9/25/2024, Timely update: This just came through from the Fluoride Action Network: “After a precedent-setting 7-year legal battle in federal court, an historic ruling by the United States District Court of the Northern District of California has ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take regulatory action to eliminate the “unreasonable risk” to the health of children posed by the practice of water fluoridation.“
This good news, boding well for the mental and physical health of Americans, may not necessarily mean that the practice of fluoridating public water supplies will now cease. I hope it does, however, we will see. I encourage you to read the rest of this post to both have some grasp of the reason for this verdict and to be forearmed if your local water supply does not act in compliance with this ruling.
I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to visit Alaska for the past week or so. I’m not staying in a city but rather in a rural location. I was in Alaska once before around 1999, it is easy to see there has been a lot growth in the cities, Juneau and Anchorage, since that period of time. I am guessing the same is true for a number of the more rural areas. It has gone through my mind that the influx of newcomers is taking the “Frontier” out of “The Last Frontier”. Still, Alaska is a major departure from the more populated areas in the lower 48. There is a seemingly never-ending bounty of natural beauty.
Once, years ago, I built a small cabin in a sparsely populated county in Eastern Washington State. I lived in it for a couple of years. It was an experience I relish but I’m glad to be in a more comfortable situation these days. Running water and indoor plumbing are nice additions to one’s home! That being said, being here in Alaska now is providing many flashbacks to those days in the cabin. Days of living life on a more basic level than most people in the United States. In a more basic environment a person’s more basic needs come front and center. We can get in touch, in a very personal way, with the real needs, as opposed to wants, of human life. Shelter, warmth, food, water, companionship, these are all must-haves for every person walking the Earth. To be missing any one of these is to have our lives on an extinction curve. If we’re missing food and water the curve is often more pronounced than if we’re missing shelter, but that is not always the case. It depends upon our environment.
For people who have always enjoyed the comforts of housing, transportation, regular and dependable meals, these things can quickly become taken for granted. Our minds often then busy themselves with other aspects of our culture. Things that can and often do become the focus of our attention might be things such as: what are the latest styles in clothing? What sports teams are on a winning or losing streak? What are the celebrities of the culture doing? Who are they dating, marrying, divorcing? One that seems to occupy a lot of minds is “how can I get more money?” These are some of the issues which consume some people’s time and energy.
However, at this time in the U.S. we’re seeing what happens when the basic material comforts of life, comforts people often have taken for granted, start to become less available, maybe even unobtainable. We’re seeing what can happen when ourselves and/or people around us being to experience stress and anxiety over meeting basic needs on an ongoing basis. We’re seeing individuals and groups begin to look around, to look for other individuals or groups which they may find some reason to blame for the stress and anxiety they’re feeling. The fact is, there are some individuals and groups which have a great deal of responsibility for the growing difficulty so very many are having obtaining the basic needs of life. But none of them are people or groups the average citizen is likely to encounter in their day to day travels and meetings. The hatreds and divisiveness we’re seeing in the U.S. in our streets, the growing number of impulsive reactions, sometimes violent, are usually based on relatively superficial criteria. Or on differences in values and/or opinions which, in the long run, have some importance but are not the things, the more fundamental issues, which are driving the deep anxieties and stresses that are so pervasive today. Fundamental issues such as the lack of safe, secure housing and nutritious, non-toxic food.
One other aspect of being closer to the Earth, closer to a life in which the basics play a larger role in day to day life is the realization of how little people in general in the United States seem to be upset by the increasing infringement taking place upon our housing and food safety and security. Such a beautiful world, such a beautiful country and such a heinously greed driven, corrupt and callous human management of it all. I find myself wondering: with so much anxiety and stress at large where are the focused, large scale efforts at correcting the wrongs taking place? Are people just blind, in denial, or expecting someone else; maybe a “nanny state” to take care of it all?
