Fluoride in tap water

Cardelia

tbs624 wrote: »

One poster on here is apparently a pretty recent science graduate yet says s/he can’t find papers, so deduces that there can’t be many. However, s/he then made some fundamental errors in quoting from other ones s/he did find. ( Apology for one aspect is noted - before I get jumped on ).

Well, are there many? Are there any, in fact? I've asked, in one form or another, for proof of the detrimental effect of artificially fluoriding water 6 times so far on this thread. Due to the fact that nobody could be bothered to provide me with this evidence (including your good self, despite 3 or 4 direct requests), I went and looked for it myself. I couldn't find very much, and since nobody has deigned to give me links to this supposedly abundant proof, what am I expected to conclude? That all these papers actually are out there in cyberspace but sneakily hiding from me as part of some great conspiracy? It's your case that fluoride is harmful, you prove it. Where's the evidence that fluoridating water is harmful?

Thus, you may see the issue as a simple “prove it’s harmful or shut up”

At the time you said this I couldn't have disagreed more. But now, I'm beginning to wonder.

Evil_Dan wrote: »

That is just not true, there are many toxic substances that your body can process out provided it is not given in too large a quantity.

Examples, and then I'd be inclined to believe you...

Vitamin D. It has an LD50 of 88 mg/kg animal. Take too much and you'll die, don't take too much and you'll be fine, because your body processes it and does useful things with it.

ETA:

Evil_Dan wrote: »

And heres the link for the evidence that you asked for in an earlier post Toothsmith:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5403a1.htm#tab23

Except it's not really evidence that artificially fluoridated water is harmful, is it?

Reported risk factors for the more severe forms of fluorosis include drinking water with high natural fluoride levels, dietary fluoride supplements (particularly when prescribed for children with other sources of systemic fluoride), ingestion of fluoride toothpaste, and having multiple sources of ingested fluoride.

Evil_Dan

Cardelia wrote: »

Well, are there many? Are there any, in fact? I've asked, in one form or another, for proof of the detrimental effect of fluoride 6 times so far on this thread. Due to the fact that nobody could be bothered to provide me with this evidence (including your good self, despite 3 or 4 direct requests), I went and looked for it myself. I couldn't find very much

Depends what you search for, and the search engine you use. For example, when i searched, up crops these....:

Possible link to cancer:
http://www.idof.net/

A table showing fluorosis damage:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5403a1.htm#tab23

And a page on damage caused by Fluoride to the brain:
http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/brain/

Now, if I'm able to find these by just typing in "Fluoride detrimental effects", "Fluoride health scare" etc. then I'm sure that you should be able to find them.

And before you say "well, the idof, and the brain damage ones are obviously biased" i have a vital point, that seems to be constantly ignored:

Where does the majority of funding come from for Fluoride research? The water companies, and those who produce fluoride.

Now, when there was research conducted by scientists employed by tobacco companies to discover the cause of lung cancer they said that it had nothing to do with tobacco, just levels of car fumes - which while slightly true, is not a whole truth.

I feel that i have to quote Mr Pratchett and one of his most memorable quotes during one of his books that is quite important in todays world:

"Hah. Where's the money?"
"What?"
"Something my old Sgt. used to say - if you knew where the money was, then you've got it half solved"

In this case, i think it matters.

Where's the evidence that fluoride is harmful?

Plenty - you just need to type the right kind of words into the search engine.

Vitamin D. It has an LD50 of 88 mg/kg animal. Take too much and you'll die, don't take too much and you'll be fine, because your body processes it and does useful things with it.

Vitamin D is a requirement for the body to function well. Fluoride however is not..

And Toothsmith:

Thank you very much. It's an interesting paper - but could you remind me of the point you're using it to make?

The enamel fluorosis mentioned here is said by the authours to be more noticeable on the back teeth than the front (So hardly a need to veneer them!) And even then, barely perceptible.

The moderate/severe fluorosis is associated with high total fluoride load, or high naturally fluoridated water supplies.

I can't see how this backs up any anti-f viewpoint?

While the fact that it is barely noticeable, its still there - its still caused the damage, and its not 100% safe. And the fact that high fluoride levels can cause it is an issue.

