Fluorine does not do what it says it will do on the label.

Fluorine is one of those elements that can exist in a number of different chemical forms. As a radiochemist we had to use a fluorine-based compound to dissolve soils and components of soils. One form of fluorine I had to work with was hydrofluoric acid. Hydrofluoric acid is possibly one of the most scary chemicals I have ever had the mi s-pleasure to work with and I have worked with solutions of all sorts of chemicals including those containing radioactive cocktails.

We now use a chemical form of fluorine to brush our teeth with and we also add it to our drinking water. The stuff we add to our water, or should I say, the fluorine compounds that are put into our water supply by our municipal, political, industrial, medical and scientific masters do not combat dental caries or strengthen teeth enamel as they say it does. The ingestion of fluoride-containing compounds have long term insidious effects on our physical body, our neurological body, the functioning of our glands and bone matter. If governments are really worried about the state of our population's teeth e.g. dental caries, why do they legally allow such high levels of sugars in our foods and drinks? Why put in our water supply, a known carcinogen? Its as bad as using that other well known carcinogen, mercury that is injected into the bodies of our babies in the infamous 3 in 1 so-called 'vaccine jabs'. The association between autism and the use of these jabs needs to be investigated properly and ethically by non-government, non-industry, non-academic scientists. Someone please tell me what is going on?

The fluorine added to our water supply arises from industrial wastes and worse still, these wastes also contain phosphates. Phosphates are bad news in terms of the human body because they contain elevated levels of naturally-occurring radioactive elements such as radium, thorium, polonium, radon and uranium. I enclose a few articles I pulled off the web and they are from people, sometimes scientists, dentists and medical doctors who are not owned by the government or the water industry, and they tell a different story to what is told by our main-stream media and others who are too dim or blinded by those they work for to think for themselves. Read through and make your own mind up. Phone up your local water treatment centre and ask them whether they add fluorides to the water supply. Contact your local MP or senator and ask questions why we treat water with cancer-causing chemicals that impair the body's immune system and alter our physiological response to all sorts of spiritual and environmental stimuli.

I can guarantee one thing when you start to ask questions on the need and efficacy of using fluorides in drinking water. You will be bombarded with conflicting and contradictory information. When in doubt, ask yourself one simple question, "Who is funding this scientific and medical work". The old saying of 'he who pays the piper calls the tune' is just as relevant in science and medicine as it is in the fairground. Make your own mind up and then check to see what is inside your toothpaste, the same toothpaste you clean your (and your children's teeth) with at least twice a day and do not forget that the toothpaste industry would like to increase the slightly lower levels of fluorides in children's toothpaste to match that of adult levels. In terms of the chemical composition of fluorides please also note that we are talking about relatively high concentrations of fluorides which are in the ppm or parts per million ball park.

I kick off with an old fable that sadly, not everyone knows. Prepare yourself for the tragic fable of the chemist, the water board, the dentist and his life. The author is George Glasser.

"Once, there was a dentist. His name was Lester. For many years, like all the other dentists he knew, Lester believed that fluoride in the drinking water was good for everyone. Like all the other dentists, Lester had learnt in dental school that fluoride reduces tooth decay. And, like all the other dentists, Lester believed that fluoride was fluoride. Then, one day, he met a chemist and began discussing drinking water fluoridation. The chemist asked what kind of fluoride was being used to fluoridate the drinking water. Lester replied: ‘We are simply adjusting the fluoride level in the water by adding one part per million of, well, just fluoride.’

‘There is no such thing as “just fluoride”,’ said the chemist. Lester scratched his head. ‘But they told me that it was only fluoride they are adding to the water.’ The chemist laughed heartily. ‘Fluorine is the most reactive, electronegative element and it’s never found alone in nature,’ he said. ‘There are many kinds of fluorides: for instance, calcium fluoride is found naturally in water. Then there are other fluorides such as lead fluoride, aluminium fluoride, etc. If you add fluoride to the water it has to be a compound. You can’t just add fluoride to the water, so which one is it?’ Lester felt silly. He didn't’t know.

