How We Got Fluoridated

How We Got Fluoridated

by Philip Heggen

Preface

Throughout the world, and from the beginning, virtually all living creatures have been exposed to fluoride. It's nothing new. Fluoride is one of the most abundant elements in the earth's crust - cumulative and toxic to all forms of life at remarkably low dosage.

Sixty years ago U.S. dental researchers had identified areas in sixteen states where disfiguring mottled enamel was a serious problem. Thirty years ago, the World Health Organization had noted that high concentrations of fluoride are found in areas of every continent and that dental fluorosis is a problem from Finland to South Africa and from England to Japan.

But fluoride affects more than just developing teeth. Even dinosaurs have ingested water and vegetation contaminated by fluoride from volcanic gases and ash - and suffered the consequence in terms of painful arthritic effects.

Industrial mining and manufacturing, like mini-volcanoes, bring up fluorides from the earth into the biosphere, with similar effects on human communities. In the past century or so, man has spawned these "mini-volcanoes" without fully understanding the consequences. Modern well-drilling equipment has provided much needed water from deep within the earth - and this, too, has resulted in fluoride poisoning.

Fluoridation has not been a conspiracy in the usual sense of the word ... but rather, a colossal blunder.

"The problem is enormous, unbelievable," says Andezhath Susheela of the Fluorosis Research and Rural Development Foundation in Delhi, India. She has been unraveling the national story for a decade during which time her estimate of the number of people leading "a painful and crippled life" from fluorosis has risen from one million to 25 million and now to 60 million - six million of them children - spread across tens of thousands of communities. "In some villages three-quarters of the population are seriously affected."

This paper is a chronicle and overview spanning the history of modern industry. It shows the rise of fluoride pollution and how economic motives have overridden concerns for human health. We take you back to the early metal refinery pollution in Europe and show the record of lawsuits for fluoride damage. This reveals the basis for American industry's fear of being shut down by lawsuits. We also document the steps taken by industry to divert public attention away from fluoride air pollution. This chronicle shows that the origin of water fluoridation is in these fluoride fears of industry -- not in concern for children's teeth.

During the 1940s, the development of the atom bomb required handling huge amounts of fluoride in the production of nuclear weapons. Documented here is a major safety study by the Atomic Energy Commission. As a result of this extensive study, the federal government became involved in the suppression of information about fluoride poisoning. Formerly restricted government documents now made available under the Freedom of Information Act have filled in blank spaces in this chronology.

Thus, both big government and big industry, for different reasons, became involved in the cover up. The succeeding collaboration of industry and government is documented below in detail.

The difficulties in maintaining a deception over an extended time are sizable. This is especially true with an ongoing issue like fluoridation. A compounding of dishonest statements and actions is required to maintain the original deception. At a certain point, the truth of the situation becomes obvious. These consequences are now coming to bear on the defenders of fluoridation. The Epilogue deals with this coming confrontation.

Introduction

I'm aware of the chart, but it doesn't answer how you get from a measure of solubility to a measure of ionic concentration. I want you to explain what those solubility numbers has to do with the concentration of fluoride in water.

Now WHY would you want me to do that? It is clear that in a liter of water, calcium fluoride will stop dissolving at 16 ppm. Sodium fluoride will continue to dissolve in the same liter of water up to 42,200 ppm, or 42.2 grams. That means that 16 MILLIGRAMS of fluoride ion are available if the solute is calcium fluoride, whereas 42,200 MILLIGRAMS (42.2 GRAMS) of fluoride ions are available if the solute is sodium fluoride

Now going back to post 394, where it was shown that a 3 year old boy weighing 30 pounds has roughly 0.5 liters of water in his bloodstream. With calcium fluoride, the maximum amount of fluoride ions availble would be 8 mg, whereas with sodium fluoride it would be 21.1 grams. So that is what the problem is Tom, dissolved sodium fluoride will reach lethal concentrations in the blood stream, whereas calcium fluoride WON'T.

Now WHY would you want me to do that?

Because you are really misunderstanding this issue.

It is clear that in a liter of water, calcium fluoride will stop dissolving at 16 ppm. Sodium fluoride will continue to dissolve in the same liter of water up to 42,200 ppm, or 42.2 grams.

Let's look at a liter of water, both naturally fluoridated, and naturally free of water but with sodium fluoride added.

Let's assume, for the sake of simplicity, that in order to get to a concentration of 1 ppm, you need 10,000 fluoride ions present in that liter. Now, you must ad a certain amount of compound to get to that level, in this case, 10,000 "units" of sodium fluoride or 5,000 units of calcium fluoride.

Once that substance is added to the water, the sodium fluoride, because it is so highly soluble, completely dissociates into Na and F ions. Therefore when you drink that liter, you can only get those 10,000 ions. There is no more soduim fluoride to dissociate and get the "42.2 grams". So all these numbers you are tossing around are useless. The concentration is already limited.

And since sodium fluoride (NaF) has only one fluoride ion for every sodium ion, then we reduce it's available fluoride ions by half.

So, calcium fluoride would have roughly 5 mg of fluoride ions available in a liter of water, whereas sodium fluoride would have a fluoride availablity of roughly 21,100 mg.

SO that means calcium fluoride in the bloodstream of a 30 lb. child would only reach a maximum of 2.5 mg fluoride ion availability, where the fluoride ion availability of sodium fluoride would be 10,550 mg. Now that's still lethal Tom.....

