RFK Jr’s Rotten War on Fluoride

How he will cause pain for American Children.

Summary

· Fluoridation of drinking water has been hailed as one of the great public health interventions of the 20thcentury.

· Opponents like RFK Jr, characterise it as poisoning an unwilling population with toxic industrial waste.

· There is no evidence that increasing levels of fluoride up to the recommended 0.7mg/l achieved by fluoridation has any adverse effects, and it does reduce dental decay significantly.

· Like almost all substances, higher doses of fluoride is harmful and have been linked to reductions in IQ and cause bone problems called skeletal fluorosis.

· The introduction of fluoride in toothpaste has also helped, but dental decay remains a significant health problem which fluoridation protects against.

Power to the wrong people

One of the promises RFK Jr made in his back door power grab is that he will end fluoridation of drinking water in the USA. In his black and white world, he states:

“On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S​. water systems to remove fluoride from public water. Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease,”

So, 20th Jan 2025 could be a terrible day for dental health, or if RFK Jr is right, the end of a mass poisoning. He does not have the power to stop fluoridation himself but will be able to apply pressure for states to do his bidding. So why has this become such an issue? Has he a fair point, or just more of his slanted pseudoscience?

What is fluorine?

Fluorine is halogen element in the same family of chlorine and bromine. In its pure state it is very toxic, killing some of the early scientists attempting to isolate and understand it. Readily combining with calcium, it forms fluorite, or with sodium, the variable salts added to toothpaste and water. It is the 13th most abundant element in the earth’s crust.

One of the reasons for public wariness is the irrational fear of ‘chemicals’. Take the closely related chlorine, also highly toxic as a gas, but when combined with the equally toxic metallic sodium, you end up with the sodium chloride we are all familiar with as table salt. Another halogen, Iodine is essential for thyroid health and has long been added to table salt to prevent goitre.

Fluoride is pretty much everywhere in the environment, with variable natural levels in groundwater. Fluoridation seeks to increase the level to 0.7mg/l. (The EU have set a maximum of 5mg/l for drinking water) Some Americans drink water with natural concentration of 2–4mg/l or more as in the map below.

AMERICAN FLUORIDE LEVELS

10% of people in the UK live in areas with fluoridated water, (70% in the USA) with more planned for the north-east due to their high rates of dental problems. Again, the aim is to increase water levels to less than 1mg/l. Natural levels of fluoride in drinking water are shown in the map below, and so most of the UK could potentially benefit from fluoridation.

UK FLUORIDE LEVELS

Fluoride and the teeth

In the 1950’s it was noticed by a dentist, Frederick McKay, that children with mottled teeth (fluorosis) caused by above average exposure to fluoride in drinking water had far less problems with dental decay. That astute clinical observation was backed up with the 12 city study and then confirmed with pilot interventions around the world whose positive results led to the more widespread fluoridation of drinking water. Now, 75% of Americans and about 10% of British live in areas where fluoride is added to drinking water.

Fluoride stays in the enamel of the teeth as fluorapatite which is better able to withstand acids and so makes teeth more resistant to the damage mainly caused by the almost universal excess of sugar in the diet. It is especially important during childhood when teeth are growing, but also helps adults as teeth continually de and re-mineralise.

Globally, 514 million children have untreated dental decay with some decline over the 20th century due to improved diets, good dentistry, teeth brushing and, yes, fluoridation of water.

Yet in the US, 13% of children and 25% of adults have untreated dental caries, and in the UK 23% of children have visible dental decay. Access to NHS dentistry has all but collapsed and the 40% or so of the population who don’t have dental check-ups present late with more complex dental disease, and it’s those who eat the most sugar.

In other words, sugar causes dental decay, and fluoride reduces that risk. For instance, adding fluoride to school milk reduced caries by a 75% and fluoridation of water has reduced dental decay by 25–50%. For Americans now living in Trumpland, all the evidence suggests reducing levels of fluoride in water will lead to more dental problems, pain and expense.

Potential problems

Standard toxicological studies show that low levels of fluoride are unlikely to have major adverse effects, with doses of up to 4mg/l having no effect when studied on mice. Some toxic effects on brain structure, though not behaviour, were noted in mice exposed to doses above 10mg/l and fuelled the concern regarding fluoride and IQ.

This study showed that even visible dental fluorosis has no effect on cognitive function and is reassuring.

Skeletal fluorosis is a genuine problem caused by exposure to high levels of fluoride, endemic in India and China, where much water is drawn from wells, or exposure comes from poor management of industrial waste or direct pollution. Average Indian levels in drinking water is 2.4mg/l with the highest levels being 9.22mg/l — many times higher than achieved by fluoridation.

Skeletal fluorosis is rare in the West, though did occur in medieval bones recovered in Illinois due to high levels of fluorine water obtained from wells. Water levels of fluoride there are now tightly controlled.

Anti-fluoride campaigns

Early opposition came from the usual chiropractors and religious leaders whose views are formed by faith and belief rather than reason.

The Fluoride Action Network was founded in 2000 and claims much harm from fluoride. Looking through the FAN’s website, I can see plenty of bias, for one thing their comprehensive looking references usually link internally to their own blogs; they cherry pick, misrepresent the data they use and continually fail to emphasise the importance of levels and dose.