The next day Lester went to the library to check the chemistry books and learnt that calcium fluoride is, indeed, found naturally in the water. He also discovered that calcium fluoride is almost insoluble and could not be easily absorbed by the body. And his friend the chemist was quite right - there were innumerable fluoride compounds. Now intrigued, Lester looked up some scientific studies about water fluoridation. He read that in laboratory tests, workers use a very pure grade of sodium fluoride and purified water to do their research. He discovered that sodium fluoride is taken up by the body much more readily than calcium fluoride. His friend was right. The dentist wondered how anyone could say that calcium fluoride is the same as sodium fluoride. The next day, Lester called his water department to ask if they were adding sodium fluoride or calcium fluoride to his drinking water. The Water Department manager said that they were adding a product called silicofluorides to the water. The Water Department manager said they bought a very low grade product because it would be too expensive to use a good grade and, anyway, the public health people would not pay for a good quality calcium fluoride, because, they said, fluoride is fluoride, no matter where it comes from. By now, Lester was completely bewildered.

‘Where do you buy these silicofluorides from?’ he asked. The Water Department manager said that the silicofluorides – known as hexafluorsilicic acid – are the toxic waste product from phosphate fertilizer pollution scrubbers. The dentist was aghast. ‘You have to be crazy putting that stuff in the water!’ The water department manager agreed because, he said, the hexafluorsilicic acid also contains other toxic substances such as arsenic, beryllium, mercury, lead and many more. He said he didn't’t drink the city water because many of the contaminants in the fluoridation agent cause health problems. ‘For instance,’ he said, ‘arsenic causes prostate, bladder, kidney, skin and lung cancers and there is no safe level for arsenic.’

Lester was appalled. He asked the manager why he did not stop fluoridating the water with this pollution scrubber liquor. ‘And why would anyone add any amount of a known carcinogen to the water?’ Shrugging, the manager replied, ‘I’m just doing my job. The public health people have their agenda, and I have a family to feed.’ After a sleepless night, Lester contemplated the fluoridation dilemma as he soaped himself in the shower. ‘They say they are simply adjusting the level of natural fluoride in the water – which is calcium fluoride – but they are using a pure grade of sodium fluoride and very pure water for the rat experiments in the laboratory. But they are adding toxic pollution scrubber liquor to my drinking water!’ It didn't’t make sense. He called a man at the dental association and told him what he had learnt. The man said, coldly: ‘If you value your licence to practise, don’t ever mention this subject again!’

Lester was shocked.

He had worked hard and was very proud of his practice and his two classic cars. He couldn't’t bear to lose them. He thought about his wife and family and how they would miss their luxury home with its four bathrooms and a jacuzzi, the private schools and foreign vacations. After a while he made a decision. ‘We won’t drink the tap water. We’ll buy bottled water.’ But he was not a happy man as he walked into the reception room and greeted his first patient of the day. Several months later he visited his friend the doctor for his annual check-up and was stunned to learn that he had prostate cancer. He recalled the words of the water department manager. ‘Arsenic causes prostate cancer.’ Lester was shattered. He couldn't’t understand it. Yet there was a reason. Despite taking care to drink only bottled water, Lester didn't’t know that much more of the pollution-laced tap water is absorbed through the skin from bathing and washing clothes.

Poor Lester. Although 64–91 per cent of exposure to waterborne contaminants is known to occur via dermal absorption, no studies have ever been done to determine the toxicity of pollution scrubber liquor – the fluoride used in water fluoridation schemes.

George Glasser is an investigative journalist who focuses on environmental issues.

The second article on this topic is below:

The article below was taken from:
http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/fluoride/fluoride_phosphates.html

(My notes in italic) Please note the connection between the source of fluorides and phosphate wastes leading to a ‘double whammy’ of two major largely unknown pollutant classes i.e. fluoride itself and radioactivity and decay products from the phosphates.

Fluoride and the Phosphate Connection

by George C. Glasser

Cities all over the US purchase hundreds of thousands of gallons of fresh pollution concentrate from Florida - fluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6) - to fluoridate water. Fluorosilicic acid is composed of tetrafluorosiliciate gas and other species of fluorine gases captured in pollution scrubbers and concentrated into a 23% solution during wet process phosphate fertilizer manufacture. Generally, the acid is stored in outdoor cooling ponds before being shipped to US cities to artificially fluoridate drinking water. Fluoridating drinking water with recovered pollution is a cost-effective means of disposing of toxic waste. The fluorosilicic acid would otherwise be classified as a hazardous toxic waste on the Superfund Priorities List of toxic substances that pose the most significant risk to human health and the greatest potential liability for manufacturers.

