Fluoridation is when fluoride is put into public water. Some people believe that fluoride is dangerous, and can cause increased risk of cancer and lowered IQ. Many people are against it, but just as many are for it. Fluoridation has been proven to reduce the number of cavities and tooth decay. Fluoridation began on October 10, 1950, but the FDA never approved it. H. Trendley Dean is sometimes considered the "father of fluoridation" because he gave the first evidence that fluoride was beneficial to humans in low doses and was one of the first supporters for fluoridation.
"Q.What additives are used to fluoridate water?
A. Fluorosilicic acid is the most commonly used additive for water fluoridation, followed by two dry additives—sodium fluorosilicate and sodium fluoride. Fluorosilicic acid is derived from production of phosphate fertilizers. The apatite ore (a type of limestone) is mixed and heated with sulfuric acid to form a phosphoric acid-gypsum slurry, the starting point to make pelletized phosphate fertilizers. The hydrogen fluoride and silicon tetrafluoride that would otherwise be released to the atmosphere or left in the gypsum slurry is deliberately recovered from the slurry by evaporators and condensed to fluorosilicic acid that can be used for the water fluoridation process. Both sodium fluorosilicate and sodium fluoride are created by neutralizing fluorosilicic acid with either sodium chloride (table salt) or caustic soda."
Center for Disease Control
Why did fluoridation begin?
"It started as an observation, that soon took the shape of an idea. It ended, five decades later, as a scientific revolution that shot dentistry into the forefront of preventive medicine. This is the story of how dental science discovered -and ultimately proved to the world- that fluoride, a mineral found in rocks and soil, prevents tooth decay. Although dental caries remains a public health worry, it is no longer the unbridled problem it once was, thanks to fluoride."
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial research
NIDCR
"Dr. Frederick S. McKay was born in 1874 in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He was a 1900 graduate of the Dental School University of Pennsylvania and came to Colorado Springs in 1901. Partially because he had the inquisitiveness of a recent graduate and partially because he was not a native of Colorado Springs, Dr. McKay was intrigued by the number of patients whose teeth were stained with white or brown spots; and in severe cases, the enamel was pitted. Dr. McKay was distressed by the apathy of the rest of the profession to do something positive about correcting this cosmetic problem. ..."
Colorado Springs Dental Society
"Following years of observation and study, McKay determined that it was high levels of naturally occurring fluoride in the drinking water that was causing the mottled enamel. McKay's deductions were researched by Dr. H. Trendley Dean, a dental officer of the U.S. Public Health Service. Dean designed the first fluoride studies in the United States. These early studies were aimed at evaluating how high the fluoride levels in water could be before visible, severe dental fluorosis occurred. By 1936, Dean and his staff had made the critical discovery that fluoride levels of up to 1.0 part per million (ppm) in the drinking water did not cause mottling, or severe dental fluorosis. Dean additionally noted a correlation between fluoride levels in the water and reduced incidence of dental decay ... "
American Dental Association
"Dr. F. L. Robertson, a dentist in Bauxite, Arkansas, noted the presence of mottled enamel among children after a deep well was dug in 1909 to provide a local water supply. A hypothesis that something in the water was responsible for mottled enamel led local officials to abandon the well in 1927. In 1930, H. V. Churchill, a chemist with Aluminum Company of America, an aluminum manufacturing company that had bauxite mines in the town, used a newly available method of spectrographic analysis that identified high concentrations of fluoride (13.7 parts per million [ppm]) in the water of the abandoned well (8). Fluoride, the ion of the element fluorine, almost universally is found in soil and water but generally in very low concentrations (less than 1.0 ppm). On hearing of the new analytic method, McKay sent water samples to Churchill from areas where mottled enamel was endemic; these samples contained high levels of fluoride (2.0-12.0 ppm). The identification of a possible etiologic agent for mottled enamel led to the establishment in 1931 of the Dental Hygiene Unit at the National Institute of Health headed by Dr. H. Trendley Dean. Dean's primary responsibility was to investigate the association between fluoride and mottled enamel ..."
Center for Disease Control
"Some fifty years after the United States began adding fluoride to public water supplies to reduce cavities in children's teeth, declassified government documents are shedding new light on the roots of that still-controversial public health measure, revealing a surprising connection between fluoride and the dawning of the nuclear age. Today, two thirds of U.S. public drinking water is fluoridated. Many municipalities still resist the practice, disbelieving the government's assurances of safety. Since the days of World War II, when this nation prevailed by building the world's first atomic bomb, U.S. public health leaders have maintained that low doses of fluoride are safe for people, and good for children's teeth. That safety verdict should now be re-examined in the light of hundreds of once-secret WWII documents obtained by Griffiths and Bryson --including declassified papers of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. military group that built the atomic bomb."
Joel Griffiths and Christopher Bryson
Author of The Fluoride Deception
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Portland Says "yes" to Water Fluoridation
The city of Portland, Oregon recently fluoridated their city water. The videos say it all...
The Grand Rapids Fluoridation Study
"This finding sent Dean's thoughts spiraling in a new direction. He recalled from reading McKay's and Black's studies on fluorosis that mottled tooth enamel is unusually resistant to decay. Dean wondered whether adding fluoride to drinking water at physically and cosmetically safe levels would help fight tooth decay. This hypothesis, Dean told his colleagues, would need to be tested.In 1944, Dean got his wish. That year, the City Commission of Grand Rapids, Michigan-after numerous discussions with researchers from the PHS, the Michigan Department of Health, and other public health organizations-voted to add fluoride to its public water supply the following year. In 1945, Grand Rapids became the first city in the world to fluoridate its drinking water.The Grand Rapids water fluoridation study was originally sponsored by the U.S. Surgeon General, but was taken over by the NIDR shortly after the Institute's inception in 1948. During the 15-year project, researchers monitored the rate of tooth decay among Grand Rapids' almost 30,000 schoolchildren. After just 11 years, Dean- who was now director of the NIDR-announced an amazing finding. The caries rate among Grand Rapids children born after fluoride was added to the water supply dropped more than 60 percent. This finding, considering the thousands of participants in the study, amounted to a giant scientific breakthrough that promised to revolutionize dental care, making tooth decay for the first time in history a preventable disease for most people." |
A Lasting Achievement |