CDC and NAS claim - Fluoride is essential for human life

How Public Health Authorities and "fluoridation experts" distort scientific facts.
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CDC and NAS claim - Fluoride is essential for human life

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August 29, 2013

Although fluoride has never been found to be an essential element - the CDC Oral Health Division now claims that fluoride is essential.

On its website "Community Water Fluoridation" (1) the CDC lists numerous NAS/NRC reports and uses selective items from said reports to "prove" that fluoridation is safe and effective.

About one such report, the 2007 NRC Report on Earth Materials and Health: Research Priorities for Earth Sciences and Public Health (2), the CDC states:  

"This report identified fluoride as a mineral that can positively influence human health, and although earlier NRC reports were not conclusive in their opinions, this report concluded that fluoride was considered to be an element essential for human life based on its role in cellular functions involving metabolic or biochemical processes."  


Needless to say, when one reads such words as "concluded" and "role in cellular functions", one expects a detailed investigation and discussion which would have resulted in such a "conclusion".
  • NOTE: All previous investigations have found that fluoride is NOT required for normal growth or reproduction in animals or humans, nor for any specific biological function or mechanism (3,4,5,6,7,8,9). This is the reason why an RDI was never set for fluoride - see the relevant discussion/final rule in the 1995 Federal Register (8).

However, no such investigation/discussion can be found in the NAS/NRC report.

The "fluoride" section is merely a few paragraphs long, and mentions none of these "cellular functions" that fluoride is allegedly essential for.

After searching through the entire report, one finally finds the following on page 134:

GEOAVAILABILITY, BIOAVAILABILITY, AND BIOACCUMULATION

Many chemical elements occur in living tissues in such small concentrations that they are referred to as trace elements. Some trace elements are essential for human life because of their role as catalysts in cellular functions involving metabolic or biochemical processes. At present, less than one-third of the 90 naturally occurring elements obtained from the air, water, and food are known to be essential to life. The mineral elements currently considered essential for human health and metabolism include the major ions/anions sodium (Na+), calcium (Ca2+), chlorine (Cl–), magnesium (Mg2+), potassium (K+), silicon (Si4+), sulfate (SO4 –), and nitrate (NO3 –); trace elements such as phosphorus (P), iodine (I), and fluorine (F); and metals/metalloids such as iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), manganese (Mn), vanadium (V), selenium (Se), cobalt (Co), nickel (Ni), chromium (Cr), tin (Sn), and molybdenum (Mo) (Moynahan, 1979).


The NAS cites an out-dated article by Moynahan from 1979 (!)(10) as the only source for claiming that fluorine is an essential element, although since 1989 it has been declared by the NAS/NRC itself that fluoride is NOT an essential element (9)!

It gets worse - when the Moynahan article is investigated, nowhere is it stated that fluorine is an essential element, only that it "appears to be". One can find fluorine briefly discussed in the following section:

ESSENTIAL TRACE ELEMENT DEFICIENCIES AWAITING CONFIRMATION IN MAN
-> SEE 1) http://tinyurl.com/oa4e3ch 2) http://tinyurl.com/pjezeec

Incredible.

To summarize:

The CDC Oral Health Division uses a bogus, falsely cited reference in a NAS report - which doesn't really investigate the matter at all - in its claim that fluoride is essential for human life.

So much for the "scientific integrity" of those responsible for public health.

If I had tried to pull a stunt like this when I was in University, I most likely would have been disciplined, if not expelled, for scientific misconduct.

Scientific misconduct: "Intention or gross negligence leading to fabrication of the scientific message".

Wendy Small
PFPC Canada


References:

1) CDC Website: Community Water Fluoridation - National Academy of Sciences on Fluoride in Drinking Water
http://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/safety/nas.htm
http://poisonfluoride.com/pfpc/CDC_-_Na ... Health.pdf

2) Earth Materials and Health: Research Priorities for Earth Science and Public Health. Committee on Research Priorities for Earth Science and Public Health, National Research Council (2007)
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11809

3) Is Fluoride an Essential Element? Fluorides, Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 66-68 (1971)

4) The Report of the Department of Health and Social Subjects, No. 41, Dietary Reference Values, Chapter 36 on fluoride (HMSO 1996).

5) Applied Chemistry, Second Edition, by Prof. William R. Stine, Chapter 19 (see pp. 413 & 416) Allyn and Bacon, Inc, publishers.

6) National Research Council. Health Effects of Ingested Fluoride. National Academy Press, Washington DC. p. 30. (1993)

7) European Commission - Critical review of any new evidence on the hazard profile, health effects, and human exposure to fluoride and the fluoridating agents of drinking water. Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER) (2012)
http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_c ... _o_139.pdf

8) Federal Register, Vol. 60, No. 249, Thursday, December 28, 1995
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Food Labeling: Reference Daily Intakes, Final Rule (1995)
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1995-12 ... -31197.htm

9) Nutrition Board, Commission on Life Sciences, National Research Council, “Recommended Dietary Allowances” 10th revised ed., Washington, DC, National Academy Press (1989)

10) Moynahan EJ - "Trace elements in man" Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, B288: 65–79 (1979)
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