Speaker 1: It is now twenty five years since the late Trenley
Speaker 1: Dean and I journeyed by train from Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: To Grand Rapids, Michigan, to be joined by Philip Jay
Speaker 1: for a meeting with the mayor to gain his approval
Speaker 1: for a water fluoridation experiment. There were no signs of apprehension,
Speaker 1: of daring or of pioneering. There was no suggestion that
Speaker 1: we were being foolhardy in subjecting a population of one
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty thousand people to a procedure which might
Speaker 1: have either short or long range hazards. We were merely
Speaker 1: replicating Nature's best based on an extensive background of study
Speaker 1: data in Nature's laboratory. In the United States alone, some
Speaker 1: seven million people in one thousand, nine hundred communities had,
Speaker 1: throughout life used drinking water which was naturally fluoridated with
Speaker 1: a fluoride concentration of zero point seven parts per million
Speaker 1: or more. We knew what too much floride did, We
Speaker 1: knew what too little did. We knew what the optimum
Speaker 1: amount was, and we had reassurance that one part per
Speaker 1: million fluoride in the drinking water had the same biological
Speaker 1: effect whether it got there from flowing over rocks or
Speaker 1: from a feeding machine. Twenty five years ago, there were
Speaker 1: no anti fluoridationists to becloud the issue or distort our efforts.
Speaker 1: The opponents of fluoridation act collectively as merchants of fear
Speaker 1: and doubt, implicating fluoride as either causing or exacerbating virtually
Speaker 1: every disease and biologic malfunction known to mankind. They discovered
Speaker 1: early that the public referendum method afforded them excellent opportunities
Speaker 1: to exploit fear and doubt while posing as protectors of
Speaker 1: human rights and religious freedom. The anti fluoridationists sought opportunities
Speaker 1: to engage us in debate on the platform.
Speaker 2: On radio, and on television.
Speaker 1: In retrospect, it is clear that it took us much
Speaker 1: too long to learn that these public debates, these confrontation dialogues,
Speaker 1: increased confusion rather than understanding, and thereby helped serve the
Speaker 1: cause of the anti floridationists. On July twenty seventh, nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine, the Assembly of the World Health Organization, at
Speaker 1: its annual meeting in Boston, endorsed water fluoridation. This endorsement
Speaker 1: adds another asset of great potential use that potential will
Speaker 1: not be activated, however, unless it engenders commitment and political
Speaker 1: action by the proponents of water fluoridation. It has been
Speaker 1: said that only a fool learns from his own mistakes.
Speaker 1: You are invited to escape that classification by learning from
Speaker 1: the mistakes committed by me and my colleagues during the
Speaker 1: past twenty five years.
Speaker 3: Aaron, Yeah, that's very interesting, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that is a like a reflection article about
Speaker 1: fluoridation after twenty five years by one of the people
Speaker 1: who led the charge, John Knutsen, and that paper was
Speaker 1: published in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sometime it's just it's fastating to me. I think
Speaker 1: also the reflection of like, we made mistakes.
Speaker 2: We made mistakes by not being by by just.
Speaker 1: Assuming that the public would accept facts and science, right yeah, Like, yeah, we.
Speaker 2: Have science on our side, but that doesn't.
Speaker 3: Really do mean all that much, right Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's so it was really interesting the whole the
Speaker 1: whole paper is very interesting to read.
Speaker 4: I also I love that I tell my five year
Speaker 4: old that all the time, I'm like, you could learn
Speaker 4: from our mistake. We're just trying for you to learn
Speaker 4: from our mistakes. So that you don't have to make
Speaker 4: the same way. It doesn't work with the five year old.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it works with grown ups either.
Speaker 2: No, certainly, not rarely. Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh.
Speaker 3: And I'm Aaron Aman updight.
Speaker 2: And this is this podcast will kill you.
Speaker 4: Welcome to episode one of two on fluoride.
Speaker 2: Fluoride. There's a lot there.
Speaker 1: We wanted to get it all, you know, out in
Speaker 1: the open, the full story.
Speaker 4: I am really excited about this. We split this episode
Speaker 4: into two episodes, this series. We're making a series out
Speaker 4: of it, very much like we did with raw milk.
Speaker 4: So today I just get to listen. I'm so excited
Speaker 4: about that. I mean, well, you tell us all about
Speaker 4: the history of fluoridation and how we got to where
Speaker 4: we are today, and then next week I'll go through
Speaker 4: what the heck is a cavity anyway?