We the People do have the power, the right to engage in addressing blatantly wrong actions which are taking place within our communities, our nation. Blatant wrongs such as the poisoning of our soil, air and water, our food and our bodies. Blatant wrongs such as turning the nation that should be our home into just one giant, extortionate “profit” machine for a relative few who are somehow infected with insatiable greed.
There are, I’m sure, many contributing factors to the apparent complacency and apathy toward the deteriorating basic conditions of life in the U.S. I think there are a number of contributing psychological and sociological reasons. Some of these include the rise in the direction of public attention by the majority of media toward relatively trivial subjects and issues. Another is the amount of time people have to spend working in order to just keep up with expenses. It leaves people exhausted and just looking for relief, relaxation and/or entertainment at the end of the working day. And there is one insidious, almost imperceptible but significant factor, one contributing reason which I think is majorly overlooked: it is the role the fluoridation of most of the U.S. public water supplies plays in it all.
Fluoride is, among other things, a neurotoxin. This is proven in a multitude of studies most, if not all, of which can be found on the website of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). The past few years this toxicity has been connected with lowering the I.Q.’s of children who were/are prenatally exposed to fluoridated water and other fluoridated products. There is an argument by those advocating for fluoridation that the low level found in most fluoridated water in the U.S. is too low to cause the I.Q. lowering, but this is an unsupported hypothesis. The fact is that dosages of fluoride for expectant mothers, along with everyone else, is impossible to regulate. This is because due to it’s use in around 70% of U.S. public water systems, fluoride has become pervasive in processed food and beverages. Even so-called “organic” foods and many bottled waters, beers and wines. Somewhere along the line the added fluoride in products (resulting from the fluoridated water used in growing/processing) was given an exemption from being required to be included in the ingredients of such products. When cooking with fluoridated water, such as making rice or pasta, when the water is boiled the fluoride does not boil away, it concentrates in the remaining water and the food being prepared. Also our bodies readily absorb fluoride when we shower or bathe in fluoridated water. So there are too many avenues of exposing ourselves to varying levels of fluoride intake for anyone to claim the dosages Americans are consuming is regulated. It should be mentioned here that fluoride is a poison in the same category as arsenic and lead.
So what? What does the reality around fluoridation have to do with all the other problems named earlier in this post? It is my hypothesis that the pervasive fluoridation to which Americans are exposed has an effect of producing a docility and compliant nature. A docility which those in industries engaging in fluoridation and other chemical, “legal” and/or economically abusive practices are enjoying the benefit of.* The days when large numbers of Americans were up in arms about DDT, tobacco, civil rights and the war in Vietnam were in the early days of fluoridation. Now, after a few more decades of fluoride consumption grievous abuses within our culture seem to be regularly overlooked. Our tax dollars are being used to create billionaires, in part through exorbitant defense spending and endless wars, we are being constantly exposed to toxic additives in our food and beverages, prices are rising much faster than wages, homeless camps are springing up all around the country. These are just to name a few examples of ongoing abuse taking place and the American public is largely silent. Why?
The issue of fluoridation is an excellent place for people wanting to do something which makes a difference in their community to hone their skills. This is because the information needed to show the wrongness of fluoridation is readily available and it is usually a local issue. If a person decides to enter into such activism to protect the health of themselves and their family, that person will probably be surprised at the resistance they meet and where it stems from. For instance, this is from the FAN website: “Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976, a group of non-profits and individuals petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2016 to end the addition of fluoridation chemicals into U.S. drinking water due to fluoride’s neurotoxicity. The EPA rejected the petition. In response the groups sued the EPA in Federal Court in 2017. Evidence on fluoride’s neurotoxicity was heard by the Court in two phases: a 7-day trial in June 2020, and a 14-day trial in February 2024. As of May 2024, a judgment from the court has yet to be rendered.” I know growing up in the U.S. I always thought the EPA was established to protect Americans from toxic substances.
