Transcription
Let's talk about fluoride. I've already been accused of being a sunscreen denier. No, I actually believe that sunscreen exists. I do occasionally use zinc oxide sunscreen, a little bit. I prefer a physical barrier because I'll wear a hat or something. If I, I don't tend to burn very easily, but if I feel like I might burn, I use a physical barrier. Um, I'm being somewhat factious here because people will say all sorts of things. But, um, I did an episode about water, a little bit about oral health, al- certainly not the depth, uh, or expertise that that you're providing today, so thank you. And I said, yeah, fluoride does a bunch of things. My question was and remains, why are we drinking fluoride?
But this relates to, okay, I'll tell this story briefly. It's not as cool as your story. I was taken to a dentist when I was a kid, and they put me, they put these like, uh, like a mouthpiece with fluoride gel in it on the top and bottom. And they sat me in a little wicker chair in front of a TV with cartoons. And I hated it. It tasted awful, and it kind of like had this sour thing. So I, it was probably six or seven, so I drank it. I just sucked it up, drank it down, turned around, barfed all over the wicker chair. Oh my gosh, fluoride's a poison. But everything is a poison at high concentrations. So, so most everything is a, is a fluoride is a poison, excuse me, at high concentrations. So I don't have anything against fluoride, but it is a, a poison.
Then the question becomes, if something is not dangerous in a small dose or concentration, what are its cumulative effects? This is what, this is what I have issues with. Like people say, oh, going through the X-ray machine, no big deal. But what if you fly 150 times a year? Yes, is it cumulative? And so like the logic of the, the sort of pushback from the traditional, if I will, uh, community sucks. Like they're just not logical. These are my colleagues sometimes too, right? Just you go to the dentist, you get an X-ray, they're like running behind the, the next wall, put you in a lead shield, and then they're like, oh, no, it's no big deal. Well, how many, you know, maybe how many times a year can you do this before it becomes a deal? Sure.
So my question is, what is the rationale for putting fluoride in water, in drinking water, given that the contact time in the mouth is so short? And then what, what's the cumulative effect of bringing fluoride into the gut over and over? And then earlier, you said something, and I've never thought about this. The bones contain hydroxyapatite, 60%, I think you said, 60% of your bone minerals are made from hydroxyapatite. Fluoride infiltrates the minerals of the teeth and replaces it. So is fluoride going into our bones? Skeletal fluorosis. Okay, so I'm not trying to paint a scary picture here, but but frankly, and people can probably tell, my blood pressure goes up a little bit when people say, oh, you know, you're anti-fluoride. I'm not anti-fluoride, but I just don't get the logic. It doesn't make sense. You're thinking critically about the, about it. Like, why would I continually bombard my system with fluoride at the level of the gut, at the level of my bones, if it's good for me? Tell me it's good for me. But they're saying, oh, it's so that poor populations don't have, uh, decaying teeth. Sounds like a good argument. Not even counter-arguing it, but I can't piece together logic. And like most public health arguments, I feel like neither side is is explicitly clear about what exactly they're arguing about. And that's part of why I have this podcast, to try and get clarity on things.
Okay, I'll do my best. Yeah, and please don't worry that you're going to offend anyone because I'll offend everybody, and they've already said anything they, everything they possibly could, and they'll, and they'll say more. So I'm not afraid to open up these topics anymore. Well, I appreciate that. Um, and I'll take the heat. Well, I will get it too, don't worry. I've already, I have thick skin at this point. But you have great teeth, and they don't. So, and I haven't had a cavity for multiple decades and haven't used fluoride. And Portland isn't fluoridated. Portland is not fluoridated. Not.
So let's talk about that. So fun story, uh, back in 2011, 2012, I was working on the pro-fluoridation campaign, volunteering in Portland, picketing, and handing out education flyers, um, because I thought we needed it in our water. And this is because that's how I was trained. Um, and I just never questioned it. I never picked up a journal to look at the other side. I thought anyone speaking out against water fluoridation, that's the tin hat brigade, that's the woo-woo caucus, all the things. I was that person. The woo-woo caucus. That's pretty funny. I like that.
