The Harms of Water Fluoridation

Utah is about to become the very first state in the USA to ban fluoridation of public water. I’m not mad about this at all, but to understand why it first helps to understand exactly what the facts are about fluoridation and oral health. First off, fluoridation of water is praised by the CDC as being “one of the 10 greatest public health interventions of the twentieth century” but the CDC also says that water fluoridation only reduces childhood cavities rate by maybe about 25%, and while 25% is statistically significant in studies it is not practically significant in reality. For instance this effectively means that if a child was to normally get 4 cavities, after water fluoridation they would still get 3. Or for every 4 children that would get cavities, 3 of them still do. This really isn’t meaningful in terms either of public health or individual health, especially considering the potential risks and harms from fluoride exposure. If fluoridation mostly eradicated caries (cavities), I could understand the justification for it, but the actual rate of effectiveness isn’t even very high anyway, and that estimate is likely wrong anyway as found by a recent study by the NHS (of the UK) which found only a 3% and 2% reduction in invasive dental treatments from fluoridated water. Another recent study of dental health which ranks states from worst to best according to a wide range of dental health parameters found the best dental health in Wisconsin, Illinois, Idaho, Minnesota, and Michigan, while the worst are Montana, Louisiana, West Virginia, and Mississippi, and water fluoridation does not correlate at all with these findings as shown in this interactive map of fluoridation rates by state which shows that Idaho, one of the states with the best oral health, only has a fluoridation rate of about 31%, while West Virginia, the 2nd to worst state for oral health in the entire nation, has a 90% rate of water fluoridation. Hawaii has the lowest fluoridation rates in the nation, but still comes in at the 19th spot in rankings for oral health.

The disparity of claimed effectiveness versus demonstrated in the real world is not only reflected in local trends and politics here in the U.S. The Netherlands as a country banned fluoridation in the 1970s, after coming to the conclusion that the science did not demonstrate fluoridation was safe enough to support doing something so drastic to the public water supply, which is effectively forced medication, and other countries which do not fluoridate their water include Italy, France, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland, all of which could be arguably described as more pro-science than the USA. While some American scientific institutions laud the supposed health benefits of fluoridation, the reason these other countries have not is because the science really just isn’t there, with many studies actually demonstrating severe potential toxicity of fluoride. That water fluoridation is so hyped in the United States seems without merit at best, and possibly egregiously fraud at worst, and populations which parrot support for fluoridation only do so because they’ve heard it’s useful and are nothing more than toady sycophants for authoritarianism and not because they’ve ever seen any actual science on the issue.

What is missing from the dialogue about fluoridation is the context around how fluoride actually functions (not what is glibly repeated by proponents of fluoridation). Fluoride is the reduced form of fluorine, the atomic element, and the form of fluoride added to public drinking water is typically sodium fluoride which is made by reacting acids to mined mineral forms of calcium fluoride in fluorspar rock. Both the reason fluoride is used in treating tooth decay and found naturally in calcium deposits is that fluorine reacts very strongly to calcium, so when it’s used in oral care products or drinking water it also becomes deposited in tooth and bone, which are sites of highest calcium deposition in the body and part of what make teeth and bones rigid. Our immune system also uses halides like fluoride in the immune reaction, where peroxidase enzymes oxidize halides like fluoride, chloride, iodide, bromide, and the pseudohalide cyanide in order to kill opportunistic pathogens, to resolve infections and disease when we become sick. This does include also oral disease and oral pathogens, including those which cause tooth decay.

While fluoridation of water is heralded as a major scientific achievement, the problem with fluoride is that it is not the primary strategy our body uses to fight tooth decay. It’s not even second on the list, and because fluoride is also a substrate for the oxidative reaction of the immune system which eradicates microbes it can and does also alter populations of commensal microbes, which are themselves our primary defense against disease causing organisms. While many anti-science proponents like RFK Jr who was just appointed Secretary of Health and Human services deny obvious scientific evidence, people who claim to support science also do that too and, just like RFK, choose to deny science which obviously refutes their biases, such as that fluoridation of water is healthy, and while dentists can be knowledgable about oral health they are not at all scientists and very rarely have opinions or practices which are informed by actual scientific research and are instead based on traditional medical practice.

In reality, fluoride is the most reactive halide, and because of this its bonds are much stronger with other elements than the other halides like chloride, which our body appears to prefer since chloride is one of the most abundant elements which occurs in the human body and is the reason we respond so favorably to salt in food (which is usually sodium chloride). Fluorine compounds are shown to impair brain energy production and secretion of melatonin. It also impairs microbial tryptophan synthesis (microbes produce necessary amino acids in the gut during digestion) and is shown to impair cognitive development during prenatal exposure. This study suspects that fluoridation might also be behind the rise in pediatric brain tumors which has been occurring since the 1980s. The halides are all highly reactive, and because of this the body has very tightly controlled systems for regulating their function but also which make them exploitable by opportunistic pathogens. For instance, microbial ammonia in the gut produced from parasites or H. pylori alkalizes chloride in opposition of the function of stomach acid (which is hypochlorous acid) to not only inhibit digestion but also to impair the absorption and uptake not only of chloride but also sodium and any other elements which react to chloride or dependent on sodium for transport.

