Flouride: What is it?
Early in the twentieth century, a dentist, named Frederick S. McKay, opened a practice in
Colorado, in which, after studying the staining of the townspeople’s teeth, he discovered the usefulness of fluoride in dental health. Throughout the century, fluoride, although carrying many negative side effects, was added into most toothpaste. More recently, fluoride was also added to the drinking water of countless cities. However, some people disapprove of adding fluoride to drinking water. But why?
First, many mainstream organizations have documented serious side effects relating to the addition of fluoride into the body. For instance, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported a greater incidence of hip fractures in areas of the U.S. with naturally occuring fluoride. The governmental National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences has also shown that fluoride may cause cancer. Furthermore, recent studies have even found evidence suggesting that the addition of fluoride to toothpaste, mouthwash, and water may not, in fact, decrease tooth decay. However, that is not all people have to worry about. In Bartlett, Texas, where the water had 8 ppm fluoride, the death rate was 3 times higher than in neighboring town, Cameron, Texas, with only 0.4 ppm fluoride. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and The Safe Water Foundation add to this troubling issue, estimating 30,000 to 50,000 excess deaths each year in areas where there is 1 ppm fluoride in the drinking water, the normal added amount.
Furthermore, the issue of Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products shows fluoride as more poisonous than lead and just slightly less poisonous than arsenic. For this reason, it has been used as a pesticide for mice, rats and other small pests. In fact, there are documented deaths of infants and children caused by “normal dosage” of fluoride tablets or treatments. If these health risks aren’t enough to sway the average person, fluoride has also shown to accelerate the aging process in those who take it regularly, such as in mouthwashes and fluoridated water.
Because of this, and much more, I am personally against the addition of fluoridation to drinking water. Not only are the health risks of adding fluoride to drinking water extremely high, but at 1 ppm, the current average amount of fluoride added to public water, it is obvious that the dangers greatly outnumber the benefits. Truly, the reason in which fluoride was initially added to water, in order to lessen tooth decay, has been shown to be completely false, at least in the studies that have investigated the topic. Therefore, all of the benefits that fluoride has been added to drinking water have thus been disproved. In fact, at 1 ppm, even the false benefits would have been on the boundary of helping, for by adding just a bit more fluoride, a brown staining of the teeth would occur. Therefore, I, personally, am fully against the addition of fluoride into drinking water. However, if fluoride is so dangerous, how was it able to be used in toothpaste and mouthwashes?
Truly, this advancement came with the use of three compounds of fluoride: stannous fluoride, sodium fluoride, and sodium monofluorophosphate (MFP). However, in order to make a successful formula of toothpaste with one of these compounds, the compound first had to be matched with a compatible abrasive. The first combination that worked, stannous fluoride pared with calcium pyrophosphate, became what we know as “Crest in 1955, and dominated the dental hygeine industry for the next decade. However, this solution was just the beginning of toothpaste. You see, sodium monofluorophosphate (MFP), soon took over as the toothpaste of choice, being sold abroad in the early 1960’s to toothpaste manufacturers and effectively forcing fluoridated toothpaste to become the standard for all toothpastes in the market. The next advance, in 1982, came in the discovery of a hydrated silica abrasive that didn’t hinder the once unusable sodium fluoride. In fact, the most recently discovered type of toothpaste, gel toothpastes, owes its economic prowess to the silica abrasive as well. In any case, sodium fluoride has become the toothpaste of choice in the modern market, outshining the other, once-glorious compounds. Without the discoveries of abrasives, as well as the three compounds, the fluoridated toothpaste would not have evolved into what it is today, and, perhaps, would not be a standard in today’s world.
However, I am more concerned with the fluoridation of water because of the negative side effects that swallowing fluoride can have on the human body. Two side effects – cancer and possible death – stand out to be the most dire and frightening to me, personally. These are mostly for obvious reasons, including the pain, complications, and possibility of death that comes with cancer, and, of course, the fear of death itself. I simply do not understand why someone would want to risk death and other life-altering side effects just for less tooth decay. I am also a bit worried about the fracturing of hips because of the addition of fluoride to the body, simply for the fact that fluoride was supposed to help strengthen teeth and stop decay, while a side effect has fluoride actually harming bone, which is similar to teeth in many ways. However, only time, as well as more discoveries, can tell whether these side effects truly impact the future of fluoride in our daily lives.
Sources:
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/stuff/7916sci4.html
http://www.wholywater.com/fluoride.html
http://www.doctoryourself.com/fluoride_cancer.html
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