Fluoride is the reduced form of fluorine. Both organic and inorganic compounds containing the element fluorine are considered fluorides. Fluoride, like other halides, is a monovalent ion (−1 charge) anion. But as the lightest halide, its compounds often have properties that are distinctive. Compounds containing fluoride anions and in many cases those containing covalent bonds to fluorine are called fluorides.

Water fluoridation is a peculiarly American phenomenon. It started at a time when asbestos lined our pipes, lead was added to gasoline, PCBs filled our transformers and DDT was deemed so "safe and effective" that officials felt no qualms spraying kids in school classrooms and seated at picnic tables. One by one all these chemicals have been banned, but fluoridation remains untouched.

For over 50 years U.S. government officials have confidently and enthusiastically claimed that fluoridation is "safe and effective." However, they are seldom prepared to defend the practice in open public debate. Actually, there are so many arguments against fluoridation that it can get overwhelming. To simplify things it helps to separate the ethical from the scientific arguments.
For those for which ethical concerns are paramount, the issue of fluoridation is very simple to resolve. It is simply not ethical; we simply shouldn't be forcing medication on people without their "informed consent."

Although many people have believed for a long time that fluoride in our drinking water was good for our dental health, there have now been studies that demonstrate that drinking fluoride is dangerous to our health. Our kids have fewer cavities than we did, and we imagine the reason is fluoride. However, Europe outlawed fluoride in drinking water decades ago and their dental health has improved as much as in the US. In some areas European dental health has increased more than in the US. To ascribe our dental health improvements to fluoride on this basis is not credible.

Frequently the argument for adding fluoride to drinking water is that it is in a dosage that is safe and even good for us. But drinking water is not the only way we ingest fluoride – so isolating one source and saying the level is okay is fallacious.
Simply put, water fluoridation is the practice of adding chemicals to drinking water in an attempt to raise the naturally occurring fluoride ion to about 1mg per liter in the belief that this will reduce the occurrence of dental problems such as tooth decay. Originally the practice used sodium fluoride; water fluoridation is now accomplished through the use of silicofluorides. This crude product is an approximately 25% solution of hydrofluosilicic acid and a highly toxic hazardous waste of the phosphate fertilizer industry.

The proper disposal of this chemical is extremely costly to the industry so the proposal that it could be used as a substitute for the originally favored chemical, sodium fluoride, opened the door to the practice of administering it to the general public in the water supply under the guise of medication.

Water Fluoridation…An Unethical Medical Practice?
At the heart of this debate is whether or not fluoridated water can be considered a medicine, thereby making it subject to strict government regulations and standards. The U.S. tactic seems to be not denying that fluoridated water is in fact a form of medication; rather they refuse to apply the laws governing medications to fluoridated water. This works in stark contrast however to the FDA’s own definition for what constitutes a medicine. According to the FDA any substance when used in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man or animal is a drug that is subject to the FDA’s regulation. Since the well known and publicly acknowledged purpose of water fluoridation is the prevention of tooth decay then clearly water fluoridation in the United States should be considered a medicine under its own rules

This opens up water fluoridation to a host of unethical medical practices. First and foremost water fluoridation violates and individuals right to informed consent under the Nuremburg Code of Medical Ethics, which states that any and all medical treatments and research must be done with the voluntary cooperation of the subjects, who must be fully informed of the risks and benefits of the medical treatment in which they are taking part.
Obviously, the fluoridation of public drinking water makes this an impossibility. Once it has been added to the water supply it’s going to be indiscriminately dispersed to every person who drinks it. There is no way to control the dose of the patient, nor can individual responses to the chemical be monitored.

Water fluoridation also ignores that fact that some people are more vulnerable to fluoride’s toxic effects than others, these groups of people include the elderly some 52 million people, people with cardiovascular disease some 22 million, individuals who suffer from vitamin C deficiency which comprise about 22 percent of our total population, and people with calcium deficiencies, over 44 percent of our population.

Perhaps most importantly, the benefits of water fluoridation are based on outdated and inaccurate research. Modern research studies into the benefits of water fluoridation have revealed it to be vastly ineffective. When water fluoridation began in the 1940’s it was believed that fluoride's main benefit came from ingesting fluoride during the early years of life. This belief held sway for over 40 years.
Now, however modern research has revealed this to be completely false. Both the American Dental Association and the Center for Disease Control concede that fluoride’s benefit to teeth is topical only, meaning when applied directly to the surface of the teeth, and provides no benefit whatsoever when applied systemically, meaning when ingested. In 1990 the largest fluoridation survey ever conducted in the United States showed only a minute difference in tooth decay between children who had lived their entire lives in fluoridated compared to non-fluoridated communities. The difference was not shown to be clinically nor statistically significant.

Significant Health Issues
Fluoride doesn't break down and disappear. It accumulates over time. People today ingest 4 times as much as they were when they started putting fluoride in our drinking water! This is pretty evenly spread across intake from water, other drinks, food and dental products. If you did everything you could think of to avoid fluoride, you couldn't eliminate it! Cut back on fluoride when you can. You'll still get lots!

