Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and San Diego recently joined the majority of fluoridated American cities. It took longer to sell the story to the West. More than 70 percent of our nation’s drinking water is medicated to treat the teeth, according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Fluoridation, in case your dentist has not drilled it into your head by now, is the process of adding sodium fluoride (NaF) to municipal drinking water. It is nothing new; there is a 50-year history of fluoridation in the U.S.

Fluoride is a binary compound of fluorine with another element. Sodium fluoride is routinely used as an insecticide and as a rodenticide. Although the compound is almost synonymous with rat poison, it represents something else to dentists and most health care advocates. Fluoride is the otherwise disposable by-product of the manufacturing process, and the suppliers of the product are the aluminum and phosphate fertilizer companies.

As early as 1940, Dr. Gerald Cox of the Mellon Institute was aggressively promoting the addition of fluoride to public water systems to reduce tooth decay. The Mellon family, interestingly, owned the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA), which proceeded to sell fluoride to the municipalities. In the face of the pressure, the American Dental Association (ADA) warned in the Journal of the American Dental Association (October 1, 1944) that

even minuscule amounts of fluoride will cause osteosclerosis,
spondylosis, osteopetrosis, and goiter, and we cannot afford to
run the risk of producing such serious systemic disturbances in
applying what is a doubtful procedure to prevent dental
disfigurements among children. The potentialities for harm far
outweigh those for good.

Three months after issuing its strong warning, the ADA was promoting and participating in the fluoridation projects. The ADA has maintained its continuous support of legislation to fluoridate drinking water.

Maybe fluoride causes truth decay.

Fluoridation programs are usually implemented by independent municipal choice, although a few states make it mandatory. Indianapolis was the first major city to fluoridate drinking water in 1951. The treatment of drinking water with the precise amounts of fluoride is supposed to prevent dental caries in children, but the record is dubious.

Dr. R. Trendley Dean, a dentist with the U.S. Public Health Service, was widely known as the “father of fluoridation” because he conducted a series of studies of the effects of fluoride on teeth in 1945. His initial findings were favorable, although he later admitted in court that his own statistics were invalid. Health Forum News (August 1992) ran the story as “Doctor Who Advocated Fluoridation Now Calls It a Fraud.”

Dr. Dean’s efforts led to the 1945 project involving Grand Rapids and Muskegon, Michigan. These small cities were assigned as treatment and control areas. Grand Rapids was given the treatment; they got the “poison.” The lucky folks in Muskegon kept right on drinking the same untreated water.

The experiment lasted five years. The results were not surprising, but to most observers the interpretation and reaction were stunning. Tooth decay rates in young people did decline in each of the five years, but there was no distinction between the reduced rates in the two cities. Both outcomes were impressive. Dentists were so pleased with the Grand Rapids figures that they used the information to sell fluoridation all across the land.

The findings from the control city of Muskegon were totally ignored. The only report made public was that the tooth decay rate in Grand Rapids declined after the fluoridation.

In 1974, consumer champion Ralph Nader, in an address at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, said:

With the Public Health Service, the fluoride companies and the
dentists on one side, and the consumers on the other
side–fluoridation has been promoted without giving consumers
their free choice. The average dentist goes along because his
dental society passed a resolution about fluoridation decades ago.

Another dentist who was an early leader in the promotion of fluoridation was Dr. Robert Mick of Laurel Springs, New Jersey. He works for the other side now and offers a $100,000 reward to anyone who can prove that fluoridation is beneficial to humans.

Many major cities have been doctoring their water for more than 20 years; these include Chicago, Dallas, Baltimore, St. Louis, Denver, New York, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Houston, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco.

Several states are 100 percent fluoridated; these are Minnesota, South Dakota, Kentucky, Rhode Island, Indiana, North Dakota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Georgia, Tennessee, Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio.

Although most Americans casually accept fluoridation, Europeans are suspicious and wary. Sweden banned fluorides in drinking water, toothpaste, and food. Other countries in Europe (Greece, Italy, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Luxembourg, Spain, and Belgium) have strict laws against adding fluorides to drinking water supplies. Less than 2% of the drinking water in Europe is fluoridated.