Cent4dent Blog

29 Jul 2009

In a disappointing move, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did an about face in issuing a final regulation classifying dental amalgam without calling for stringent precautions for pregnant women and children. Last June, a court settlement filed by the Consumers for Dental Choice required the FDA to withdraw claims of mercury amalgam’s safety from its Web site and issue an advisory indicating: “Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses.”

“FDA broke its contract and broke its word that it would put warnings for children and unborn children for neurological damage,” said Charles G. Brown, National Counsel for Consumers for Dental Choice, who brought the lawsuit compelling today’s action. “Bowing to the dental products industry, FDA for the first time in its history pulled a warning about neurological harm to children. This contemptuous attitude toward children and the unborn will not go unanswered. We will see FDA in court.”

Most consumers, and most dentists, have already switched to the main alternative, resin composite. The FDA rule destroys a dental myth that the mercury becomes inert in the mouth; FDA says the vapors from dental mercury go into the human body. Due to mercury waste, amalgam is also increasingly targeted by environmentalists.

Intense interest in the rule exists on Capitol Hill. Congresswoman Diane Watson (D-CA) and Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN) co-authored a letter to FDA in May, signed by 19 Members of Congress, calling for a rule to protect children and young women from amalgam. In July, they introduced a resolution on the issue with 29 co-sponsors (H.Res. 648).

Amalgam has also become controversial because the middle-class has largely moved to non-toxic alternatives while the poor, minorities, and institutional recipients, such as soldiers and prisoners, still get amalgam.

“FDA remains alone in the world in failing to protect children and pregnant women from mercury fillings. Since 1996, Canadian dentists have been told not to put mercury amalgam in children or pregnant women. Since 1998, British dentists have been told the same for pregnant women. Norway and Sweden have banned amalgam altogether. Regrettably, this rule should have meant the end of two-tiered dentistry: mercury for the poor and choice for the rest. Instead the FDA has failed to carry out its mission of protecting the public health,” concluded Brown.

Source: Consumers for Dental Choice

For further information visit our webpages.

21 Jul 2009

A major research grant will help scientists study the links between memory and
oral health in a bid to establish control over Alzheimer’s disease. The news of
a $1.3 million study to be carried out on thousands of participants has been
welcomed by the UK’s leading oral health charity – the British Dental Health
Foundation.

Research has long associated oral health with overall health problems,
including dementia – though no studies have made clear how the state of the
teeth and mouth affect mental function.

Last year researchers found a link between mild memory loss and gum disease*
and the seven-figure grant will enable examination of medical records of
thousands of Americans to further pursue the link.

Foundation chief executive Dr Nigel Carter welcomed the news saying: “Oral
health and gum disease in particular has been increasingly linked to overall
health through studies such as this exciting piece of research.

“The recent review of NHS dentistry suggested the government is committed to
preventive care.

“It would be a great boost if scientists could prove preventive treatment could
not only protect our teeth but also help prevent chronic diseases such as
Alzheimer’s. “We will watch developments with interest and urge the public to
make sure they look after their oral health with simple steps which can reduce
the risk of gum disease. “Minimising the risks caused by poor oral hygiene is
as simple as brushing teeth twice a day with a fluoride toothpaste and visiting
the dentist regularly for professional check-ups.”

The US studies will be led by Dr Bei Wu of the University of North Carolina and
Dr Richard Crout of the University of West Virginia, who will continue with a
program testing oral health and memory in 273 people aged 70.

The new funding will establish larger studies looking for links between oral
health and brain function over time, while scientists will also seek to
establish a link between improved cognitive function and better oral hygiene
through intervention to improve oral health.

In an interview this week Dr Crout, who has predicted that dentists may in
future be in a position to administer memory tests on older patients, said: “to
have overall good general health you need to have good oral health.”

Source
The British Dental Health Foundation

Article URL: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/158118.php

For further information, please read the Floss or Die pages of our website.