Phosphate fertilizer suppliers have more than $10 billion invested in production and mining facilities in Florida. Phosphate fertilizer production accounts for $800 million in wages per year. Florida's mines produce 30% of the world supply and 75% of the US supply of phosphate fertilizers. Much of the country's supply of fluoro-silicic acid for water fluoridation is also produced in Florida. Phosphate fertilizer manufacturing and mining are not environment friendly operations. Fluorides and radionuclides are the primary toxic pollutants from the manufacture of phosphate fertilizer in Central Florida. People living near the fertilizer plants and mines, experience lung cancer and leukemia rates that are double the state average. Much of West Central Florida has become a toxic waste dump for phosphate fertilizer manufacturers. Federal and state pollution regulations have been modified to accommodate phosphate fertilizer production and use: These regulations have included using recovered pollution for water fluoridation. Radium wastes from filtration systems at phosphate fertilizer facilities are among the most radioactive types of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) wastes. The radium wastes are so concentrated, they cannot be disposed of at the one US landfill licensed to accept NORM wastes, so manufacturers dump the radioactive wastes in acidic ponds atop 200-foot-high gypsum stacks. The federal government has no rules for its disposal.

During the late 1960s, fluorine emissions were damaging crops, killing fish and causing crippling skeletal fluorosis in livestock. The EPA became concerned and enforced regulations requiring manufacturers to install pollution scrubbers. At that time, the facilities were dumping the concentrated pollution directly into waterways leading into Tampa Bay.

A Phosphate Worse than Death

In the late 1960s, EPA chemist Ervin Bellack worked out the ideal solution to a monumental pollution problem. Because recovered phosphate fertilizer manufacturing waste contain about 19% fluorine, Bellack concluded that the concentrated "scrubber liquor" could be a perfect water fluoridation agent. It was a liquid and easily soluble in water, unlike sodium fluoride - a waste product from aluminum manufacturing. It was also inexpensive. Fate also intervened. The aluminum industry, which previously supplied sodium fluoride for water fluoridation, was facing a shortage of fluorspar used in smelting aluminum. Consequently, there was a shortage of sodium fluoride to fluoridate drinking water.

For the phosphate fertilizer industry, the shortage of sodium fluoride was the key to turning red ink into black and an environmental liability into a perceived asset. With the help of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), fluorosilicic acid was transformed from a concentrated toxic waste and a liability into a "proven cavity fighter." The EPA and the US Public Health Service waived all testing procedures and - with the help of the American Dental Association (ADA) - encouraged cities to add the radioactive concentrate into America's drinking water as an "improved" form of fluoride. The product is not "fluorine" or "fluoride" as proponents state: It is a pollution concentrate. Fluorine is only one captured pollutant comprising about 19% of the total product. By 1983, the official EPA policy was expressed by EPA Office of Water Deputy Administrator Rebecca Hanmer as follows: "In regard to the use of fluosilicic (fluorosilicic) acid as a source of fluoride for fluoridation, this agency regards such use as an ideal environmental solution to a long-standing problem. By recovering by-product fluosilicic acid from fertilizer manufacturing, water and air pollution are minimized, and water utilities have a low-cost source of fluoride available to them."

A Hot New Property

In promoting the use of the pollution concentrate as a fluoridation agent, the ADA, Federal agencies and manufacturers failed to mention that it was radioactive. Whenever uranium is found in nature as a component of a mineral, a host of other radionuclides are always found in the mineral in various stages of decay. Uranium and all of its decay-rate products are found in phosphate rock, fluorosilicic acid and phosphate fertilizer. During wet-process manufacturing, trace amounts of radium and uranium are captured in the pollution scrubber. This process was the subject of an article by H.F. Denzinger, H. J. König and G.E. Krüger in the fertilizer industry journal, Phosphorus & Potassium (No. 103, Sept./Oct. 1979) discussed how radionuclides are carried into the fluorosilicic acid. While the uranium and radium in fluorosilicic acid are known carcinogens, two decay products of uranium are even more carcinogenic: radon-222 and polonium-210.

During the acidulation process that creates phosphoric acid, radon gas contained in the phosphate pebble can be released in greater proportions than other decay-rate products (radionuclides) and carried over into the fluorosilicic acid. Polonium may also be captured in greater quantities during scrubbing operations because, like radon, it can readily combine with fluoride. In written communications to the author, EPA Office of Drinking Water official Joseph A. Cotruvo and Public Health Service fluoridation engineer Thomas Reeves have acknowledged the presence of radionuclides in fluorosilicic acid. Radon-222 is not an immediate threat because it stops emitting alpha radiation and decays into lead-214 in 3.86 days. Lead-214 appears to be harmless but it eventually decays into bismuth-214 and then into polonium-214. Unless someone knew to look for specific isotopes, no one would know that a transmutation into the polonium isotope had occurred.