Speaker 1: What is? Yeah?
Speaker 4: And what do we know about the like biological effects
Speaker 4: of fluoride?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, wait, I am really excited.
Speaker 1: I mean, like it's it's very funny to me because
Speaker 1: when I was doing this and I'll tell you more
Speaker 1: about this like in the actual episode. Yeah, but the
Speaker 1: parallels between raw milk and fluoride are just off the
Speaker 1: charts where I'm like.
Speaker 3: I expect nothing less.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel also very anti vaccine too, Like it's
Speaker 4: all the things and it's all the same playbook.
Speaker 3: Like we've talked about you and I a lot, Yes.
Speaker 2: The playbook. That's what I think reading that paper.
Speaker 1: It's funny because like we talk about this in our
Speaker 1: in our presentations, where we're like, this is how disinformation spreaders.
Speaker 1: This is the strategies they use a debate equal sides
Speaker 1: or equal time to both sides, And I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, there were so many other things, just like
Speaker 1: fear and doubt, and then I think the other scientists. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the other thing being in action that like people don't
Speaker 1: feel well informed enough about fluoride because it is a
Speaker 1: really complex scientific topic to vote at all. So then
Speaker 1: even if they might be pro fluoridation, they're like, but
Speaker 1: it feels safer to not vote, feels safer to not
Speaker 1: vaccinate despite what we know anyway, Right, there's something because.
Speaker 4: It feels like not doing something is like not for
Speaker 4: taking a side, when in.
Speaker 3: Fact it is a side.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's and getting people to like be pro
Speaker 1: flora and not just like you know, indifferent is really
Speaker 1: like pulling teeth, is it? Eric?
Speaker 2: Did you like that? I was really good.
Speaker 3: Your face was so straight when you said it.
Speaker 2: I was trying to find the best transition to quarantiny dime.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's quarantine It's quarantina dime.
Speaker 1: We're drinking, pulling teeth. I love it, pulling teeth, pulling teeth.
Speaker 1: It is what's in it? It's delicious, it is. It's
Speaker 1: got elderflower, liqueur mint, prosecco mint because like you know, freshness.
Speaker 2: Persecution paste, soda water.
Speaker 1: Yeah, bring a little toothpist. Don't consume toothpaste?
Speaker 2: Do you not know?
Speaker 5: It's a great little summary, refreshing bev and we'll post
Speaker 5: the full quarantini recipe as well as the non alcoholic
Speaker 5: placey Berrita on our website This podcast will kill You
Speaker 5: dot com, as well as on all of our social
Speaker 5: media channels, which if you're not following us on those.
Speaker 3: You should be shuck it out. We're there.
Speaker 2: We are.
Speaker 4: Also, if you haven't yet rated, reviewed, and subscribed on
Speaker 4: whatever platform that you love to listen where you're listening
Speaker 4: right now, do so.
Speaker 3: We'd love it. It would appreciate We would appreciate it.
Speaker 4: If you're not already subscribed to the exactly right YouTube channel,
Speaker 4: you could do that as well too.
Speaker 3: We're there, We're there.
Speaker 1: We're also we have a website, but you listened to
Speaker 1: episodes before you know what's there.
Speaker 2: Let's just get still, hap it.
Speaker 3: This podcast will kill you dot com.
Speaker 1: Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, and hello. Well we'll get started just
Speaker 1: after this short break. Born in eighteen seventy four, Frederick
Speaker 1: McKay had spent his childhood, like many others, in his
Speaker 1: hometown of Milford, Massachusetts. He worked in his father's dry
Speaker 1: goods store. He played in bands, he went to school.
Speaker 1: But when he turned sixteen, he noticed that something felt off.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was a lingering cough, maybe it was night sweats,
Speaker 1: persistent fever. The diagnosis tuberculosis. Like many others at this time,
Speaker 1: I mean tuberculosis, was rampant. He sought to cure his
Speaker 1: disease with a better climate, dry air, so he traveled
Speaker 1: to Colorado Springs, where he recuperated for a while until
Speaker 1: he felt well enough to move back to Massachusetts. Upon
Speaker 1: returning to the northeast, he decided on a life of dentistry,
Speaker 1: and just as he was completing his education, McKay's tuberculosis
Speaker 1: flared up again, driving him back west, where he set
Speaker 1: up his dental practice in Colorado Springs in nineteen oh one.