You know what Tom, something just dawned on me. We'd have to account for the fact that the anion disassociated from the fluoride ion will need to be accounted for as far as the weight goes. So for now, without going to a periodic table and determining the actual weight, let's just assume that both the anion and the fluoride ion weigh about the same. Since calcium fluoride (CaF2) has two fluoride ions for every calcium ion, we need to reduce fluoride ion availablity by one third.

And since sodium fluoride (NaF) has only one fluoride ion for every sodium ion, then we reduce it's available fluoride ions by half.

So, calcium fluoride would have roughly 5 mg of fluoride ions available in a liter of water, whereas sodium fluoride would have a fluoride availablity of roughly 21,100 mg.

SO that means calcium fluoride in the bloodstream of a 30 lb. child would only reach a maximum of 2.5 mg fluoride ion availability, where the fluoride ion availability of sodium fluoride would be 10,550 mg. Now that's still lethal Tom.....

No, you don't have "to account for the fact that the anion disassociated from the fluoride ion will need to be accounted for as far as the weight goes." This is all chemical nonsense. When fluoride concentration is measured in the water, the amount being referred to is the biologically available fluoride. When it's measured at 1 part per million, it doesn't make any difference whether it's fluoride that comes from naturally-occurring groundwater sources or from deliberate addition or whether it comes from sodium fluoride or calcium fluoride. One ppm fluoride from calcium fluoride is EXACTLY the same as one ppm fluoride from sodium fluoride.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, you had one form of fluoride that completely dissociated in a given amount of water and another that was 60% soluble in the same amount of water and you wanted to end up with a certain concentration of free fluoride ion in the same amount of water (assuming that that concentration desired per unit volume of water was attainable given the solubility of the less soluble form), you'd have to add fewer moles of the more soluble form to equalize the concentrations of fluoride ions between the two containers--but in the end the concentrations would still be exactly the same.

No, let's say that there is 1 mg of calcium fluoride. If we look at the atomic weight of fluorine, it is about 19. Calcium has an atomic weight of 40. SO that means in 1 mg of calcium fluoride, we have a proportion of (2 * 19 F)/59 CaF₂ in the weight of the fluorine atom to the calcium atom, so that means we have about 0.64 mg of fluoride ions available in 1 mg of calcium fluoride.

As far as sodium fluoride NaF, the atomic weight of sodium is 23, so the proportion for fluorine to calcium is 19 F/42 NaF, so the amount of fluorine in 1 mg of sodium fluoride is 0.45 mg fluorine.

That means if we have the maximum soluability amount of 16 mg of sodium fluoride dissolved in a liter of water, since 1 mg of CaF₂ is accepted as 1 ppm in a liter of water, there'd be (16 * 0.64)mg of fluoride ions, or 10.24 mg available fluoride ions. Any more sodium fluoride would simply be held in suspension, unless so much was added it reached supersaturation, where it would then precipitate into solid crystals.

With sodium fluoride, there'd be a limit of 42,200 mg dissolved, so that would be (42,000 * 0.45)mg, or 18,900 mg (18.9 g) of fluoride ions available.

I'm not talking about 1 mg Tom. I'm talking about the 50 mg available in fluoride treatments, where ALL of it can be dissolved, whereas with calcium fluoride, only 16 mg of sodium fluoride can dissolve. In other words, UPTO 9.45 GRAMS of sodium fluoride could dissolve in a 30 lb. child's bloodstream, which of course means that ALL of the flouride ions would be available from a fluoride treatment (22.5 mg), whereas calcium fluoride would be limited to a level of 5.12 mg...

Boy you are dense at times...

Actually, we are talking about flouridated water, and the alleged difference between "naturally" flouridated vs "artifically" flouridated water. But of course you knew that. Otherwise, why would you be comparing CaF2 and NaF?

I know it's getting harder and harder to defend your flimsy argument, but at least have the courage to stick to the topic.

So let's get back to flouridated water, as has been pointed out, whether water is naturally flouridated with CaF2 or has NaF added to the water supply, once the compounds have dissociated, there is no way to tell the difference between the two ions.

Therefore, considering many water supplies in this country have natural flouride levels around 1ppm, it is silly to say it is a poison that should be avoided at all costs. And if there were diseases that arise out of that concentration, we should see areas of the country that have naturally elevated flouride levels to have a significant increase in these diseases, but we don't.

If you have a liter of water, and enough compound is added to it to raise the level of fluoride to 1ppm, where is all this extra coming from?

We're not talking about 1 ppm water Tom. We are talking about what the MAXIMUM CONCENTRATION IS...

Somehow you are taking these solubility numbers and assuming an indefinite supply of NaF, but that isn't the case, there is only enough NaF added to raise the level to 1ppm.

Not if there is an accident, where they release WAY more fluoride than they should. And not in the case of fluoride treatments either Tom. You are mixing apples with oranges here... We are not talking about your "optimal limit". We are talking maximum possible concentations of fluoride ions from specific compounds...

I used to work as a dental assistant, and I can assure everyone here that there is an ongoing debate in the dental community regarding the harmfulness vs. the usefulness of fluoride. Same goes for the mercury in amalgam fillings.

You may want to see this video in relation to mercury amalgam...

How Mercury Causes Brain Neuron Degeneration

This isn't a junk science, conspiracy nut, "Flat Earther" issue. It's a valid topic of debate. Dentists don't laugh at other dentists who worry about the potentially harmful effects of fluoride. They may vehemently disagree with them. But, they don't laugh at them.

Thanks for the insight. There are obviously those who would rather think that bad things will never hurt them as long as they pretend those things don't exist. That is exactly what allows something of this magnitude to occur and be widely accepted by those who should know better...

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