Polonium-210, a decay product of bismuth-210, has a half-life of 138 days and gives off intense alpha radiation as it decays into regular lead and becomes stable. Any polonium-210 that might be present in the phosphate concentrate could pose a significant health threat. A very small amount of polonium-210 can be very dangerous, giving off 5,000 times more alpha radiation than the same amount of radium. As little as 0.03 microcuries (6.8 trillionths of a gram) of polonium-210 can be carcinogenic to humans. The lead isotope behaves like calcium in the body. It may be stored in the bones for years before turning into polonium-210 and triggering a carcinogenic release of alpha radiation.

Drinking water fluoridated with fluorosilicic acid contains radon at every sequence of its decay to polonium. The fresher the pollution concentrate, the more polonium it will contain. As long as the amount of contaminants added to the drinking water (including radionuclides in fluorosilicic acid) do not exceed the limits set forth in the Safe Drinking Water Act, the EPA has no regulatory problem with the use of any contaminated products for drinking water treatment.

Despite the increased cancer risk from using phosphate waste to fluoridate drinking water, the EPA nor the Centers for Disease Control have never commissioned or required any clinical studies with the pollution concentrate - specifically, the hexafluorsilicate radical whose toxicokinetic properties are different than the lone, fluoride ion. Section 104 (I) (5) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) directs the Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the EPA, the Public Health Service and the National Toxicology Program to initiate a program of research on fluoride safety. However, after almost 30 years of using fluorosilicic acid and sodium fluorosilicate to fluoridate the drinking water, not one study has been commissioned.

The fluoride ion only hypothetically exists as an entity in an ideal solution of purified water - and tap water is far from pure H2O. All clinical research with animal models is done using 99.97% pure sodium fluoride and double distilled or deionized water. Among the thousands of clinical studies about fluoride, not one has been done with the pollution concentrate or typical tap water containing fluorides. The fluorosilicic acid is also contaminated with small traces of arsenic, cadmium, mercury, lead, sulfates, iron and phosphorous, not to mention radionuclides. Some contaminants have the potential to react with the hexafluorosilicate radical and may act as complex ionic compounds. The biological fates and toxicokinetic properties of these complex ions are unknown. The reality of artificial water fluoridation is so complex that determining the safety of the practice may be impossible. Tap water is chemically treated with chlorine, soluble silicates, phosphate polymers and many other chemicals. In addition, the source water itself may contain a variety of contaminants.

The addition of a fluoridation agent can create synergized toxicants in a water supply that have unique toxico-kinetic properties found only in that particular water supply. Consequently, any maladies resulting from chronic ingestion of the product likely would be dismissed as a local or regional anomaly unrelated to water fluoridation. Technically, artificially fluoridating drinking water is a violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Under statutes of the SDWA, federal agencies are forbidden from endorsing, supporting, requiring or funding the practice of adding any chemicals to the water supply other than for purposes of water purification. However, the Public Health Service (PHS) applies semantics to circumvent Federal law in order to promote and fund the practice.

PHS states that they only recommend levels of fluorides in the drinking water, and it is the sole decision of a state or community to fluoridate drinking water. Federal agencies are forbidden from directly funding or implementing water fluoridation but Federal Block Grants are given to States to use as they see fit. Through second and third parties (such as the American Dental Association, state health departments and state fluoridation coordinators), PHS encourages communities to apply for Federal Block Grant funds to implement fluoridation. The legality of using of Federal Block Grant funds to fund water fluoridation, a practice prohibited by Federal law, has never been addressed in the courts.

Vendors selling the pollution concentrate as a fluoridation agent use a broad disclaimer found on the Material Data Safety Sheet that states: "no responsibility can be assumed by vendor for any damage or injury resulting from abnormal use, from any failure to adhere to recommended practices, or from any hazards inherent to the product." [Emphasis added.] The next time you turn on the tap and water gushes out into a glass, reflect on the following disclaimer from the EPA's 1997 Fluoride: Regulatory Fact Sheet: "In the United States, there are no Federal safety standards which are applicable to additives, including those for use in fluoridating drinking water."

