH is vague and evasive when asked about why it was not included though it is a highly relevant science document on which our democratically elected councillors should rely. It is now buried at U of Toronto just like the Bassin thesis was buried at Harvard. Does this behaviour fit your def. of malevolent? It is now supported by more recent and relevant papers (Ito 2007, Pizzo et al 2007).
http://profiles.google.com/goldastarr GoldaStarr .

Fluoridating public water is a self determination and human
rights issue. Putting fluoride in public
water supplies robs the individual of making their own decisions about what
they wish to do with their own bodies.
People who want fluoride have the right to add it to their water. Not everyone wants or needs fluoride.

Personally, I ended up in 3rd stage kidney disease before I
realized that fluoride worsens weak kidneys and even can CAUSE kidney
disease. I got off fluoridated water AND
green and black teas which are high in fluoride, and in 4 months my kidney
functioning improved by 90%. That's
huge. No fluoride, no kidney
dialysis.

I have the right to make that decision about my own
body. Fluoride does not belong in the
public water supply. It's a matter of
self determination, of personal choice.

http://www.FluorideDetective.c…
http://profiles.google.com/goldastarr GoldaStarr .

Fluoridating public water is a self determination and human
rights issue. Putting fluoride in public
water supplies robs the individual of making their own decisions about what
they wish to do with their own bodies.
People who want fluoride have the right to add it to their water. Not everyone wants or needs fluoride.

Personally, I ended up in 3rd stage kidney disease before I
realized that fluoride worsens weak kidneys and even can CAUSE kidney
disease. I got off fluoridated water AND
green and black teas which are high in fluoride, and in 4 months my kidney
functioning improved by 90%. That's
huge. No fluoride, no kidney
dialysis.

I have the right to make that decision about my own
body. Fluoride does not belong in the
public water supply. It's a matter of
self determination, of personal choice.

http://www.FluorideDetective.c…
andrew97

Have you registered a complaint with the College of Physicians and Surgeons against what is obviously willful negligence and incompetence on the part of the Medical Officer of Health?
andrew97

I assume you don't use recycled paper either, since being “industrial waste” is apparently a point against reusing something.
http://piorkowski.ca qviri

Hi Golda! What brings you to Toronto?
GRgal

No point. When public health officials are dishonest and malevolent in promoting and maintaining water fluoridation, they are doing their job. They get rewarded, not punished. Examples: Waterloo Region's MOH is still in her job despite giving erroneous and misleading statements to council and covering up serious deficiencies in water quality. Acting Chief MOH for Ontario is still in his job despite issuing directives in 2009 to Ontario's public health personnel to give false information and refuse to discuss further, in answer to any questions from the public on fluoridation. Hamilton's assistant MOH scoffed at the Municipal Freedom of Information and Privacy Act but he's still there. The MOH is not democratically accountable. Unfettered power.
The Ontario Dental Association thought it didn't have to obey the Municipal Elections Act during the Waterloo fluoridation referendum, but the Crown thinks otherwise. They have been charged and are going to court in November. But this won't change fluoridation in Toronto.Our elected councillors and Toronto Water are the ones who need to be forced to obey the laws. The democratically elected Ontario Minister of Health is directly responsible for misleading Ontario municipalities to “enforce” a non-enforceable OPTIONAL public health policy that violates the Ministry of Environment's drinking water regulations and exceeds the Canadian Water Quality Guideline for fluoride emissions to source water. Torontoist should be on top of all of this. WHY ISN'T IT?
GRgal

Please don't demean yourself with an immature display of spite. I would like to respect you as a worthy debater. If you have a defense for H2SiF6 as a health product rather than a hazardous, cumulative, persistent pollutant as defined by the Basel Convention and Canada's environmental toxins regulatory body, produce it so Health Canada can use it. They currently don't have one.
http://profiles.google.com/goldastarr GoldaStarr .

I'm admiring the informed and well spoken anti-fluoridationists in Toronto. The fluoride debate needs to rail everywhere that water is fluoridated, poisoning people. I'm in the soggy Seattle area.

