Drs. Robert and Mandy Shearer, dentists in Soddy-Daisy, Tenn., supported water fluoridation at a May public meeting of the local water board. But they have maintained good relations with patients by avoiding a strong push for fluoridation, another compulsory government program that angers many people. (Photo Soddy-Daisy Smiles advertising mailer)
Area tooth doctors favor mass injection of water supplies by fluoride, but they’re keeping their lips sealed during the debate in North Hamilton County.
Soddy-Daisy dental couple Drs. Robert and Mandy Shearer decline to make a statement about fluoride, and Dr. Nick Bowman, in a nearby office, refuses to make a public statement about fluoride. All three attended a water board meeting in May to show dentist support for fluoride.
By David Tulis
These dentists leave fluoridation defense to Dr. Brian Schenck, head of the Chattanooga Area Dental Society, a man who speaks cautiously and succinctly in an interview.
“Our opinion is that we feel that keeping fluoride in the water system is advantageous to the health of the customers — the dental health,” says Dr. Schenck, a Hixson dental surgeon. “Fluoride has been shown over the years — which is 70 plus years that it’s been in public water systems — to reduce the rate of dental decay. And that’s why we feel that it’s advantageous to keep in the water.”
The North West Utility District board is voting July 19 on a recommendation by the general manager, David Collett, that it cease adding fluoride. His grounds are that the acid is not required by any law, damages equipment, risks the health of water treatment plant staff, and is put into drinking water without the district’s receiving legal immunity against litigation over health damage. (Please send a comment to the link above.)
Dr. Brian Schenck
Dr. Schenck is content with fluoride’s unquestioned drip into water pipes of 7,000 area customers. Its benefits should be delivered to individuals apart from any connection with or prescription from a dentist.
“We feel it is the best way for the public to be exposed to the benefits of the fluoride rather than having to go to a dentist to receive it.”
Yes, people get fluorocilicic acid by other means. Toothpaste contains fluoride, and dentists give fluoride supplements. “These are the two principle ways” apart from mass fluoridation, Dr. Schenck says.
Not a mass medication system
A dentist who wants a patient to ingest fluoride for tooth health asks him to take Florical, a supplement, available at Wal-Mart.
I ask him to discuss fluoride in the context of “mass medication as a policy priority serving public health.”
Dr. Schenck disagrees with the query at the outset. “I’m not familiar with your question.” Dr. Schenck says fluoride is not a form a medicine. “I wouldn’t call it medication. Fluoride is an ion that is found naturally in water at certain concentrations, so it is not a pharmacologic substance. So I wouldn’t call it mass medication.”
How would Dr. Schenck better describe fluoridation? “It is a public health initiative that alters the concentration of the naturally occurring fluoride to one that is beneficial to teeth.”
Does fluoride affect other bones in the body?
“It can,” Dr. Schenck says. “But I am not familiar with that piece of it as a medical doctor would be.” I ask about the comments in the initial hearing in which a dentist said fluoride alters bone growth in teeth, so would altered bone growth in other parts of the body be worth considering? “It doesn’t affect the bone growth in teeth,” Dr. Schenck says. “Because there’s no ‘bone structure’ in a tooth. A tooth of made up other calcified material, but not bone.”
Papers Dr. Schenck says he has read say fluoride can be incorporated into bone, but he has not read of “any significant effects” other than the mouth.
Reports give fluoride bought by manager David Collett for North West Utility District a “pass” for contaminants such as cadmium and arsenic. (Photo David Tulis)
The dosage problem
I ask about the varying dosage problem — a small child gets a more fluoride per pound of flesh from two glasses of water than an overweight adult. Is there a peril of overdosage?
“From what I’ve read,” Dr. Schenck says, “there is not because the dosage that is effective for a 150-pound man is safe also in a small child. It’s a very small amount that’s needed to positively affect the teeth. So both of the amounts those two persons ingesting the water it’s small in both of those cases. It’s small enough for the child to receive the benefit,” the 150 pound man doesn’t need a greater dosage to affect his teeth.
I ask if adults need fluoride in the water? There is benefit to adults, he replies. The chemical becomes incorporated in saliva and bathes the teeth, fortifying their surface against cavities.
Neither the group nor his practice receive state subsidies for the promotion of fluoride, he says.