George Glasser is a Florida-based writer whose work has appeared in Newlife, Whole Life Times, the Sarasota ECO Report and the Tampa Tribune

Dissident medical voices can be read below:

"Fluorides are general protoplasmic poisons" (2)

Dr. Hardy Limeback, biochemist and Professor of Dentistry, University of Toronto, former consultant to the Canadian Dental Association.
"Children under three should never use fluoridated toothpaste. Or drink fluoridated water. And baby formula must never be made up using Toronto tap water. Never. In fluoridated areas, people should never use fluoride supplements. We tried to get them banned for children but (the dentists) wouldn't even look at the evidence we presented" (See news.htm for full text).

Professor A.K. Susheela (author of over 100 published scientific papers)
"What is the matter with your scientists that they allow your government to be so stupid?", October 4, 1998, commenting on the UK government's support for fluoridation.

Dr. Robert Carton, Ph.D, former Environmental Protection Agency Scientist (20 years), Food & Water Journal, Summer 1998
"The level of fluoride the government allows the public is based on scientifically fraudulent information and altered reports. People can be harmed simply by drinking water."

Dr. William Marcus, Ph.D, Environmental Protection Agency Scientist, Food & Water Journal, Summer 1998
"Fluoride is a carcinogen by any standard we use. i believe EPA should act immediately to protect the public, not just on the cancer data, but on the evidence of bone fractures, arthritis, mutagenicity, and other effects."

Dr. Geoffrey Smith, Dental Surgeon, New Scientist, May 5, 1983
"Dental Fluorosis, no matter how slight is an irreversible pathological condition recognised by authorities around the world as the first readily detectable clinical symptom of previous chronic fluoride poisoning. To suggest we should ignore such a sign is as irrational as saying that the blue-black line which appears on the gums due to chronic lead poisoning is of no significance because it doesn't cause any pain or discomfort.”

Frederick B. Exner, M.D., May 11, 1960
"Resolved to its simplest terms, the issue before you is this: Suppose I, as an individual, want to do something to one of you for the sole purpose of helping you and you don't want it done. You are a sane adult. There is no acute emergency. No one else is involved. I have no other ulterior motive. The question then is: 'Which one of us has the right to decide whether I should be permitted to do something to you 'for your own good' but against your will? Do You? Or do I"

Journal of the American Medical Association, Sept 18, 1943, Editorial.
"Fluorides are general protoplasmic poisons, probably because of their capacity to modify the metabolism of cells by changing the permeability of the cell membrane and by inhibiting certain enzyme systems. The exact mechanism of such actions is obscure. The sources of fluorine intoxication are drinking water containing 1 part per million or more of fluorine, fluoride compounds used as insecticidal spays for fruits and vegetables (cryolite and barium fluosilicate) and the mining and conversion of phosphate rock to superphosphate, which is used as fertilizer."

Journal American Dental Association, October 1944, Editorial
We do know that the use of drinking water containing as little as 1.2 - 3.0 parts per million of fluorine will cause such developmental disturbances in bones as osteosclerosis, spondylosis and osteopetrosis, as well as goiter, and we cannot afford to run the risk of producing such serious systemic disturbances in applying what is at present a doubtful procedure intended to prevent development of dental disfigurements....

Dr. P. Mullenix, Ph.D., research scientist, 1997 letter to Calgary Councillors.
"As a toxicologist involved in fluoride research for over ten years, I was stunned by the Calgary Regional Health Authority's glib comments proclaiming water fluoridation safe. The 'fifty years' of studies about fluoride safety, do not exist. The "ongoing intensive research on fluorides and fluoridation', does not exist, certainly none investigating safety.”

Dr. A. Schatz, Ph.D., co-discoverer, at age 23, of the first effective treatment against tuberculosis — streptomycin — 1997 letter to Calgary Councillors
"Many individuals with impeccable credentials in science, dentistry, and medicine have published incontrovertible evidence that fluoridation is harmful and does not reduce the incidence of dental caries".

Dr. Conrad Sonntag, Alberta Dentist, 1992
“[fluoridation] amounts to mass medication to contest a disease which is neither life threatening nor grossly debilitating. I'd rather not see any more chemicals in the water. We're trying to treat this problem [decay] much like trying to kill a fly with a shotgun.”

