Flouride in our tap water is giving us arthritis!

[francar]

Recently diagnosed with inflammatory RA and a friend in America has told me about civil suits going on over there to get compo from the Government as its down to flouride poisoning. Here in the UK they put flouride into our water in order to cut down on tooth decay. This is a serious drug which some people will have a reaction to. Studies have shown it causes problems with your bones and causes arthritis. Toothpaste is a problem too, but at least with that we have a choice. As the mum of twin 2 year olds I feel very angry that our government has let this happen and feel like I have failed my children by forcing them to brush their teeth with gloops of flouride and drink 'healthy water'. Google it for details. I want to find out if there is any action against this situation so that I can join in as I haven't chosen to be drugged! Any ideas?

[DBennett]

Can I first say that when a webpage is labeled as revisited and yet is dated from 1993, you wonder if they could have gone back and checked to see if anything had changed.

And Lew Rockwell seem to have made the same mistake that Professor Connett did by only mentioning papers that supported his theory, ignoring evidence against it and not commentating on statistical matters.

But you wanted to talk chemistry.

Now again, this might be a problem from when it was written but even in 1992 Sodium Fluoride was in the minority when it came to use as a fluoridation additive.

But I think the main stroke of that paragraph is that the beneficial effects of calcium on teeth and bones could be the cause of the improvements seen in naturally high fluoridated areas.

I think this is false for lots of reasons but two stand out:

Benefits of fluoridation have been found in both natural and man-made fluoridated supplies.
As they use different sources of fluoride (and none include calcium) this is a pretty strong piece of evidence.

Naturally fluoridated water supplies tend to be calcium deficient, that is they have less calcium than naturally low fluoride water.
Natural fluoride levels are mainly related to levels of fluorite (CaF2). Higher free fluoride levels indicate lower calcium levels.
See here for a better worded explanation.

Is that the chemistry bit you were after?

[rosi7]

Fluoridation Revisited:
www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard85.html

[DBennett]

@celadon

Glad you got access to the York Report.
Did you have download anything specific?

Water fluoridation does not need to be perfect to be important and useful.
And everything with effects has side-effects.

If this thread had the title:

"Fluoride in our water is not a panacea"

I doubt I'd have posted.

But lets talk about the adverse effects.

When you say they weren't sought do you mean the authors of the report hasn't sought them.
Or that no-one anywhere has sought them.

Maybe it doesn't matter, I'd argue both were false.

The authors of the York Report searched 25 online databases across languages.
They hand-searched relevant journals and contacted authors for extra unpublished data.
What more did you want them to do?

They found (detailed under objective 4):

88 studies relating to dental fluorosis.
29 studies relating to bone fracture and development.
26 studies relating to cancer.
33 studies that looked at other adverse effects (ranging from general mortality to I.Q. development).

This doesn't seem like an issue ignored.
And their conclusion, as you quoted, is that no association was found.

You mention bones in particular, so lets talk about that for a moment.

Of the 30 analysis done on hip fractures:
14 found a reduction (of which 5 were statistically significant).
13 found an increase (of which 4 were statistically significant).
3 found no effect.

Of the 30 analysis done on other fracture sites:
13 found a reduction (of which 1 was statistically significant).
14 found an increase (of which 1 was statistically significant).
3 found no effect.

You will note that I have mentioned both the positive and negative studies, and was open about the statistical analysis.
I would have more respect for Professor Connett's list if he had done likewise.

[DBennett]

Hmmm, I've just checked the three times I linked to the NHS/Department of Health report, they work for me.
I don't think I have anything fancy in the way of software plug-ins but it's possible.
Have you tried all 3 links?
Just in case, it's transcription error (massively unlikely) I'll post the links again here and here.

The CDC report is quite clear about why they reach the conclusions they do.
And, in doing so, they show the majority of Professor Connett's list to be erroneous.

But given that you don't know me personally, or indeed any of the recognised experts in water fluoridation who wrote the reports that declare the risks minimal and the benefits worth having would you really benefit from me going line by line over the "50 Reasons".

Because I think that'd be a lot of work from which nothing will come.

[DBennett]

If you favour your arguments to be from authority can I see your Professor of Chemistry and raise you (apologies for lack of brevity):

JOHN DOULL (Chair),
Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology and Toxicology
University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City

KIM BOEKELHEIDE,
Professor of Pathology
Brown University, Providence, RI

BARBARA G. FARISHIAN,
Professor of Dentistry
Washington, DC

ROBERT L. ISAACSON,
Distinguished Professor of Psychology
Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY

JUDITH B. KLOTZ,
Adjunct Associate Professor of Public Health
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Piscataway

JAYANTH V. KUMAR,
Director of Oral Health Surveillance & Research
New York State Department of Health, Albany

HARDY LIMEBACK,
Associate Professor and Head of Preventative Dentistry
University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada

CHARLES POOLE,
Associate Professor of Epidemiology
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill

J. EDWARD PUZAS,
Professor of Orthopaedics; Biochemistry & Biophysics
Director of Musculoskeletal Research Unit.
University of Rochester, Rochester, NY

NU-MAY RUBY REED,
Lead Toxicologist
California Environmental Protection Agency, Sacramento

KATHLEEN M. THIESSEN,
Senior Scientist and Director
SENES Oak Ridge, Inc., Oak Ridge, TN

THOMAS F. WEBSTER,
Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Environmental Health
Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA

Marian S. McDonagh
Assistant professor of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology
Oregon Health & Science University

Penny F Whiting
Research Fellow
Department of Social Medicine
Bristol School of Medicine

Ivor Chesnutt
Professor and Hon. Consultant in Dental Public Health
Cardiff University

Mrs Jan Cooper
Principal Teaching Fellow
Warwick Medical School

Elizabeth Treasure
Professor of Dentistry & Vice Chancellor
Cardiff University

Jos Kleijnen
Professor and director of the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination
University of York

These are some (I got bored before finishing) of the authors of the reviews I posted linked to which conclude that water fluoridation is an appropriately safe and effective method of enhancing dental health.