To the Editor:

Your recent article about the proposal before the New Jersey legislature to fluoridate the water in every town in the state was gravely incorrect in many ways. It stated that fluoridation was such benefit to mankind there wouldn’t be a dentist who would criticize the proposal. As a member of the International Academy of Oral and Medical Toxicology I can tell you that you would find a tremendous number of dentists who would argue that there are far better ways to prevent the decay in teeth than by adding this toxin (your article cited mottling of enamel as a downside of fluoridation, I would point to the clusters of testicular cancer in adolescent males as a worse side effect) to the water supply. If skin cancer was to be combated, would you add SPF 50 to the water supply? Of course not, its action is topical. So too is the action of fluoride on enamel. Why put it in water to make sure it goes to every organ system in the body? For those who want to learn more, I would suggest the following websites:

www.FluorideAction.net www.DentalWellness4u.com and a section of my website which has links to the Scientific American article of January 2008 which also found that fluoride has been of little benefit, since introduced, in reducing dental decay: http://www.cent4dent.com/html/treatment/fluorosis.html The conclusory paragraph of that article states: “Some longtime fluoride researchers, however, remain unimpressed by the evidence of effects beyond teeth and bones, and they continue to push for an expansion of water fluoridation in the U.S. and elsewhere. Their view remains the official position of the American Dental Association and the U.S. Public Health Service. “We feel there are enough communities out there with high caries rates to justify additional fluoridation,” says Jayanth V. Kumar, director of oral health surveillance and research at the New York State Department of Health and a member of the NRC panel who dissented from some of its findings. He acknowledges, however, that the argument for water fluoridation is not as strong in affluent areas with good nutrition and dental care. “Today it depends on what the caries level is in the community. If the disease is low, the return on investment [for fluoridation] may not be all that great.””

This is therefore an issue of diligence. If parents are more diligent about what their children ingest; if parents are diligent about brushing their children’s teeth; diligent about getting kids to the dentist regularly from the time they can talk, this discussion would be “Why are government officials dumping surplus toxic waste (fluoride) into our water supply?”

Finally, did it trouble you that there was not a single general dentist south of Trenton in your “Top Dentists in New Jersey” article? I would strenuously question whoever did your mailing about what zip codes were on the list. Is it a theory similar to that of New Yorkers, that the world ends at the Hudson River? Does your exclusion of Southern NJ Dentists mean that New Jersey ends at I 195?

If space allows, I would ask you to consider the following quotes from the Scientific American article, and would suggest that concerned parents and individuals contact your local state representatives by forwarding this message on to them.

The endocrine system is yet another area where some evidence exists that fluoride can have an impact. The NRC committee concluded that fluoride can subtly alter endocrine function, especially in the thyroid—the gland that produces hormones regulating growth and metabolism. Although researchers do not know how fluoride consumption can influence the thyroid, the effects appear to be strongly influenced by diet and genetics. Says John Doull, professor emeritus of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Kansas Medical Center, who chaired the NRC committee: “The thyroid changes do worry me. There are some things there that need to be explored.”

Bone is an obvious place to look for fluoride’s fingerprints because so much fluoride is stored there. What is more, studies of patients with osteoporosis—a bone disease that increases the risk of fractures—have shown that high doses of fluoride can stimulate the proliferation of bone-building osteoblast cells, even in elderly patients. The exact mechanism is still unknown, but fluoride appears to achieve this by increasing the concentrations of tyrosine-phosphorylated proteins, which are involved in biochemical signaling to osteoblasts. As with tooth enamel, however, fluoride not only stimulates bone mineralization, it also appears to alter the crystalline structure of bone—and in this case, the effects are not merely aesthetic. Although fluoride may increase bone volume, the strength of the bone apparently declines.

The even bigger question looming over the fluoride debate is whether these known cellular effects in bones and teeth are clues that fluoride is affecting other organs and triggering other diseases besides fluorosis. The biggest current debate is over osteosarcoma—the most common form of bone cancer and the sixth most prevalent cancer in children. Because fluoride stimulates the production of osteoblasts, several researchers have suggested that it might induce malignant tumors in the expanding cell population. A 1990 study conducted by the U.S. government’s National Toxicology Program found a positive dose-response relation for osteosarcoma incidence in male rats exposed to different amounts of fluoride in drinking water (all those amounts, as is typical for animal studies, were far above the actual exposures found in fluoridated communities).