Alhava E.M., et al., The Effect of Drinking Water Fluoridation on the Fluoride Content, Strength and Mineral Density of Human Bone, Acta Orthop. Scand., 51, 1980
"The highest fluoride content in bone ash was observed in women with severe osteoporosis"

U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, 1993
“...subsets of the population may be unusually susceptible to the toxic effects of fluoride and its compounds. These populations include the elderly, people with deficiencies of calcium, magnesium, and/or vitamin C, and people with cardiovascular and kidney problems.”

Dr. P.H. Phillips, biochemist, University of Wisconsin
"Fluoride is an accumulative poison which accumulates in the skeletal structures, including the teeth, when the body is exposed to small daily intakes of this element. ...it is like lead accumulation in the bone until saturation occurs and then lead poisoning sets in.”

Supreme Court Justice J.P. Flaherty - former Chairman of the Pennsylvania Academy of Sciences - in a 1979 letter to the Mayor of Auckland, N.Z.
“...the evidence is quite convincing that the addition of sodium fluoride to the public water supply at one part per million is extremely deleterious to the human body.... Prior to my hearing this case, I gave the matter of fluoridation little if any, thought but I received quite an education, and noted that the proponents of fluoridation do nothing more than try to impugn the objectivity of those who oppose fluoridation.”

Dr. C.G. Heyd, former President of the American Medical Association
"I am appalled at the prospect of using water as a vehicle for drugs....”

The late Dr. George L. Waldbott, author of "Fluoridation, the Great Dilemma"
“...When medical practitioners everywhere also recognize the severity of the problems of chronic fluoride toxicosis, and laws mandating truly safe drinking water are sincerely enforced, the health of millions will dramatically improve....”

Carl Sagan C., from Broca's Brain
The character or beliefs of the scientist are irrelevant; all that matters is whether the evidence supports his contention. Arguments from authority simply do not count; too many authorities have been mistaken too often.

Yearbook of Agriculture, 1939
Fluorine interferes with the normal calcification of the teeth during the process of their formation so that affected teeth, in addition to being usually discolored and ugly in appearance, are structurally weak and deteriorate early in life. For this reason, it is especially important that fluorine be avoided during the period of tooth formation, that is, from birth to the age of 12 years.

Dyson Rose, John Marier, Environmental Fluoride 1977, National Research Council of Canada (NRCC No. 16081).
Fluoride is a persistent bioaccumulator, and is entering into human food-and-beverage chains in increasing amounts. Careful consideration of all available data indicates that the amount of fluoride ingested daily in foods and beverages by adult humans living in fluoridated communities currently ranges between 3.5 and 5.5 mg. ... Long-term ingestion, with accumulation of fluoride in animals and man, induces metabolic and biochemical changes ... There is no doubt that inadequate nutrition increases the severity of fluoride toxicosis.
AND, “...chronic intake of fluoride increases the long-term metabolic requirement for both calcium and magnesium.”

DeEds F, Fluorine in Relation to Bone and Tooth Development, JADA, 23, 1936, p 574
Fluorine is a general protoplasmic poison, but the most important symptoms of chronic fluorine poisoning known at present are mottling of the teeth and interference with bone formation.

Chief Dental Officer, British Ministry of Health and Social Security, December 11, 1980.
...no laboratory test has ever shown that 1 part per million fluoride in the drinking water reduces tooth decay.

Bette Hileman, Fluoridation of Water, Chemical & Engineering News, August 1, 1988.
Although skeletal fluorosis has been studied intensely in other countries for more than 40 years, virtually no research has been done in the U.S. to determine how many people are afflicted with the earlier stages of the disease, particularly the preclinical stages. Because some of the clinical symptoms mimic arthritis, the first two clinical phases of skeletal fluorosis could be easily misdiagnosed. Skeletal fluorosis is not even discussed in most medical texts under the effects of fluoride; indeed, a number of texts say the condition is almost nonexistent in the U.S. Even if a doctor is aware of the disease, the early stages are difficult to diagnose.

Johnston DW, Current status of professionally applied topical fluorides, Com Dent Oral Epidem 1994, 22
"Professionally applied topical fluoride procedures should not be provided on a routine basis but should be limited, particularly in Canada where caries incidence is relatively low, to high caries risk groups served by dental public health programs and high risk patients in private dental practice. For those selected for these procedures, the maximum benefits must be assured at the least biological and financial costs." [emphasis added]
Does your dentist still recommend twice-yearly fluoride treatments?

click here for second article on fluorides