Fairbanks could decide Monday to ban fluoride in drinking water

[Newsjock]

Source: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Fluoride is now in the hands of the Fairbanks City Council.

A special task force recommended the city end a half-century-old mandate to fluoridate its water supply and will present findings to the City Council on Monday night. The council could abide by an ordinance or a ballot measure but is not required to take any action.

“My gut is telling me to go ahead and go with the recommendation,” Councilman Jim Matherly said. “I was surprised they said, ‘Take it completely out.’”

... “I think the kids that can’t afford fluoride treatment are going to lose out. I feel bad for those kids,” Matherly said.

Read more: http://www.newsminer.com/view/full_story/12909542/article-Fairbanks-could-decide-Monday-to-ban-fluoride-in-drinking-water?instance=home_news_window_left_top_1

[glowing]

1. I thought most schools have flouride treatment programs?

And toothpaste always has some flouride in it. AND its reccommended that babies under 2 not receive any flouride as it can cause bone growth problems. Also, many children are receiving overload on flouride to the point of spotted teeth (dental flourosis).

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. Schools haven't had fluoride treatment programs in over 20 years

[madrchsod]

2. jesus h christ are these people stupid...

[Keith Bee]

29. Youbetcha!

[RC]

3. Fluoride is a natural occurring compound and is needed by the body.

It has been proven to prevent cavities. Too much fluoride can discolor the teeth, but has not shown to detrimental to the health.

[Kalun D]

14. The Fluoride Industry

"Fluoride is a natural occurring compound and is needed by the body."

only in very trace amounts and not in an isolated fashion like public water

""It has been proven to prevent cavities.""

by industry beholden scientists.

""but has not shown to detrimental to the health.""

It's more toxic than lead, they don't allow lead in the water, why do they intentionally put fluoride in?

[loudsue]

27. Plus it screws up people's endochrine systems, and has linked in studies to massive hypothyroidism

in the USA.

[eppur_se_muova]

42. ZOMG! Not the almighty, multi-trillion dollar fluoride industry!

Get a grip! Sodium fluoride is unbelievably cheap, and available from many different sources. Monopoly is all but impossible. The quantities employed in drinking water ("isolated fashion"? WTF is that supposed to mean?) are miniscule, compared to other commercial uses. There is no secret cabal raking in piles of cash from fluoridation. Oh, and BTW, some water suppliers *remove* fluoride from their water, because the level is naturally too high. How does the secret cabal (or the Knights Templars, whoever) profit from that?

Here are your "industry beholden :eyes: scientists":
http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/OralHealth/Topics/Fluoride/TheStoryofFluoridation.htm

With fluoride, the dose makes the poison. ~1 ppm is beneficial to teeth, ~2 ppm leads to mottled teeth, ~5 ppm leads to acute toxic effects. The most effective way to ingest adequate fluoride while preventing overdosage is by providing fluoride in highly dilute form. Water is ingested in larger quantity than any food, so diluting the fluoride in water makes eminent sense. To get a toxic dose from drinking water, you'd have to drink a huge amount of water. Drinking too much water will kill you anyway, so fluoride won't matter then: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16614865/ns/us_news-life/ Europeans take their fluoride as toothpastes (less effective) or in fluoridated salt (much harder to control the dose). Public water fluoridation is especially effective in the USA because it brings the dental health benefits of therapeutic-level fluoride even to the impovershed and undereducated -- especially children, who are the ones harmed most by fluoride deficiency.

Lead is not added to drinking water because lead has absolutely no beneficial effects, only toxic ones. DUH. Think about these questions before posting them.

[rhett o rick]

25. Arsenic is a natural occurring compound. That isnt a criteria. I have heard that

direct application to your teeth is good but ingesting it isnt. I need to do more research. If you have links, plez share.

[eppur_se_muova]

44. You are correct -- "natural" alone isn't an adequate criterion.

see my reply #46 here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=954152&mesg_id=955930

[rhett o rick]

58. I think you meant #34 in lieu of #46 but I figured it out.

See my post # 57

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=954152&mesg_id=958610

[Turbineguy]

4. Ice cream

Mandrake. Children's ice cream.