Speaker 1: I think he was like, there's no point in me,
Speaker 1: Like I should just stay out west forever, right, okay?
Speaker 1: And before long after his arrival there, he began to
Speaker 1: notice an unusual pattern in the teeth of some of
Speaker 1: his patients. And even just like talking to people around town,
Speaker 1: he noticed this something on their teeth, and this was
Speaker 1: not anything that he had come across in his dental training.
Speaker 1: Their teeth were streaky with brown or yellow spots, something
Speaker 1: that he called modeled enamel and that the locals called
Speaker 1: Colorado stain or Colorado brown stain, which was a term
Speaker 1: not entirely welcomed by city officials who were trying to
Speaker 1: get people to come to the Springs, not repel them.
Speaker 1: And so McKay got kind of obsessed with the mystery
Speaker 1: of modeled enamel, like what the heck was causing it?
Speaker 2: And why did no one know about it?
Speaker 1: Why was this not in any dental textbook that he
Speaker 1: had come across. Other local dentists knew about it, and
Speaker 1: they weren't all that interested, and they just kind of
Speaker 1: figured well, specific to the Colorado region. It was kind
Speaker 1: of like, yeah, we've seen it before.
Speaker 4: How interesting to not to just be like, yeah, this
Speaker 4: is how it is here. But I guess if you
Speaker 4: have no other frame of reference, so it makes sense.
Speaker 4: He like trained in one place, came to somewhere else
Speaker 4: and was like this is different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah exactly. He was like, what do you mean.
Speaker 2: This is not like, this is not what people this
Speaker 2: is not just like yeah.
Speaker 1: But when he so he briefly moved Mackay briefly moved
Speaker 1: to Saint Louis, and that's when he was like confirmed
Speaker 1: for him, Okay, this is not like a nationwide issue.
Speaker 1: This is something that is specific to the Colorado region.
Speaker 1: And so when he moved back to Colorado again tuberculosis driven,
Speaker 1: he was like, Okay, someone's got to get to the
Speaker 1: bottom of this. I guess it has to be me.
Speaker 1: I think secretly he was like, oh my gosh, I
Speaker 1: really want to know what's happening here. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so the first.
Speaker 1: Steps too solving this puzzle were raising awareness, which he
Speaker 1: did by attending various regional and state dental meetings, sometimes
Speaker 1: with a patient in tow to be like Colorado bound,
Speaker 1: these teeth open up.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also just by getting a sense of the incidents
Speaker 1: and the geographical scope of the issue, which he did
Speaker 1: by examining children in Colorado Springs public schools, eighty seven
Speaker 1: point five percent of the kids had modeled teeth.
Speaker 3: Wow, okay, huge.
Speaker 2: That's a huge proportion.
Speaker 1: McKay's efforts made it clear that there was a real
Speaker 1: issue here that was worth looking into. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: like a local curiosity. This was affecting a great number
Speaker 1: of people's lives. And as McKay cast a wider net,
Speaker 1: traveling around the state to look for more cases and
Speaker 1: receiving help from dentists across the country, he realized that
Speaker 1: the Colorado stain was not at all limited to Colorado
Speaker 1: or even the US. I think there was like another
Speaker 1: term for it. I wish I'd written this down in Texas.
Speaker 1: It was like maybe like Texas teeth or something like that.
Speaker 1: There are for some communities that models yeah, or modeled enamel.
Speaker 1: And so this this finding that it was like much
Speaker 1: more widespread, and he was like, okay, there's got to
Speaker 1: be what is driving this. It led him to team
Speaker 1: up with a the dean of Northwestern University's dental school,
Speaker 1: whose name was doctor Green Black, which is hilarious to
Speaker 1: me that it's Yeah, and they wanted to partner to
Speaker 1: systematically study, like what was happening with the stain at
Speaker 1: the tissue level.
Speaker 2: You know, what is the stain.
Speaker 1: Coming, where's it coming from, what is it in there? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then try to find its root cause. As they
Speaker 1: collected more samples and more data on where and how
Speaker 1: the staining occurred, one.
Speaker 2: Thing stuck out to them.
