Fluoride in tap water

Cardelia

meekgeek wrote: »

I don't want to bathe in the stuff either. Why do we have to have this in our water supply? Why can't it be applied topically where needed? Leave it in the toothpaste, so I can choose not to ingest it.

Well, you already are bathing in the stuff. Fluoride is a trace mineral present in tap water across the country. Certain parts of the country actually have natural levels of fluoride which are higher than the artificial levels - there's a link to a map in post #18 which will give you an indication of the level of fluoride in your area.

As a side note, bathing in fluoridated water is absolutely fine. It doesn't cross the skin barrier so the only way you'll get it into your system is if you drink the bath water. And if you're drinking dirty bath water, there's far nastier stuff in that than a bit of fluoride

geordie_joe

tbs624 wrote: »

That'll be the same real world you live in then GJ, where letting the state take responsibility fixes everything......:D

Nope I live in the "I drank it for decades and know it does no harm" world.

geordie_joe

meekgeek wrote: »

so would we agree that persistent and indiscriminate dosage is likely to lead to fewer cavities and more discolouration?

I'll go for that, sounds realistic to me.

Can't offer any evidence of teeth discolouration though, there's too many other things discoloured my teeth to be able to tell.

Toothsmith

geordie_joe wrote: »

Nope I live in the "I drank it for decades and know it does no harm" world.

The thing that seems to be forgotton.

It's been available to a fair proportion of the world's population for getting on for 50yrs.

This must surely rank as the greatest of all conspiracies to hush up all the harm it must have done in that time!

Birmingham does not need people bussed in to make it look like everything is still functioning normally.

Ireland is not swamped with elderly people with broken hips, and the north-east is not beeing veneered from ear to ear.

Mild fluorosis - the thing that up to 40 odd % of the population in a fluoridated area 'suffer' from is the odd small white fleck on a tooth. Probably not even been noticed by parents or the patient themselves.

Fluorosis giving aesthetic concerns is where a patient or parent will say - "what's that small white fleck on my son's tooth?"

Major fluorosis is brown pitted staining. This is never associated with just water fluoridation. It comes from chronic toothpaste ingestion (Kids that eat tubefuls of the stuff over a long period) or parents being over-zealous with fluoride drops/tablets.

Major fluorosis looks very like another condition called amelogenesis imperfecta where the enamel fails to form correctly. I have seen several pictures of amelogenesis imperfecta put up on anti-F websites and labeled 'mild fluorosis'!

The only remarkable thing happening in areas where water is fluoridated to 1ppm is that the decay experience of the population is less than it would be without it.

meekgeek

I am so truly grateful that this country isn't governed by people that think if didn't do them any harm, or that there's a lot of it about it must be okay.

at least some of our ministers have the good sense to question the disposal of waste products in our drinking water.

I have never heard such nonsense argued in support of administering a toxic substance before.

I suspect that Geordie Joe was happy on the bromide too?

You really do have to fight against every injustice otherwise when you've let enough little ones go by, you wake up and find that it's too late and society, your country and the planet we live on has reached a tipping point that we can't get back from.

Can't you see that this is wrong? we should be fighting to get even cleaner water, taking the residual flouride out, not adding more of the filthy stuff in…

and we shouldn't be administering it willy nilly without full possession of the facts.

Anti-biotics help people overcome infection - that's a good thing. Should we put low dose anti-biotics in the water?

I'll bet you'd say no - but you know why we aren't arguing about that? Anti-biotics cost money to produce, they aren't a waste product someone's trying to flush away.

I'd have thought mature people would be more open minded and prepared to listen.

Ho hum...

meekgeek

Toothsmith wrote: »

The thing that seems to be forgotton.

It's been available to a fair proportion of the world's population for getting on for 50yrs.

This must surely rank as the greatest of all conspiracies to hush up all the harm it must have done in that time!

Birmingham does not need people bussed in to make it look like everything is still functioning normally.

Ireland is not swamped with elderly people with broken hips, and the north-east is not beeing veneered from ear to ear.

do you have factual evidence to substantiate these brave claims?

