Darlene- Thanks for this! This is very useful information. I'm sending it to Rick Malter who is writing a paper which rebuts the NAS paper "A Risk Assessment Model for Establishing Upper Levels for Nutrients" http://www.iahf.com/nas/nutrisk.html
It contains unscientific fluoride data, and as their latest bad data this just adds to it and to the proof that NAS isn't interested in good science- they're only interested in getting grant money, science isn't even an issue with them.
IAHF LIST: Check this out, and stop drinking fluoridated water!! This proves how dishonest and unscientific the National Academy of Science is!
At 01:46 AM 2/23/2000 -0500, you wrote: If you read the latest advice on fluoride from the Institute of Medicine (NAS/NRC 1999), then you already know how fluoride reduces dental decay ... and understand what "optimum" means in terms of milligrams per day.
This new "Dietary Reference Intakes" (DRI) is probably the most scientifically sound argument against water fluoridation to be found on the Internet. One must simply separate the wheat from the chaff... the logical from the illogical ... the possible from the impossible.
Key segments of the DRI are quoted in the attached .txt file and at http://www.rvi.net/~fluoride/debunk.htm Examining the Water Fluoridation Sales Pitch
The following quoted material is taken from the Institute of Medicine's On-Line DIETARY REFERENCE INTAKES at http://www.nap.edu/books/0309063507/html/288.html
p.288: "Fluoride is the ionic form of fluorine, a halogen and the most electronegative of the elements of the periodic table. It is ubiquitous in nature."
p.289: "80 percent or more is typically absorbed. ... The elimination of absorbed fluoride occurs almost exclusively via the kidneys. ... For healthy, young, or middle-aged adults, approximately 50 percent of absorbed fluoride is retained by uptake in calcified tissues, and 50 percent is excreted in the urine. For young children, as much as 80 percent can be retained owing to increased uptake by the developing skeleton and teeth. Such data are not available for persons in the later years of life. ... Under most dietary conditions, fluoride balance is positive. Whether it is positive or negative appears to be due to the blood-bone fluoride steady state. When chronic intake is insufficient to maintain or gradually increase plasma concentrations, fluoride excretion by infants and adults can exceed the amounts ingested due to mobilization from calcified tissues."
* Question: Who warns the people with undiagnosed kidney disease ... or the poor children with diabetes? Will the water utility supply these people with bottled low-fluoride water?
p.290: "The cariostatic action of fluoride on erupted teeth of children and adults is due to its effects on the metabolism of bacteria in dental plaque and on the dynamics of enamel de- and remineralization during an acidogenic challenge. Plaque fluoride concentrations are directly related to the fluoride concentrations in and frequencies of exposure to water, beverages, foods, and dental products. Fluoride can be deposited in plaque by direct uptake from these sources as well as from the saliva and gingival crevicular fluid after ingestion and absorption from the gastrointestinal tract. Its effects on plaque bacteria involve inhibition of several enzymes, which limits the uptake of glucose and thus reduces the amount of acid produced and secreted into the extracellular plaque fluid. These effects attenuate the pH drop in plaque fluid that would otherwise occur and, hence, the severity of the acidic challenge to the enamel."
* If the fluoride from all these sources works just as well in preventing cavities, and works in exactly the same way – and we're already ingesting more than a milligram per day in non fluoridated areas – why add it to our drinking water?
p.291, p.292: "In a study of fluoride intake by 225 children aged 2 to 10 years, Pang et al. (1992) reported that total fluid intake ranged from 970 to 1,240 ml/day. Consumption of soft drinks, juices, tea, and other beverages accounted for more than 50 percent of fluid intake and ranged from 585 to 756 mg/day. The fluoride concentrations ranged from nondetectable to 6.7 mg/liter."
* Not long ago a petition appeared in the Federal Register for an increase in the allowances for fluoride in pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables. According to this document, "EPA has estimated previously that levels of fluoride in/on food from the agricultural use of cryolite plus fluoride levels in U.S. drinking water supplies results in a daily dietary intake of fluoride of approximately 0.095 mg/kg/day." Federal Register: August 7, 1997
* NAS/NRC has commented more than once that during the years prior to 1945, water was virtually the only source of ingested fluoride. The typical U.S. diet provided about one quarter milligram of fluoride daily.
* According to McClure, the only reference cited in Dietary Reference Intakes, adults ingested 0.02 mg/kg/day in an "optimally fluoridated area" during the 1940s. For a 70 kilogram man (154 pounds) that's 1.4 mg/day. Now, it appears to be 6.65 mg/day ... far more than the original "optimum" daily intake for maximum benefits and minimum risk.
* In 1993 NAS/NRC commented on evidence that excess fluoride may be responsible for increased dental decay in some areas. More recently, the head of preventive dentistry at the University of Toronto, Dr. Hardy Limeback, a former pro-fluoridationist, said that in his practice, and among his colleagues, cosmetic dentistry is taking more time than dental decay ... and more money.
* For a discussion of the Surgeon General's role in promoting fluoridation, see www.rvi.net/~fluoride/naep.htm "The Cover-up at the U.S.E.P.A." in Applying the NAEP Code of Ethics to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Fluoride in Drinking Water Standard, written by EPA scientist witnesses.
p.297: "Both the inter-community transport of foods and beverages and the use of fluoridated dental products have blurred the historical difference in the prevalence of dental caries between communities with and without water fluoridation. ... The overall difference in caries prevalence between fluoridated and nonfluoridated regions in the United States was 18 percent ..."
