“Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.” — Jacques Yves Cousteau
OUR WATER • OUR CHOICE • NO FLUORIDATION
Fluoride is added to the drinking water in multiple municipalities in New Hampshire. Significant new scientific evidence shows substantial health risks from fluoridation. It’s time to change!
New Hampshire residents should have a CHOICE whether to ingest fluoride – and the chemicals that accompany it – or not. Currently, the following cities and towns have fluoridated water: Bedford (part), Belmont (part), Concord, Conway (eastern), Derry (part), Dover, Durham/UNH, Greenland, Goffstown (part), Hanover, Hooksett (part), Laconia, Lancaster, Lebanon, Londonderry, Madbury, Manchester, New Castle, Newington, Pease Trade Port (Portsmouth), Penacook, Portsmouth, Rochester. Source: https://fluoridealert.org/researchers/states/new-hampshire/
Fluoride products are already available if people wish to have them. But many want to avoid them based on serious health concerns cited by the National Academy of Sciences and thousands of physicians and other medical professionals.
NO ONE should be forced to ingest a drug they don’t want through the drinking water, taking away their right to informed consent.
- BYPRODUCTS OF INDUSTRIAL FERTILIZER
- HEALTH RISKS OF FLUORIDATION
- FLUORIDE IS A DRUG
- MORE EFFECTIVE ALTERNATIVES TO PROMOTING KIDS’ DENTAL HEALTH
A 20 MINUTE FILM ON FLUORIDATION DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY FILMMAKER JEREMY SEIFERT.
QUICK FACTS – courtesy of Fluoride Action Network
- 97% OF WESTERN EUROPE HAS REJECTEDWATER FLUORIDATION
- MANY CHILDREN NOW EXCEEDRECOMMENDED DAILY FLUORIDE INTAKE FROM TOOTHPASTE ALONE.
- FLUORIDE IS NOT A NUTRIENT.
- 64 STUDIES HAVE LINKED FLUORIDE WITH REDUCED IQ IN CHILDREN.
FLUORIDATION CHEMICALS ARE BYPRODUCTS OF INDUSTRIAL FERTILIZER PRODUCTION
Hard as it is to believe, the three chemicals used to “fluoridate” drinking water are all industrial byproducts of fertilizer production and this is openly admitted even by leading fluoridation promoters such as the U.S. Center for Disease Control.
As the CDC’s chief fluoridation engineer has explained:
“All of the fluoride chemicals used in the U.S. for water fluoridation, sodium fluoride, sodium fluorosilicate, and fluorosilicic acid, are byproducts of the phosphate fertilizer industry.
The National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences similarly reports that:
“the most commonly used additives are silicofluorides, not the fluoride salts used in dental products (such as sodium fluoride and stannous fluoride). Silicofluorides are one of the by-products from the manufacture of phosphate fertilizers.”
Thomas Reeves, National Fluoridation Engineer, U.S. Center for Disease Control. The Manufacture of The Fluoride Chemicals, Refer: FL-143 (see online: www.cdphe.state.co.us/pp/oralhealth/fluoridation/fl-143.pdf)
NAS Study at 15.
SIGNIFICANT NEW SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT THE HEALTH RISKS OF FLUORIDATION ARE SUBSTANTIAL
As is true for many chemicals once declared “safe,” there is a fast-growing body of scientific literature supporting that there are real risks related to consuming fluoridation chemicals in drinking water.
Last year, for example, the federal government reduced the maximum allowable fluoride concentrations in drinking water by 40%, its first change in 50 years.
The reduction came after an extensive study, Fluoride in Drinking Water, published by an expert panel of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences (NRC Study) and data showing 41% of U.S. children were receiving too much fluoride and had visible signs of excessive fluoride intake – ie. “fluorosis.”,
The NRC Study also reviewed a substantial body of scientific evidence raising significant questions about the link between fluoride exposure and potential health effects ranging from neurologic impacts and thyroid damage to risks that fluoride exposure increases the risk of bone cancer as discussed further below.
View key excerpts from the National Academy of Sciences panel report.
In 2014, top neurological researchers from Harvard named fluoride as one of the top developmental neurotoxins impacting children’s brain development in prestigious medical journal The Lancet.
The report followed another large-scale meta-study showing that elevated fluoride levels in drinking water were correlated with decreased childhood IQ.
In 2006, another Harvard researcher published a study in Harvard’s Cancer Causes Journal, finding that boys who drank fluoridated water had more than a 500% increased risk of bone cancer.
These and other studies have led a significant number of water quality experts, such as U.S. EPA Scientists’ Union and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s Employee Union, to formally oppose the practice of water fluoridation.
For a comprehensive review of the main scientific studies regarding the risk of water fluoridation, we recommend visiting FluorideAlert.org.