So I went to a debate, um, in Portland, pro versus against. I don't like those terms, but it's just the easiest way to describe it. And I was sitting kind of on the pro side and just waiting to see these pseudo-scientists come out to to speak. And I was so profoundly impressed with what they said, and also had no idea that there were any concerns with, with fluoride. I had never been taught that in dental school. The endocrine disruption, the neurotoxicity, um, this, the skeletal fluorosis. I knew about dental fluorosis, but I, at that point, was of the mindset, well, it's just aesthetic, you know, but your teeth are stronger. And the microbiome issues too. So it didn't take long. I just started rabbit holing, and it, there's so much literature. And this again, this was quite a while ago, um, and more and more data and literature is coming out to question the practice.
So it's important to go back to the history of water fluoridation. I'll try to be brief. But in the early 1900s, there was a dentist in Colorado Springs, Frederick McKay, who noticed his patients had mottled, brown-spotted teeth, but they were really strong. They weren't getting decay. And so this kind of spread, and they started kind of trying to understand the why. And they realized there was a really high concentration of fluoride in the natural water supply that this community was drinking. And this just kind of spread like wildfire with very little evidence-based medicine to back it, 'cause this was in the early 1900s. Now it was like the 1930s, um, so no long-term safety studies or efficacy studies. And it was put in as an experiment in Grand Rapids, Michigan in the mid-40s. After about a decade or so, they noticed that caries rates, cavity rates were going down. And so based on this observation, it just went like wildfire throughout the United States. And I believe about 80% of the United States is fluoridated.
So the pro-fluoride folks, if you will, we'll say it's the greatest public health movement of the the century because decay was such an issue. It's important to know, dental decay is the top chronic disease globally in children and adults. It's almost entirely preventable. I think we've just normalized it. You just get cavities. But I'd like to point out, we're one of the only species to get dental decay. Wild animals don't get decay. Our domesticated animals do because of what we're feeding them, the kibble, you know, processed animal food. So here we are. So it's been controversial from the beginning. You know, epidemiologists, endocrinologists, neuroscientists have always challenged us, saying this is a bad idea. It's a highly reactive element, you know, the fluoride ion, um, can interfere with iodine, um, uptake. And again, skeletal fluorosis, neurotoxicity, etc.
So about 7 years ago, um, there, there was the, there's a federal trial in Northern California, but it was federal, the People versus the EPA. It was a class action trial, and this has been ongoing for the past seven years. And basically, they were saying, where is your safety data, EPA, on the long-term effects of water fluoridation? So the idea was that if we put it in the water, it's not a very efficient way to get fluoride to people, but eventually, it may will make itself into the saliva and have a topical effect coming out through the saliva. They used to think systemically, it was actually incorporating into the developing teeth in children, making the enamel stronger that way, but that's been debunked. So now it's most likely still a topical benefit, maybe a little bit of a systemic benefit touching the teeth. Um, and we do know fluoride really needs to work topically. We don't need to be ingesting it. And that is all through the data, and they're teaching that in dental schools now too. Okay.
But this is the easiest way to get, get fluoride to the masses because caries or cavities are such an issue. Now, my first comment on this is, we're not addressing the root cause of dental decay, which is our food. It's all the ultra-processed foods. Again, we didn't really see dental decay in humans until the Agricultural Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and now the ultra-processed food craze that's been happening the past many decades. Okay. Is that right? So if we look at skeletons from dead people, obviously, well, you can look at skeletons and live people, skeletons and dead people, uh, from dead people that, um, died prior to 1900, how are their teeth? 1900, they still have, they would have decay. But if you looked at about 10,000 years ago, um, very little. You know, unless they lived in an area with a lot of fruit abundance or honey. Like where are you getting your sugar from? You know, and you go pick some berries on a bush, you're competing with the animals and the birds. You didn't have much opportunity to overconsume sugar. Um, but, you know, there was the sugar trade, and then we just, sugar was a sign of wealth and royalty, and people's teeth just rotted out, and it was because of our diet. So that's the root cause issue that no one's talking about. You know, we're just saying, let's slap fluoride on it. How about we educate and teach people what is really causing cavities? But anyway, okay.
So the class action trial was going on, and the judge, uh, Judge Edward Chen, was waiting for this National Toxicology Program's report, which was under the Department of Health and Human Services. And this is, it reads like a soap opera, to be honest with you. Um, and it kept getting delayed and, and, um, postponed, and they wouldn't release it. And finally, under the Freedom of Information Act, he said, this needs to be released. And it said, there is a strong correlation between increased fluoride consumption and IQ issues in children. Um, and so with that, he, he took this information and he made his ruling. Now, this was after years of expert testimonies as well, okay, um, saying there's an unreasonable risk to current water fluoridation practices in the United States. This was his ruling that just happened late last year. I mean, it's, this is very new. And EPA, you now need to fix this. You need to regulate this better.
