Some interesting Facts about FLUORIDE that you might not know:

This essay was written and compiled by the ConnFACT board of directors.

ConnFACT (Connecticut Families Against Chemical Trespass) is advocating to have the mandate to fluoridate water lifted, so that towns can choose for themselves if they want to fluoridate the water.

1)  Fluoride is the ONLY chemical added to our water for the purpose of medical treatment.  Fluoride is NOT an essential nutrient.  

2)  The dose cannot be controlled as fluoride goes to everyone regardless of age, health or vulnerability with no warnings.  Infants, young children and people with kidney issues & thyroid issues are at much higher risk than others.  http://fluoridedetective.com/kidneys/ ,http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/fluoride-and-your-thyroid/. 

3)  The level of fluoride in a mother's breast milk is very low.  Essentially a bottle fed baby consuming fluoridated water can get up to 200 - 300 times more fluoride than one who is breast-fed. In 2011, NY State Health Dept warned mothers against using fluoridated water for bottle fed babies.   

4)  The fluoride added to our water is a toxic waste product (pollution) that we are buying from the phosphate fertilizer industry, not the pharmaceutical grade fluoride that is in other dental products.  These companies would actually have to pay to dispose of this waste, if water companies were not purchasing it.   http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/Pages/FluorideandWaste.aspx

5)  There has never been a single randomized clinical trial to demonstrate fluoridation's effectiveness or safety.  Dentists along with the CDC make the claim that fluoridation is "one of the top public health achievements of the 20th century."  But ask them for the studies that PROVE this to be the case. A 2007 review in a British Medical Journal reveals that there is a lack of strong evidence showing the effectiveness of fluoride's benefits for dental caries  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2001050/. 

Furthermore, a study that tracked fluoride exposure among 600 children in Iowa in 2009 showed there is no significant link between fluoride exposure and tooth decay.   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19054310   

6)  In 1999, even the CDC acknowledged that the mechanism of fluoride's benefits is topical, not systemic.  So why are we all forced to drink fluoride in our water?  Do we ingest shampoo to clean our hair?  Here are some studies that indicate fluoride's main benefits are topical:  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17333303, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15153698, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10086928, 

7)  Data from the World Health Organization shows that tooth decay is no lower in fluoridated communities versus non-fluoridated communities.  http://fluoridealert.org/studies/caries01/ 

8)  In 2010, the CDC reported that 41% of adolescents had dental fluorosis, a mottling of tooth enamel, which may be an indicator of wider systemic damage from children being over-exposed to fluoride.  http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db53.htm 

9) Fluoride may damage the brain – recent studies from China and a Harvard meta-analysis funded by the NIH conclude that water fluoridation significantly lowers IQ in children and should be considered a neurotoxin.  Very recently (in the spring of 2014), Dr. Philip Landigran, the Director of the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mt. Sinai, and a Professor from Harvard, added fluoride to the list of top neurotoxins as noted here in a prestigious medical journal.  Here is an abstract of the study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24556010.  And here it appears in The Lancet  http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422(13)70278-3/abstract.  There was a lot of press given to this finding.   http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/item/18324-top-medical-journal-labels-fluoride-a-neurotoxin, http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/03/the-toxins-that-threaten-our-brains/284466/,   http://massreport.com/researchers-at-harvard-reveal-10-toxins-that-are-causing-adhd-autism/.

10)  There are plenty of risks with fluoride when ingested.  These risks include lowered thyroid function, skeletal fluorosis, bone damage and possible links to bone cancer.   http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/12/06/why-water-fluoridation-continues.aspx?e_cid=20141206Z1_PRNL_art_1&utm_source=prmrnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20141206Z1&et_cid=DM61638&et_rid=753841154

11)  Low income families are penalized by fluoridation as their nutritional status may not equip them with the ability to handle fluoride like those with stronger nutritional status.  Furthermore, they are often unable to pay for filtration systems or bottled, purified water.  How are they to avoid fluoridated water when feeding bottle-fed babies?  http://fluoridealert.org/issues/ej/ 

12)  As key health studies have not been conducted, more scientists, doctors and dentists are questioning and opposing the practice of fluoridation.  So why aren't we using the precautionary principle with fluoridation?  This review article in The Scientific World Journal does a great job outlining the human health effects of fluoride.  http://www.hindawi.com/journals/tswj/2014/293019/ 

13)  More communities in North America and the world are opting to get the fluoride out of their water.  Since 2010 over 50 communities in North America have rejected water fluoridation.  http://fluoridealert.org/content/communities_2010/   Also, earlier this year, Israel banned fluoridation for the entire country.  http://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-officially-banned-fluoridation-its-drinking-water-267411. 

14)  Dentists can certainly make the claim that people should come in for topical fluoride treatments and/or use fluoridated toothpaste IF the fluoride is removed from our municipal water.

15)  There are more dentists today who question the practice of fluoridating our municipal water although most still buy into the ADA's claim that water fluoridation is "the greatest public health achievement of the 20th century."  This is based on information from 60 years ago.  Here is an article written in a journal by a dentist and Principal Dental Officer who was a very strong advocate for fluoridation and had even published articles about the great benefits of fluoridation, who now admits that he was wrong.  http://www.slweb.org/colquhoun.html   Do the risks outweigh the benefits?  It is estimated that only 2% of our municipal water is used for drinking purposes and with that there is extremely limited topical exposure of the teeth…does it really make sense, and is it ethical, to fluoridate our municipal water?