My fondest debate point against fluoride is the matter of violation of freedom of choice. I agree with all the health issues presented – however we can avoid health related debate by pointing to the base issue of freedom of choice.
John Duncan

Okay, so GRgal was making a reasonable argument and citing sources. That's something I can definitely respect. Having not read them, and being relatively uninformed on water quality issues, I have no idea of whether her description of the findings is accurate or not. But it's a proper argument based on evidence and measurable health effects.

But you're basing your argument on the claim that it's a matter of self-determination. Every society makes choices for its members, including ones that some people won't like–we give everyone health care and levy taxes to pay for it, which is as big an infringement on personal choice as fluoridation.
andrew97

That's about what I expected you to say.
andrew97

Please do the same! Repeatedly referring to water fluoride as “industrial waste” is an appeal to emotion that has nothing to do with its health effects. As the paper recycling example shows, it's not in itself a bad thing to be reusing “industrial waste”.

More broadly, your view may be well researched, but a quick Google search shows that your view is in the minority in the scientific community.

Being in the minority is not the same as being wrong! But speaking for myself, as a non-biochemist, non-MD and a busy person who doesn't have time to read an avalanche of literature to make up my own mind, I would need some good reason to go against the prevailing scientific view that fluoridation is a net benefit.

So let's see.

To accept the experts' view, I need to believe that most public officials, scientists, and standards bodies are acting in good faith, in spite of some dissenting views in the literature.

To accept your view, I would have to believe that there is an implausibly large — yet still secret! — medical-scientific-industrial conspiracy theory in which most public officials are craven, incompetent, or corrupt.

And even if I accept that, I don't see what's in it for the medical and scientific authorities, and I have to ignore that these same authorities have taken unpopular stands against polluting industries in the past (e.g., MOH against running diesel trains through neighborhoods, in spite of the emissions being within acceptable limits).

So, no sale. I'm okay with fluoridation.

I note that I believe in human-caused global warming for much the same reason.
istoronto

Depending on where you look, a quick google search also finds that Mayor Rob Ford is the most effective and beloved mayor Toronto has ever had. 10 out of 10 times, I'd believe well researched info, before I believe a “quick” goggle search. Even if a majority of a group think they're right about something, it doesn't make it right. If that were so, then no one would pay taxes or many wrongly convicted people would still be rotting in prison. From the little I've read about the fluoridation issue, it seem the pro side doesn't have the science to back up their beliefs. They deem it so, based on 50 year research. Those that have oppossed it, do. They even have statements from early proponents and believers of water Fluoridation, denouncing it.

Water Fluoridation seem to be alot like the abortion issue. You're on one side or the other, but not willing to budge because of a belief that It's harmful or it's not. My belief is that it is harmful.
tomwest

Sorry, I don't trust a website that is clearly advocating against adding flouride. Point me at a UK government website (or similar) saying that no-where in the UK has fluoridated water… oh, you can't.
tomwest

“Fluorescent lights further inhibit the skin's ability to make vitamin D from sunlight”How???? Fluorescent lights emit visible light *only* (that's the point!). Incandescent lights visible light and infra-red. It is the UV in sunlight that is important for vitamin D. living under fluorescent lights has no more negative impact that living under incandescent lights.

Assuming you are right about the 1ppm ofllfouride, that's still only 106 micrograms of flouride ion per 100ml of water. As the professional nutritionist, did you ever go through all the food they ate in a week and add up the flouride they got from that? (A simply yes/no will suffice)

Do you have a soucre for the lead/arsenic levels in Toronto water, and how they compare with safe levels?

Also, you clearly are well informed on the effects of vitamin D deificiency, yet you did nothing to fix it. Inaction when you are aware of the consequences is shameful.

As for the source: a flouride ion is a flouride, regardless of the source. Please stop implying that a flouride ion from hexafluorosilicic acid is magically different from a flouride ion from calcium flouride.
tomwest

“ Putting fluoride in public water supplies robs the individual of making their own decisions about what they wish to do with their own bodies. “
We shoudl get rid of those pesky laws mandating you wear seat belts… and those laws specifiying car safety standards. If you want to put your body in a car which will kill you in a crash, you should be able to, right?
Oh, and we should stop making people stop at red lights. After all, if you want to go through an intersection and get your body t-boned, you should be able to, right?
What about those air pollution laws… after all, you can always move your body away from that factory, right?
Who needs building codes? Surely your body should be able to live in a house that might fall over in a storm, or easily catch fire, or have electrical wiring done by someone without qualifcations?

