WWG, indeed the amount of fluoride added to water is important. If you were to read my posts, you would see that I give this topic treatment. Dental fluorosis is a cosmetic condition that cases no harm. It is relatively common in areas that have high natural fluoride in their water, but relatively rare elsewhere. In most areas it is associated with young children eating toothpaste. This is why children’s toothpaste now has lower fluoride content. Once teeth are fully developed, fluorosis cannot occur. Read the reports I have posted for comparisons of dental caries in fluoridated versus unfluoridated communities, they will show the dental health benefits of fluoridation.

WWG and Deb, the most common form of fluoride added to water is hydrofluorosilicate. It decomposes immediately on addition to water into the fluoride ion and hydrated silica. Those fluoride ions are indistinguishable from all other fluoride ions.

Deb, fertilizer companies typically manufacture hydroflurosilicate because the raw materials that contain high concentrations of phosphorus contain high fluoride. During the extraction process, the fluoride is turned into a gas. The way to extract a gas from air is to use a ‘scrubber’. The hydrofluoric gas collected is then reacted with silicates (or sodium salts for sodium fluoride) to give the final product.

dickie, I haven’t heard of anyone suggesting that irrigation schemes should be fluoridated, so I don’t know how commercial vegetables will pick up fluoride from water, unless vegetables are being irrigated with town water. There is far more fluoride present in soils than there is even in fluoridated water. Plants pick up fluoride quite happily from soils.

As to the toxicity of fluorine gas, that is irrelevant to the argument. Chlorine gas is highly toxic, yet we put chloride (in the form of table salt) on our food because we need some chloride in our diet. Likewise, too much chloride is toxic, try downing a couple of kg of common salt.

Agronomist:

You say: "Dental fluorosis is a cosmetic condition that causes no harm." We had a party here one afternoon a few years ago; there were a couple young women from Australia in attendance. One was very attractive; the other might have been, except for a very visible case of dental fluorosis. The first had an attentive bunch of men gathered about her; the other did not. Observationally, it might be said that dental fluorosis plays a significant negative role in sexual selection. To say that this condition is "cosmetic", or as it is more often stated, "merely cosmetic", is to completely miss the point - the point being that the correction of this "cosmetic condition" costs a lot of bucks paid to the dentist for caps and crowns. And a lot of lost opportunities in the meantime.

According to research by H. Trendley Dean, DDS, one of the early proponents of fluoridation in America, the incidence of dental fluorosis begins to rise sharply above a level of 0.3 ppm fluoride in the drinking water. This is most intelligently viewed as the level at which fluoride poisoning begins to produce readily-visible symptoms. It is very unlikely that the teeth are the only parts of the body affected. In America, dental fluorosis has become an epidemic; Australia too, from what I've seen of it.

Humans seem to have some ability to co-exist with this toxin, and typically excrete about half of their current intake, mostly via the kidneys. The problem is the slowly-accumulating lifelong dosage - from whatever source - that doesn't get excreted; this can cause a lot of chronic illnesses after middle age, including arthritis, diabetes, and cancer. Water fluoridation significantly increases one's lifelong exposure to fluoride. Our governments, of course, having taken a strong public stance promoting fluoridation, studiously avoid any funding for research to discover the effects of their policies. They'd rather pay scientific bureaucrats to dismiss dental fluorosis as "cosmetic". Telling the big lie repeatedly, however, doesn't make it truth. Try telling it to a daughter who has dental fluorosis.

Hi Agronomist

Some market gardens also depend on scheme water and the agriculture industry in Australia was the largest user of recycled water in 2000–01, accounting for some 423 megalitres (or 82 per cent of all reuse water use.) I imagine that percentage has now increased. Add the human sewage sludge which is now being used on commercial crops and though "recycling" has its benefits, one can only "hazard" a guess on what the consumer is ingesting.

You would know better than I Agronomist that man-made chlorinated compounds are a global menace - particularly the organochlorine chemicals used on commercial crops. Chlorinated compounds react with organic matter (in abundance in scheme water reservoirs) to form the heinous dioxins.

The salt additives to drinking water (namely fluoride and chloride) are also a menace to those who need to reduce their salt intake therefore, one size does NOT fit all and discerning consumers are denied a choice.

I have been drinking rainwater from a stainless steel custom made small tank for some 14 years and my teeth are in pretty good condition. Furthermore, I did not have the "benefit" of fluoridated water during my youth. I hasten to add these teeth are pretty ancient, however, I have not yet had to resort to placing them in glass each night - thankfully!

PS: Who on earth would "try downing a couple of kg of common salt?" Nature's compounds come with a warning - man-made chemicals, force-fed to unsuspecting consumers, do not!

Jay, anecdote does not make data. Leaving aside whether not being pursued by large numbers of men constitutes harm, Australia like the US has areas with high natural fluoride content in water. Obvious dental fluorosis has always been common in people who grew up in such areas and it hasn’t seemed to have affected their ability to find partners. Some of the first descriptions of fluorosis came from Colorado Springs. More recently fluorosis has been identified more with children who swallow toothpaste when young. In communities with water fluoride concentrations of 1 mg/L or lower, the prevalence of fluorosis is low and almost entirely confined to a very mild nature that is unlikely to be noticed, except in the specific fluorosis examinations. The more visual dental fluorosis is generally associated with fluoride contents of over 1.5 mg/L. There are lots of communities, including large cities, in the Rockies and elsewhere that have high natural fluoride content in water.

In contrast to your claim, there are lots of studies of the impact of fluoride in water on public health. I have linked to a few already. Given you pride yourself on a publication, you would know how to do a search in Pubmed. A search for dental fluorosis finds almost 2000 articles, fluoride and public health finds almost 11,000. To save others from having to go through the articles, I will just post a url to a WHO review of data http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/publications/fluoride_drinking_water_full.pdf There are so many papers that the Cochrane Collaboration have run 6 reviews and have started 2 more.

And to close, personally I would prefer my daughter to have dental fluorosis over missing teeth. You may have a different view.

dickie, I don’t really see the relevance of chlorinated insecticides to the topic at hand. All chemicals whether natural or synthetic have intrinsic toxicity that is related to the chemical itself. Natural versions of chemicals are generally no different to synthetic ones and I must admit I have never seen warning signs on any of them.

Agronomist:

Anecdote may not be data, but anecdote and observation are the things that trigger the accumulation of data, and the transformation of experience into science. There are vast areas of human experience, however, which fly beneath the radar of science, and in which anecdote and observation are as far as most people feel a need to go. This vast area is called "common sense". For most people at most times, not poisoning the water supply would come under the heading of "common sense".

It would perhaps be worthwhile to ask why many so-called "scientists" of the modern era - but curiously only in certain places - feel called upon to transcend or to avoid common sense - and to ask when this disconnect arose, and why. Hubris of this sort usually carries a price.

Agronomist, I'm familiar with the WHO report you gave the link to. The report warns about excessive fluoride consumption and describes methods for removing it from water to protect public health in the countries that have too much.

It confirms that countries with high fluoride have millions of people deformed by crippling skeletal fluorosis.

And it stresses the importance of limiting total daily fluoride intake via air, water and foods. Tea, seafoods and some root crops have very high levels. And if you're a smoker, you're copping extra fluoride from tobacco.

Now why would we want to drink the muck as well? The government can stick its 'mandatory' chemical cocktail. Unfortunately, a rainwater tank has become essential for any health conscious family wanting clean drinking water.

Deb