There are many risks that have been identified from the intake of fluoride.
Children’s brain development came to the forefront as a concern after three 2007 medical studies suggested that fluoride may have a detrimental effect on childhood IQ. Several studies published in 2007 showed shortcomings in previous research studies. A Mexican study linked high-fluoride (5 ppm) in water to reduced IQ by controlling other key factors by multiple regression analysis. The study also eliminated bias by assuring that the psychologist conducting the IQ tests did not know which of the children had high fluoride exposure. According to the authors, exposure to fluoride was associated with reduced Performance, Verbal and Full IQ scores. The individual effect of fluoride in urine indicated that for each mg increase, a decrease of 1.7 points in Full IQ might be expected.

On Nov. 9, 2006 the American Dental Association released an email alert to its members warning that, in order to prevent tooth damage, fluoridated water should not be mixed into formula or foods intended for babies aged 1 and younger.

Currently, two-thirds of the U.S. public water supply has fluoride chemicals added, a move centered on a now-disproved theory that fluoride ingestion prevents cavities. Research by the Centers for Disease Control has shown that fluoride absorbs into tooth enamel topically, but ingestion of the chemical can cause adverse reactions. Also, the CDC admitted that enamel fluoride concentration was not inversely related to cavities.

Fluoridated bottled water is available in stores across the United States along with instructions to mix into formula, which is what prompted the ADA to warn its members.

"Infants could receive a greater than optimal amount of fluoride through liquid concentrate or powdered baby formula that has been mixed with water containing fluoride during a time that their developing teeth may be susceptible to enamel fluorosis," stated the ADA report, describing the condition marked by pitting and white spotting as well as yellow and/or brown teeth.

Paul Beeber, lawyer and New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation (NYSCOF) president, noted that news releases from the NYSCOF in 2000 and 2004 cited studies that linked fluorisis to infant foods mixed with fluoridated water. However, Beeber remarked, it took the ADA until 2006 to release its alert, right after the FDA disapproved of marketing fluoridated water to babies in October and the National Research Council reported that babies are fluoride overdosed from "optimally" fluoridated water supplies.

"The ADA claims the NRC report didn't question the safety of fluoridation but it did, as the ADA now admits," Beeber said. "The NRC also revealed fluoridation's adverse effects to the thyroid gland, diabetics, kidney patients, high water drinkers and others."

Water Fluoridation Is Ineffective Because:

1) Major dental researchers concede that fluoride's benefits are topical not systemic (Fejerskov 1981; Carlos 1983; CDC 1999, 2001; Limeback 1999; Locker 1999; Featherstone 2000).

2) Major dental researchers also concede that fluoride is ineffective at preventing pit and fissure tooth decay, which is 85 percent of the tooth decay experienced by children (JADA 1984; Gray 1987; White 1993; Pinkham 1999).

3) Several studies indicate that dental decay is coming down just as fast, if not faster, in non-fluoridated industrialized countries as fluoridated ones (Diesendorf, 1986; Colquhoun, 1994; World Health Organization, Online).

4) The largest survey conducted in the U.S. showed only a minute difference in tooth decay between children who had lived all their lives in fluoridated compared to non-fluoridated communities. The difference was not clinically significant nor shown to be statistically significant (Brunelle & Carlos, 1990).

5) The worst tooth decay in the U.S. occurs in the poor neighborhoods of our largest cities, the vast majority of which have been fluoridated for decades.

6) When fluoridation has been halted in communities in Finland, former East Germany, Cuba and Canada, tooth decay did not go up but continued to go down (Maupome et al, 2001; Kunzel and Fischer, 1997, 2000; Kunzel et al, 2000 and Seppa et al, 2000).

Fluoridation Is Unsafe Because:

1) It accumulates in our bones and makes them more brittle and prone to fracture. The weight of evidence from animal studies, clinical studies and epidemiological studies on this is overwhelming. Lifetime exposure to fluoride will contribute to higher rates of hip fracture in the elderly.

2) It accumulates in our pineal gland, possibly lowering the production of melatonin, a very important regulatory hormone (Luke, 1997, 2001).

3) It damages the enamel (dental fluorosis) of a high percentage of children. Between 30 percent and 50 percent of children have dental fluorosis on at least two teeth in optimally fluoridated communities (Heller et al, 1997 and McDonagh et al, 2000).

4) There are serious, but yet unproven, concerns about a connection between fluoridation and osteosarcoma in young men (Cohn, 1992), as well as fluoridation and the current epidemics of both arthritis and hypothyroidism.

5) In animal studies fluoride at 1 ppm in drinking water increases the uptake of aluminum into the brain (Varner et al, 1998).

6) Counties with 3 ppm or more of fluoride in their water have lower fertility rates (Freni, 1994).

7) In human studies the fluoridating agents most commonly used in the U.S. not only increase the uptake of lead into children's blood (Masters and Coplan, 1999, 2000) but are also associated with an increase in violent behavior.

8) The margin of safety between the so-called therapeutic benefit of reducing dental decay and many of these end points is either nonexistent or precariously low.

The American people have been unknowingly and unlawfully exposed to highly toxic chemicals in their drinking water for decades. The so-called benefits of water fluoridation have been falsified and unless steps are taken to outlaw this practice there will be serious health implications for us and our families well into the future.