[winstars]

30. Nice One!!!! nt

[provis99]

5. so is Fairbanks run by the John Birch Society?

[Festivito]

6. A friend of mine grew up in rural Indiana without Fluoride. Her teeth have no ridges.

In Fluoride corporations we trust, I guess.

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. I have a friend who lost all of her teeth by age 35

She also grew up in a rural area with no fluoride.

[progressoid]

28. My sister's teeth are straitght and white. My brother's are crooked and yellow.

Both brush the same and drank the same floridated water.

[notesdev]

7. Water should be pure

Administering to the general public uncontrolled dosages of flouride was always insane. The original reason to dump flouride in the water? It was a profitable way to dispose of a waste product of aluminum manufacturing.

[RC]

9. That is totally not true in the least.

[notesdev]

11. I really don't think it's too much to ask

that public water sources should be unadulterated by agendas

This simply forces it on people who don't want it. Don't you have a right to be the one to determine what goes in your body? Why should a person have to set up a home distillery just to get actually clean and unadulterated water?

[RC]

13. No. And municipal water isn't anyway.

Among other things it is chlorinated. Do you have a problem with that? Running distilled water through municipal water system is a good way to kill people from disease. More things can be dissolved in water than any other substance you can name. Fluoride is a simple, inexpensive way to prevent cavities. Saves money in the long run.
Don't like it, dig your own well, drink bottled water or set up a still.

[notesdev]

19. Clean water shouldn't be a privilege of the rich only

and that's basically the options you're laying out.

What kind of disease do you think can be transmitted by distilled water, anyway? Diseases can't survive distillation.

[NutmegYankee]

48. Ugh, pipes?

All pipe systems develop leaks. Facets serve as entry points for bacteria as well. The residual chlorine kills any bacteria that get in.

As for the other comment - Do you understand how much energy is required to boil millions of gallons of water? Even a Nuclear Power plant couldn't provide enough heat to supply a small city.

[RC]

53. All those pipes between the water plant and your home.

Any break in the line. Any water tower, storage tank along the way. Any time the water is shut off, there is a very real chance stuff gets sucked back into the water pipes...

[eppur_se_muova]

35. You can always drill your own well -- the "small government" solution.

Of course, your well will likely contain naturally-occuring fluoride, and without testing, you won't know how much. The same is true of bottled water, just in case you were thinking that would be fluoride-free.

[NutmegYankee]

45. You don't want to drink distilled water anyhow.

It can mess up your electrolyte balance. That's why water created by reverse osmosis has minerals added back in prior to delivery.

[notesdev]

61. Sorry distilled is the wrong word

"unadulterated" and "clean" are the words I mean

Bottled water isn't flouridated or chlorinated. If that stuff is so important, why do people pay for bottled water to drink instead?

People want and deserve clean water. Dumping chemicals into a public water supply is a most dubious medical practice; flouridation and chlorination are not in any way risk-free ventures.

[eppur_se_muova]

34. Total bullshit. The amount of fluoride added to water is usually ~1 ppm.

The total fluoride consumed is miniscule compared to the amount used in industry. Nor is fluoride a waste product of aluminum refining -- it is a necessary, useful material which must be paid for, and is recycled as much as possible, with the only losses being due to leakage or spillage. So your story makes no sense. Not surprisingly, you didn't provide any source for what is apparently an urban legend.

Human teeth contain the mineral apatatite, a basic calcium phosphate. In the presence of a small amount of fluoride, this is transformed into fluoroapatite. This leads to harder, more heavily mineralized tooth enamel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooth_enamel#Oral_hygiene_and_fluoride

The original clue to the importance of fluoride was epidemiology, which found variations in dental health in different parts of the country, being affected almost exclusively by the local water supply. Excessively high fluoride conc'n -- relatively rare in natural fresh water -- was found to lead to brown, mottled teeth. This was the first clue that fluoride had any role in dental health. Later studies showed that a small amount of fluoride was actually beneficial ("the dose makes the poison"). In those few parts of the country where fluoride concentration is naturally high, municipal water systems actually remove fluoride. That certainly doesn't fit with any scheme to profit off of waste products.

