Does fluoride in the water reduce cavities?
Is fluoride dangerous?
I was listening to an interview with Dr Russell Blayblock and it got me thinking about flouride in the water. Is it a useful additive? Or is it bad for me? I’d heard allegations about some of the alleged problems with fluoride before but did not know whether to believe them. The allegations about potential health issues in the interview were significant so for this reason I decided it was time to do some significant research and and get to the bottom of this. I was actually surprised at how easy it was to lay this matter to rest, below is a summary of what I found out.
My first suprise was from wikipedia when I visisted the page Fluoridation by country where it is stated
“Many European countries have rejected water fluoridation in general. This includes: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland,[33] Scotland[34] Iceland, and Italy.[citation needed] A 2003 survey of over 500 Europeans from 16 countries concluded that “the vast majority of people opposed water fluoridation””
After a bit of googling I came up with http://www.nofluoride.com/ that mentions Dr. Arvid Carlsson co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine (2000) who has come out against the use of flouride. I found a pdf summarising “his views”. He is featured on wikipedia where you can see he did argue against flouridation on “ethical grounds”. I wanted to find out more about his actual position so I looked again and found Arvid Carson in the video below
After watching the video which actually features Dr. Arvid Carlsson plainly explaining his views. I found it very convincing I checked out a few other people that were on the video one guy called Dr William Hirzy – Vice President of the EPA Union. I did a bit of digging on him and found his CV his credentials seemed to check out. It seems all quite legitimate. The video puts foreward a very strong case that
- Fluoride in the water is not proven to reduce cavities
- Fluoride bioaccumulates throughout your life
- Fluoride is linked to a verity of conditions including the increase in cancer rates, mental retardation and Alzhiemers
- The US Food and Drug administration
I found no credible evidence that showed that fluoride in the water is good for the teeth however I found that there is extensive evidence that topical application of floride is beneficial for the teeth. However I found that there was no credibility to the claim that ingesting fluoride is good for the teeth. I also found convincing evidence that would suggest it could be responsible for a veriety of bad health affects I am now thinking of how I remove unfiltered tap water from my diet. Care needs to be taken because most filters do not remove fluoride in the water.
Further Reading
On my visits around the internet I found an australian site called FlourideAustralia on this site I found this film (more emotional than the previous one) about fluoride in Australia and some interesting facts about where we get the flouride from. QLD buys theres from Belgium! Melbourne get theres from the waste produced at a fertilizer factory in Geelong.