After spending more than two years reviewing and debating hundreds of studies, a committee of the National Research Council (NRC) released a report in 2006 that gave a tinge of legitimacy to some longtime assertions made by antifluoridation campaigners. The report concluded that the Environmental Protection Agency’s current limit for fluoride in drinking water—four milligrams per liter (mg/L)—should be lowered because of health risks to both children and adults. In children, consistent exposure to fluoride at that level can discolor and disfigure emerging permanent teeth—a condition called dental fluorosis. In adults, the same fluoride level appears to increase the risk of bone fracture and, possibly, of moderate skeletal fluorosis, a painful stiffening of the joints. Most fluoridated water contains much less fluoride than the EPA limit, but the situation is worrisome because there is so much uncertainty over how much additional fluoride we ingest from food, beverages and dental products. What is more, the NRC panel noted that fluoride may also trigger more serious health problems, including bone cancer and damage to the brain and thyroid gland. Although these effects are still unproved, the panel argued that they deserve further study.

Currently, there is no federal agency that can control the admisitration of fluoride to the water supply. It is up to the individual municipalities, and that is fraught with other potential problems. You might enjoy this artlicle: http://www.naturalnews.com/News_000716_fluoride_water_supply_accident.html and other recent articles about fluoride toxicity from my blogsite: http://cent4dent.com/blog/?cat=7

Steve Markus
The Centre for Dentistry at Haddon
209 White Horse Pike
Haddon Heights, NJ 08035
856 546 0665
www.SmileSouthJersey.com

A group in Georgia called The Lillie Center has been documenting
these fluoride/environmental racism connections and has been
advocating around it. [If this angle is new to you, see our
documentation on it here:
http://www.actionpa.org/fluoride/ej.html] They got the National
Kidney Foundation to withdraw their official support for water
fluoridation. The Kidney Foundation now states that chronic kidney
patients should be warned of fluoride exposure risks. In legal
terms, this established a new “standard of care” and other
professionals who don’t meet it may be liable for negligence. The
Lillie Center is trying to peel off other medical association
supporters of fluoridation from the long list of groups that have
been supporting this scientifically indefensible position for decades.

Currently, they’re working on the American Osteopathic Association
and the National Medical Association. The latter is the association
of black physicians (formed as an alternative to the American Medical
Association, which just last year, officially apologized to black
physicians for past discrimination). NMA is one of the supporters of
fluoridation, and if we can manage to turn them around on this, the
pressure on AMA to follow suit will be much greater.

The person I spoke with recently at The Lillie Center (Daniel
Stockin, MPH) would love to have people inquire with letters to these
associations and individual osteopaths about their position on this,
asking questions like:

1) are you currently informing anyone who has any kidney
impairment of the risks of F exposure, and
2) are you doing an assessment of past body burden of fluoride?

This could get the associations to think more about the legal
liabilities with failing to follow the higher standard of care set by
the Kidney Foundation. For further information be sure to read: http://www.cent4dent.com/html/treatment/fluorosis.html

See related documents —>
1. Dental fluorosis pics: see www.fluoridealert.org/dental-fluorosis.htm and be sure to scroll all the way down. CDC believes that millions of blacks (who have 79% more than whites of the worst forms — moderate and severe dental fluorosis) should simply live with the disfigurement if they don’t have the funds for teeth repair caused by the fluoride damage. CDC refuses to openly show photos of dental fluorosis to the black community, and refuses to answer a formal ethics complaint received about this. Remember: if fluorides do this to the hardest surfaces in the body – the teeth – it’s not an illogical question to ask what fluorides do to soft tissues. It turns out that fluorides harm the thyroid, brain (per the Chinese, multiple studies), the kidneys, and also the bones.

