from The Natural Activist Jan/Feb 1999 Vol. 7 No. 7
Denouncing the National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS) listing of fluoride as a beneficial element, four scientists have put forth a case based on decades of their research that shows fluoride is anything but healthful.
On January 20 at the National Press Club in Washington, Professors of Chemistry Albert Burgstahler (University of Kansas) and Paul Connett (St. Lawrence University). Professor Emeritus Lennard Kook (Cornell University), and Dr. William Hirzy of the union of scientists and attorneys at the Environmental Protection Agency presented their case. New York attorney Paul Beeber joined them.
The scientists and Beeber presented not only results from their own study on fluoride but also research from the archives of the NAS.
“Fluoride is a very toxic substance and the less our children get the better,” Connett says, “If we add the new evidence of fluoride’s damage to the brain and the pineal gland its carcinogenicity and its known toxicity to teeth, bones, the reproductive and other systems, and consider the ineffectiveness of fluoride in drinking water in preventing dental cavities, it is insane for NAS to promote fluoride as a beneficial element.”
The scientists presented research that shows the following adverse effects from fluoride.
- Fluoride is linked with increased risk of hip fractures in the elderly. At the conference, Krook explained that peer-reviewed publications showed weaker bones result from drinking fluoridated water.
- Fluoride makes no difference in the rate of dental cavities in children. Beeber discussed a new report on the results of a 50-year trial that measured dental-cavity rates in children in Newburgh, NY (fluoridated water) and Kingston, NY (unfluoridated water). While no differences were noted in dental cavity occurrence among the two groups of children, the report did show that children in Newburgh had twice the rate of dental fluorosis — the earliest sign of fluoride toxicity — as children in Kingston. Fluoride is linked with bone cancer in animals and humans — studies that NAS downplays.
- Fluoride may suppress the pineal gland that is responsible for many critical aspects of life such as aging and adaptation to day/night cycles.
NAS has listed fluoride as a beneficial element and has established a “safe upper limit of exposure to fluoride.” Yet, Burgstahler pointed out that NAS has previously cited 13 studies showing fluoride causes bone toxicity below that limit of exposure, a limit that NAS now says is “tolerable.” As senior vice president of the union that represents scientists and other professionals at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Hirzy said the union is trying to endorse efforts to ban water fluoridation, despite the fact that EPA treats fluoride as a “protected pollutant.” Hirzy said EPA’s drinking water standard for fluoride is at a level known to cause adverse effects on teeth.
Despite efforts to show that Americans are now over-dosed with fluoride, states are moving ahead with the fluoridation of water supplies. Delaware, for example, recently passed SB 173 that provides for the fluoridation of all municipal water supplies in that state. However, some states and towns are showing more caution: Utah recently passed HB-405 that requires an election to approve the addition of fluoride to the public water supply.
