Fluoride Action Network : A Non Profit Organization And An International Coalition

Fluoride in drinking water has been a hot topic in the past decade. Some communities are all for it and some are completely against it. With such a range of opinions on the matter some organizations have took it upon themselves to present the pros and cons of the fluoride to the public so they can make informed decisions. Often times these surveys are bias to one side or the other, so I shall be giving information on both sides of the issue, the future outlook, and my personal opinion in order to help inform you to decide on your own.

Fluoridation of group drinking water is a main consideration in charge of the decrease in dental caries (tooth rot) . The historical backdrop of water fluoridation is a great case of clinical perception prompting epidemiologic examination and group based general wellbeing intercession. Albeit other fluoride-containing items are accessible, water fluoridation remains the most fair and practical strategy for conveying fluoride to all individuals from most groups, paying little respect to age, instructive achievement, or wage level.

According to World Health Organization data obtained from a study on 12 year old’s levels of tooth decay, fluoride has had very little effect, if any at all, on tooth decay. Countries such as Japan, Italy, and Iceland, who are non-fluoridated countries, actually have about the same level of tooth decay decrease as countries that have fluoridated water. Fluoride is considered a drug, according to the FDA, which means that it is a medical treatment. Medical treatments are not to be given unless the patient agrees to the treatment, therefore, placing fluoride into the public water supply violates informed consent seeing as how citizens are not given the opportunity to vote on the matter. Even if people could vote on the situation, not all people are going to agree with and since it is considered a drug, it

Department of Health and Human Services address some of the public concerns about water fluoridation such as its effects on health and its ethical implication in the community. Some of the concerns express by the public were: safety of fluoride additives, fluoride’s impact on the brain, specifically citing lower IQ in children, effects of fluoride in the endocrine system, and cost effectiveness. In all cases, it was determine that in a concentration of 0.7 milligrams per liter, fluorided water was safe for consumption. Legal implications about community water fluoridation have been thoroughly reviewed by the U.S. court systems and the results have always being that water fluoridation is a proper means of promoting public health and welfare. Also, it is important to have in mind, that the state and local governments decide whether or not to implement water fluoridation after considering evidence regarding its benefits and

The developing human brain is uniquely vulnerable to toxic chemical exposures, and major windows of developmental vulnerability occur in the womb, during infancy and early childhood. Chemical exposure, even at low levels, can cause permanent brain injury during these fragile growth phases, where exposure during adulthood would have little or no adverse effects. Classified amongst other neurotoxic chemicals, fluoride, when administered at high levels, has the potential to cause neurotoxicity in adults and can result in negative impacts on memory and learning according to rodent study reports. Throughout the last several years, advances in scientific research have enabled expansion of what little understanding there is about the substance’s impact on children’s

This statement assumes that enough fluoride is added to water to harm whomever is drinking it; the actual amount of fluoride in drinking water is in the range of 0.7 to 1.2 parts per million. To help visualize that amount, just one part per million is one minute out of two years. For fluoride to be harmful to humans, someone would have to ingest 5 to 10 grams in the same sitting, the same as needing to drink more than 10,000 glasses of tap water at the same time, which is physically impossible. In fact, the human stomach can only hold about 34 ounces at it’s capacity, not close to the 80,000 ounces of tap water someone would need to ingest to die. Before getting close to being harmed by fluoride, water intoxication would potentially kill the individual. Not enough fluoride is added to have chronic effects too. Chronic fluoride toxicity occurs after being exposed to fluoride for long periods of times, developing after 10 years. Nevertheless, the amount added to fluoride is not enough to develop chronic fluoride toxicity. Therefore, the amount of fluoride added to water has no ill effects on populations.

During my reading, there were many things that I found puzzling, however in the article the mention of the fact that fluoridation has largely been credited for the decrease in mental health, yet people are apprehensive about it is very odd. I find this puzzling because it appears as though, as a society, we have forgotten how big of an issue dental health was, and how effective fluoridation was as preventative care during the beginning of the twentieth century. Johnson directly mentions that during the era of both world wars, dental health was the primary reason as to why possible soldiers were rejected. Johnson connects the improvement of mental health as well as improvement in health inequalities between social classes. I find the fact that many communities in which dental care and health inequality would still reject fluoridation, even though history and science show they are beneficial those communities as a whole.

