OK, now I want a reverse osmosis water filter. Preferably yesterday.
There have been rumors for years that fluoride causes neurological delays and decreased IQ in children. Rumors, however are not facts, and I wanted to see the research. Preferably in the form of a meta-analysis (although those can be flawed too) with some statistical validity.
Like maybe a meta analysis, from Harvard and China Medical University and someplace fancy in Europe. That would be good. Well look what we have here…
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3491930/
Yes, Harvard, China Medical University, and the University of Southern Denmark worked together to do a meta analysis of other studies and found that…putting neurotoxins in water damages the brains of children.
I know, shocking.
The amazing thing is that we have ignored how toxic this stuff is and somehow decided we should raise our own taxes in order to make everyone eat it on purpose. All chemicals with industrial uses have to have what they call a material safety data sheet (MSDS) so that people who work with them on a regular basis know how to handle them. Here is the one for fluoride. Note the giant DANGER and may be fatal if swallowed. Note that it is toxic to aquatic life. Oh, and note the dosages.
http://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/21230.htm
Here is the MSDS for DDT. DDT is a pesticide. It was produced strictly to kill animals. It was banned because it was killing too many birds. If you recommended putting DDT into the water as a matter of public health…it would not go over well. And yes you are reading that correctly. You need to ingest five times as much DDT before it is fatal.
http://physchem.ox.ac.uk/msds/DD/DDT.html
OK but DDT doesn’t prevent cavities. Guess what? Ingested fluoride doesn’t prevent cavities either. Only topically applied fluoride prevents cavities. Eating lip balm doesn’t prevent chapped lips and drinking fluoride doesn’t prevent cavities.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0528.1999.tb01989.x/abstract
Fluoride in toothpaste does reduce cavities. But you have to watch your child and make sure they put less than a pea on the brush and that they spit. Did you know that only 2 oz of fluoride toothpaste can KILL a child.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21701192
Oh and for the other libertarians out there, we are paying for the fluoride to be put in the water. Fluoride is out of the water in St. Petersburg FL because the citizens decided that they didn’t want to pay for it. I can’t say that I blame them.
So what can you do about this?
You can try to get the fluoride out of your water. You can protest. You can start petitions on one of the many petition sites. This is a political no brainer. Stop wasting money putting poison in the water. It doesn’t prevent cavities.
We can demand change.
And we can also buy reverse osmosis water filters in the meantime. Carbon filters don’t work against fluoride.
For a layman’s review of the data you may want to go here to the Harvard Public Health Letter
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/features/fluoride-childrens-health-grandjean-choi.html
And the original peer reviewed meta-analysis
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/2012/10/developmental-fluoride-neurotoxicity-a-systematic-review-and-meta-analysis/
And if you start a petition, let me know. I will sign it. And if you don’t want to start one you can go out to Care2 or ThePetitionSite and sign somebody else’s.
We can change this. I am going to go out on a limb here and say that not a lot of registered voters of either party want higher taxes to pay for ineffective dental treatments that cause brain damage.
This is a cause that just needs a champion. Maybe that person is you.