* At the same time, according to NAS/NRC, dental fluorosis rates (for the milder variety) have been reported to be as much as eight times higher than in 1940.
p.298: According to (Dean 1942) ... "reduction in the number of dental caries per child was nearly maximal in communities having water fluoride concentrations close to 1.0 mg/liter. This is how 1.0 mg/liter became the 'optimal' concentration."
p.301: "Although the total amount of fluoride ingested daily by older children and adults is greater than by infants or young children, it is generally lower when expressed in terms of body weight. As noted earlier, average dietary fluoride intakes by adults living in fluoridated communities have ranged from 1.4 to 3.4 mg/day, or from 0.02 to 0.05 mg/kg/day for a 70 kg person."
* During the 1940s, according to the only reference cited here, it was 0.05 mg/kg/day for children age 1-3; 0.04 mg/kg/day for children aged 4-9; 0.03 mg/kg/day for children aged 10-12; and 0.02 mg/kg/day for adults.
The 1.4 figure above refers to the dosage delivered in optimally fluoridated areas during the 1940s. The other figure refers to a study published in 1974.
* The DRI uses the figure 0.05 mg/kg/day, which applies to fluoride intake at age 1-3, and is taken from a table in McClure's article of 1943. However, they applied that figure to all ages ... resulting in an incorrect 3 to 4 mg/day for adults age 19-70. This error is the foundation for their new "adequate" intake of fluoride.
Ironically, according to the only reference cited regarding the tolerable upper limit for safety, even smaller daily doses of fluoride – 0.04 mg/kg/day – could result in phase 3 skeletal fluorosis after 55 to 96 years. (Roholm: 0.2 to 0.35 mg/kg/day resulted in phase 3 crippling skeletal fluorosis after 11 years)
p.306: "The primary adverse effects associated with chronic, excess fluoride intake are enamel and skeletal fluorosis."
p.307: "Stage 1 skeletal fluorosis is characterized by occasional stiffness or pain in joints and some osteosclerosis of the pelvis and vertebra."
"The clinical signs of stages 2 and 3, which may be crippling, may include dose-related calcification of ligaments, osteosclerosis, exostoses, possibly osteoporosis of long bones, muscle wasting, and neurological defects due to hypercalcification of vertebra."
"The development of skeletal fluorosis and its severity is directly related to the level and duration of exposure."
p.308: "Crippling skeletal fluorosis continues to be extremely rare in the United States (only 5 cases have been confirmed during the last 35 years), even though for many generations there have been communities with drinking water fluoride concentrations in excess of those that have resulted in the condition in other countries. This puzzling geographic distribution has usually been attributed to unidentified metabolic or dietary factors that rendered the skeleton more or less susceptible."
* No studies on the long-term arthritic effects of fluoride have been published in which the researchers used appropriate methods, but failed to find evidence of harm. Please read the symptoms of phase 1, 2, and 3 skeletal fluorosis above. Are there more than 5 cases? Not being fatal or contagious, skeletal fluorosis is not a "reportable" disease. That does not mean it does not exist in the United States.
p.313: "Studies are needed to define the effects of metabolic and environmental variables on the absorption, excretion, retention, and biological effects of fluoride."
* Do we have the right to refuse to participate in medical experiments? Does the government have the right to use our children in medical experiments?
* If so, how do we avoid fluoride in foods, beverages, etc.?
* Keep in mind that when the Dietary Reference Intakes was released during a press conference in the early fall of 1997, a representative of the American Dental Association read the segment on fluoride, as though he wrote it himself. The man in charge of determining the tolerable upper limit of fluoride is a representative of the American Council on Science and Health ... a tax-exempt group which receives most of its funding from Monsanto and other similar interests. Fluoridation saves billions of dollars for industries with fluoride pollution problems.
* If one were to correct the errors in arithmetic in Dietary Reference Intakes, the material quoted above would not only fail to support a proposal to add more fluoride to our children's or our own diet - it would show clearly that fluoridation can no longer be considered "safe" or "effective."
* See the errors in arithmetic, at http://www.rvi.net/~fluoride/error.htm along with seven fraudulent or misleading statements from the Institute of Medicine.
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Next Codex Mtgs Re Vitamin Issue
CCNFSDU in Berlin
June 19- June 23, 2000
47th Session of Codex Executive
June 28-June 30, 2000 in Geneva
What to Do:
Contact Your Countries Delegate to the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Use
From:http://www.fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/economic/esn/codex/CONTACT/new_list.HTM
(Beth Yetley in USA, Margaret Cheney in Canada)
Tell Them To Oppose the Draft Guidelines for Vitamins and Minerals & That the Paper Titled "A Risk Assessment Model for Establishing Upper Levels for Nutrients" Is Unscientific, Biased Against Vitamin Use, Was Paid for by Pharmaceutical Interests, Is Anti Consumer, And a Complete Expose Is Available at
http://www.iahf.com/
International Advocates for Health Freedom is a true grass roots, decentralized movement of vitamin consumers world wide opposed to the pharmaceutically rigged Codex Shell Game, to the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and to all Statist Elements of Coersion, Wherever they may be found, anywhere in the world. As Free people, we are Sovereign over our own BODIES, With a God Given Unalienable Right to Ingest Any Substance of Our Choosing, (Especially Vitamins and Minerals) Into OUR BODIES As We See Fit.
We hereby put all unelected CODEX bureaucrats,UN and WTO Supporters World Wide,Employees of the FDA, HPB, MCA, MCC and similar drug cartel stooges on NOTICE that We Believe Strongly in the American Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms As Well as in the Right to Freedom of Speech & In All Unalienable God Given Rights, Both Numerated and Unenumerated, As Set Forth in the 9th Amendment to the United States Constitutition.
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