I don't know why you would choose to trust Professor Connett over these other Professors.
He is both out-numbered and out of his specialty.
But I can't imagine anything I can say would change your mind.

And bearing in mind I claim no authority (we're all just folk here on mumsnet), I'd suggest you read the reports I linked to (here and here)if you want to find information on water fluoridation.

[Thumbwitch]

hahaha. I have quite enough chemistry qualifications, thank DB. And immunology. So you needn't worry about my understanding. I worry about yours though.

Topical fluoride application helps against dental caries - there is a reason why it is suggested people don't swallow toothpaste and it would be fluoride-ingestion related.

[B52s]

oh lord, fluoride. you know what I mean.

[B52s]

It is down to your local health authority (in England and Wales) to request the local water company to flouridate. The LA would do what they believe is best, but if you have a problem with it, take it up with them. The water company has to abide by the LA decision.

Personally I wouldn't drink flouridated water, but it is shown in some areas to reduce dental caries in children.

[DBennett]

The OPs original post (and indeed thread title), refers to water fluoridation.

Not sulphuryl fluoride which you started discussing.

They are very different in both a chemical and physiological sense.

The mercola site you linked to does cover water fluoridation.

It says:

"The science is quite clear: Fluoride should NOT be ingested. So, first of all, don't drink fluoridated water".

Which is not the case.
And I provided references to show why I think that.

If you want to talk about sulphuryl fluoride, maybe it's best you start a new topic.
If you want to put all fluoride compounds into one one small toxic box, maybe it's best you take a chemistry course.

[Funk]

Dr Mercola on fluoride He's always got lots of interesting things to say

[Dorje]

I use a very stylish tinfoil hat for this kind of thing - it's a fascinating cloche design, with a pointy bit at the top like an antennae - I find it's faster than broadband for the 'signals'.

PS I have all my own teeth.

[Thumbwitch]

If you could take your blinkers off for just a moment, there, DBennett you would see that the reason I linked to that site is because the US Environmental Protection Agency have decided that a fluoride-based food fumigant leaves unsafe levels of fluoride in some of the foods that it is used on. And that the research done on animals has shown that the high fluoride levels are toxic.

But by all means throw the baby out with the bathwater if it makes you happier.

[DBennett]

I'm afraid to say that the mercola umbrella of websites is not a good source of health information.

If it was, they would have mentioned that both the NHS/Department of Health and the CDC have conducted systematic reviews of all the research evidence.

UK one available here or here (for a briefer review).

CDC behind a paywall but summaries here.

These reports agree that the evidence supports dental fluorosis as adverse effect of water fluoridation.
Nothing else comes close to being linked.

On the OPs initial issue of rheumatoid arthritis, there is some evidence here & here that patients with RA are at risk of fluoride deficiencies and supplementation improves bone density.

[JanMorrow]

Just came on to say not many places in the UK have fluoride added to the water!

[Thumbwitch]

Over-fluoridation might be less of a problem in the UK than it is in the USA but there have been suggestions that all UK water should be fluoridated, and afaik it's still under consideration.

If you can get past your initial scepticism to this site, and read down the time line of this article on fluoride, you'll see that in the past year, the American Environmental Protection Agency have decided to prevent Dow from producing sulphuryl fluoride as a food fumigant:
"Victory! Ban on Sulfuryl Fluoride as Food Fumigant Granted

In 2010, the Objectors' attorney made several demands to the EPA to respond to the Objections, the Requests for a Hearing, and the Petition (Wallace, Apr. 2010, Aug. 2010, Nov. 2010). Just days before the Objectors were to sue for a response, the EPA finally announced that they granted all of their Objections.

According to the EPA's General Counsel for the Office of Pesticides, it was the first time in its history that it had done so.

The EPA announced on January 10, 2011, that it was proposing a phase-out ban on the use of sulfuryl fluoride. This was unprecedented and an enormous credit to the EPA's new administrator, Lisa Jackson, and to those in the Pesticides division who stood up for sound science and resisted the enormous lobbying effort by Dow.

Three days prior to this decision the Department of Health and Human Services used the fact that "41percent among adolescents aged 12-15" now have dental fluorosis as one of its reasons to propose a lowering of the fluoride level in fluoridation schemes. It's a great start, but the fight is far from over."

If you read the results of the rat tests and the science involved, you'll see that fluoride ingestion has the potential to be quite a serious problem.

[janinlondon]

Regardless of what I might or might not think of your assertion, hardly anywhere in the UK has fluoride added. There is a map here

[oldenoughtowearpurple]

Your water may not have added fluoride. Thames Water don't add fluoride to their water.

[francar]

Sorry, I'm new to this. The last message was directed at Toobluntforboss!

[francar]

Not looking for money - just to keep my children safe. Get your head out of the sand!

[differentnameforthis]

they thrive on it and produce acid from it, which is what eats through the enamel

Which is the acid attack I was referring to. And that happens after you eat anything, not just sugar.