Does anyone actually know what the level is that is put into fluoridated water? I for one, would be deeply interested in discovering what the level is, and how it is dictated.

withabix

Evil_Dan wrote: »

Does anyone actually know what the level is that is put into fluoridated water? I for one, would be deeply interested in discovering what the level is, and how it is dictated.

Fluoridation of drinking water supplies began in the early 1960s following the successful completion of trials which showed an improvement in the condition of the teeth of young children. Under the Water Industry Act 1991 the law previously allowed water companies to carry out fluoridation when requested to do so by Health Authorities, but they were not obliged to agree to a request. This was changed by the introduction of the Water Act 2003. Section 58 of the Water Act 2003 amended the legislation so that water companies now have to fluoridate drinking water supplies if asked to do so by a Strategic Health Authority (SHA). Before any new fluoridation scheme can be put in place the SHA must complete a local consultation process and provide the water company with an indemnity against costs . Note: For water supplies in Wales the decision on whether or not to fluoridate would be taken by the Welsh Assembly Government.

At present, only around 10% of the UK’s population drinks artificially fluoridated water.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/inlwater/iwfluoride.htm

1.0mg/l is the maximum level where it is added.

1.5mg/l is the maximum level where it occurs naturally at a higher level (achieved by mixing of sources).

Typical levels here: http://www.dwi.gov.uk/consumer/concerns/fluoridemaps.pdf

Naturally occurring levels are above 1.5mg/l in areas shown in dark blue on the map and also in borehole water across a large area of East Anglia, although this is reduced to a much lower level by mixing with surface water.

Toothsmith

Evil_Dan wrote: »

And Toothsmith:



While the fact that it is barely noticeable, its still there - its still caused the damage, and its not 100% safe. And the fact that high fluoride levels can cause it is an issue.

Does anyone actually know what the level is that is put into fluoridated water? I for one, would be deeply interested in discovering what the level is, and how it is dictated.

Fluoride is added to water at 1ppm - as has been stated many times in this thread. That's 1mg per litre of water.

I still can't see the point you're making about that table 23?

Yes - it gives rates of fluorosis, but you say this means there is 'damage'. Fluorisis is barely perceptible white flecks - and acording to the paper which table 23 is part of - mainly on back teeth. What 'damage' has been done?

Do you mean the teeth are 'damaged' because they're stronger?

Or do you mean that the barely perceptible white flecks are a sign of damage to the body? As I've shown from some of the reports I've linked to (Which came from proper papers, not interpretations via some pressure groups) the 'damage' to the body could easily include a lower risk of heart disease, and protection from osteoporosis!

The best piece of information posted on this subject was by Cardelia. I have pasted it below. She found a link to the original York report.

I have seen this grossly missrepresented on Anti f sites.

But Cardelia sums it up very well.

Cardelia wrote: »

http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/pdf/summary.pdf

But the evidence of benefit was from studies of a higher quality than the fluorosis evidence. The study of benefit (Objective 1) rejected a large number of level C studies on the basis that they weren't good enough, yet the fluorosis study (Objective 4) was carried out almost exclusively on level C studies. If the reviewers feel confident enough to draw conclusions on the basis of level C data, why were level C studies not included in the benefit question?

As I understand it, if the panel want to be consistent with their own selection criteria, there are only two conclusions that they can draw. One is that fluoride has a proven health benefit (on the basis of level A and B studies, which were deemed good enough for inclusion). The other is that everything else is unproven (on the basis of level C studies). It's certainly not in favour of fluoridation and it can't say whether or not fluoride is safe, but it can (and does) say that fluoride is beneficial. So I don't see how the effectiveness question is still in doubt.

If you want to convince me of any serious negative effects of water fluoridation at a level of 1ppm, could you please post links to proper research, not sites with 'fluorideaction' 'fluoridewatch' 'dontlettheba$tard$poisonus' 'theyreouttogetyou' 'bibblebibblemenonthemoon' .com or similar in the link.

Thank you.

Cardelia

Evil_Dan wrote: »

Possible link to cancer:
http://www.idof.net/

Hmm, if I'm being held to account for not linking to peer-reviewed articles then I'm going to expect the same from everyone else. That website uses the Observer as a source, which in turn uses another agency, which finally cites the journal article in question.