This also brings up the rarely discussed fact that many things which are toxic to microbes are also toxic to us, so the fact that fluoridation kills caries causing bacteria does not mean it’s also safe. Arsenic is poisonous to most bacteria, but nobody would use that to clean their mouth. Our body does use things which are or can be toxic, however, such as ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and even cyanide in our own systems, and their natural regulation and function has useful purposes in our body, but when dysregulated or occurring in excess become poisonous or cause health problems by dysregulating other systems, so the context of toxicity of things like fluoride is often missing when “science” is used to support policies like adding halides to public water systems, and because context is everything when it comes to biochemistry, the potential dangers for doing things like fluoridation of water is enormous.

The famous dentist Weston A. Price surveyed indigenous populations both with traditional diets and after the introduction of industrial diets and documented clear evidence of the harmful effects of refined, industrial diets on dentition and dental health. But Price’s work also occurred a century ago before we had access to the sheer quantity of scientific information we had today (and the people who run his foundation are very wrong about a lot of stuff they promote), and in my own research I have found that many of the reasons for the results Price observed are from diets rich in polyphenols like tannins and anthocyanins, while Price also recognized the presence of fat soluble vitamins (but didn’t know what they were specifically) such as carotenes and vitamin K, all nutrients frequently missing from industrial diets which are required not only for resistance against pathogens and a working immune system as discussed in my book but also for supporting the commensal microbiome which are our primary defense against disease causing microbes such as those which cause tooth decay and other oral disease.

Oral microbes and the oral environment are also primarily dependent on the amino acid proline which our body feeds to oral microbes (via saliva and mucosal secretions) between meals to keep them alive. While dietary proline can serve this purpose, I made the discovery in the course of my work and research that it is dietary citrulline, most commonly found in the cucurbits (cucumber, watermelon, squashes, etc.) which is the primary mediator of this mechanism because our body interconverts citrulline with other amino acids like proline but which does not occur during citrulline deficiency (because of something called the arginine paradox), and because of this dietary citrulline and consumption of cucurbits is a far greater predictor of dental health than water fluoridation.

The fatal flaw scientists and public health officials make in terms of water fluoridation is considering all forms of fluoride equivalent. Because fluoride is so highly reactive to calcium it occurs more commonly in nature as calcium fluoride, but the process of making and adding sodium fluoride or fluorosilicates to drinking water very likely causes perturbations in calcium dependent pathways in the human body which account for the negative affects of fluoride like cognitive and behavioral effects. Naturally occurring calcium fluoride is much safer because it is already reacted to calcium and thus will not react to the calcium in our bodies the way that sodium fluoride does, which is its entire justification for dental health, but many pathways in our body depend on calcium, and fluoride could, can, and does interfere with calcium sensitive channels. Far greater than the effects of fluoridation on oral health are factors like economic stress and poor access to healthy food, nutrition, and healthcare such what is rampant across the United States, unlike other nations in the world which largely have public healthcare access for all their citizens. In addition to an industrial diet, fluoridation is simply a poor solution to problems like inequality, poverty, and exploitation of people we create in our country that should not be occurring in the first place.

There is clearly some evidence for positive effects of naturally occurring fluoride on dental health, but this is not achieved in a way that is actually safe or generally healthy from artificial fortification, which very likely causes other health problems, especially in people who are vulnerable who also cannot avoid it when all drinking water is treated. In one criticism of the work of Weston A. price a person points out that malnutrition inhibits cavities due to the lack of food—while this is true, they were also racistly assuming that indigenous and aboriginal people were all starving before the advent of industrial food systems (lol dumb fucking racist), but it also inadvertently points out that just because something has an effect does not necessarily mean that it’s good.

The fact of the matter when it comes to fluoride is that oral health is not and never has been a function of water fluoridation, but of good diets and dietary behaviors, and knowledge of health and human biology as discussed in the chapter on oral health in my book (Fuck Portion Control) elucidates the why and how of most of it. For instance through my work and research I discovered that dietary cucurbits (cucumbers, watermelon, melons, squash, pumpkin, etc.) is the primary factor for resistance to tooth decay because these foods are highest in the amino acid citrulline which helps fuel the arginine cycle that in turn supplies commensal oral microbes with proline which in turn protect us from those which cause disease. Oral health is extremely complicated and also concerns principles of cellular and molecular polarity, the immune system, oral microbiome, and diet, and while most people will never even bother to learn how to care for their oral health there is a plain and glaring disparity between the supposed claims of water fluoridation and the actual results seen in populations around the world.

Considering that fortification with potentially harmful elements as is so common a practice can very likely cause harm, adding fluoride is an example of things we should be doing to our food and water supply unless supported by clear and overwhelming benefit to the public with NO even remote potential for harm, especially in vulnerable groups. In even the most liberal litmus for safety and benefits, water fluoridation does not pass.

While some places do not have fluoridated water they have in turn fluoridated salt or milk, and all those should be avoided. If you do live in a place with fluoridated water organize your community against the politicians and bureaucrats which establish and defend such harmful policies (arm yourself with the studies referenced above as well as others you can find—DO NOT use lay person references you find on citizen websites or social media as that is NOT science and should be backed by actual, reputable scientific studies). Fluorosilicon compounds which are frequently used can also be somewhat evaporated from water by boiling for about 5 minutes in a well-ventilated room (to avoid breathing in fluorine gas), and allow to sit after uncovered until it cools. Fluoride also reacts to lithium and boron and its harmful effects may be mitigated by using daily, low-dose supplement of lithium and boron which, if fluoride exposure can be stopped, will help promote recovery much faster. If you or anyone you know (especially children) experience tooth decay or oral disease please read the chapter on oral health in my book, Fuck Portion Control.