THE MARKETING OF CHEMOPHOBIA

They create ‘Chemophobia’ — an unreasonable fear of chemicals. Paranoia too. There were those who thought fluoridation was a communist plot to take over the USA both in the real world and in culture — See Dr Strangelove.

Due to this manufactured anxiety, people claimed that fluoride made their teeth fall out, even before fluoride had been added to their water and Finns complained of being affected by fluoride toxicity without knowing that it had been stopped — so lots of psychological harm being done.

The Bandwagon

The ever opportunistic Dr Mercola has many times blamed fluoridation for everything from impaired IQ, aching bones, thyroid problems, ADHD and of course, autism. “The Fluoride War rages on” he claims with his usual hyperbole.

He celebrated Israel’s reversal of its fluoridation programme, but failed to mention it led to a doubling in dental restorative procedures and that fluoridation in Israel was restored as a consequence. As usual he misrepresents data regarding fluoride management in other countries who don’t add fluorine to water, but instead add it to table salt.

RFK Jr’s “Children’s Health Defence” jumped on the bandwagon with a protracted campaign to end fluoridation with its brand of cherry picked pseudoscience. (I must remind myself that it’s not a bad dream — he really is the leader of Americans Health and Science sector and a man with immense power to do harm)

The things “They” don’t (they actually do) tell us.

RFK Jr’s standard claim that his ‘They’, the scientific community, have ignored concerns about fluoride is far from the truth. The National Academy of Science looked into fluoridation in 2006 and set maximum levels of exposure at 4mg/l, noting in a meta analysis of (generally low quality studies) that children exposed to high levels had lost some IQ points.

Leading on from this, in 2015 the National Toxicology Programme’s (NTP) most recent monograph led to a publication in the respected journal JAMA Paediatrics which adds concerns regarding high fluoride levels and IQ. A Lancet paper followed which analysed largely Chinese data on the effect of high exposure (critique here). Looking at these, the evidence does not suggest harm from levels achieved by fluoridation.

Together with critical overview from the National Academies of Science (NAS) it’s clear the ‘establishment’ is taking the best possible look at this, which should be reassuring to anyone outside the conspiratorial circle, and anyone concerned about water fluoridation.

It is interesting to note that those campaigning against fluoridation make little mention about naturally occurring high levels which shows the politically driven manipulation of the issue.

Fear of chemicals — Chemophobia

A general and irrational fear of chemicals is a tragic side effect of all this. Even water (Dihydrogen oxide) is toxic at high doses. While there are suggestions that those who live in high fluoride area may have lost some IQ points, even that science is fraught with problems and unclear. Fear has been created out of thin air — which like everything else full of chemicals.

I really do feel that with RFK Jr in power, he will as usual cherry pick and misrepresent ‘evidence’ to support his notion that American children have been poisoned by the dumping of industrial fluoride into drinking water, as well as myths like vaccines cause Autism etc etc. He will never admit he’s wrong. It is a worrying time for science.

A small number of people are exposed to too much fluoride, yet in the UK far too many are not benefiting from the protection to teeth they offer. Having said that if you drink water from a well, it is worth getting it tested for fluoride to ensure its safety.

What to make of it all.

Water fluoridation was introduced in good faith to address a real and growing public health problem. The combination of western diet and poor access to dentistry means dental decay continues to be a serious health problem upon which fluoride has had a beneficial effect with no evidence that levels achieved do any harm.

For a more comprehensive look at the story, click here.

The real culprit

Wherever you are it is quite accurate to view sugar, so readily available in its raw form and added to just about every processed food you can think of, as the real scandal. It particularly affects American children highlighted by huge sugar intakes compared to Mexico and China — the report states:

“Mean intakes of total and added sugars were 26 and 9 g d−1 among Chinese children, 92 and 55 g d−1 among Mexican children, and 124 and 76 g d−1 among US children, respectively.”

In other words, American children eat an average of 100g of added sugar a day, that is about 25 spoonfuls of the stuff. This means the average American (and British) child weighing 36Kg will eat their own body weight in sugar every year or so. By definition half will be eating more, some far more.

The pain and distress sugar has caused, not only in its savage history of genocide, environmental destruction, and slavery, but in all those billions of people from Tudor times on who have suffered the misery of dental decay. The history of sugar continues as a testament to corporate power, government inaction and regulatory impotence.

ONE REASON FOR ELIZABETH 1’ST BAD TEMPER

The briefest of scans around our supermarkets and shops shows that sweet food is still popular. Children love the stuff, and it is successfully marketed by the world’s most powerful corporations.

Fluoridation programmes, brushing teeth with fluoride toothpaste, avoiding sugar — in particular sugary drinks — and a quality diet are the key to good dental health. Let’s hope that access to dentistry, in particular regular check-ups, somehow improves.

I can’t help but think that in a sensible, better educated world, we would be more likely to have have community fluoridation campaigns asking for it to be added to drinking water, than the like of Mercola and his chums forever on their lucrative warpath.

Many thanks for reading this post, there will be more………