[FormerLurker]

My analogy stands. The fluoride treatment (as opposed to fluoridated water, with a much lower concentration) is administered ONLY when needed, and then ONLY in measured doses. And in this case it was administered improperly.

It is NEVER needed Tom. And as it is a highly reactive toxin, lethal for a small child if swallowed, it is reckless endangerment.

You were already forced to admit that fluoride is excreted by the kidneys, so that statement is incorrect.

Obviously not ALL of it is excreted.

Fluorine Excretion and Balances in Adult Men -- intake @4-14 mg/day, absorption =94% -- 40% retained Trace Elements In Human and Animal Nutrition, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (1987) p.378

The fact of the matter is that fluoride blood plasma levels maintain an equlilbrium with fluoride in the bones, and the rest is excreted. It does NOT accumulate in the bones.

There shouldn't be ANY fluoride in the bones. Fluoride in bones leads to skeletal fluorosis.

Skeletal fluorosis is a crippling bone disease caused by fluoride

Skeletal Fluorosis

Any fluoride ions in plasma will cause the potassium and calcium ions to bond with them, thus leading to all sorts of problems with electrolyte levels and the nervous system.

Which brings up and interesting question, if fluoride is such an "horrendous poison", and many communities have been drinking it for decades, why can't the researchers at the journal "Flouride" find epidemological evidence of increased death rates in communities that have fluoridated water vs those that don't?

A toxin needn't kill its victim in order to be a toxin. Some fates are worse than death. I've already posted enough links on that...

[TomB]

It is NEVER needed Tom. And as it is a highly reactive toxin, lethal for a small child if swallowed, it is reckless endangerment.

Lethal? You are getting hysterical. First of all, we have children all over the country swallowing fluoridated water on a daily basis and not dying. And I give thousands of fluoride treatments a year (properly) to small children, as do all dentists, and haven't lost one yet.

So it isn't "lethal for a small child if swallowed".

Here is a great paper prepared for a Florida county on the issue. From the paper:

Fluoride has been recognized by the National Academy of Science as a beneficial mineral element for humans based on its role in the mineralization of teeth.

Six types of evidence support the establishment of an RDA or an AI (Adequate Intake):

1) intake of fluoride by normally healthy people is documented in the literature with no ill effects;
2) hundreds of epidemiological studies in which the clinical consequences of low fluoride intake (dental decay) were safely corrected by dietary supplementation with fluoride;
3) balance studies that measure fluoride status in relation to intake (more data needed here; see “Uncertainty,” below);
4) children who started in non-fluoridated area, received fluoridation benefits, and then were subjected to fluoride withdrawal showed an increase in dental decay;
5) extrapolation of numerous animal studies that are consistent with benefits of fluoridation;
6) a valid mechanism for mineralization and re-mineralization has been established.

Obviously not ALL of it is excreted.

Yes, but you said " Fluoride has cululative toxic effects ", with the implication that is accumulates in the tissues like lead or other heavy metals. That is NOT TRUE. You do not see levels of fluoride in the body rise over time to any great extent.

There shouldn't be ANY fluoride in the bones. Fluoride in bones leads to skeletal fluorosis.

Considering you have admitted that there are areas of the country with fluoride levels around 1ppm (albeit from the "natural" CaF), that is a useless statement. In addition, skeletal fluorosis is only seen in areas where the natural fluoride levels are over 4ppm. Lower levels of fluoride are actually associated with higher bone mass.

- Gordon SL, Corbin SB. Summary of workshop on drinking water fluoridation influence on hip fracture on bone health. Osteoporosis Int 1992;2:109-17.
-Suarez-Alazor ME, Flowerdew G, Saunders LD, Soskolne CL, Russell AS. The fluoridation of drinking water and hip fracture hospitalization rates in two Canadian communities. Am J Public Health 1993;83(5):689-93.
-Jacobsen SJ, O'Fallon WM, Melton LJ. Hip fracture incidence before and after the fluoridation of the public water supply, Rochester, Minnesota. Am J Public Health 1993:83(5):743-5.
-Karagas MR, Baron JA, Barrett JA, Jacobsen SJ. Patterns of fracture among the United States elderly: geographic and fluoride effects. Ann Epidemiol 1996;6(3):209-16.
-Cauley JA, Murphy PA, Riley RJ, Buhari AM. Effects of fluoridated drinking water on bone mass and fractures: the study of osteoporotic fractures. J Bone Min Res 1995;10(7):1076-86.
-Lehmann R, Wapniarz M, Hofman B, Peiper B, Haubitz I, Allolio B. Drinking water fluoridation: bone mineral density and hip fracture incidence. Bone 1998;22(3):273-8.

Any fluoride ions in plasma will cause the potassium and calcium ions to bond with them, thus leading to all sorts of problems with electrolyte levels and the nervous system.

Once again, with fluoride ions being a natural feature of most water, this is not a problem at normal concentrations.

A toxin needn't kill its victim in order to be a toxin. Some fates are worse than death. I've already posted enough links on that...

I'm sorry, but I've seen no epidemologial studies looking at disease rates, hip fractures, or skeletal fluorosis, comparing areas with high and low fluoride levels.

If fluoride is as toxic as you say, these disease rates should be easy to see.

I also noticed that many of your studies are from the journal Fluoride. Besides being on Quackwatch's list of journals to avoid, the paper I referenced above found some problems with it:

Review process and editorial quality of source. There are some periodicals that pose as peer-reviewed scientific journals but are not. One such is the journal “Fluoride.” This quarterly publication, which is also available also on the Internet, appears biased toward anti-fluoridation opinion and presents experimental work of questionable quality. Whereas their instructions to authors (found at http://www.fluoride-journal.com/papers.htm) suggest a review process, an examination of a few dozen articles reveals that the same authors appear repeatedly (and tend to cite each other) and the experimental work is poorly described and executed. There may be quality science aired in this journal, but ALL articles we examined have an anti-fluoride theme, and many contained significant technical or scientific errors.

For example one study (Chlubek et al., 1998) attempted to assess the fluoride levels of maternal plasma, and the marginal- and central-placentas of 30 pregnant women, ages ranging from 19 to 40 years old, living in an area with relatively low water and air fluoride (fluorine) content. They concluded that the placenta could accumulate fluoride in healthy women who are exposed in pregnancy to relatively low fluoride concentrations in water and in the air. However, an examination of their data show that in Table 1 and Table 2, they shift units between “mM/L” (a meaningless unit: it should be either mmol/L or mM) and mg fluoride/g of tissue ash (a unit that is not comparable to exposure data in their publication) makes their findings meaningless, and makes one wonder whether these workers are competent in elementary chemistry. Moreover, their study included no controls that are critical to interpreting the results as they intended.