But anyway, if you read the article it's rather, well, ropey. The only statistically significant correlation between fluoride and osteosarcoma incidence occurs if you're male, 6-8 years old (not 5-10 as the above site claims) and you ingest greater than 100% of the recommended daily fluoride intake. The authors guess at the concentration of fluoride in drinking water over the required time period and they guess at the proportion of fluoride which came from water anyway. Their standard deviations are large all the way through, which is an indication of poor or unreliable data. And then there's this:

The lack of data available for other potential confounders is also a limitation. Fluoride may not be the causative agent; instead there may be another factor in drinking water correlated with the presence of fluoride.

So they're not even sure it's fluoride which causes the cancer in the first place! Hardly proof that fluoridated water is dangerous.

A table showing fluorosis damage:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwr...03a1.htm#tab23

Again, if you read the article, it says that:

The milder forms of enamel fluorosis typically are not noticeable; however, more severe levels might be objectionable for cosmetic reasons.

So if you look at the data in the table solely for moderate/severe fluorosis, the number of cases of possibly noticeable fluorosis drops to less than 5% across the age group range, again with mostly large SDs indicating poor data. These cases of moderate/severe fluorosis can be put down to many factors:

Reported risk factors for the more severe forms of fluorosis include drinking water with high natural fluoride levels, dietary fluoride supplements (particularly when prescribed for children with other sources of systemic fluoride), ingestion of fluoride toothpaste, and having multiple sources of ingested fluoride

Not one of which is artificially fluoridated water. So whilst it's proof that excessive exposure to fluoride causes fluorosis (not something I doubted in the first place), that's not proof that fluoridating water causes fluorosis.

And a page on damage caused by Fluoride to the brain:
http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/brain/

The papers from Xiang et al. and Lu et al. have absolutely enormous standard deviations on their numbers! Statistically, if the SD is 33.3% or more of the mean, the figure is meaningless because you cannot, with any confidence, say the number is greater than 0, or even carry out meaningful comparisons with control groups. But anyway, even if we do accept the figures, they're relating to fluoride concentrations of 2.5 and 3.1 ppm. The WHO limit for fluoride in drinking water is 1.5 ppm (artificial and natural) and in the UK, artificial levels are generally around 1.0 ppm. I would class this as extremely ropey proof that excessive exposure to fluoride causes problems, not proof that fluoridating water is harmful.

The paper by Varner et al. relates to the toxicity of aluminium in the brain. They use sodium fluoride at concentrations higher than permitted in the UK and go on to say this in the discussion:

Since, in the present study, the administration of NaF alone did not produce a similar mortality rate, this effect does not appear to be directly related to F intake.

So is it proof that fluoridating water is harmful? No.

The paper from Mullenix et al. exposed rats to concentrations of fluoride starting at 75 ppm! Totally irrelevant.

The paper by Lin et al. is incomplete. Where's the data on "iodine normal, fluoride high" areas? And what about high iodine areas? If you're looking at a relationship between two variables, you need to account for all the possibilities, not cherry pick the ones which show some kind of statistical correlation. And we can't even be sure of that because they don't put in the SDs, so we don't know how accurate the numbers are.

None of the above is evidence that putting fluoride into water is harmful. I'm sure I could find hundreds of sites like the ones you found which claim that fluoride is harmful. But spending 5 minutes on Google to give me a list of anti-fluoridation websites is not the same as looking for peer-reviewed articles which contain relevant, verifiable, accurate data. That's proof. The above is not.

Vitamin D is a requirement for the body to function well. Fluoride however is not..

Yes, vitamin D is a requirement for the body. It's also a toxic substance which the body can process out given time, which is what you asked for. If you want a substance which isn't a requirement for good health, then carbon monoxide will do just as well.

meekgeek

withabix wrote: »

Get your water from another source? Rainwater. Dirty puddle. River...:rolleyes:

Nobody is forcing you to drink the water that comes out of your tap.

Except I've paid for it.

Why should I be medicated against my wishes?

Why should the choice to avoid mass medication cost me more?

Why am I even bothering to respond? You're obviously just trying to wind people up.