Any public health or public saftey law reduces our choices. That doesn't make it a Bad Thing.
http://twitter.com/mark_dowling Mark Dowling

US National Institutes of Health: Statement on Water Fluoridation
http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/OralH…
US Centres for Disease Control: Community Water Fluoridation
http://www.cdc.gov/fluoridatio…
Health Canada: Consultation Document on Fluoride:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-sem…
European Commission Directorate General for Health and Consumers
Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks: http://ec.europa.eu/health/sci…

Incidentally for the discussion above re fluoride ions, the last linked above contains the following in the Summary. “Hydrolysis of hexafluorosilicates, used for drinking water fluoridation, to fluoride was rapid and the release of fluoride ion was essentially complete. Therefore, the fluoride ion is considered the only relevant substance with respect to this opinion”
rich1299

From checking out your links to sources with no agenda o n this issue it appear the only issue is how much fluoride to add to drinking water to maximize its benefits while reducing its harms and since naturally occuring fluoride in water varies by location the proper amount to add will also vary by location. Perhaps Toronto should be adding less fluoride, perhaps it should be adding more, I don't know and it depends so much on the amount naturally occuring in our water supply. There is always going to be some people who have a negative reaction to certain things that improve the health of most people, for example drug/food allergies as well as people with other illnesses that may cause something that would be otherwise healpful to their health to have the opposite effect and be detrimental to their health. Its impossible to make everything 100% safe for everyone due to such differences. Removing such things as fluoride to protect those with kidney damage or other ailments that may be made worse by fluoride needs to be balanced against the health benefits it has for the majority of people.

I grew up in an area that didn't add fluoride to its water and regularly had cavities as a kid, shortly after moving to Toronto and seeing a dentist here he told me I had the softest teeth of anyone he's examined, but he's only worked in Toronto where water does have fluoride, He advised me to use a fluoride rinse on a daily basis. However I stopped doing that after a couple years, after having lived in toronto for 20 or so years now I've had fewer cavities recently than at any other time in my life and my oral hygeine habits haven't changed, except during the couple years after I first moved here and used a fluoride rinse on the advice of my dentist. My last dental visit found no cavities, a first for me, in spite of no change in my dental hygeine habits. It seems that adding fluoride to Toronto's water has helped improve my oral health by quite a bit.
istoronto

What would compel hundreds of scientist, in dozens of countries, working separately for the past 4 decades to fabricate a fluoridation is evil plan? I would think there is some truth in their findings about water fluoridation.

Governments are wrong all the time and it takes them years, if ever, to admit error. DDT? Mercury? Lead? Smoking? Cod fishery? The list of problematic issues is a mile long, and all governments will examine, re-examine, question, delay and ignore any issue that might cause political unrest, public hysteria or loss of profit. Even if it is at the expense of its citizens health and welfare. I would like like to trust them, but based on history, I can't.
GRgal