Yet this isn’t the only instance of the EPA acting in the interest of protecting the practice of fluoridation in the face of compelling evidence of negative health effects from fluoride consumption. Before the issue of fluoride’s neurotoxicity was being brought forward, in the 1970:s, Dean Burk, a biochemist who worked for a while with the National Cancer Society, along with biochemist John Yiamouyiannis expressed their concerns about fluoride being a carcinogenic substance. Later epidemiologists from the National Cancer Institute claimed to have refuted their findings. However, in 1990 a Senior Science Advisor at the EPA itself, Dr. William Marcus, “…lost his position after he documented that the Office of Drinking Water-approved and EPA-backed practice of adding fluoride to the nation’s drinking water supplies could lead to an increase in cancer rates…”. Reportedly Dr. Marcus became interested in this issue when a report came across his desk which involved using fluoride to give cancer to rats. It turns out rats are highly resistant to cancer and it takes a substance particularly capable of doing so to give rats cancer. These events are just a very few, but significant, items in the history of water fluoridation. For a more comprehensive chronology of this history
It all begs the question: What is going on within the EPA that lends them to so passionately defend the practice of pervasively exposing the American public to a known virulent carcinogen and neurotoxin?
Be aware the erosion of our health and wellbeing by fluoride is not a quick process, which is one reason it is so easy to deny and for people to believe the denials. This also means however that recovery from fluoride toxicity is not a quick process. But this in no way diminishes the importance of engaging in the process of actively working for clean water for healthy bodies and minds.
Well, I’m going back to looking out my window and enjoying the natural beauty of Alaska. I hope you have a long and healthy life. And I hope you’re ready to become active in the defense of the safety of your water, food and environment to assist in achieving it.
- About my hypothesis: There used to be, 10 or more years ago, a report on the internet that after the Second World War personnel of our military/government learned of the Nazi’s use of fluoride in the Jewish ghettos and the prisoner of war camps. The reason given for doing this is that the Nazi’s believed (knew) that by doing so it heightened docility/compliant behavior among those affected. At the same time there was a report online that the Russians discovered the same information and that after the war they began experimenting with fluoridating the water in one or more their prisons. That report which I found online (but have been unable to lately) stated that after two years of fluoridated water difficult prisoners became much more docile/compliant. The report further stated that if they then removed the fluoride for two years the increase in docility stayed the same. This is consistent with what is known about how fluoride accumulates quickly and deteriorates slowly when it is in the human body. It is worth noting that sodium fluoride is also a potent antiglycolytic agent. That is, it prevents the body’s cells from breaking down and thereby using sugar for energy. I would not be surprised if this isn’t a part of the mechanism whereby fluoride produces an effect of increased docility in humans. Because the reports I mention here are, to the best of my knowledge, now unavailable online, my hypothesis of the production of an increased state of docility produced by fluoride becomes less supported by available facts. It is interesting to note however that instances of other people referring to such use of fluoride by the Nazi’s and denials of such a report do still exist online.
While there are hypotheses being put forward by those on both sides of the fluoride issue, the evidence of fluoride’s being a poison, it’s neurotoxicity and carcinogenic ability are fact. Without water fluoridation the benefits of topical application of fluoride for whatever dental benefits it may provide are still readily available via toothpastes and mouth rinses.
In summary, it’s not that there is not evidence of fluoride’s toxicity. The reality is that there is so much evidence that someone being exposed to it for the first time might quite possibly think that it can’t be true. That if it is true they would have been told about it already! Regardless, there is a bounty of evidence that fluoride is toxic and thoroughly capable of causing harm within the human body. There is also circumstantial evidence such as the rising prevalence of cancers in the U.S. and the drop in U.S. I.Q. score and academic ranking relative to other countries, which suggest it has already been at work doing such damage. Does it make any sense to continue to indiscriminately dose so many people with this toxic substance?
If you’re already actively involved with working to help balance the inequities and prevent/clean up the pollution that is taking place in the U.S., kudos and thank you.
kendunning.net 
Very informative and well written. Sent from my iPhone
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