What people will argue is a lot of the studies they were looking at that are showing lowered IQ in children or neurocognitive issues, it was at 1.2 or 1.5 milligrams per liter of, you know, um, that was the concentration. The United States, we now do 0.7 milligrams per liter. But what this, that's per liter, okay? So how many liters of water do you drink a day? This is the controversy. So for example, the American Academy of Pediatrics generally recommends pregnant women drink two to three liters a day. Um, you might be cooking with fluoridated water, making your pasta, making your soup. Um, how do we really know how much someone's getting exposed to? What's their body composition? How much do they weigh? What are the other outside sources of fluoride? Are they swallowing their toothpaste? Fluoride is in many pharmaceuticals because it helps increase bioavailability, especially SSRIs and P.Y.C. A lot of these have fluoride in them. Really? Yes. Ultra-processed foods will have fluoride. So the factory that's making your Rockstar Energy Drink or your High C or, you know, whatever you're consuming, they're not using reverse osmosis to filter the water. So you're getting fluoride that way. It's naturally found in green tea and black tea. And this is not to make people worried about green and black tea. I still consume them. It's more to say, how are we really understanding how much is exposed to?
And so they were finding that pregnant women, um, they followed, there's many studies now, but a famous one was the Refka Green study out of Canada. And they followed about 520 mother-child pairs. Um, they tested urinary fluoride in the mother per trimester, averaged it, and then followed these children to the age of three or four and did IQ tests. And found that mothers who had higher concentrations of urinary fluoride, the children tested lower on their IQ test, up to five to seven points. And that's on par with lead. Okay? On par with lead. On par with lead. Yes. And so that was in 2019. There's been so many more studies now. So the judge ruled, EPA, you need to regulate this better. And in that amount of time, there was a meta-analysis that came out that further supported the NTP report by JAMA Pediatrics. Um, okay. And this is very controversial for these editors to be putting out, by the way. So I commend them. Um, and also a Cochrane report came out, Cochrane Collaborative, which has said this again, was very recent, looking at all the data from water fluoridation. Water fluoridation isn't reducing decay like we thought it was. It's only reducing decay by about one quarter of a cavity per person. One quarter of a cavity per person. So that's not statistically significant.
So people will say, well, what gives? Why were cavity rates going down when we added fluoride to the water? Well, it's hard to say. Maybe they were already just going down due to education, more access to dental hygiene and toothbrushing, flossing. Um, but also, we now have fluoride everywhere in our toothpaste. So fluoride was put in the water in the 1940s. It wasn't added to our toothpaste until the 1960s. And now it's everywhere. We get fluoride everywhere, rinses, the varnishes that made you vomit at the office. And by the way, that's very common. That's very common. And it's because a lot of those fluoride varnishes, number one, fluoride, you know, it does have a poison control label on it. You're not supposed to swallow it. But these varnishes also have polyurethane and hexane derivatives, and it's what makes them so sticky. Yeah. I, I still loathe going to the dentist. I think I think it's because of that, that, um, early association. Yeah.
So it's very controversial. And unfortunately, we've lost sight of the science. It's getting buried in politics right now, and it really upsets me because it's not a political issue. We just need to look at the data. And I feel like we're losing sight of the scientific method. Um, we, you know, the American Dental Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics is doubling down on saying we have to put fluoride in the water. And for nothing else, I think it's important to know, 97% of the world does not fluoridate their water. This is a very United States controversy. Um, many countries removed it and found, I think it was Denmark, Germany, Japan, they have very low decay rates. And why is this? Well, they educated their population on what's really causing decay and also made fluoride toothpaste accessible. And I have Danish relatives, they have very nice teeth. If you told me that there's no fluoride in the drinking water in England, I might, um, I might, uh, be like, well, you know, sorry, my English friends, but that's the stereotype, right? That their teeth are bad. I don't think that that's true any longer. I think that that was true at one point. That I think they're crowded and crooked too. And a lot of that has to do, I think, with facial development as well. I think we, we see a lot of, um, Western European, they do have that kind of dysmorphic face, if you will, probably from nasal breathing, who knows why, industrial revolution, allergies, mouth breathing, etc. Why did it, why does it seem more prevalent there? Um, so that's this, that's the, the take, the quick take on it.