Help me understand this. You deduce, using a form of reasoning that can not possibly be called scientific but rather magical-associative that ONLY the diluted fluorosilic acid exposure from consuming Toronto water was responsible for reducing your cavities in adulthood when all the other fluoride intake you had made no difference? Gee, is the fluoride in tea, salt, canned food, cereal, baking powder and juice just not the magical industrial waste kind that prevents cavities? Is that why it won't work? And was this magical industrial waste kind of fluoride the ONLY factor? Or are you saying that the dental fluoride rinse made the difference? The sodium fluoride in the rinse is approved and regulated as a drug for topical use at high concentration, not to be swallowed, not to be used on children, and has toxicology and efficacy studies to substantiate claims. It works chemically on the surface enamel whether you are swallowing other fluoride or not. Your dentist may not force you or trick you to use it, get you to swallow it, nor deceive you regarding risks and benefits, on penalty of losing license to practice. It may not be sold to you without drug labelling and instructions for safe use. Fluorosilic acid chemicals do not have regulatory approval or oversight from Health Canada which makes their use as ingested dental medication illegal under that regulatory framework. Fluoridation chemicals do have strong regulatory inhibition from Canadian Environmental Protection Agency as hazardous, cumulative, persistent pollutants, and from Transport Canada as “dangerous good”. They contain heavy metals and trace radionuclides from their phosphate rock source individually regulated as serious contaminants and carcinogens. It is a serious environmental crime to add fluorosilic acid or its salt to source water used for drinking or farming. Ontario's drinking water Act say it's illegal to add their contaminants, dilution no defense, because fluoridation chemicals are not required for disinfection. The Act requires the fluoridation chemicals to have proof that they meet Standard 60 – yet FOIA responses prove Toronto is adding fluoridation chemicals that don't meet Standard 60 in violation of the Act. The Fluoridation Act does not permit the use of specific fluorosilicate chemicals or specify the dilution to be reached; anyway it is subordinate to the drinking water Act which also does not specify nor permit. The federal guideline for fluoride emitted to source drinking water is exceeded by fluoride in municipal effluent due to fluoridation. The International Joint Commission forbids the addition of this pollutant to Great Lakes waters. We signed the binding UNESCO agreement on human rights and bioethics which includes not forcing communities or individuals to swallow drugs without their informed consent, not to withhold necessities of life (which water is but fluoride is not) and not to cause harm or suffering to minorities through public policy (dental fluorosis is harm disproportionally caused to black and poor children and chronic fluoride poisoning causes disability and pain disproportionally to certain subgroups). So please, explain why these legal restrictions should be flouted for Toronto to impose an increased fluoride intake and accumulation established by the National Research Council 2006 report to the EPA as being HARMFUL to the defenseless bodies of fetus, child and medically vulnerable, through adding this substance as a de facto drug to prevent and treat dental disease that can be prevented through nutrition and treated with safer topical fluoride and hygiene methods.

No one has the right to cause dental fluorosis to ANY Toronto child through imposition of your unscientific beliefs. No one has the right to increase fluoride in the Great Lakes water commons with your ignorance. No one has the right to withhold public water essential for hydration and substitute water with an added drug known to accumulate and cause harm. No one has the right to force others to consume unlicensed, unregulated, unapproved toxic substances intended to treat or prevent dental disease, no matter how diluted. No one.
GRgal

Let's see if I got this right.
Andrew97: (whining) Stop calling hydrofluorosilicic acid industrial waste. It's not fair to make people think fluoridation is bad. It's like recycled paper.
Canadian Environmental Protection Agency: Hydrofluorosilicic acid is a class 1 pollutant: hazardous, extremely corrosive, toxic, cumulative, persistent in biota and environment. It isn't like anything else. Not allowed to emit it to air, soil or surface water. Recycled paper saves trees.
Basel Convention: Fluoridation chemicals ditto. Recycled paper good.
California EPA: HFSA and salts for inclusion for review as probable carcinogen. Recycled paper ok.
Material Safety Data Sheet: dangerous and may be fatal if swallowed, breathed or spilled on skin. Printed on recycled paper.
Transport Canada: It's a dangerous good. Recycled paper is not.
Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment: fluoridation is ethically and scientifically untenable (5,000 members). We use recycled paper.
Union representing EPA scientists: fluoridation is ethically and scientifically untenable. (3,000 members). We use recycled paper too.

You don't have to accept anything, truth or lies, least of all from me. You may continue to cling to your faith, prejudice and ignorance with all your might. You just can't force them on others according to the global standards for human rights we as Canadians have pledged to uphold. You may purchase a cleaning powder called Cameo which is full of sodium silicofluoride, the dry salt form of what is added to Toronto water. You may sprinkle it on your food to demonstrate your commitment to ingesting what you believe is a safe, beneficial decay preventive and ignore the label warnings and the toxicity of the other ingredients. After all, YOU know anything with fluoride in it is as safe as recycled paper even if the manufacturer is required to post that poison info. But you really ought to be a better man than you are, and respect the law, the environmental water commons, and the rights of children not to be fluoride poisoned from the same chemical added to public drinking water.
GRgal