Evil_Dan

withabix wrote: »

Fluoridation of drinking water supplies began in the early 1960s following the successful completion of trials which showed an improvement in the condition of the teeth of young children. Under the Water Industry Act 1991 the law previously allowed water companies to carry out fluoridation when requested to do so by Health Authorities, but they were not obliged to agree to a request. This was changed by the introduction of the Water Act 2003. Section 58 of the Water Act 2003 amended the legislation so that water companies now have to fluoridate drinking water supplies if asked to do so by a Strategic Health Authority (SHA). Before any new fluoridation scheme can be put in place the SHA must complete a local consultation process and provide the water company with an indemnity against costs . Note: For water supplies in Wales the decision on whether or not to fluoridate would be taken by the Welsh Assembly Government.

At present, only around 10% of the UK’s population drinks artificially fluoridated water.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/inlwater/iwfluoride.htm

1.0mg/l is the maximum level where it is added.

1.5mg/l is the maximum level where it occurs naturally at a higher level (achieved by mixing of sources).

Typical levels here: http://www.dwi.gov.uk/consumer/concerns/fluoridemaps.pdf

Naturally occurring levels are above 1.5mg/l in areas shown in dark blue on the map and also in borehole water across a large area of East Anglia, although this is reduced to a much lower level by mixing with surface water.

The fact that the entirety of the post was cut and pasted, is neither here nor there.

I just wanted a simple answer, not an entire paragraph on why/how its added - its unneeded, and shows that you just cut and pasted it.

However, neither you, nor TS, have answered "How is the max/min level worked out?"

And Cardelia, i believe that you complained in an earlier post of people not quoting the entirety of a post - when i have put a counter-argument, i have used the entirety of someones post, not just the bit i want. You miss a vital point that i, and Tbs, made. I'll quote myself again:

And before you say "well, the idof, and the brain damage ones are obviously biased" i have a vital point, that seems to be constantly ignored:

Where does the majority of funding come from for Fluoride research? The water companies, and those who produce fluoride.

Now, when there was research conducted by scientists employed by tobacco companies to discover the cause of lung cancer they said that it had nothing to do with tobacco, just levels of car fumes - which while slightly true, is not a whole truth.

I feel that i have to quote Mr Pratchett and one of his most memorable quotes during one of his books that is quite important in todays world:

"Hah. Where's the money?"
"What?"
"Something my old Sgt. used to say - if you knew where the money was, then you've got it half solved"

In this case, i think it matters.

If you are going to quote me - quote all of it, not just some.

And meekgeek has a valid point. The fact that Withabix said:

Get your water from another source? Rainwater. Dirty puddle. River...

So if you want no tampering with your water, would you prefer to drink it 'raw'.

If you had posted that on any other forums that i frequent, you would have been warned for baiting others into a response.

Cease and desist if you have nothing intelligent to add to this discussion, for the sake of everyones sanity.

Cardelia

Evil_Dan wrote: »

And Cardelia, i believe that you complained in an earlier post of people not quoting the entirety of a post - when i have put a counter-argument, i have used the entirety of someones post, not just the bit i want. You miss a vital point that i, and Tbs, made.

Actually, I complained that people were not quoting the entirety of a paragraph. That's slightly different to an entire post. I have no problem with people quoting paragraphs in isolation, in fact I have no problem with people quoting one or two lines, as long as the context of the point I am making is not misrepresented. On that occasion, I felt it was.

I have no argument with your point about where the money comes from. In fact, I agree with it: people should be encouraged to ask that particular question of all studies. But people who quote an entire post just to put "I agree" at the bottom of it wind me up, so it's not something I do.

Toothsmith

meekgeek wrote: »

Why should I be medicated against my wishes?

For the greater good?

withabix

Evil_Dan:

I can't be bothered multi-quoting your last post, but:

a) Not all of that was cut and pasted, just the first paragraph, as there was no need to change it. The remainder is from my in depth knowledge of the water industry, given that I work in that industry at a professional level. You may even be drinking water from treatment works I have designed, built or upgraded, for all I know or care.

b) This is a forum. There is no need for me to cease or desist from posting, no matter how much it may annoy you, unless I am personally insulting you, which I am not.

As I said, nobody is forcing you to drink tap water. Other sources of water are available.

If you had a metered supply, you could indeed say that you had paid for the water. However, if you don't drink the tap water, then you have not paid for it, as you haven't used it.

If you are on a non-metered supply, you are paying for the provision of a water supply. Again, you don't have to drink it.

Thankyou for your comments.