Speaker 1: Even though the enamel on modeled teeth was rough and uneven,
Speaker 1: that didn't seem to make the teeth more susceptible to decay,
Speaker 1: which is what they would have predicted. In fact, what
Speaker 1: they noticed after examining thousands of patients was that decay
Speaker 1: was much lower in people with modeled enamel than it
Speaker 1: was in other populations. I mean this could be huge,
Speaker 1: Like this finding had huge implications, except they still didn't
Speaker 1: know what caused the modeling. Okay, but they had a suspicion. Okay,
Speaker 1: it was in the water.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: In his investigations, McKay had seen that children who lived
Speaker 1: elsewhere for the first two to three years of their
Speaker 1: life before moving to a modeled teeth area were not affected.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So he also noticed that basically all members of a community,
Speaker 1: regardless of their diet, whether they were rich or poor,
Speaker 1: where their house was, they.
Speaker 2: All had modeled teeth.
Speaker 1: He added stronger evidence to the water hypothesis when he
Speaker 1: visited a dentist in South Dakota who had reached out
Speaker 1: asking for McKay's advice on the modeling that he saw
Speaker 1: in his own town. And it turned out that the
Speaker 1: town had switched their water supply eighteen years prior. And
Speaker 1: you could draw a sharp line between those born before
Speaker 1: the switch, no modeling, and those born after lots of modeling.
Speaker 2: Ooh right, really.
Speaker 1: And so over the next fifteen years, McKay continued his
Speaker 1: search for the answer and had by the late nineteen
Speaker 1: twenties accumulated ample evidence that the water held the key.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: The final piece of the puzzle fell into place when
Speaker 1: McKay was sent by the US Public Health Service to
Speaker 1: a small town in Arkansas called Box Site. And this
Speaker 1: is a mining community built for employees of the Aluminum
Speaker 1: Company of America ALCOA. In nineteen oh nine, Box Site
Speaker 1: had switched their water from shallow wells to a deep
Speaker 1: well and kids born after the switch had extremely modeled enamel. Okay,
Speaker 1: this was not welcome news for Alcoa, the company, the
Speaker 1: aluminum company, who was already under fire from claims that
Speaker 1: their aluminum cookwaar was toxic. They were like, this is
Speaker 1: going to be used as evidence that we're poisoning the
Speaker 1: water too.
Speaker 2: Now, like everyone's gonna hate us even more.
Speaker 1: And so the chief chemist of Alcoa examined the water
Speaker 1: for rare elements using sophisticated tech not readily available, and
Speaker 1: he wrote to McKay about what he had found. Quote,
Speaker 1: we have discovered the presence of hitherto unsuspected constituents in
Speaker 1: this water. The high fluorine content was so unexpected that
Speaker 1: a new sample was taken with extreme precautions, and again
Speaker 1: the test showed fluorine in the water. They detected fluorine
Speaker 1: at a level of thirteen point seven parts per million.
Speaker 3: That's very high.
Speaker 4: Very high.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: For context, the recommendation today is point seven parts per million,
Speaker 1: and it used to be one, but then it was
Speaker 1: revised downward so that point seven recommendation is enough to
Speaker 1: protect against decay but too low to cause fluorosis.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, and seven that's quite quite.
Speaker 2: A lot higher, very very high. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So but this was also this was not necessarily it's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting I came across this leader, but this
Speaker 1: is not necessarily the first time that florine had been
Speaker 1: linked to this.
Speaker 2: But for some reason.
Speaker 1: McKay either like missed, like missed the memo on those
Speaker 1: or just like didn't it didn't seem as compelling as
Speaker 1: this example here, And so then McKay like this really
Speaker 1: was like whoa, this seems like this seems pretty strong,
Speaker 1: right at least like suggestive, right right, right, Like we
Speaker 1: should look look into this, and so that's that's what
Speaker 1: he did. He sent additional samples from other endemic areas
Speaker 1: where there was a lot of modeled enamel, and yes,
Speaker 1: the results were like okay, this every single one of
Speaker 1: these places where there is high teeth like high modeling,
Speaker 1: the fluorine levels are high either, you know, ranged from
Speaker 1: two parts per million in Colorado Springs to twelve in Kidder.
Speaker 2: South Dakota.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: The US Public Health Service was pretty excited and worried
Speaker 1: about these results, which like historically they were not they
Speaker 1: didn't seem that interested in it. Ok But now this
Speaker 1: was finally like, okay, we have we have something to
Speaker 1: go on here.
Speaker 4: Right way, way, we have some data here and not
Speaker 4: just like observational stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And so they sent a young dental officer, doctor H.
