Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 14:43:50 -0400
From: "Joel M. Kauffman"
Subject:
Self-Defeating on F-
To: pfpc@sprint.ca

Dear PFPC:

   I am in completeagreement with you on the uselessness of fluoridating water to prevent tooth decay in children, and the dangers of excess fluoride ion in any form.

   But both you and the writers of two books: Fluoride: Drinking Ourselves to Death, Barry Groves, and The Fluoride Deception, Christopher Bryson, have
made an elementary error in chemistry that would get you laughed out of any courtroom. Fluoride ion in the body in excess is dangerous. Fluoro compounds with strong carbon-fluorine bonds usually are not dangerous. There is NO fluoride ion in common drugs. There is NO fluoride ion in teflon or saran wrap.

   First-year Chemistry Majors and even High School students taking Chemistry quickly learn the big difference between ionic compounds such as sodium fluoride, and covalent compounds such as teflon. The fluoro groups or trifluoromethyl groups in drugs are there to prevent the body from deactivating the drugs, and drugs or metabolites are excreted with the carbon-fluorine bonds
intact. You must recognize this to avoid being laughed out of court.

   I posed this to Barry Groves in teh UK, and he admitted he did not know any Chemistry.

Sincerely & wanting to help, --Joel M. Kauffman, Professor of Chemistry Emritus, USP