Transcript Overcoming the Barriers to a Sustainable Energy System for

Water Fluoridation
Harmful to Health, Ineffective & Unethical
Dr Mark Diesendorf
Sustainability Centre Pty Ltd
and Institute of Environmental Studies, UNSW
Web: www.sustainabilitycentre.com.au
WHAT IS FLUORIDATION?
• Most water supplies contain 0.1 to 0.2 ppm of fluoride (F- )
naturally.
• Fluoridation increases the natural F- concentration to 1 ppm (i.e.
5 to 10 times natural level). It is not a small “adjustment”.
• Purpose is to try to reduce tooth decay.
• Some well water and bore water supplies contain 1 ppm or more
naturally.
• Fluoridation is mass medication.
FLUORIDATION IS MASS MEDICATION
• Fluoridation is administered to treat people, not to make water
safer to drink. So it is a medication.
• Medical dictionaries and practice establish that preventive
medicines are medicines.
• F- in mg/day doses is not an essential nutrient.
• Natural substances may be medicines: e.g. penicillin, digitalis,
salicylates, radioisotopes, etc.
• Mass medication violates two principles of medical ethics.
VIOLATIONS OF MEDICAL ETHICS
• Principle of informed consent to medication
• Principle of controlled dose.
DAILY F- DOSE IS NOT CONTROLLED
• Even when F- concentration is controlled (e.g. at 1 ppm),
daily dose (mg/day) cannot be.
• Large variations in tap-water intake. In fluoridated areas, high
F- intake groups are:
-
formula-fed infants get 100x dose of breast-fed infants;
young children who drink mostly soft drinks;
labourers and athletes;
people with diabetes insipidus, kidney disease, etc.;
heavy tea drinkers get double dose.
WHICH COUNTRIES ARE MORE THAN
50% FLUORIDATED?
Only: USA
Australia
New Zealand
Ireland
Singapore
Columbia
Malaysia
Israel
INDUSTRIAL WASTE AS MEDICATION
Pure fluoride is dangerous enough, but …
• Most water supplies are
fluoridated with waste from
phosphate fertiliser industry.
• Contains traces of arsenic,
lead & other toxics.
• Never subjected to chronic
safety tests in animals.
Manufacture of phosphate fertiliser
DOES FLUORIDATION REDUCE TOOTH
DECAY?
Only one point of agreement between pro- and anticases:
Big reductions in tooth decay occurred in most
industrialised countries in 1960s and 70s.
But they occurred in both unfluoridated and fluoridated
countries.
What was the cause? Reductions occurred before Ftoothpaste was widely used.
TOOTH DECAY IN SYDNEY, 1961-1972,
(fluoridated 1968)
70
60
50
40
Caries-free
teeth (%)
30
20
10
0
1961
1963
1965
1967
1970
1972
1968
Source: Lawson et al. (1978)
‘THE MYSTERY OF DECLINING TOOTH
DECAY’
Diesendorf M 1986, Nature 322: 125-129
Abstract:
Large temporal reductions in tooth decay, which cannot
be attributed to fluoridation, have been observed in both
unfluoridated and fluoridated areas of at least 8
developed countries over the past 30 years. It is now
time for a scientific re-examination of the alleged
enormous benefits of fluoridation.
DOES F- REDUCE TOOTH DECAY?
• There are no randomised controlled trials to
determine the benefits of fluoridated water.
• Reductions claimed for fluoridated water of “up
to 50%” (ADA) are flawed by inadequate design
(see critiques by Drs Philip Sutton, John
Colquhoun, and Mark Diesendorf).
• Some large studies find negligible or even no
benefits (e.g.Armfield & Spencer 2004)
Jason M. Armfield and A. John Spencer 2004,
‘Consumption of nonpublic water: implications for
children’s caries experience’, Community Dentistry
& Oral Epidemiology, 32: 283
“The effect of consumption on nonpublic
water on permanent caries experience
was not significant.”
Now the pro-fluoridation authors claim that their
result is being “taken out of context”!
0
Canada
Brazil
Columbia
Italy
France
Israel
Malays ia
Iceland
Portugal
New Zealand
Norw ay
USA
Ireland NF
Germany
Ireland F
Spain
Belgium
Sw eden
Austria
Singapore
India
Sw itzerland
Denmark
UK
Australia
Netherlands
Burkina Faso
Antigua
Nigeria
2.5
Belize
3
Guinea-Bissau
Botsw ana
Liberia
Lesotho
Uganda
Ghana
Tanzania
3.5
Rw anda
WHO ORAL HEALTH IN 12 YEAR-OLDS
(DMFT)
DMFT
Not fluoridated
>50% fluoridated
25-50% fluoridated?
2
1.5
1
0.5
DIMFT
AVERAGE TOOTH DECAY IN 10-YEAROLDS BY CAPITAL CITY, 1977 & 1987
5
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
1977
1987
Bris.
Hob.
Can.
Syd.
Ade.
Per.
Melb.
School Dental Service data (Diesendorf, 1990).
All cities except Brisbane fluoridated for at least 10 years by 1987.