Speaker 1: Trendley Dean, to get a clearer picture of the relationship
Speaker 1: between fluoride and modeling, and in his investigation he found
Speaker 1: that not only was there a clear relationship between the
Speaker 1: degree of modeling and fluorine concentration, which was like kind
Speaker 1: of like a dose, like there was like a continuous
Speaker 1: relationship essentially, he also observed the striking connection between florine
Speaker 1: and dental carries. In children who lived where the water
Speaker 1: supply had zero point six to one point five parts
Speaker 1: per million, only four to five percent were carries free, okay,
Speaker 1: Whereas in areas where the water was one point seven
Speaker 1: to two point five parts per million, twenty two percent
Speaker 1: were carries free.
Speaker 2: So like five times got it more carries.
Speaker 4: So the higher the concentration of fluorine than the more
Speaker 4: kids had no cavities whatsoever.
Speaker 2: Right, the higher the protective ability. Yeah okay.
Speaker 1: And then there was a study of twenty one cities
Speaker 1: that showed that children age twelve to fourteen that had
Speaker 1: grown up in a city with point five parts per
Speaker 1: million or less had on average more than seven decayed,
Speaker 1: missing and filled permanent teeth.
Speaker 2: These are kids age twelve to fourteen.
Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Further studies showed that the carries protection provided by fluoride
Speaker 1: plateaued around one part per million, which is a level
Speaker 1: that only led to quote sporadic instances of the mildest
Speaker 1: forms of dental fluorosis of no practical esthetic significance. So
Speaker 1: it was like, Okay, we don't need to add more,
Speaker 1: and we're not going to add We're not going to
Speaker 1: get more protection if we add more.
Speaker 2: If we add more, we're just going to get dental staining.
Speaker 3: Got it?
Speaker 1: And so Dean concluded in nineteen thirty eight, quote inasmuch
Speaker 1: as it appears that the mineral composition of the drinking
Speaker 1: water may have an important bearing on the incidence of
Speaker 1: dental carries in a community, the possibility of partially controlling
Speaker 1: dental carries through the domestic water supply warrants thorough epidemiological
Speaker 1: chemical study and yeah, on board. So, nearly four decades
Speaker 1: after a tuberculosis flare up sent doctor Frederick Mackay back
Speaker 1: West where he embarked on unraveling the mystery of model teeth.
Speaker 1: Dentistry in the US and around the globe was about
Speaker 1: to undergo a massive transition where prevention now occurred alongside
Speaker 1: restoration as the primary goal. Previously, it wasn't really possible,
Speaker 1: like there wasn't enough known about what causes tooth decay
Speaker 1: to interest and to enact any sort of preventative measures.
Speaker 4: So this also, like this finding also allowed for just
Speaker 4: like preventive dentistry period period which is now like the
Speaker 4: cornerstone of dentistry.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, yeah, But as we'll see, not everyone welcomed
Speaker 1: this change, and some actively fought against it.
Speaker 3: Classic classic.
Speaker 1: So next week erin you're going to take us through
Speaker 1: more of the nitty gritty biology of how dental carees
Speaker 1: forms and what floride does to reduce decay. But I
Speaker 1: want to take some time here to talk about dental
Speaker 1: carries over history, because what else am.
Speaker 2: I going to get to do this?
Speaker 1: And plus, like any opportunity to talk about paleopathology, even
Speaker 1: the littlest.
Speaker 2: Bit is fun.
Speaker 1: So humans and many other species have been impacted by
Speaker 1: dental caries since well before we were humans. Of course,
Speaker 1: fish hundreds of millions of years ago, dinosaurs tens of
Speaker 1: millions of years ago.
Speaker 4: Stop it, wait wait, wait, wait, we have like fossil
Speaker 4: dinosaur teeth with cavities.
Speaker 2: Oh I love that, I know.
Speaker 1: I know also our hominid and relatives and ancestors. Wild
Speaker 1: animals today like bears get carries. Are domestic animals like dogs.
Speaker 1: I mean carries for all right, So let me just
Speaker 1: take a second here to define what carries is.
Speaker 2: Essentially, it's tooth decay. So the hard.
Speaker 1: Enamel on the surface of a tooth begins to wear
Speaker 1: down and the inner soft dentin gets exposed and slowly decays,
Speaker 1: sometimes reaching the pulp cavity. The initial hit that enamel
Speaker 1: loss is helped along by bacteria in our mouth producing
Speaker 1: acid fluoride, by the way, acts to help strengthen that enamel.