Douglas Main, Government Recommends Lower Level of Fluoride in Water, Newsweek, April, 27, 2015, Online at: http://www.newsweek.com/us-government-recommends-lower-level-fluoride-water-325760; See also U.S. Public Health Service Recommendation for Fluoride Concentration in Drinking Water for the Prevention of Dental Caries, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Federal Panel on Community Water Fluoridation, Public Health Reports, Vol. 130, July–August 2015.
Committee on Fluoride in Drinking Water, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology Division on Earth and Life Studies, National Research Council of the National Academies (2006). Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA’s Standards. The National Academies Press, Wash. D.C. Available on-line: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11571/fluoride-in-drinking-water-a-scientific-review-of-epas-standards
Beltrán-Aguilar ED, Barker L, Dye BA. Prevalence and severity of dental fluorosis in the United States, 1999–2004. NCHS Data Brief No. 53. Hyattsville (MD): National Center for Health Statistics (US); 2010
See footnote 2.
Grandjean P, Landrigan PJ. 2014. Neurobehavioural Effects of Developmental Toxicity. Lancet Neurol. 13(3):330-8 On-line: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422%2813%2970278-3/abstract
Choi L., Sun G, Zhang Y, and Grandjean P. 2012. Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis; Environmental Health Perspectives Vol. 120(10).
http://www.fluoridation.com/epa2.htm
http://portlandtribune.com/sl/152344-deq-union-comes-out-against-water-fluoridation
FLUORIDE IS A DRUG THAT EVERY INDIVIDUAL SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE FOR THEMSELVES WHETHER OR NOT TO CONSUME
Fluoride meets every legal and medical definition of a drug and is the only drug that is added to the water supply to affect human health- ie. dental cavities.
This raises major ethical and moral issues, as many people either do not want fluoridation chemicals in their water or cannot tolerate fluoride in their water because of health conditions such as hypothyroidism or diabetes. Typical water filters will not work to remove fluoridation chemicals.
Because people drink very different levels of water (athletes or construction workers, for example, consume much more water than a typical office worker) water fluoridation means people can get wildly different fluoride exposures from drinking the same water source.
The 2006 National Academy of Sciences report, for example, found infants who consumed formula mixed with fluoridated water ingested fluoride levels far in excess of the maximum recommended levels.
This was one of the reasons the federal government reduced maximum water fluoridation levels by 40% in 2015.
Even with this reduction, fluoridation promoters at the CDC admit that “if your child is only consuming infant formula mixed with fluoridated water, there may be an increased chance for mild dental fluorosis” and recommends using fluoride-free bottled water instead of tap water for mixing infant formula.
But buying bottled water or installing very expensive water filtration systems that can remove fluoride are not options for low-income families that have no practical way to avoid drinking fluoridation chemicals if they are added to their drinking water.
US CDC, Overview: Infant Formula and Fluorosis, at: http://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/safety/infant_formula.htm.
THERE ARE FAR MORE EFFECTIVE ALTERNATIVES TO PROMOTING KIDS’ DENTAL HEALTH
The way fluoridation promoters talk about fluoridation as one of the world’s “Top 10 Public Health Benefits” you would think its benefits were well established and substantial.
But scratch the surface and the reality is far different. For decades, water fluoridation was promoted with the argument that swallowing fluoride provided a “systemic benefit” and that fluoride would concentrate in teeth and be excreted through salivary glands.
But by 2001, this theory was rejected even by fluoridation supporters like the CDC, after scientific studies found fluoride did not work systemically, only topically.
There is not a single double-blind study (the modern standard for showing scientific effectiveness) showing that fluoridated drinking water reduces cavities.
The epidemiological studies that supporters point to as supporting fluoridation—at best— show about a half cavity difference between childhood cavity rates in communities that are fluoridated and communities that are not.
While fluoridation supporters use statistical tricks to inflate the importance of this difference, it is telling that the study they have long relied on as the key epidemiological evidence supporting the benefits of water fluoridation shows just a half cavity difference.
This is consistent with the fact that cavity rates in fluoridated and un-fluoridated countries have reduced at about the same rate since the 1950’s.
While fluoridation promoters continue to push the controversial addition of fluoridation chemicals to drinking water, there are important steps that we can all agree on to promote better oral health for children, such as increased access to care, increased preventative care, encouraging better nutrition, in-school dental screenings and allowing dental hygienists to do certain treatments on children’s teeth.
U.S. Public Health Service Recommendation for Fluoride Concentration in Drinking Water for the Prevention of Dental Caries Public Health Reports, Vol. 130 at 2-3 (2015).
J Brunelle JA1, Carlos JP. 1990. Recent trends in dental caries in U.S. children and the effect of water fluoridation. Dent Res. 69 Spec No:723-7; discussion 820-3.