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  Discussion on Fluoridation Poisoning
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Member:
cpacer

Posted on Thursday, Mar 20, 2008 - 8:33 pm:

Hi,

Was forwarded this clip about horses being poisoned due to fluoride added to city drinking water. Do they really add fluoride to drinking water these days!?! Isn't it a known neurotoxin, and other bad things?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9RXfOuylWo
Member:
canter

Posted on Friday, Mar 21, 2008 - 8:26 am:

cp, DrO is the scientist and can answer your concerns better than I can. But Flouride has been added to municipal water supplies for years and years without harm and in fact is proven to prevent tooth decay (think of your toothpaste - most of them have added flouride). In the case of the video, it never explained whether or not the Flouride levels were excessively high, or if there was a mistake somewhere. What I thought interesting was that in the last sentance, they DrOp the bomb of "arsenic", which of course is a known poison, but do not mention it anywhere prior to that in the story. If the water was truly contaminated with arsenic, I think that better explains the problems.

At reasonable amounts, flouride is not harmful (have to be careful with young children, thus no flouride in toddler toothpaste)...my pets, all who are now senior, have been drinking municipal flouridated water their entire lives and they are very healthy and thriving
Member:
frances

Posted on Friday, Mar 21, 2008 - 9:12 am:

I think that mention was made of arsenic at the beginning of the clip too, where they show the sludge they obtained after distilling the water - they said something about arsenic being a result of fluoride additives (I couldn't quite catch it). DrO?
Member:
lilo

Posted on Friday, Mar 21, 2008 - 9:39 am:

I have some trouble with this. Obviously, something was making the horses very sick - but I would be more likely to blame the arsenic than the flouride itself.
They keep talking about some fluoridic acid (could not quite understand the word) - I have never heard of adding an acid to drinking water .....
DrO, hopefully you can straighten us out.
Lilo
Member:
scooter

Posted on Friday, Mar 21, 2008 - 10:09 am:

It makes you wonder why only their horses were affected? Unless I missed something and there were more. It makes you think it was something more specific to their farm.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Friday, Mar 21, 2008 - 10:15 am:

Hey guys, a remarkable piece of film that I watched early this morning and did not know what to say. It seems quite authentic but it is the Internet but the unexplained intermixing of arsenic (I could not figure this out either) and fluoride references makes me wonder. Fluorosis is a known poison condition with excessive exposure and has been reported in children receiving excessive amounts (usually excessive supplementation of water plus tooth paste plus oral fluoride supplementation).

I have been able to do a bit of research now and find several instances of cattle fluorosis (fluoride toxicosis) but these have been do to industrial waste contamination of the land, contaminated feed, or recent nearby volcanic activity. I cannot find any cases where municipal treatment of the water supply is a cause. Neither can I find any specific reports of horse toxicosis that I can review.

However all the veterinary texts have descriptions of the condition in horses which they characterize as rare to very rare. None list fluoridation of water by municipalities as a cause and besides those already mentioned for cattle list unfluoridated cal/phos mineral supplements and some types of rodentcides as causes.

I think the only conclusion we can come to is that if the water supply was properly supplemented, is was not the cause of this farms problems. We should note that some of the symptoms, deformed hooves, urticaria, and cancer are not commonly reported with fluorosis but the lameness, tooth and bone lesions are very characteristic and bone levels the best indication of chronic poisoning. For more see the article Horse Care » Equine Nutrition, Horse Feeds, Feeding » Minerals and Electrolytes for Horses, an Overview where we have recommended intake, usual food concentrations and diagnostic information on fluoride.
DrO
Member:
cpacer

Posted on Friday, Mar 21, 2008 - 10:16 am:

yeah, I feel for them and was really just curious myself. Of course I couldn't help but think of General Jack the Ripper in Dr. Strangelove going on his rampage about fluoridation.

It still seems silly to me to add fluoride to water though--what's the next additive "they'd" be putting in for our "benefit"?
Member:
cpacer

Posted on Friday, Mar 21, 2008 - 10:19 am:

DrO, the Myth Busting DVM.
Member:
mrose

Posted on Friday, Mar 21, 2008 - 11:17 am:

The arguement about flouridation of the water has been going on at least since the 60's; and there have been innumerable studies done on the subject. At some point it was discovered that children growing up in areas with natural flouridation had very few cavities, as well as stronger bones than children growing up in areas without the flouride. So, after quite a few studies, some cities and towns started to add flouride to the water systems, and others soon followed suit. If you had ever worked with poor children from inner city neighborhoods, or even from some rural neighborhoods, as I did in the 60's and 70's, you wouldn't question the need for flouridation. A lot of "scare" tactics were used by those opposed to the flouridation, but they were never based on fact. Remember, it is found naturally in many areas. Like most things, however, a little is good and too much is harmful, especially to small children.
Member:
mrose

