Fluoridation – hanging on by the skin of its teeth.

Only a nano-layer of your tooth absorbs fluoride, from surface contact, new research shows. Not only does fluoride not reduce tooth decay by being swallowed, it may not even help by brushing it on the surface, it now appears.

The research shows the layer is up to 100 times thinner than previously estimated – only 6 nanometres. That is 1/10,000th the width of a human hair. Such a thin layer is quickly worn off by normal chewing. The question has to be asked “how can this have any effect on tooth decay?,” the researchers query.
“This lack of benefit is consistent with 60 years of Ministry of Health dental statistics,” says Mark Atkin, spokesperson for health activist group Fluoride Action Network NZ. “Neither the introduction of water fluoridation in the 1960s, nor the introduction of fluoride toothpaste in the 1970s, made any difference to the steady reduction in tooth decay.” Every western country has achieved the same low level of tooth decay since World War 2, with or without fluoridation, according to WHO’s web site.

Fluoridation began in NZ in the 1960s, in the belief that it benefited teeth by being built into tooth enamel during tooth formation, hence had to be swallowed. But this theory was proved wrong by fluoride researchers and, following announcement by the US Public Health Service in 1999, it was internationally accepted that fluoride was predominantly built into the tooth surface only after teeth emerged from the gums, and only with exposure to concentrations double that of fluoridated water.

“In spite of the mountain of research showing fluoridation is not only ineffective, but poses significant health risks, the Ministry of Health is funding a consortium, and a national co-ordinator, to lobby local councils to add fluoride in the form of toxic industrial waste to public water supplies,” says Mr Atkin. Currently only 25 of 69 councils fluoridate their water. “This lobby group is not just an outrageous waste of taxpayer money, it is a flagrant breach of the Ministry’s statutory duty to protect (total) health. The Ministry has backed itself into a corner with its dogmatic, anti-scientific attitude, and doesn’t know how to get out,” he adds.

The US government has just reduced the maximum allowable level of fluoride in drinking water to 0.7 ppm, and moved to ban the pesticide sulphuryl fluoride – out of concern that Americans are overexposed to fluoride.

The Ministry of Health still recommends a level is 0.7 to 1ppm. Wellington Medical Officer of Health, Dr Stephen Palmer, vigorously opposed the Kapiti Coast District Council’s reduction from 1 ppm to 0.7 ppm late last year.

1. Müller F et al “Elemental depth profiling of fluoridated hydroxyapatite: saving your dentition by the skin of your teeth?” Langmuir 2010 Dec 21;26(24):18750-9. Epub 2010 Nov 19.
2. Colquhoun J, Mann R, The Hastings Fluoridation Experiment: Science or Swindle?, The Ecologist, 1986, 16:6, 243-248, 1987, 17:2, 125-126
3. Featherstone JDB. (1999) Prevention and Reversal of Dental Caries: Role of Low Level Fluoride. Community Dentistry & Oral Epidemiology 27: 31-40.
4. CDC, 1999, MMWR 48: 933-940).