If your tap gushes water laced with fluoride, you’re taking a powerful drug with every sip.
Imagine a stranger pressing you to drink a clear liquid with no special odor, color, or taste. “Just drink, it’s good for you,” he insists. What would you do? Refuse it, probably. And if the stranger were to become overbearing, you’d want to bat it away. At least, you’d want to know what’s in that water and what it might do to you. But do you know what’s in your own tap water?
One of the things in your water is fluoride. It’s supposed to be good for your teeth. In the US, Israel, and other countries in the Middle East the law requires that fluoride be added to the water supply. So it must be OK – go ahead and drink. Considering the scarcity of water in the Middle East, just be grateful. You might hesitate, though, if you knew that the comforting fluoride in your glass of water is used as rat poison. In this story I interview someone who has worked for a national water carrier. What she says might shock you.
It’s no secret where fluorides come from. They are the direct, unprocessed wastes of fertilizer, nuclear, aluminum, steel, and pesticide industries. Once hailed as a cheap way to rescue the population from tooth decay, it is proven to be a powerful toxin that causes, and aggravates, a long roster of ills.
According to studies provided by the Fluoride Action Network (FAN), cancer, arthritis, thyroid dysfunction, and neurological disorders are related to fluoride intake. Brittle bones. Calcification of the pineal gland.
We interviewed Prof. Loty Zilberman, occupational health and toxicology consultant and former water engineer for Mekorot, the Israel water company, to learn more.
GP: How toxic is fluoride?
Prof. Zilberman: It’s so corrosive that storage facilities have bunkers built around them for safety. Workers must wear full body protection.
Fluorides draw copper out of plumbing pipes, so our water contains copper. Boys and young men are at special risk of asthma and neurological dysfunction, leading to violent behavior, from excess copper absorption. The synergy of fluorides with other waste products in our water produces a most powerful toxin that increases risk of Alzheimer’s and and osteosarcoma (a type of cancer), again, especially in boys. Fluorides neutralize iodine, so that thyroid patients taking iodine medication suffer.
Excessive fluoride causes fluorosis – white streaks on children’s teeth. So what is it doing to the rest of their bones? Children are most at risk from the toxic effects of fluoride, absorbing three times as much as adults do. Bottle-fed babies inevitably drink fluoride in their formula.
We see the effects of excess fluoride in the rocketing levels of cancer and arthritis in today’s children and young adults.
GP: And this rat-poison business…? What’s that all about?
Prof. Zilberman: Fluoride, being a protoplasmic toxin, is used as rat poison.
GP: Quite a little shop of horrors! What are safe levels of fluoride in water?
Prof. Zilberman: In Israel, no studies have been conducted to determine safe levels. In the US, fluoridation laws were passed before any studies were done.
GP: Is fluoride in all water?
Prof. Zilberman: Any water that comes out of a tap in Israel has fluoride. We’re talking about the water used for agriculture and food and drink industries. The water with which you wash laundry, shower, and brush your teeth. You absorb the fluoride in water through the skin, so that every time you wash your hands, you get another tiny dose of it.
GP: Can’t we just boil it out of our drinking water? What about filtering it?
Prof. Zilberman: Boiling water only concentrates the fluorides in it. Popular household filters don’t affect it. The only way to eliminate fluoride from water is by reverse osmosis, a costly setup. So people without financial means have no choice but to keep absorbing fluorides.
Medicine should not be given out indiscriminately to an entire population. Fluoride is a medicine that dentists should prescribe when necessary, and monitor just as any other doctor monitors a patient taking a prescription drug.
GP: Why do fluorides get dumped into our water, anyway? And why do our governments still sing the “It’s Good For You” song?
Prof. Zilberman: I can answer only for Israel. It’s cheaper than burying it. It can cost thousands of shekels per cubic meter to remove waste. The Koor factory in Acre, for example, may have 15 cubic meters of waste daily.
Industries have a financial interest in maintaining fluoridation. The government apparently still holds by the outdated idea that it prevents dental cavities. Perhaps there’s also the fear that, as happened in the US, once the toxic effects of fluoride are understood, people will start suing industries for damages.
GP: Thank you, Professor Zilberman!
We are obliged to absorb fluoride every day, all day long, and have no say in the matter. In what other case does the law mandate medicating an entire population without the people’s knowledge and consent? Because that’s what fluoride is – a drug. A drug administered without monitoring individual dosage, one whose “treatment” has no time limit.
Take people who drink lots of water every day: athletes, diabetics, soldiers, people with kidney problems. They’re absorbing vast amounts of fluorides, and there’s not a thing they can do to control it. Shouldn’t they – and everyone else – have the choice?
On top of everything else, fluoridation doesn’t even prevent tooth decay.
This list of FAN’s excerpts from scientific literature argues that swallowing fluoride does little or nothing to stop formation of cavities. In other words, the correct way to use fluoride is by applying it directly to the teeth, as Prof. Zilberman suggests, in the dentist’s office. Not by making everyone swallow it.
Again, from FAN: “Several studies indicate that dental decay is coming down just as fast, if not faster, in non-fluoridated industrialized countries as fluoridated ones (Diesendorf, 1986; Colquhoun, 1994; World Health Organization, Online).”
More and more communities in the US and Canada are choosing to eliminate fluoride from their water. 97 percent of Western European countries have stopped fluoridation. Japan doesn’t fluoridate water.
It didn’t happen by itself. If you’re disturbed by this post, you too can do something about fluoridation. Write to everyone you can think of: the local water company, the municipality, Israeli Knesset members or state representatives in your communities.
Organize a petition and shamelessly canvass your family and neighbors to sign. Use social media. It’s time that fluoridation of our water stopped.