Speaker 1: And so that's how it protects us from carries and
Speaker 1: a cavity. Just to distinguish, because I was like, what
Speaker 1: is the.
Speaker 4: Difference cavity versus carry? In fact you're doing this, I
Speaker 4: don't have two next week, okay.
Speaker 1: I mean the cavity is essentially when that tooth decay
Speaker 1: turns into a hole.
Speaker 2: So that's it. Like it's like.
Speaker 4: Carries the first initial bit, and then a cavity.
Speaker 1: Carries is well okay, now I'm not entirely sure if
Speaker 1: it's like more of a general term or just like
Speaker 1: like carries is tooth decay and cavities is specific to
Speaker 1: when there's like tissue loss maybe or like when there's
Speaker 1: a whole formed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, and so.
Speaker 1: Given that carries affects teeth and teeth stick around for
Speaker 1: a long time after we die, we can make some
Speaker 1: judgments on how the prevalence of carries has changed over
Speaker 1: human history, Okay, and it certainly has in ways you
Speaker 1: can probably predict. So in general, dental carries increased as
Speaker 1: humans moved from a hunter gatherer lifestyle to agriculture. And
Speaker 1: you can see this with different groups, like in the
Speaker 1: same region or era. Right, So as some groups, let's
Speaker 1: say you have like a similar region in the same
Speaker 1: time period, some groups are still mostly hunter gathering and
Speaker 1: some are farming. You can see within those groups even changesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah okay, and.
Speaker 1: So yeah, those that incorporated more farming and carbohydrates into
Speaker 1: their lifestyle had more.
Speaker 3: Carries kinds of the foods they were eating exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, specifically, carbohydrates like cereals and potatoes and so on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep, yeah.
Speaker 2: And I mean things that I love so much.
Speaker 1: And this pattern continues today as groups adopt quote unquote
Speaker 1: Western diets, their rates of carries increase.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's put some numbers to this.
Speaker 1: If we look at the percentage of individuals within a
Speaker 1: population that have carries, let's say like Europe, we can
Speaker 1: go back to around forty five hundred BCE, which is
Speaker 1: post agricultural revolution, so rates are already higher than historically,
Speaker 1: and around that time we around twenty nine percent of
Speaker 1: adults impacted. Okay, this percentage rises and falls, so goes
Speaker 1: up to like thirty six percent around fifteen hundred BCE,
Speaker 1: back down to the upper twenties percentages closer to the
Speaker 1: first century C. We see another rise in the seventh
Speaker 1: century to fifty six percent, which is when our fine
Speaker 1: sugar became a commercial product. Apparently interesting, and today global
Speaker 1: values are over ninety five percent.
Speaker 3: I was going to say twenty percent.
Speaker 6: That sounds so love I know, yeah, wow, yeah.
Speaker 1: We know that it's diet causing this, but how okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna read you a quote because this
Speaker 1: does it better than I could do it.
Speaker 2: It's from a book chapter quote.
Speaker 1: A caryogenic diet, as in one that produces produces more
Speaker 1: carry carries has been defined by the following features. Frequent
Speaker 1: intake of meals with a high content of carbohydrates, quickly
Speaker 1: fermentable mainly sucrose, with retentive and sticky consistence that produces
Speaker 1: repetitive lowering of pH values and changes in the ecology
Speaker 1: of dental plaque end quote. More sugar, more carbs like
Speaker 1: potatoes and cereals equals more a lesions and faster development
Speaker 1: of lesions.
Speaker 3: Right in different microbiome in your mouth.
Speaker 1: Different microbiome in your mouth, totally, and so since the
Speaker 1: advent of agriculture to the mid twentieth century, it's like
Speaker 1: we were hurtling towards the state where carries was omnipresent
Speaker 1: and unavoidable.
Speaker 2: For centuries, carries and.
Speaker 1: Other dental woes had featured in medical texts, along with
Speaker 1: some creative treatments, including the Ebers Papyrus, but dentists were
Speaker 1: largely powerless to prevent the development of tooth decay, and
Speaker 1: so their efforts focused on restoration and keeping things from
Speaker 1: getting worse. Even after germ theory helped to make the
Speaker 1: connection between acid producing bacteria and tooth decay and also
Speaker 1: diet and acid producing bacteria. There wasn't much that they
Speaker 1: could do to prevent carries, just treat it when it happened. Also,
Speaker 1: I've never thought about germ theory in the context of
Speaker 1: dental care and like knowledge about me.
