Fluorideoccurs naturally in nature and a well balanced diet will provide the body with the minute
quantities of fluoride that it needs. However, toxicity can develop due to overdosing through drinking
tap wateror fluoride in tooth paste.
How much is too much?
In 1953, when Harold C. Hodge, chairman of the National Academy of
Sciences toxicology committee, evaluated the dangers associated with ex-
cess fluoride, the best data available was Roholm’s classic,Fluorine Intox-
ication. Roholm had studied workers exposed to fluoride in dusts from alu-
minum ore. He reported that with an intake equal to 0.2 to 0.35 mg/kg/day,
phase three skeletal fluorosis developed after about eleven years. In terms
of milligrams per day, the equivalent is 10-20 mg/day for 10-20 years for
persons weighing 100 to 229 pounds. As is generally true, toxicity depends
on dosage per pound (or kilogram) of body weight. What wouldn’t faze a
220 pound man might kill a newborn infant.
According to the Surgeon General, fluoride accumulates in a linear manner.
Eighty to one hundred percent of ingested fluoride is absorbed from foods
and beverages.The fractional retention or balance of fluoride at any age
depends on the quantitative features of absorption and excretion. For
healthy, young, or middle-aged adults, approximately 50 percent of ab-
sorbed 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 ...Diet-
ary Reference Intakes (1999) NAS/NRC
Additionaltimehasbeendevotedheretoalertingthereadertothehazardoffluoride
becausethereisadangeroftakingthesimplestthingssuchastapwaterortooth
pasteforgrantedasbeingsafewithsuchargumentsthat“thegovernmentorpublic
officialswouldnottheirownpeople.Timeandtimeagainthelevelofgreedandthe
profitmotiveinwesternculturehasproventobemorepowerfulthanmoralinjunc-
tionsorlegalregulation.Somepeoplethrowuptheirhandsandsurrendertowhat
theyseeasanimpossiblesituation,thinkingtheycannotescapetheonslaughtofthe
thousandsofchemicalsreleasedintotheenvironment,eitherlegallyornot,thataf-
fecteverythinginsociety.Thereisawaytofindhealthbuttheseekermustbewill-
ingtogiveuptheirignoranceabouttheworldandacceptthehazardsthattheirown
lifestyleposes.Inthisway,whenmoreandmorepeopleabstainfromlivinginways