Fluorides are industrial by-products of the phosphate fertilizer industry. Fluorides used by water districts such as that north of Chattanooga are not pharmaceutical-grade fluoride products or medicines. Until recently, all fluoridation chemicals were obtained from the wet scrubbing systems of the phosphate fertilizer industry in central Florida, according to Fluoride Action Network. “In recent years, however, an increasing number of water departments have begun purchasing their fluoride chemicals from China.”
Soddy-Daisy weighs fluoride peril: Other stories
Soddy-Daisy’s fluoride sellers keep toxic ingredient levels secret
4 reasons to halt fluoride injections in Soddy-Daisy water
The case for compulsory fluoridation as water board weighs risks
Fluoride corrodes plant, worries Soddy-Daisy operator
Strong hint from research: Fluoride damages small children
YouTube brief: Fluoride eats away fixtures, pipes, Soddy-Daisy water plant storage rooms
Fluoride pits concrete, corrodes pipes at Sale Creek plant; operator sick
Critics rip fluoride as peril in Soddy-Daisy, dentists tell board it toughens teeth
Tulis urges Hamilton County utility board to halt fluoridation of water
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Great article, thank you for printing the answers this dentist gave you. Several answers were concerning to me, for example his reply to your question about the dosage.
He does not address many issues like: Other sources of fluoride in a persons diet, how much water they drink and a person’s health conditions.
The CDC in 1999 themselves said the benefit from fluoride is topical so adding a contaminated industry by-product to the water should not be done! The fluoridation product is a contaminated industry by-product containing Lead.
There is NO safe level of Lead and this fluoridation product has Lead and it leaches Lead from the pipes. This dentist needs to look into these issues and sincerely question the unsafe ineffective fluoridation program.
I am guessing since the chemical company who provides fluoridation chemicals to the Soddy drinking water has not provided NWUD with a Letter of safety, the dentists of Soddy might not be so supportive of this outdated policy of community water fluoridation.
Hopefully, a dentist would not want industrial waste in their own drinking water that contained Lead and Arsenic.
It’s too bad that so many dentists are so misinformed about fluoridation.
We want to think they’re the “experts” and they let us down. Fluoride is unequivocally a medicine. The FDA has always said so. When it’s added to water it’s to deliver continual dental treatments to everyone who drinks the water and bathes in it.
Never mind that those chemicals from phosphate fertilizer production are not licensed for human consumption by anyone other than the water department that injects them into the water supply. And never mind that the treatment is useless.
That’s right, modern dental research shows that the action of fluoride is on TOOTH SURFACES. Swallowing it when teeth are forming or any other time is like drinking sunscreen to prevent sunburn. Ridiculous and unhealthy too.
And, for Dr. Schenck’s edification, in the olden days when fluoridation was started, One part per million seemed like a tiny amount. But much more is known about toxicology today. Now toxins are measured in parts per billion.
One part per million equals a thousand parts per billion. The absolute limit for lead in drinking water is 15 parts per billion. Nowadays folks like Dr. Schenck are recommending 700 parts per billion of fluoride in your water.
Fluoride is as toxic as lead and it accumulates in the body like lead. That “little bit” of fluoride Dr. Schenck wants to put in your water is 46 times the amount of lead you would allow in the water you drink. It doesn’t make sense.
Fluoridation is for cranks and crackpots. When you want to put fluoride on your teeth grab your toothbrush and a tube of fluoride toothpaste.
Great article David – Since tooth decay is still considered a silent epidemic by the surgeon general, despite decades of fluoridation, it is obvious that it doesn’t work. See http://www.ourdailydosefilm.com for a great short documentary on the history of fluoridation chemicals, and why we should be voting to stop this antiquated unethical practice of adding a known endocrine disruptor to our drinking water!
For a reputable organization of dentists who are publishing the facts about fluoride visit the http://www.IAOMT.org https://iaomt.org/for-patients/fluoride-facts/ the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology
In Tennessee there are approximately 458 water systems. Out of these water systems, 274 (60%) fluoridate their water and 184 (40%) do not add fluoride to the water.
Fluoridation is a choice by the water district or city council. It is not mandated by the TN state government or the Federal government. The FDA does not approve it as a drug for ingestion. The EPA does not approve adding it to water. The CDC (specifically the oral health division made up of dentists – ADA and NDA) supports it 100% but not for children under 8 years old. The effect, if any, is topical only.