Posted on Friday, Mar 21, 2008 - 11:19 am:

Ummm...o.k. so I need more coffee. That's fluoride not "flouride." Sorry.
Member:
canter

Posted on Friday, Mar 21, 2008 - 12:44 pm:

I don't recall them mentioning other problems other than at this specific farm. If in fact there was a problem with the city adding too much flouride to the water and the extra flouride caused illness & death across the area, I would think that would have been widely reported.

I feel bad for the horses, of course. Something is going on...it's just very unclear as to what exactly that is.
Member:
frances

Posted on Friday, Mar 21, 2008 - 1:17 pm:

On the trail of an arsenic/fluoride connection, I've just found this: "...90% of the arsenic contamination found in drinking water is attributable to fluorosilicic acid used in artificial fluoridation schemes..." I think "fluorosilicic acid" was the term they used in the youtube clip (what a mouthful - no wonder noone could catch it!)

Anyway, the link to the article I've quoted from is: www.konformist.com/2000/arsenic-fluoride.htm
Member:
lilo

Posted on Friday, Mar 21, 2008 - 5:15 pm:

LL - thanks for getting that link. I would have thought if on wanted fluoride to water, one would use a salt, not an acid. Lilo
Member:
paul303

Posted on Saturday, Mar 22, 2008 - 1:12 am:

The normal addition is 1ppm in treated water. I was in college in the sixties when fluoride was just coming on the scene. Sara has it right. There was a town in Texas where everyone had mottled teeth, but no cavities. They also had very strong bones. What was learned is that there was an extremely high level of natural fluoridation in the water supply. An astoundingly high level compared to the amount put in water supplies. Back then, I learned all that, but didn't believe it. I became a dental hygienist, and dutifully began plugging fluoride treatments every six months and prescription vitamins with fluoride - I still felt it was a gimmick just to make money. We did the treatments and the vitamins because my state was one of 3 that refused to fluoridate the water. There
was a large vocal minority that swore that all the ills of the world were caused by fluoride....including left-handedness. By the way, a large number of the opposition were dentists.

Long story short: In about 10 to 15 years, dental disease ( cavities )was virtually wiped out. You guys that are 55 and older must remember all your friends ( and most of you )with solid silver from one side of your mouth to the other. In those days, it seemed like every time your dental check-up came around you had a couple of cavities. Not so with kids from the mid sixties and on. I stayed in one practice for 30 years and watched it happen - and I was blown away. What really shook me was when I began using it on my cancer patients in the eighties. People whose saliva glands had been affected by radiation - decreased saliva flow = rampant decay especially of the soft roots of the teeth. There was no effective treatment then for rampant decay - if you filled one spot, the rot would just start around the new filling. All you could do was remove the teeth as they got too painful or infected. We made the patients custom trays and sent them home with the full strength office treatment that we used on the kids once every six months. The cancer patients used it every day. The fluoride stopped the decay consistently. The teeth were black and rotted looking, but on probing, were hard as cement.

I remember also, back in the fifties, when I was growing up, all the kids with broken bones. Gosh, as a kid, I signed as many casts as I did autograph books. How common are kids with casts since the sixties and seventies?

There are some very rare cases of overdoses of fluoride where a child is actually ingesting it in toothpaste and mouthwash and swallowing the dental treatments. There is a heck of a lot more problem with peanuts.

Cavities are coming back now, big time. Prescription vitamins with fluoride are rarely given and many people never drink fluoridated water anymore because bottled water is all the rage. All that stands between kids and cavities now, is fluoridated toothpaste....and, as always, skipping brushing is a rite of passage.

Don't mean to push my views on anyone, just wanted to relate my experience.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Saturday, Mar 22, 2008 - 9:45 am:

The connection to arsenic still does not seem to make since LL and there was a significant bias in the editorial perspective of that site. The chemical formula of fluorosilicic acid is H2SiF6, that is it contains hyDrOgen, silicon, and fluoride. The production is by chemical reaction and that step does not contain arsenic. So I cannot figure where the arsenic is coming from.

Reviewing arsenic contamination is water systems over the last 30 years, I find no mention of fluoridation. I agree with the opinions above that the anti-fluoridation rant is without substance that in fact fluoridation of water supplies has led to better health overall.
DrO
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