Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 27, 2012 - 04:28pm PT
I work for the LA City Fire Dept.. A few shifts back I went on a chemical spill that turned out to be Flouride in our water treatment plant. The workers and ourselves gave the product wide birth until our haz mat team showed and took care of it.
It got me thinking about flouride in our water. I know it is supposed to be good for teeth and at the dentist they apply it topically to teeth. On tooth past they say to call poison control if you swallow a pea sized dose of toothpaste. So my question is why would it help teeth to drink it and absorb it into our system, bones, organs etc.... Seems a little odd.
Why would we pay $5 million to set up our water supply with it, then an extra 1/2 million a year, to force people to drink flouride in their water. Flouride is easily applied via paste onto teeth by dentists by anyone who chooses it. (I choose it for myself, and for my kids, but I don't want to drink it in my water)
My mom has dentures. She gets forced to pay for something she doesn't need or want?
As a retired professional chemist--I avoid fluoride toothpaste and fluoridated water like the plague (which it IS!). Stannous Fluoride is the substance added to toothpaste, which is toxic in any appreciable quantity. I believe that it's impossible to get fluoride toothpaste in the Eurozone, since it's been "outlawed."
Since I live on a ranch with my own domestic water supply, I don't have much of an issue in fluoride avoidance. I buy toothpase w/o fluorides for my personal use. If you have any silver amalgam fillings, the fluorides also etch the amalgamated mercury from the fillings, adding the toxicity of mercury to your "diet."
Flurosilicic acid is widely used for fluoridation, but it's a really nasty chemical in concentrated form. But, so are Sulfuric Acid, Caustic soda and Sodium Hypochlorite also widely used in water treatment.
Other than 30% hydrogen peroxide, or Chlorine gas though, it probably is the worst character to handle.
Fluoridation systems require redundant auditing practices to insure that you don't put too much in the water. Dosage rates in the water are in the sub parts per million. Water companies in general would rather not mess with it if it was up to them and most systems are installed with state grant money.
We also sell systems for removing an over abundance of naturally occurring fluoride in well water on an industrial scale.
wasn't there a huge scam where a lot of sodium hexaflouride was sold to be put into drinking water even though it isn't really the right way to do it ?
Fluoride is one of the 10 greatest public health achievements in US history.
I grew up on well water and all my molars were filled by the time I left home. Thanks to good dental insurance and flossing and brushing, at 48 I still have all my teeth. Two are capped with more on the way, those fillings wont last for ever.
Most people in this country cant afford dental insurance. In Maine, family doctors are being trained to extract teeth. In our little town in WA, we varnish the teeth of medicaid babies with fluoride (who knows when we will see them again) and we teach young families to give their babies fluoride drops. Grown ups need fluoride too, just ask your dentist (if you have one).
My dentist in Montrose thinks that fluoride is toxic and has no purpose being administered to humans. Same for the use of amalgam fillings . . . mercury = poison.
The thing that concerns me as I sit and drink LA City tap water is that flUoride cannot be dosed in drinking water. There is some concern by the CDC as they recommend or actually tell parents not to give babies their formula with Fluoride treated water.
So I was in Haiti doing free dental work with our organization. Thousands of patients we have seen in the past few years (we started our work there before the earthquake).
We target schools and orphanages, and when we are done, we see the local adults in the afternoon. Most of the kids have 3-5 teeth we have to remove. Most of the adults have 3-5 teeth left in the back of their mouths.
We were told about one village we were going to that had really ugly teeth and that we should get up early because it was going to be a long day.
Everyone had fluorosis! I figured their well water (every village we visited used the same well in the middle of town) was at least 100ppm. We pulled maybe 5 teeth at the school and left early.
It was one of the only schools we went to where the students were actually learning and able to concentrate. And the old people were older because they could chew food - they all still had teeth in their mouths. Better quality of life, better mental development, etc.
Fluorosis!
Credit: tooth
This whole no-Fl thing is a very first-world problem. I'm more for freedom of choice than apparent need to keep North America cavity free - I work in a town with no FL and it keeps me busier. My most profitable clientele are the Natropath's kids. They are loaded with gingivitis and dental decay. At least it is natural!
Let us know!