More Government Research Shows Fluoridation Creates More Harm Than Good from PRNewswire

More Government Research Shows Fluoridation Creates More Harm Than Good

HICKSVILLE, N.Y., Sept. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Another New York State Department of Health study shows that children in fluoridated Newburgh, New York, have no less tooth decay but significantly more dental fluorosis than children from never-fluoridated Kingston, New York. Newburgh and Kingston's children have been examined periodically, with results published since 1945, in order to demonstrate that fluoridation reduces tooth decay. This new research shows the experiment has failed.

Published in Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology, June 1999, New York State Department of Health dentist, Dr. J. V. Kumar, and associates report that "continuous exposure to water fluoridation had an observable effect on dental fluorosis." Dental fluorosis is white, yellow or brown permanent tooth stains; in severe cases teeth actually crumble. In fact, they report that three children with unusually large amounts of decay also had severe fluorosis -- the worst fluorosis category. Kumar previously reported this data in the New York State Dental Journal and the American Journal of Public Health in 1998. Kumar found the risk of dental fluorosis is even greater in African-American children.

Kumar's data corroborates recently published research ("A Re-examination of the Pre-eruptive and Post-eruptive Mechanism of the Anti-Caries Effects of Fluoride: is there any anti-caries benefit from swallowing fluoride?" by Dr. Hardy Limeback, Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology, 1999) that shows fluoride's decay preventing effects are mostly topical (on the outside of the tooth) and that very little, if any, swallowed fluoride incorporates into teeth as a shield against decay, as has been theorized since fluoridation began. But swallowed fluoride builds up in the teeth and bones which can lead to disfiguring dental fluorosis or crippling skeletal fluorosis.

     Dr. Paul Connett, Chemistry Professor at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, says, "Fluoridation of public water supplies must cease. The evidence shows clearly that fluoridation does more harm than good."

Dr. Kumar's unheeded advice has been for dentists and physicians to cut back on fluoride and to prescribe fluoride based upon a patient's total fluoride exposure.

"How can anyone calculate a child's total fluoride exposure when there are unknown amounts of fluoride in virtually all the foods we eat, mainly because they are processed with fluoridated water," says lawyer Paul Beeber, president of the New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation. "U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists are calling for an end to fluoridation. It must be stopped across the country like we have done on Long Island, New York, with the help of our legislators," he says.

CONTACT: Paul Beeber, J.D., of New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc., 516-433-8882, or fax, 516-433-8932, NYSCOF@aol.com; or Paul Connett, Ph.D., of St. Lawrence University, 315-379-9200, or fax, 315-379-0448, wastenot@northnet.org