HOW DOES FLUORIDE ACT ON THE
TEETH?
• Early notion that ingested F- was incorporated in tooth structure
and strengthened it. WRONG!
• Nowadays: mechanism predominantly ‘topical’ (surface); even
pro-fluoridation US Centers for Disease Control admit this.
• So, people are being misled that they have to ingest fluoridated
water.
DENTAL FLUOROSIS
• Caused by F- damage to toothforming cells.
• Original claim that 1 ppm Fwould only produce ‘mild’
mottling in 10% of people.
• Actually 50% of people mottled;
not only ‘mild’.
‘Mild’ dental fluorosis
DENTAL FLUOROSIS
‘Moderate’ and ‘Severe’ Categories
<-- Photo: Hardy
Limeback DDS
Pitting
Photo: John Colquhoun BDS, PhD -->
SKELETAL FLUOROSIS IN NATURALLY
FLUORIDATED REGIONS: e.g. INDIA, CHINA
• Occurs at F- concentrations as low as 0.7 ppm.
• F- accumulates in bone, adding mass but destroying structure.
• X-rays show structural damage to bones, and calcification of
joints and ligaments.
• Mild skeletal fluorosis has similar symptoms to arthritis.
• Prevalence of arthritis increasing in USA and Australia.
• Could some ‘arthritis’ actually be early stage of fluorosis?
HIP FRACTURES IN THE AGED
• Disabling; may be fatal.
• Cumulative lifetime F- dose exceeds
dose where osteoporosis patients
developed hip fractures.
• Majority of epidemiological studies find
more hip fractures in fluoridated areas.
• In China, fracture rate doubled @ 1.5
ppm and tripled @ 4.3 ppm.
INTOLERANCE or HYPERSENSITIVITY
• Large body of clinical reports, e.g. by
Waldbott, Grimbergen, Petraborg, and
Feltman & Kosel.
• Several blind & double-blind studies.
• Symptoms include excessive fatigue & thirst,
stomach ache, muscular weakness.
• Never followed up by proponents.
Dr George Waldbott
BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS
• F- is highly active biologically, not inert.
• In lab., F- inhibits enzymes; induces genetic
changes; & increases uptake of aluminium
by brain.
• In lab., AlFx complexes disrupt G-proteins.
This could change homeostasis,
metabolism, growth & differentiation of
living organisms. (NEW)
• F- concentrates in pineal gland causing
earlier onset of puberty in animals. (NEW)
SUMMARY: RISKS OF FLUORIDATION
Well established
in humans
Probable
in humans
• Dental fluorosis
• Skeletal fluorosis
• Hypersensitivity/intolerance reactions
• Hip & other bone fractures
• ‘Arthritis’ = early stage of skeletal fluorosis
• Interference with thyroid function
Possible, based on • Genetic damage in lab experiments
lab. & animal
• Brain damage in animals
expts, but so far
• Many diseases involving biological signalling
not proven in
• Chronic poisoning from traces of toxics
humans
CAN SIMILAR BENEFITS BE OBTAINED WITH
LESS RISK BY OTHER METHODS?
• It is possible to have low caries without F intake:
e.g. Australian Aborigines on original diet; Hopewood
orphanage Australia in 1950s; most of EU today.
• Public health officials can influence children’s diet,
e.g. by public education and controls on foods sold in school
shops & canteens.
• Daily, supervised F toothbrushing and/or rinsing (at
say 2 ppm) programs in elementary schools are lowrisk (for children older than 5 years) and assist lowincome groups.
POLITICAL & EQUITY ASPECTS
• The principal risk factors for dental caries are poverty and poor
diet, not the absence of fluoridation.
• Governments use fluoridation to justify cuts to dental health
programs for school children & aged.
• They cynically peddle myth that fluoridation helps the poor.
• But the poor have highest prevalence of dental caries, with or
without fluoridation (even in Sydney).
• The poor ingest a chronic poison that they cannot afford to avoid.
• The poor are more susceptible to fluoride-induced diseases.
• Governments use fluoridation to distract attention away from real
causes of tooth decay that are politically too hard.
CONCLUSION
• Fluoridation is mass medication with uncontrolled dose.
Unethical.
• Negligible benefit from ingesting F- .
• At best fluoridated water, acting at tooth surfaces, reduces tooth
decay in a fraction of 1% of tooth surfaces.
• Ingestion of F- damages teeth via dental fluorosis and damages
bones via skeletal fluorosis and hip fractures.
• Worrying biological effects and lab & animal experiments.
• Chronic toxicity from impurities in silicofluoride wastes from
phosphate fertiliser industry.
• Given this evidence, Local and State Govts would be socially
irresponsible and open to litigation for supporting fluoridation.
FURTHER READING
• Web site of of Fluoride Action Network, convened by Dr
Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry, St Lawrence
University, USA: www.fluoridealert.org ;
• Mark Diesendorf, 2003, ‘A kick in the teeth for scientific
debate’, Australasian Science volume 24, no. 8, pp 35-37,
September.(A referenced version may be downloaded from
www.sustainbilitycentre.com.au/FluoridePublics.html)