Speaker 2: Heather's right, isn't that wild?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Love it me too?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And so so there it was mostly.
Speaker 1: Dental care was focused on, was focused on restoration, were
Speaker 1: even like maybe detection or measuring the rate of progress
Speaker 1: through like X ray technology, which was new as of
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century, late eighteen hundreds, And that was
Speaker 1: the case until.
Speaker 2: Fluoride, specifically water fluoridation.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 1: Also, Aaron, there are like so many more topics that
Speaker 1: we should do in dentistry that I like, I want
Speaker 1: to do, like gum health and certain diseases. You Like,
Speaker 1: I feel like I've seen that a lot braces grinding
Speaker 1: your teeth at night.
Speaker 2: Hello, I mean like there's just like.
Speaker 1: There's like so much that we could do. So that's
Speaker 1: just my petition for more dental episodes.
Speaker 4: Okay, I mean, you don't have to work hard to
Speaker 4: convince me. Although I always like doing these episodes, I
Speaker 4: get it's so so interesting how we don't learn any
Speaker 4: of this in medical school.
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's another thing I would love to learn about.
Speaker 1: When dentistry became a field.
Speaker 4: Right, and like, why is it so separate from quote
Speaker 4: unquote medicine, Like the rest of your body medicine. It's
Speaker 4: like eyes and teeth. We gotta pullmze and they're gonna
Speaker 4: be totally separate.
Speaker 1: We have separate insurances for eyes and teeth. They're part
Speaker 1: of our bodies.
Speaker 4: Yeah, why they're part of our overall health too, is
Speaker 4: part of your house.
Speaker 3: Then people come in with like a mouth complaint and
Speaker 3: I'm like, hullo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we should definitely, we should definitely do that, right.
Speaker 1: The history of dentistry, I would love it, Yes, Okay,
Speaker 1: but that was just the brief detour through the history
Speaker 1: of carries. And so we left off before this little
Speaker 1: detour in the late nineteen thirties with the knowledge that
Speaker 1: certain levels of floride in the water seemed to protect
Speaker 1: against tooth decay. So the obvious next step would be
Speaker 1: to implement that knowledge.
Speaker 3: That's what I would think happens next.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, it is what happens next.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen forty two, the US Public Health Service
Speaker 1: began talks with two cities in Michigan, Grand Rapids and Muskegon,
Speaker 1: to conduct an experiment with artificially fluoridating the water to
Speaker 1: one part per million, with Grand Rapids getting the fluoride
Speaker 1: and Muskegan acting as the control.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: The experiment was set.
Speaker 1: To begin on January first, nineteen forty five, and within
Speaker 1: a few days, foreshadowing what was to come in later decades,
Speaker 1: the complaints started rolling in rashes, rapid weight gain, headaches, tumors.
Speaker 1: I mean, fluoride was blamed for a wide variety of
Speaker 1: health issues of the residents in the residence of Grand Rapids.
Speaker 2: Okay, the thing was fluoridation hadn't actually started yet.
Speaker 3: But it was like they knew, so.
Speaker 2: Okay, it was coming. Yeah the residents.
Speaker 3: Did the residents like agree to this?
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I think it was like a like I agreed upon
Speaker 1: by the city officials.
Speaker 3: Okay, so they didn't.
Speaker 4: They didn't necessarily agree, but they knew that this was coming,
Speaker 4: and they had maybe like a start date or something
Speaker 4: on their calendars. And then they started having complaints about things,
Speaker 4: but they didn't actually, they hadn't actually started yet.
Speaker 1: Right, there was there was like an unexpected delay in
Speaker 1: the shipment or like the delivery of fluoride, and so
Speaker 1: it didn't get added to the water until January twenty fifth.
Speaker 1: But even before then people started to blame.
Speaker 3: Floride right in and complain about things.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Interesting, yeah, please keep going.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So there was no evidence, of course for the fluoride
Speaker 1: causing these complaints because florid wasn't in the water yet.