And so I just think it should be a personal choice. You know, if you want to use fluoride, you can go out to the store. I mean, you can get fluoride toothpaste at the dollar store now. They give it out for free at many clinics. Um, to me, I just think it's a, it's a medical ethical issue. We're mass medicating a population without their consent. And then the even bigger issue for me is, no one's talking about this, nor can I find any literature on it. What is it doing to the gut microbiome? Because it is antimicrobial. So that would be a wonderful study, NIH, if you're listening, can we test, you know, people that live in fluoridated areas versus those that don't? Can we follow them? Maybe it's a prospective cohort study to just see how their microbiomes are different? Because it just doesn't make sense to me. And why would we ingest something systemically with all these potential risks when we could just use it topically or actually talk about what's really causing decay? If fluoridation worked, cavities wouldn't be the top disease in our country, in our children. And many worry, well, if we take it from the water, decay may go up. And it may. I mean, there's been, they, they did this in Calgary, Canada, where decay rates went up. But then if you actually look at the data, the decay rates were already going up when they removed it. But they only show you the data that they kind of want to show you for that. So, um, but again, it's a risk-benefit analysis. I mean, I think tend to be too focused on teeth.
And so you mentioned, like, if they say it's good for me, I'll do it. Well, good for what? Good for your teeth, or good for your whole body, or good for your brain? And I think that should be an individual choice. Are you, as a parent, do I want to choose one quarter or less cavity in my child, or do I want to preserve their optimal brain development? I mean, the data that, um, show deficits on par with what one sees with lead exposure, that's the most striking, um, thing to me. Yeah. And I'm a dentist. I was trained to fix teeth. I can fix a one-quarter cavity in a tooth. I can't fix a developing brain. We have one shot to develop a brain. We have one shot to grow a face. You know, it's really important.
I really appreciate you taking us through the full arc of the history of it. I think it's extremely important that people take that in so they can start to form their own opinions. And, um, you point out a number of, um, logical flaws in, in just the, the way the whole system is, is, um, arranged right now, which is this, um, mass, uh, treatment of everybody with a, a potent chemical, especially given the amount of water that people drink and cook with, etc., without their consent. And, and without a risk assessment. So you're a low decay rate, I might be a really high decay rate. You, you don't need anything extra. Your diet, your balance, your microbiome's great. I'm not eating well, my hygiene's terrible. You know, we, we can't just blanketly be treating everyone the same. We're supposed to be doing risk assessments. Okay. So I think that pretty much puts fluoride in a, not in a box, let's say, on the shelf for all of us to look at. I think this is going to be a very important aspect of public health in the year to three years to come with this new administration and Bobby Kennedy paying a lot of attention to fluoride. And I really like what you said about trying to remove the political aspects of this. If this becomes a, um, blue versus red, left versus right thing, we're never going to get to the heart of the matter. Um, yeah, and that would be really sad, and the ones that would really suffer would be kids, kids, their children. Yeah.
So a, a nonpartisan, uh, look at this, which is how I heard everything that you said, just seems really critical. Where are they getting the fluoride? So water fluoridation, the fluoride that they get is a byproduct of the phosphate fertilizer industry, and it's, it's, um, called hydrofluorosilicic acid. So as a byproduct of the phosphate fertilizer industry, it's considered a, a hazardous waste, and it's very expensive to dispose of. Uh, but they have found that if diluted, in theory, and put, it's an acid, first of all. So if it's put into our water system, it is so diluted that it becomes safe. But I will say, it, you know, everyone can go research this and look at themselves, but it does come in like cement bags with skull and crossbones on the front, and they do have to wear hazmat suits to put it into our water. Um, they're supposed to titrate it. And I think what's interesting, you know, we're supposed to target 0.7 milligrams per liter. Um, I've been involved in some educational campaigns and have tested communities surrounding Portland. It's very hard to keep it in range, you know? And so there are some communities testing as high, we've seen as 2.2 milligrams per liter, which definitely falls into, based on the, the science and literature, more concerning zone for neurocognitive issues and other health issues. So, um, if you're concerned, you can call your local water, um, bureau, municipality. I will say, I don't think the federal government's going to have much control over this. It would be nice if the EPA stepped in. Um, they have appealed, by the way. Uh, but it will come down to more like on the state level and local level. And we're already seeing states like Florida and Utah, um, have run it through and initially done a, we're going to ban this, as a mandatory thing in our state. And I think it's, uh, North Dakota, Kentucky, there's other states picking this up too, and other communities that are removing it or, or not adding it to their water. So it's an interesting time to observe all of this. [Music]