Update on the Movement Against Water Fluoridation from Dr. Mercola
Update on the Movement Against Water Fluoridation
May 20, 2018 • 35,278views
Story at-a-glance
Over the past
18 years, the Fluoride Action Network (FAN) has facilitated the removal
of fluoride from the water supplies of hundreds of communities in North
America, Canada and Europe
FAN has filed
an historic lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
under a provision in the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)
Under this TSCA
statute, the judge may not defer to the EPA but must weigh the evidence
brought forth in trial. If the judge finds there’s an unreasonable
risk, he has the authority to order EPA to begin proceedings to
eliminate the risk of fluoride in drinking water
Earlier this
year, EPA tried to limit the scope of what FAN could bring to the
court’s attention. Its motion was denied, and FAN will be able to
request internal documents, submit interrogatories to EPA and depose EPA
experts
By Dr. Mercola
In this interview, Paul Connett, PhD, toxicologist, environmental
chemist and the founder FAN, Fluoride Action Network (FAN), an
organization that has fought to remove toxic fluoride from water
supplies across the world, provides an important and exciting update on
FAN's progress during this past year. FAN is an organization that has
fought to remove toxic fluoride from the water supply across the
world.
Over the past 18 years, FAN has helped hundreds of communities
around the US, Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, Israel and New
Zealand fight the reckless and unethical practice of water fluoridation.
Unprecedented Lawsuit Against EPA
In November 2016, a coalition including FAN, Food & Water Watch,
Organic Consumers Association, American Academy of Environmental
Medicine, International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, Moms
Against Fluoridation and several individual mothers, filed a petition
calling on the EPA to ban the deliberate addition of fluoridating
chemicals to the drinking water under provisions in the Toxic
Substances Control Act (TSCA).
The petition included more than 2,500 pages of scientific documentation detailing the risks of water fluoridation to human health, including more than 180 studies published since 2006 showing fluoride causes neurotoxic harm and reduces IQ.
"Under the TSCA, the EPA has authority to ban the uses of
chemicals that present unreasonable risks to the general public or to
susceptible subpopulations. We've brought this case on the grounds that
adding fluoride chemicals to drinking water presents an unreasonable
risk to the general public, especially to some susceptible
subpopulations," Connett explains.
In its February 27, 2017, response,1
the EPA claimed the petition had failed to "set forth a scientifically
defensible basis to conclude that any persons have suffered neurotoxic
harm as a result of exposure to fluoride." Fortunately, the TSCA
statute provides citizens with the ability to challenge an EPA denial
in federal court, which is where we are now.
"Water fluoridation needs to end," Connett says. "The
United States needs to follow the path of Europe and take fluoride out
of the water supply. Those who want it can get it in toothpaste and
dental products, which gives everyone the right to choose whether they
want to use fluoride or not.
We can apply fluoride in a targeted fashion to the one tissue of
the body that stands to benefit — the teeth — and keep it away from
everywhere else, particularly to the brain. The focus of our lawsuit is
on fluoride's effects on the brain, for which there is a large and
growing body of research."
Federal Judge to Assess Fluoride Hazards
The current White House administration has vigorously opposed
federal regulatory actions and has already reversed many of the
environmental safety precautions previously established. This raises
serious questions with regard to fluoride, because even if the lawsuit
against the EPA turns out to be successful, the Trump administration
could easily do something to eliminate its impact. While this is
certainly a risk, Connett explains the importance of this historic
case.
"One of the reasons we are excited about having this case now in
federal court is that it takes this issue away from the federal health
agencies, which have really been unable to get past the dogma on this
issue.
Here, we have a federal judge who's going to look at the
evidence. What's powerful about this TSCA statute, is it commands that
the judge not defer to the EPA. The judge can't simply say, 'It's good
enough for the EPA, it's good enough for me.' The language in the
statute says that it is to be a de novo proceeding, meaning without
deference to the federal agency.
Not only that, but we had a lengthy argument earlier this year
where EPA tried to limit the scope of what we could bring to the
court's attention. The judge denied that motion. We are going to be
able to get discovery against the EPA. We're going to be able to
request internal documents. We're going to be able to submit
interrogatories to them and depose their experts.
It's going to be a nice fact-finding mission for us, in addition
to having an opportunity to have the best evidence presented by the
best experts before this federal judge. If the judge agrees with us
[and] finds that there's an unreasonable risk, he has the authority to
order EPA to begin proceedings to eliminate the risk of fluoride in
drinking water. That would be a truly historic and unprecedented
situation. We really are excited about the potential that this case
brings."