2. The National Kidney Foundation has recently changed its position about fluoridated water safety for kidney patients, now stating that chronic kidney disease patients “should be notified of the potential risk” of fluoride ingestion. As a result of NKF’s changed position, the American Dental Assn has been forced to remove the National Kidney Foundation from ADA’s list of organizations supporting fluoridation. Here’s a couple of links from Forbes and a dental industry web portal (bear in mind that the dental industry is grudgingly acknowledging this): http://www.forbes.com/prnewswire/feeds/prnewswire/2008/06/09/prnewswire200806090956PR_NEWS_USPR_____DC24601.html

http://www.drbicuspid.com/index.aspx?sec=sup&sub=hyg&pag=dis&ItemID=300693&wf=34

Because blacks comprise nearly 30% of end stage renal disease patients, yet are only around 13% of the U.S. population, the black community deserves to hear about fluoride’s harm to kidneys, but the Amer. Dental Assn, CDC, and other health groups are petrified of the whole story about fluoride’s harm coming out. I find this deeply disturbing that blacks are once again getting left out – not being told the whole story. Black physicians are also not being told the facts.

3. The legal consequences of the hiding of the whole story about harm from fluoride are starting. Both sides of the political spectrum are now upset about fluoride.Here is an article you’ll want to see about the American Water Works Assn. I was quoted in this piece as follows: “Think about it: If a 230-pound man and a 15-pound baby each drink one glass of water, they each receive the same dose of fluoride,” he said. “Does it make any sense at all to give both of them the same amount, regardless of body size or health history, and to not know or monitor how much fluoride they’re drinking or ingesting from other sources?”

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=67360

4. Here is an article about “Fluoride-Gate” we wrote that was first published in the Juneau, Alaska newspaper, then subsequently picked up by US Water News, the Wall Street Journal of water publications, and sent to thousands of water districts across the U.S.: http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/011508/opi_20080115024.shtml

5. Here is a video interview of 3 scientists about the general kidney-fluoride issue. Note the second lady who is a toxicologist and expert witness on fluoride issues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utB94Jee0Os The first lady in the video, Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, was a member of the National Research Council’s panel that released a 500 page report on fluoride in 2006; she has also said this about fluoride and blacks:
“The NRC report indicated that kidney patients, diabetics, infants, and other groups are susceptible population groups. I am also personally concerned that black and other minority Americans are disproportionately harmed by fluoride, and I believe there is a potential risk of thyroid damage for overexposed Americans in general.”
In a January 2008 Scientific American article about fluorides, toxicologist John Doull, the chairman of the NRC panel, admitted, “The thyroid changes do worry me.”

6. Here’s a 3-minute news story about a physician-legislator who was a former fluoridation supporter until he looked at the data for himself, instead of simply believing the talking points provided by CDC and the Amer. Dental Assn. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4876909488212286065

7. Lastly, in case you haven’t seen CDC’s statement about infant milk formula and fluoride – that parents of newborns may wish to use unfluoridated water for baby’s milk formula — this affects economically disadvantaged families who do not have funds for bottled or unfluoridated water. Black physicians and millions of black families do not know this information, because CDC refused to issue even a press release. (CDC is trying to say “We told you about this, without really telling anyone – a legal strategy.) Here’s CDC’s statement:

http://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/safety/infant_formula.htm#1

Here CDC says: “If tap water is fluoridated or has substantial natural fluoride (0.7 mg/L or higher), a parent may consider using a low-fluoride alternative water source.” CDC also says in this document: “Although formula itself has low amounts of fluoride, when infant formula concentrate is mixed with fluoridated water and used as the primary source of nutrition, it may introduce fluoride at levels above the amount recommended to minimize the risk for fluorosis. Infants consume little other than breast milk or formula during the first four to six months of life, and continue to have a high intake of liquids during the entire first year. Therefore, proportional to body weight, fluoride intake from liquids is generally higher for younger or smaller children than for older children, adolescents, or adults.”

The National Research Council says infants and children receive 3-4 times the amount of fluoride dose as do adults, on a body weight basis.

Daniel G. Stockin, MPH
The Lillie Center, Inc.
Ellijay, GA 706-669-0786