I very much doubt it, for to be able to do so would require 100 years of evidence pre and post flouridation and since the environmental issues of wartime and diet would need to be taken into account it would be impossible to have scientific proof.

compare a population over the same fifty years with a control group not subject to flouridation and you might be able to prove it safe or not, but as the funding isn't available, then the research hasn't been done

Who benefits most from flouridation? the kids? or the manufacturers trying to dispose of their toxic waste?

unless something can be proven beyond all doubt to be safe, we should not be applying it en-masse on such a tiny pretence as helping prevent tooth decay.

regular brushing and a good diet has to be a better preventative for tooth decay than toxic medication.

ask yourself who benefits most from a course of action? that's the usual test of why something gets done and there's little evidence to suggest that flouride in the water is better than regular brushing.

hmmm…

meekgeek

Toothsmith wrote: »

Ireland is not swamped with elderly people with broken hips,

Results: Between 1991 and 2000, the incidence of primary Total Hip Replacement increased by 18%, while the incidence of revision THR more than doubled. The incidence of primary Total Knee Replacement doubled, with revision TKR increasing by 300%. Over the 10 year period, the proportion of THR episodes that involved revision operations rose from 8% to 20%. Substantial variations in operation rates by socioeconomic status were seen, with the most deprived fifth of the population experiencing significantly lower rates. Projections estimate that primary THR numbers could rise by up to 22% by the year 2010, with primary TKR numbers rising by up to 63%.

Conclusions: Provision of joint replacement surgery in English NHS hospitals has increased substantially over the past decade. Revision operations in particular have increased markedly. The growth in primary operations has mostly occurred among those aged 60 years and over; rates among young people have changed very little. There is a significant deprivation based gradient in rates. If current trends continue there would be almost 47 000 primary hip and 54 000 primary knee operations annually by 2010.

http://ard.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/63/7/825

Cardelia

meekgeek wrote: »

at least some of our ministers have the good sense to question the disposal of waste products in our drinking water.

I have never heard such nonsense argued in support of administering a toxic substance before.

Firstly, it's not a waste product. It's a byproduct.

Secondly, have you ever had bread? If you have, then you've taken a toxic substance. It's called thymine and if you take too much of it you'll die. Yet I'm not making hysterical claims about how toxic thymine is and how it should be banned from being put in bread.

Thirdly, if big industry really wanted to dispose of a byproduct, why on earth would they deliberately put it in drinking water? Seriously. There are loads of landfill sites available. Or they could send it abroad. Or they could dump it in the North Sea - there are thousands of places where they could get rid of it without anybody knowing about it. Instead they choose to put it into one of the most tightly regulated substances in this country? Come on - I've read some stupid arguments in this thread but this one absolutely takes the biscuit. If you're going to join in, at least try and be sensible about it.

Can't you see that this is wrong? we should be fighting to get even cleaner water, taking the residual flouride out, not adding more of the filthy stuff in….

What's your basis for this? I've done some digging and I've not found any scientific study which claims that fluoride at a concentration of 1 ppm is "filthy stuff" or in fact is harmful. If you have links to such evidence I'll be glad to read it...

I'd have thought mature people would be more open minded and prepared to listen.

Ho hum...

Hard as it may be for you to believe, I am prepared to listen. All though this thread I've asked the anti-fluoridation people for links to evidence which proves their case that fluoride is harmful. Nobody has yet been able to find such evidence - I even went and looked for myself but I couldn't find it. So, if you have the evidence then lets see it.



ETA: If you think that Ireland and England are the same country then I don't know why I'm arguing with you. But anyway...

Does the study blame fluoride for the increased incidence of hip replacements? Or are there other factors at work, such as increased life expectancy, increased hospital capacity to provide the operation, increased population and so forth.

meekgeek

It's about choice. I choose not to smoke, I don't eat much bread, and especially not processed bread. I don't want my choice to not ingest flouride taken away from me.

That's what I'm arguing against - the mass medication of my water supply on a flimsy pretext.

seems to me you're pro fluoridation, rather than neutral and against free choice perhaps?

ETA? !!!!!!? Ireland and England are the same country? when did I say they were? I merely pointed out that in the last fifty years whilst tooth decay has been going down, hip and knee replacements have been going up (in England - I don't have stats for Eire) and I'm not stupid enough to think that the increase in replacements is linked to flouridation, but I can't be sure it isn't - any more than the 'fact' that we're not bussing people into birmingham speaks for flouride's lack of toxicity.

I'm obviously wasting my time here.

meekgeek

Let's both go and read these papers and see what conclusion we come to:
http://www.slweb.org/bibliography.html

;o)