Help Fund Legal Action to End Water Fluoridation
The trial date has been set for August 2019. While Michael is
recruiting experts to testify in this case FAN continues its campaign
to educate the public of fluoridation's dangers, especially the threat
it poses to the developing brain.
In May FAN launched an urgent campaign to warn women to avoid
fluoride during pregnancy in response to a major US government funded
study which found a strong correlation between fluoride exposure during
pregnancy and lowered IQ in offspring (Bashash et al, 2017 and Thomas
et al, 2018).
The government and the media should be issuing these warnings but
they aren't. So FAN – a relatively small non-profit organization – has
taken on this huge task itself. Please help fund this important
campaign by making a tax-deductible donation to FAN.
Legal Expectations
FAN's contention in this case is that adding fluoride
chemicals to drinking water presents an unreasonable health risk. If
the court agrees, the judge would order EPA to initiate a rule-making
proceeding to eliminate that risk. And, while the judge cannot tell the
EPA exactly what to do, the most obvious solution that would eliminate
this risk would be to no longer add fluoride to drinking water.
Now, there are many powerful organizations that still support water
fluoridation, including the American Dental Association (ADA), which
supports not only fluoridation but also mercury fillings.
The ADA has become quite notorious for ignoring the risks of toxic
substances. With that in mind, Connett suspects that if FAN wins the
case, there will be a rash of lobbying and pressure on the EPA to find a
way to address the problem without actually banning fluoridation
outright.
"We can cross that bridge when we get to it, but the EPA
potentially could consider lowering the fluoride levels even further," he says.
"But I think, really, if the judge finds that there's unreasonable
risk, the one real solution that fixes the problem is just banning
fluoridation. That's what the United States should be doing …
Western Europe demonstrates to us that this is possible.
Countries like the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland, they used to
fluoridate some of their water supplies, but they decided to end the
practice. Western Europe shows us that we can do it here as well.
When you couple the new research linking low-level fluoride
exposures to adverse effects on the brain with the fact that we now
know you don't need to swallow fluoride for the one benefit it may
provide, then it makes no sense to be forcing hundreds of millions of
people to swallow this every day — not just through their water supply,
but also through the foods and beverages that our water is used for."
Water Fluoridation Gives False Appearance of Dental Care
One of the reasons why it's so important to eliminate water
fluoridation is because this chemical is very difficult to remove. You
can remove some or a significant amount using distillation, reverse
osmosis and special filtration media, but the vast majority of water filters
that people have access to will not remove fluoride. So, you might
filter your water, thinking you've purified it, but you haven't
eliminated one of the most significant hazards.
A primary target population for fluoridation is low-income
communities, on the grounds that they have less access to dentists and
are therefore in greater need of dental care. However, water
fluoridation in no way, shape or form addresses this very real need.
Adding fluoride chemicals to the drinking water is not dental care. As
noted by Connett, "It's an illusion of dental care." What's worse,
low-income populations are also more likely to suffer the ill effects of
fluoride, as few can afford to buy expensive water filtration systems.
"There's plenty of reason to believe that lower income
populations will be more vulnerable to fluoride's toxicity, because we
know that good nutrition and healthy diets are critical to making one
less susceptible to fluoride's toxicity," Connett says.
"Having inadequate levels of calcium, vitamin C, vitamin D, protein —
those are things we know can cause you to be more susceptible to
suffering harm from fluoride.
We know that deficient nutrient intakes are more common in
low-income populations, as well as certain diseases, like kidney
disease and diabetes. Both of which make one more susceptible to
fluoride toxicity, [yet] lower income populations are the very
population targeted with fluoridation campaigns today. It's a very
problematic situation."
What's Motivating the Promoters of Fluoridation?
Considering the evidence against fluoride, you might wonder what the
motivation for the promoters might be. Just what incentives do the ADA
and other industries have for continuing to promote it? One major
factor is simply organizational and political inertia. Fluoride has
been vigorously promoted as a health promoting tactic for decades. It's
extremely difficult for those organizations to now change their tune
and admit they were wrong this whole time, and have actually caused
people harm.
In the early days of water fluoridation, there were of course
political and financial incentives. Chris Bryson's book, "The Fluoride
Deception," reveals the role the war-making industries in the
U.S. — the aluminum, steel and bomb industry in the '30s, '40s and '50s
— and their role in funding fluoride research.