An interesting history is found here: http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/OralHealth/Topics/Fluoride/TheStoryofFluoridation.htm

Arguing against minimal, therapeutic fluoridation is like arguing against iodized salt. It's so wrongheaded it's just plain dumb. Eliminating fluoridation would lead to dental health problems for those people whose water sources were naturally fluoride-deficient, while benefiting absolutely no one. Fluoridation is especially crucial at the age when adult teeth are emerging, and children usually aren't in much of a position to know if they are receiving adequate care. Without fluoridation, children in poor and less-educated families would be the ones who would pay the price.

[WatsonT]

46. That's not true

And you would need to cite such a claim anyway.

[Demeter]

8. Job security for dentists.

[ZombieHorde]

10. I thought the same thing! nt

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Odin2005]

15. This country is descending straight to the Dark Ages, drowining in Woo.

[NutmegYankee]

36. Science is no longer treated as science.

Imagine how depressing this is to an Engineer. I love science and would consider myself a scientist, but I excelled at fluid flow analysis and mechanical design, so I became a Mechanical Engineer. But health studies, astronomy, and physics experiments are still very interesting to me. The state of science knowledge in the general population is depressing!

[whoneedstickets]

16. Free Tinfoil hat day is next week!

They also will be distributing special black helicopter spotting goggles for christmas.

[James48]

17. precious bodily fluids, Mandrake. n/t

[kickysnana]

18. I found out I am allergic because of a fluoride rinse the dentist gave me a few years ago...

Broke out in hives. Tried another brand, stopped using it for three months and tried again but still hives.

I now use a water filter and have had a lot fewer gastric problems and headaches.

[Kalun D]

33. Your Not Allergic

Just a little more sensitive to it than the normal person, maybe you have more of an accumulation.

[eppur_se_muova]

38. Read the label on those rinses -- they contain a whole lot of crap *besides* fluoride.

Many of them organics, which are far more likely to lead to allergic reactions than something as simple as fluoride. So you're not controlling for a single variable. You may be allergic to *something*, but the evidence doesn't make it clear what. It might even turn out to be the flavoring.

Googled "fluoride allergy" -- found lots of woo pages, no legitimate medical journals. Color me extremely skeptical.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. OMG teh stupid

Unbelievable.

[JI7]

23. why ?

[rhett o rick]

24. The John Birch Society may have been correct. I have heard that fluoride in the

water isnt a very effective way of getting it to your teeth. And it may be harmful to young men's bones. I heard this on The Ring of Fire. I guess the direct application of fluoride to teeth via treatments and/or tooth paste is much more effective and not dangerous.

[LetTimmySmoke]

26. Water flouridation is a communist plot...

...to sap the integrity of our precious bodily fluids.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KvgtEnABY

[Prometheus Bound]

31. Calgary voted in February to eliminate it from their water.

Council votes to eliminate fluoride from Calgary water
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/Council+votes+eliminate+fluoride+from+Calgary+water/4246242/story.html#ixzz1KW0KmlUs

[Liquorice]

32. People should be better educated about what causes cavities in the

first place. I had to do a lot of research and find out for myself. Cavities are caused by a bacterial infection that can be eradicated or at least well-controlled with persistence and knowledge. If you don't have the bacterial infection, you simply cannot get cavities no matter how little fluoride you have in your water. The biggest disservice dentist do to their patients is in not educating them about what to do to fight the bacterial infection that causes cavities.

[Le Taz Hot]

41. And here's a dirty little secret

the fluoride industry doesn't want you to know: Hydrogen Peroxide. Rinse for 5 minutes with a dilution of HP & water, swishing it around good (after you brush). Because cavities are caused by bacteria and HP kills bacteria there is no need to have to drink poison.

[PVnRT]

50. There is no "fluoride industry"

Water from natural aquifers has fluoride already, often in such higher concentration that it needs to be removed by water treatment plants.

As for hydrogen peroxide, why bother with that? Salt water will put enormous osmotic pressure on bacteria, to the point where cell walls rupture and its killed. Ditto with mouthwash. Swish around some vodka.

[Le Taz Hot]

55. "There is no 'fluoride industry'."