Listen to international experts speak on the dangers of fluoridation on this video from FAN.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88pfVo3bZLY&feature=player_embedded#![/youtube]
More on water in the Middle East from Green Prophet:
Water & The Middle East At A Glance
Photo by Carnoodles via Flickr.
Author: Miriam Kresh
Miriam Kresh is an American ex-pat living in Israel. Her love of Middle Eastern food evolved from close friendships with enthusiastic Moroccan, Tunisian and Turkish home cooks. She owns too many cookbooks and is always planning the next meal. Miriam can be reached at miriam (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
Watch the movie on http://www.fluoridegate.org/
“Prof. Zilberman: It’s so corrosive that storage facilities have bunkers built around them for safety. Workers must wear full body protection”.
The same precautions can be said for any corrosive chemical used in a water plant like ferric chloride, sodium hydroxide, sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, phosphoric acid or for more dangerous chemicals like anhydrous ammonia or chlorine which are classified as inhalation hazard chemicals.
Any facility that stores corrosives in bulk should have a containment area.
Right. And should we put that stuff into our bodies is the question.
Karin, obviously I’m aware that the thread is about how to get fluoride out of and not into the water. My response was to a question about how you can know whether the Israeli town or settlement in which you live has fluoride in its water.
My answer is that if you open a packet of fluoride drops the instructions that accompany the drops include a list of settlements that do (or do not – I can’t recall) have fluoridated water. This is the simplest way to find out the state of water in your particular town or village.
Hello everyone I’m speaking from Israel but also to other fluoride using countries.
There exists overwhelming evidence that the fluoridization of our water supply is a bad thing both medically and ethically. This information can be found throughout the internet with only a very few sites recommending it.
I would like to encourage anyone who wants their water free from fluoride to set up campaigns and organise pages on social networking sites such as facebook.
For more information, you can open a packet of fluoride drops sold here in Israel. IIRC the details paper that accompanies the drops lists the settlements and cities that have (or perhaps it’s don’t have) fluoride in their water. Or at least they did some years ago. Worth a try..
Rayne, the discussion here is how to get the fluoride out, not in our water.
The letter posted in the previous comment reads
“In accordance with directives for the health of the nation, water suppliers are required to fluorinate drinking water. We are required to add fluoride to a concentration of 1 miligram per liter. In practice this year Mekorot added 0.8 miligram per liter”. If you require more details you may contact….”
This reply to my query was supplied by the responsible engineer at the Israel Ministry of Health
So this confirms the fluoridation question because some online sources say that Israel stopped fluoridating in 2006, although Wikipedia says that the country still does. I have found no other Middle East North African country that fluoridates. Although I did read about a pilot project in Alexandria. The question to fluoridate or not appears to be one mainly in English speaking western countries. While Europeans are against on the grounds of mass-medicating the population, countries like Canada do – where 67% of the population gets fluoridated water. We need more science and opinions here, I think. Some sources I have read that sum-up peer-reviewed medical journal research say that there is no real danger of fluoridation. Yet other people, fearmongers, or experts I cannot say –– present a real and present danger, especially to babies and the elderly.
Wikipedia lists Egypt (Alexandria) with a trial project. And it states that 67% of the population is getting fluoridated water.
Since I have two young kids at home I wanted to avoid the hazards of fluorination and I inquired with the authorities – Here is the answer I received about fluorination in my town – Zur Hadassah
August 2011
בהתאם לתקנות בריאות העם חובה על ספקי המים להפליר את מי השתייה.
הנחיתנו היא להוסיף פלואוריד כך שריכוזו במים יהיה 1 מיליגרם בליטר.
בפועל בשנה האחרונה מופלרים המים באיזור ירושלים, ע”י חברת מקורות, לריכוז של כ-0.8 מיליגרם בליטר פלואוריד.
אם תרצה פרטים מדויקים יותר תוכל לפנות למר…
מהנדס ראשי ארצי, מח’ בריאות הסביבה
I also did some reading and none of the filters will remove floride from the water. It can be removed effectively by reverese osmosis or neutralized using Calcium acetate (a little tricky). Reluctantly I resort to mineral water (a brand that doesnt have floride)
Alon, can you translate the statement please for our global readers?
I would like to repost this at my F site–with your permisssion and with a link back
Yes you can.
JordanEnvironmentalist, I would love to know more about fluoridation (or not) of other Middle Eastern countries. Unfortunately, I don’t speak or read Arabic, and could find few sources in English. One report from FAN says that Jordan began a fluoridation program but “put it on hold” in 1999. I don’t know if fluoridation was resumed.
Nicole, towns with a population of over 5000 have had fluoridated water since 1988. Villages or settlements sharing their water, share the fluoridation. 65% of Israel’s water is artificially fluoridated, including in the Sharon area. The water of towns in the north of the country whose water has innocuous natural fluorides in it, doesn’t have added fluorides. Maybe those are the towns whose reports you have seen.
I had a whiff of menace when speaking to municipal authorities on the issue. Not menace to myself – to municipal authorities opposing fluoridation. One I spoke with only agreed to disclose that they don’t fluoridate their water on condition that I didn’t reveal who they are.
Following a 2007 government committee’s recommendation to stop fluoridating Israel’s water, The Ministry of Health refused to do so. In a Knesset debate that took place in May of this year, Deputy Health Minister Yaacov Litzman said openly that he is working to ensure that all of Israel’s water is fluoridated.
Do you also know if it is used in all Middle Eastern countries, for example Jordan?
Maybe it’s only cities whose water comes from the Movil Ha’Artzi – local councils whose water comes from local water supplies definitely don’t add flouride (you can see in the yearly water reports that they publish, and it clearly says that currently flouride is not added)
I don’t think that by law water in Israel must be flouridated. Most cities in Israel don’t have flouridated water (at least in the Sharon Area)