Fluoride is a mineral found in the earth’s crust with proven benefit in protecting against dental caries better known as cavities (Colgate Oral Care, 2016). Fluoride is available through oral health care products and disseminated through the public water supply in every state across the country. Even rural residents receiving their water from a well have trace concentrations of fluoride. Individuals using private well water are urged to have their fluoride levels analyzed by a laboratory; suggestions on reputable laboratories are provided through the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website (CDC.gov, 2015).

Today I will be writing about the ever going argument of “Is fluoridated water better for your health?” Many people have said that it is in fact the opposite but i intend to change their opinion with my research project. If you don't know what water fluoridation is, it is the adjustment of fluoride to the recommended level for preventing tooth decay.

Fluoride is not a beneficial mineral to dental patients because it is harmful. According to the American Cancer Society, “Researchers found evidence of cancer-causing potential of fluoridated drinking water in male rats based on the higher than expected number of cases of osteosarcoma. Fluoridation might affect the risk of osteosarcoma based on the fact that fluoride tends to collect in parts of bones where they were growing” (“Water Fluoridation and Cancer Risk”). Fluoride can potentially cause osteosarcoma, which is bone cancer. Any type of cancer is not presumably an advantage. A patient that receives such a cancer from toothpaste or fluoridated water should really be a concern. This can be nowhere near beneficial to anyone. Dr. Mercola

However, water suppliers who follow the primary standards levels, put young children and their developing teeth at risk for disease, as the maximum fluoride level is twice that of the recommended level for children. On the other hand, “believing that fluoride is an industrial poison requires to deny decades of evidence that fluoride at low concentrations has no ill effects. Also have to believe that the "industry" is paying the "government" to keep quiet while industrial dumping of chemical waste into public water supplies”. Thus, for the moment got confused between that statement and “anti-fluoride campaigners believe that fluoride in drinking water is harmful because it alters your brain in some way”. However, my stance on adding fluoride in drinking water will join the thought of the majority of medical and dental practitioners in our community who indicated their support of retaining fluoride in our community water supply. Since there is no actual and scientific approved evidence of how fluoride addition into drinking water is harmful for the human (no significant health risk). Besides, as a percussion step, I will follow the (PHS) recommendation level for fluoride as safe and acceptable fluoride drinking water

However, it should be noted that to substitute dentifrice with salt fluoridation is insufficient, and they should be used in combination21. Another example of vehicle for fluoride would be dairy product. Milk fluoridation can serve as complementary preventive mechanism for children living in communities where water fluoridation or other forms of community-based fluoride delivery are not feasible or possible. These communities are mainly rural areas, where children have a higher prevalence of caries and less access to dental care than children from urban or semi-urban areas. Weitz et al.22 assess the effectiveness of a dental caries prevention program with fluoridated milk product on the permanent dentition of Chilean rural schoolchildren, and Table 6 shows that such program is effective in caries prevention, as there is significant reductions in the DMFT index for children receiving fluoridated milk over 36 months (range 24-27%). Overall, 39% of 9-year-olds were free from caries (DMFT=0) at the end of the study (p= 0.095), and 23% of 12-year- olds were free from caries (p= 0.016). The cost of milk fluoridation is about 2-3 euro per child per year, with 0.5-1.0 mg of fluoride per day. It is reported that the level of ingested fluoride from milk is well within WHO guidelines , and there is no adverse

Believe it or not, fluoride is a natural mineral in the Earth’s crust. Today, people add fluoride to foods, public water supplies and oral care products. According to the American Dental Association (ADA), people refer fluoride as “nature’s cavity

Many people opposing this view think of it as a harsh chemical but really it’s naturally present in groundwater and oceans. Even though we are adding more fluoride to the water, water fluoridation “is the adjustment of fluoride to a recommended level for preventing tooth decay.” and fluoride is “similar to fortifying other foods and beverages, like fortifying salt with iodine, milk with vitamin D, orange juice with calcium and bread with folic acid.”

i. Although defenders of fluoride continue to claim that there are no dangers in using fluoride for dental care, the facts speak for themselves. Dr. Edward Group, who in his 2015 article “The Dangers of Fluoride” stated that “Every year Poison Control centers receive thousands of calls from people