“Fluoride vote acknowledges passion, yields to science.”
Thus read the headline of an editorial in the Palm Beach Post after the Wellington Village Council voted to resume fluoridating its water supply, reversing a policy enacted in January 2014.
The editorial contained this sentence: “Moreover, there is still no credible evidence linking public water fluoridation with long-term health problems. None.” The italics for emphasis are the Post’s.
Oh, really?
So it was with amusement that I read a couple of days later an online piece by Newsmax, the staunchly conservative, but respected, national news magazine based in West Palm Beach. “A study at the University of Kent in Great Britain found a correlation between underactive thyroid and levels of fluoride in potable water,” Newsmax reported. “The British study found that people in areas with fluoride levels above 0.7 milligrams had at least 30 percent more cases of hypothyroidism than areas with lower levels. And in a head-to-head comparison of two areas, one with fluoridated water and the other with no fluoridation, twice as many people in the fluoridated area had hypothyroidism.” The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency some years ago recommended levels of water fluoridation between 0.7 and 1.2 milligrams per liter, a reduction from its previous recommendation. It’s not a requirement.
Wellington Village Council
Newsmax said further: “The researchers warned that people with an underactive thyroid produce too little of the hormones triiodothyronine and tetraiodothyronine, deficiencies that can interfere with many metabolic functions, often resulting in weight gain and depression.”
When the Wellington Council stopped fluoridating in 2014, the Washington Post arrogantly jumped all over the decision, labeling it as one of the “11 worst policy ideas of 2014.” Amazing how a media titan like that could issue such a strident verdict on something about which it obviously knew little or nothing.
And hypothyroidism isn’t the only health problem caused by fluoride. Here’s Dr. David Brownstein’s take on water fluoridation. He’s the medical director of the Center for Holistic Medicine in West Bloomfield, Mich., a lecturer to physicians internationally, and the author of about 15 books. I followed his advice for stopping painful leg cramps every morning—increasing consumption of sea salt—and the problem is virtually gone. After I began using Prostate Revive, a supplement he developed, my nocturnal
urinal visits went from three or four each night to one or none. His probiotic, Bactipro, works like a charm, unlike others I’ve tried. And his Limbex has reduced or eliminated my joint pain. But these are natural treatments, scorned by conventional medicine, which advocates fluoridating water.
Drink up — it’s only poison.
“There is no known medical or dental benefit to ingesting fluoride in the diet,” Brownstein wrote in his January 2011 newsletter. “In fact, there are zero studies that show ingesting fluoride has any large benefit at preventing cavities. However, there are many studies that show fluoridated communities have higher hip factures, more cancer and elevated thyroid disorders. The form of fluoride added to our water supply is a byproduct of industrial manufacturing. It is a toxic form of fluoride … that has been shown to cause problems with the thyroid gland and increase oxidant stress on the body.”
Dr. David Brownstein
Further, the doctor wrote, “Ingesting fluoride through our water supply has never been shown to prevent cavities. The World Health Organization has shown that there is no difference in cavity formation in countries that fluoridate their water supply as compared to countries that do not fluoridate … My experience has shown that patients with chronic illness improve their condition when they remove fluoride from their diet.”
But the two Post papers apparently know more than the World Health Organization.
Ninety-seven percent of western Europe — in at least 15 countries — has chosen not to have its water fluoridated. In the United States, 70 percent of the municipalities fluoridate. All 15 countries have lower rates of infant mortality and higher rates of life expectancy, ranking between two and 27 compared to the United States at 31, according to the WHO.
Brushing it off
The logic advanced in Europe is that fluoride in toothpaste is adequate for preventing cavities. I lived 15 years in Palm Springs. I’ve had no problem with cavities. Palm Beach Gardens and Jupiter don’t fluoridate. Where’s the evidence of unusual problems with tooth decay in any of those cities? (Boynton Beach has at least temporarily ended fluoridation.) And by the way, those cities are saving money for their residents, as well as protecting their health.
At the Wellington Council meeting to decide on fluoridation, Councilman Michael Drahos said, “It was significant to me that every local dentist who came and spoke here tonight, as well as most pediatricians, spoke in favor of fluoride, and my kids’ doctor as well as their dentist are in favor of fluoride. Those are the people that I entrust for the safety of my own kids.”
Mayor Anne Gerwig said her vote to add fluoride was based on science.
“Public health officials. Dentists. Pediatricians. All spoke up for the benefits of safely fluoridating water systems.” So wrote the Palm Beach Post in its editorial.
Blind faith
Therein lies the problem. We can’t afford to place unquestioning faith in conventional medicine, our government, and the media that echo them. The crusading magazine Mother Jones, a voice apart from the establishment media, currently has a piece titled, Big Pharma Puts Profits Before Your Health. Follow the money, folks: There is money to be made from fluoride, as there is in drugs generally. The media pay no heed to eminently credentialed alternative physicians who have been crying in the wilderness for decades against much, if not most, of the dogma propagated by mainstream medicine and government health organizations.
I refer, for example, to such experts as Dr. Brownstein, the late lipid biochemist Mary Enig, Dr. Al Sears (right here in Royal Palm Beachd), Dr. Stephen Sinatra, Dr. Julian Whitaker, and research physician Uffe Ravnskov of Denmark, a member of various international scientific organizations. All have differed for decades with established medicine’s condemnation of saturated fat as harmful to heart and vascular health. Because of the dogma, grocery stores are overladen with products that have low or zero saturated fat. And the population becomes more and more obese and diabetic. Two mega-analyses, in 2011 and 2014, showed no difference in heart disease between low and high consumers of saturated fat. Conventional medicine dismissed those analyses of hundreds of studies involving hundreds of thousands of people in many countries.
Way before medicine agreed trans fat was harmful, alternative physicians were warning against it. Coconut oil was decried for decades as harmful because of its high saturated fat content, but that opinion, too, has shifted. Food processors were responsible for condemning it because vegetable oils were much cheaper and more profitable. Eggs were maligned for their high saturated fat content, but many in conventional medicine are coming around to accept that they are one of nature’s healthiest foods.
We constantly read about officialdom’s changing positions on what’s healthy and what’s not. Doesn’t that give pause to the proponents of fluoridated water? Isn’t it quite possible that the nonofficial voices have it right in warning against fluoride as a substance that authorities have no business forcing upon us because of its toxicity? Officials point to studies alleging that it’s not harmful and reduces cavities, while ignoring other studies that show the opposite and the prima facie evidence in western Europe. We hear that a big study showed statin drugs protect against heart disease, but we aren’t told that half the physicians on the study committee were board members of the pharmaceutical companies producing the drugs.
Official claptrap
We aren’t told because the mainstream media don’t investigate. They place all their trust in officialdom. I wrote two letters to the editor of the Palm Beach Post, pointing out the editorial’s error in ignorantly declaring no studies – None – had ever shown water fluoridation harms health. Of course, neither letter was printed.
And so, to protect our health, we have to do our own investigating. I do, and as a result, I take no drugs and consume saturated fat in abundance. At an advanced age, I’m lean, run sprints, and do squats and 110 pushups at a pop. My test results are all glowing.
They wouldn’t be if I blindly followed conventional medicine – and the media that propagate its many myths.