Well, I would have given you the National Fluoride Information Centre for the UK Health Service, but when it was found out in 2009 to be nothing more than a telephone answering machine in a locked room in an abandoned part of Manchester University campus with 125,000 pounds of Brit taxpayer money going annually to a senior exec of Colgate Palmolive who escaped to Australia when the scam was uncovered and the government was informed, the number quickly went out of service and Health Service no longer has NFIC.
The UK is not keeping very good tabs on who is getting fluoridated water at the moment, despite the WHO directive to do so. The task fell to the UK Councils themselves who have determined with the help of EU scientists that about 20% of Britons get artificially fluoridated water. This is largely due to widespread rejection of the practice by Councils, and the exposing of venerable scientists e.g. Sir Richard Doll who accepted industry bribes to control the research and the published conclusions. No credibility, you see.
My condolences for your scientific apartheid. It must be so limiting to accept only government-approved propaganda. I find that scientific and ethical evaluation of information is best done with an inquiring mind unafraid to hear unpleasant truth.
GRgal

You have confused civil liberties with human rights. Some may have civil liberty to drive a car. No one has a human right to drive a car. A blind person has equal human rights to a sighted person but driving a car isn't one of them. Everyone now has a UN-declared human right to access safe drinking water. To withhold water from a thirsty human is a violation of their human rights. But you or anyone else do not have the power to force another human to consume water when they have said “no” to water. Ditto for food. Ditto for an unlicensed, unregulated drug you have decided should be dissolved in that water. If you do this you are violating their human right to informed consent. Call it a nutrient and you are still violating their rights. You can't force or trick another human to consume ANYTHING, nutrient or drug, for their own good no matter how much you believe they should. But we can and should regulate the behavior of humans behind the wheel. The UNESCO agreement on this is pretty clear.
But in Toronto's case, the use of the toxic fluoridation chemical itself, its causation in raising the amount of lead in tap water and its addition to downstream environment are further assaults on various regulatory laws and guidelines in addition to violating our human rights to not be drugged and harmed by our municipal government policies. Toronto's public health department must act accordingly.http://ukcaf.org/files/human_r…
GBCINQUE

Vitamin D deficiency can be easily corrected with “d-drops” available at your local drugstore. Only this year did Cdn doctors suggest that these should be given to infants as well as other aged children, especially in winter months. European doctors have been recommending these for decades.

Fluoride could also be brought into your system through fluoridated salt as opposed to adding it to the public water supply.

A quote from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W…
Communities have discontinued water fluoridation in some countries, including Finland, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. This change was often motivated by political opposition to water fluoridation, but sometimes the need for water fluoridation was met by alternative strategies. The use of fluoride in its various forms is the foundation of tooth decay prevention throughout Europe; for example, France, Germany, and many other European countries use fluoridated salt.
andrew97

You're right that I don't have to accept anything from you, especially when your story doesn't make sense!

In a liter of water, there should be less than a milligram of fluoride. All of the examples you cite (spilling, transporting, shaking out of a can of Cameo on food) concern amounts and concentrations many orders of magnitude higher.

It's an obvious fact that virtually anything is toxic in high enough concentration. It is an equally obvious fact that some materials, though safe and beneficial in minute quantities, are toxic and dangerous if spilled on the skin or sprinkled on food. You are ignoring this possibility. As other commenters have noted, it's not an issue of “good” versus “bad” substances, it's a matter of dose.

So I am left with two possibilities. Either you literally can't wrap your mind around this concept, or you're leaving out facts that are inconvenient to your narrative. (Let's not even get started on you calling me a whiner for poking holes in your argument!) So I think we're done here. But watching your argument go completely off the rails has been quite a hoot, thanks!
http://piorkowski.ca qviri

I'm not sure how this works with the fluoridation argument. So you have the right to access to “water.” What definition of water are we using? Do you have the right to access to non-fluoridated water? In areas with naturally high fluoride content and lead pipes, do you have the right to access to de-fluoridated water? If your city has naturally higher water supply fluoride content than the next city over, and both supplies are unfluoridated, do you have the right to demand access to the next city's water?
http://piorkowski.ca qviri

Hm, and it just so happens that somehow the facts that you're merely admiring the anti-fluoridationists in Toronto and that you're not located anywhere close to Toronto was left out of your initial post.

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