Dentists need to take responsibility for their own practice and patients ONLY.
My dentist, supports me not drinking Fluoridated water and is happy I do not use Fluoridated toothpaste because these measures have cut down on plaque build-up and brown staining on my teeth.
Dental Fluorosis is considered only a cosmetic effect that should not bother people. I sincerely doubt any dentist would be pleased if his car was damaged only cosmetically. I am guessing he would want the rust removed or the bumper replaced or the keyed paint corrected.
What dentist here in Soddy Daisy will take responsibility for any harm to members of their community due to Fluoride ingestion? Apparently none by the refusal to be interviewed.
The science behind fluoridating water has not been updated in more than 50 years, and when you ask to see the science behind it, no one knows seems to know where to find it.
Since the government first implemented the practice of fluoridation, they have never since that time approved a study on the long term effects of ingesting and bathing in fluoridated water. When private studies are done by independent scientists, these are rejected by the government because the government did not initiate them. The private studies have no agenda except getting to the truth.
Most European countries have stopped the fluoridation of water supplies, and the data show no difference in dental health when compared to fluoridated populations. After taking patients off fluoridated water, as many physicians have, my doctor has seen improvements in the overall health of his patients, and has instructed all of us to NEVER drink fluoridated water, as he has found that it blocks proper thyroid production, among other things.
Most water districts use Fluorosilicic acid, a waste product of the phosphate fertilizer industry which is heavily contaminated with toxins and heavy metals. Not Calcium Fluoride or even Sodium Fluoride as one might think. Have you ever asked a water company employee about fluoride? They have to wear a hazmat suit to handle the Fluorosilicic acid and comply with toxic waste regulations if they need to get rid of it.
My conclusion?
The government is using our water supply as a toxic waste dump and charging us to do it. Dig a well or move to a non-fluoridated community! If you think you need fluoride, get a prescription. But don’t hang on to bad public policy just because you’ve been doing it for more than 50 years.
It’s too bad that so many dentists, like the one quoted in this article, are so misinformed about fluoridation. We want to think they’re the “experts” and they let us down. Fluoride is unequivocally a medicine. The FDA has always said so. When it’s added to water it’s to deliver continual non-consensual dental treatments to everyone who drinks the water and bathes in it. Never mind that those chemicals from phosphate fertilizer production are not approved for human consumption by anyone other than the water department that injects them into the water supply. And never mind that the treatment is useless.
That’s right, modern dental research shows that the action of fluoride is on TOOTH SURFACES. Swallowing it when teeth are forming or any other time is like drinking sunscreen to prevent sunburn. Nonsensical, and unhealthy too.
Nearly a century ago when fluoridation was started, diluting those industrial fluoride chemicals to a concentration of One Part Per Million seemed like a tiny amount. But much more is known about toxicology today. Now toxins are measured in Parts Per Billion. One Part Per Million equals One Thousand Parts Per Billion.
The absolute limit for lead in drinking water is 15 Parts Per Billion. Nowadays fluoridation is supposed to add 700 Parts Per Billion of fluoride to your water. Fluoride is as acutely toxic as lead and it accumulates in the body like lead. That “little bit” of fluoride they want to put in your water is 46 times the amount of lead you would allow in the water you drink. When you stop to think about it, it doesn’t make any sense. When you want to put fluoride on your teeth all you have to do is grab your toothbrush and a tube of fluoride toothpaste. And then rinse and spit it out!
Where is this dentist getting his information? Even the CDC abandoned the saliva bathing teeth myth around the turn of the century. That he “doesn’t know” and is commenting “from what I have read” and recommends getting medical advice from a medical doctor should be big red flags that these dentists are political campaigners, not scientists with the credentials to discuss whole health impacts.
Here is something for him and everyone else to read from May 2016. This peer-reviewed research published in an international journal on gastroenterology not only documented that the number of cases of Irritable Bowel Disease (like Crohn’s) shot up in communities in several different countries immediately after fluoridation began, but also that frequent tooth brushing is associated with IBD…. Obviously, it doesn’t do this to everyone just like not everyone is allergic to milk or cats…. but some of us, particularly those of us with allergies ARE sensitive. The quality of our lives matter. Brush your teeth with it if it doesn’t bother you, but don’t assume it’s safe for your neighbor with kidney disease, his pregnant wife or his daughter with allergies.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27199224