Really?

http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/epa/industry.html

http://www.hfipi.com/

http://dprogram.net/2008/09/08/fluoride-industrys-toxic-coup/

http://www.nofluoride.com/food_and_water.cfm

http://www.antibiotic-alternatives.com/drinking-water.htm

http://www.healthtruthrevealed.com/articles/12/news

And yes. one can get similar anti-bacteria results from salt and vodka. That doesn't make my point about HP invalid. :shrug:

[octopi23]

63. Directing links to woo sites?

You're the best around. Is anything ever gonna keep you down?

Oh yeah, your failure at research.

[Liquorice]

60. I have read that salt water is a really great mouth rinse for

the reason you mention as well as for making the mouth alkaline.

[Liquorice]

59. Xylitol will kill the bacteria over time and spare the good bacteria.

I also use Closys mouthwash because it supposedly makes the mouth alkaline, and the cavity-causing bacteria hate an alkaline mouth. I do use diluted hydrogen peroxide in my WaterPik sometimes, but there is some controversy about it perhaps being cancer-causing, so I am a little hesitant to use it all the time.

[Blue_Tires]

37. Have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?

[Le Taz Hot]

39. I wish our city would do that.

We used to have the BEST TASTING water, then they added fluoride. Now the water tastes like a flippin' swimming pool and I have to filter it for it to be palatable. I don't like that shit is being added to my water WITHOUT MY CONSENT. "Here! Drink this. WE know what's good for you!" :puke:

[NutmegYankee]

43. Fluoride has no taste. If it tastes like a swimming pool, that is chlorine.

And that likely had to do with the source supply needing more chlorine.

I have lived with both fluoridated and not water supplies. The taste was the same.

[Le Taz Hot]

49. You're right.

That IS chlorine. (That's what I get when I post before the first cup of coffee.)

[NutmegYankee]

51. No problem.

We all have our pre-coffee moments. I live with a non-fluoridated supply now because there is minimum size required for a utility to need to fluoridate per federal regs. My rural New England town doesn't meet the criteria. I wish I had it though.

[PVnRT]

52. Chlorine is added to counter bacterial growth in long distribution lines

The closer you are to the water source, the more chlorine you will get, as the "dosage" is based on achieving a certain concentration at the farthest reaches of the distribution system.

[dionysus]

40. i see we have some alex jones type "fluoride is an evil trick by the gummint" folks on this thread..

:rofl:

[WatsonT]

47. And in a few years when cavity rates spike they'll blame it on vaccinations

Maybe the movie idiocracy was right.

[AlecBGreen]

56. lol

"And I object! To him... interrupting me... when I was trying to watch "Ow My Balls!"

[La Lioness Priyanka]

62. indeed

[devils chaplain]

54. I'm waiting for "Fairbanks Teeth" to become slang in Alaska ten years from now. N/T

[rhett o rick]

57. Some studies show that fluoridated water does more damage than good.

I havent done any thorough research on this and it appears not many in this thread have either. But I first heard about this from Robert Kennedy Jr. on the Ring of Fire radio show. He said that fluoride in water is not an effective method of getting protection to teeth. Direct application is the most effective way. He also said there was evidence indicating that fluoridated water may be increasing the instances of bone cancer, especially in teenage boys. As you know Kennedy had some close experience with that. I am sorry that I havent found links to the show, it was a number of years ago. I did find the following link. I dont know how valid it is and I dont know the answer. I am only saying this needs more research before we make rash decisions.

"Animals fed sugar-water and fluoride fare no better in terms of tooth decay than animals fed sugar-water alone. Human tooth decay is linked to diet, sugar intake, tooth brushing technique, hours of sunlight, parental education, and family income.These variables must be considered in order to produce accurate results.

In the largest study of tooth decay in America, there was no significant difference in the decay rates of 39,000 fluoridated, partially fluoridated, and non fluoridated children, ages 5 to 17, surveyed in that 84 city study. The decayed missing or filled rate in non-fluoridated Los Angeles was not significantly different than fluoridated San Francisco. In fact, the lowest decay rate was found in non-fluoridated Buhler, KS."

http://www.seagulldistribution.com/fluoride.php