"They had every interest in the world to not find fluoride to be
harmful at low levels, because they were exposing workers and
communities to fluoride pollution," Connett says. "They were the very people funding a lot of the key early research to explain how fluoride affects human health.
I think you had a corruption of the science early on in this
issue. But the question of 'Why do we fluoridate water?' Honestly, it's
a hard question. It's a complex question. I think there are a lot of
people who absolutely and genuinely believe it's a good thing."
One of the most encouraging developments we're now seeing is the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding much-needed studies looking
at how fluoride affects the brain at low levels. The first NIH-funded
paper was published last fall by a team of researchers from the
University of Toronto, University of Michigan, Harvard and Indiana
University. In the past, most of these kinds of safety studies were
done by ardent pro-fluoridation advocates.
"There was a pretty vigorous suppression of scientific dissent
in the early days of fluoridation. Today, we're seeing the emergence of
independent researchers who now have the means to study this issue.
We're starting to see the emergence of a more vigorous academic debate.
I think that's a really important development … that will help us get
out of the politics," Connett says.
How Fluoride Affects Your Brain and Thyroid
As noted by Connett, there are more than 50 human population studies
that have linked elevated fluoride levels with neurological effects,
particularly lower IQ. More than 200 animal studies also support this
link, showing fluoride has adverse effects on the brain, including
detrimental effects on learning and memory. The evidence quite clearly
shows that fluoride is a neurotoxin. The evidence also shows fluoride is an endocrine disruptor.
The question is at what doses do such effects occur, and how do
these doses vary based on individual susceptibility? According to
Connett, the evidence suggests brain effects occur at doses that are
very close to what many Americans are getting on a daily basis.
More than 20 papers have found effects of fluoride exposure on IQ at
around 2 parts per million (ppm), and in the U.S., the recommended
fluoride level in water is 0.7 ppm. "It's within the factor of 3.
That's a pretty small margin," Connett notes, because you're also
getting it from other foods and beverages, plus fluoridated toothpaste.
Fluoride also affects your thyroid gland. In fact, in the '50s and '60s, fluoride was used as a drug to lower thyroid activity in patients with overactive thyroid.
By adding fluoride to water, it may be lowering thyroid function in
people with normal or underactive thyroid, leading to hypothyroidism or
subclinical hypothyroidism, which carries a range of significant
health effects, including obesity, heart disease and depression.
We also know that suboptimal thyroid functioning during pregnancy can
affect a child's cognitive development, so this may actually be one of
the mechanisms by which fluoride affects the brain.
Fluoride Also Harms Your Teeth and Bones
Systemic fluoride also damages teeth, causing staining and pitting
of the enamel known as dental fluorosis. According to the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 58 percent of American
adolescents now have some form of dental fluorosis.
"Tens of millions of kids now have dental fluorosis, which is a visible sign of overexposure," Connett says.
"Which begs the question, 'If fluoride is affecting the tooth-forming
cells and causing this visible effect, what is it doing to the tissues
in the body that we can't see?' [The high rate of fluorosis today]
highlights that we're getting way more fluoride than was ever
envisioned by the proponents of fluoridation back in the '40s and '50s.
When they started fluoridation back in the 1940s and '50s, the
proponents of the policy … stated that they wanted to keep the level of
dental fluorosis in the population to no more than 10 to 15 percent of
children, and only in its mildest forms. Beyond that [it] would be a
public health issue, they said. Fast-forward 70 years to where we are
today, and you have 58 percent of American adolescents … with dental
fluorosis.
We are far past the level that the proponents — not the
opponents — considered permissible and acceptable when the policy
began.
We really need to take a step back and look at this and say, 'Is
there any need whatsoever to be supplementing every person's daily
intake of fluoride by adding it en masse to water supplies and, with
it, all our processed foods and beverages?' There's simply no need,
because it's so easy to get fluoride. If you want it, you just … buy
toothpaste with fluoride in it."
As for your bones, fluoride has somewhat paradoxical effects. While
it tends to increase the density of trabecular bone in the spine, it
decreases the bone density in cortical bone, which is more prevalent in
the appendicular skeleton such as leg and arm bones, as well as the
hip.
And, while the density might be increased in certain types of bone,
the new bone structure is structurally inferior bone that is more prone
to fracture. "I think U.S. health authorities were premature to
dismiss concerns about fluoride's effects on the bone. I think that
remains a substantial concern with the current exposures," Connett
says.
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