Is fluoride safe? Is the answer you hold on fluoride the truth or did you repeat what someone told you? Do you think fluoride is safe because your dentist told you? I remember that during my public schooling many teachers repeated the concept of fluoride’s link to dental health but how much research did that teacher conduct personally into fluoride? Was my teacher just repeating what they were told by a parent, another teacher when they were a child or from a dental commercial they watched on TV? Did the teacher conduct any full spectrum research (both sides) into the fluoride debate or do teachers only repeat what they’re told? What are the facts and what is repeated as fact, without any research conducted into the debate?

Are the dentists just repeating what they’re told? Is it logical to believe that every dental student conducted a full blown double blind controlled study regarding fluoride’s effect on dental health or is safer to assume that each student was told that fluoride reduces cavities and that they then walk into the world repeating that idea as fact? What about the people on the local Cornwall radio show or in the local newspaper (in my community) when they declared keeping the fluoride in the water was the right decision. Repeating or researched commentary?

Do you think fluoride is unhealthy because you read a post on facebook that prior to and during WWII the invading German government pumped fluoride into the public water supplies of besieged towns because of fluoride’s famous sedating effect? (therefore making the population of the town easier to conquer, rule and control) This idea is easily confirmed as fact but who really knows for sure as I wasn’t there personally to see it. Do you think fluoride is unhealthy because medical professional after medical professional can be found on websites like www.fluoridealert.org stating openly that fluoride does everything from lowering IQ to initiating cancer spread and from decreasing dental health to damaging the detoxification path ways of the body?

Do I know the truth about fluoride? I only know my version of the truth and I basically repeat what I hear from my peers on the healthy side of fence. I haven’t conducted any double blind studies on the subject either. I seek out my health based peers and repeat what they say (after I conduct full spectrum research) so I’m just a repeater as well but I also know a simple test about truth in general that I will share with you today. That test is easy and can be applied by anyone to assess if anything they hear is true or not. It’s a great test for sure and it helps me out in many situations. There’s one primary characteristic that all truth has, which a lie can’t hold or have. If you know what characteristic that is, that truth has and a lie can’t have, then you can quickly assess when someone is telling you the truth and when someone is piling it high and wide.

The group on my side of the fence doesn’t believe poison is good for the body or the environment and if there’s something that both sides agree on it’s that fluoride is a poison, as it is the main ingredient in many rodenticides. (poison used to kill rodents) The pro fluoride side is well aware of the poisonous and toxic effect of fluoride because the bags of fluoride that arrive at the Cornwall water treatment plant do arrive with the conventional hazardous material warnings on the packaging. When the fluoride is handled, the person touching it must wear protective clothing and if the fluoride is spilled, hazardous and dangerous waste protocols are used.

When’s the last time you witnessed a hazardous warning symbol on a head of broccoli at the grocery store? When is the last time a clean up at the local farmer’s market required a full hazardous material protocol and if it did, would you be eager to eat that food? Up to just a couple years ago it was common for all tubes of fluoride toothpaste to warn parents about how much toothpaste the child was allowed to use. A warning to contact the poison control center was always listed if the child consumed larger than recommended amounts. A poison control warning means it’s poison. Simple stuff.

If someone repeats what ever they hear, they’re just repeating it (including me) and it doesn’t really count as truth unless the declaration holds one characteristic that a lie can’t hold. Truth (the real truth), regardless of topic holds one primary marker that will always let you know that it is the truth.

In the next article I will discuss what primary characteristic that truth holds (which I lie can’t) and then we will apply that simple test to the claim that fluoride is good for our teeth and see what happens.