Speaker 1: And in fact, what the evidence did show was that
Speaker 1: fluoride was a safe and effective way to drastically reduce
Speaker 1: tooth decay in a population. I mean, like the first
Speaker 1: tand account said there were seven million people who were
Speaker 1: getting their water from naturally fluoridated sources, right, And there
Speaker 1: had been a lot of studies, I don't know all
Speaker 1: of the studies examining the different communities with and their health,
Speaker 1: you know, aspects those who were in floridated water those
Speaker 1: who did not have floridated water, and found pretty much
Speaker 1: that one of the only difference was the cavity protection.
Speaker 3: Or carry protection.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, okay, So how did this experiment go fifteen
Speaker 1: years after water fluoridation was introduced to Grand Rapids, the
Speaker 1: rate of decayed, missing and filled teeth in fifteen year
Speaker 1: old children had dropped fifty percent.
Speaker 3: Huge years.
Speaker 4: Also, like they're studying this fifteen years, so that's a
Speaker 4: long this is a very long term.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thing they wanted to make sure that it was
Speaker 1: actually worth implementing. The other thing too, is that and
Speaker 1: I don't know if I mentioned this or not, but
Speaker 1: systemic fluoride in order to like when your teeth and
Speaker 1: I know you'll get more.
Speaker 2: Into like this part of it.
Speaker 1: It is important in development when your teeth are developing,
Speaker 1: and so it would have taken a long time to
Speaker 1: see the benefits of that because these kids had to
Speaker 1: be born and then yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, although we'll talk more later. It's also topical, so
Speaker 4: it's like in your mouth, yes too, but.
Speaker 1: Yes, especially for kids systemics and then if it's in
Speaker 1: your saliva, it's washing over your teeth exactly, helping with enamel.
Speaker 1: But like for developing kids, to see those big effects
Speaker 1: in the reduction of carries was yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Especially because we're talking about very very low levels. It's
Speaker 4: not very the same as like the seilance that your
Speaker 4: dentists might be putting on your teeth, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yep.
Speaker 1: And and also just to kind of like bolster this,
Speaker 1: these findings, the data show that the tooth decay rates
Speaker 1: in fluoridated Grand rapids were similar to other regions with
Speaker 1: naturally fluoridated water. So it was like this, even though
Speaker 1: we are putting floride into this water, the effect is
Speaker 1: the same as places that have naturally fluoridated water.
Speaker 4: And we're doing it at this lower level than most
Speaker 4: of these natural sources at one part per million.
Speaker 1: Right, optimize the level, okay, And so the cause and
Speaker 1: effect relationship because before these I mean, these were highly
Speaker 1: suggestive correlative studies results like where it was like, okay,
Speaker 1: carries rates lower in area with higher floridation. But this
Speaker 1: actually showed like a cause and effect relation.
Speaker 4: You're doing a random size control trial rather than just
Speaker 4: an epidemiological observational study.
Speaker 2: Yes, science action.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this was also happening in other fluoridation experiments in
Speaker 1: cities in the US and Canada, in the UK, in
Speaker 1: New Zealand and elsewhere around the world. Other communities were
Speaker 1: floridating their water, and many cities and towns began floridating
Speaker 1: their water even before the results from Grand Rapids were out,
Speaker 1: because they felt that the safety and efficacy of floridation
Speaker 1: had already been proven. In nineteen fifty eight, the WHO
Speaker 1: released a report concluding that fluoride was an effective and
Speaker 1: feasible public health measure to reduce dental carries, and they
Speaker 1: followed that up a few years later with an expert
Speaker 1: panel tasked with reviewing the safety data of floridation. I'm
Speaker 1: going to read you a quote from their conclusion quote.
Speaker 1: The results have shown that for the climatic, nutritional, and
Speaker 1: environmental conditions under which the surveys have been carried out,
Speaker 1: a level of approximately one part per million fluoride in
Speaker 1: temperate climates has no harmful effects on the community. The
Speaker 1: margin of safety is such that it will cover any
Speaker 1: individual variation of intake to be found in such areas.
Speaker 2: End quote.
Speaker 1: So it's like someone's drinking a lot of water, they're
Speaker 1: still going to be fine. Someone's drinking not very much,
Speaker 1: They're still going to be fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yep.
Speaker 1: And so, starting in the nineteen sixties, with these promising results,
Speaker 1: cities and towns across the US and the rest of
Speaker 1: the world began floridating their water. Some states issued like
Speaker 1: a blanket fluoridation mandate, while others allowed communities to exempt
Speaker 1: themselves by popular vote. In nineteen eighty nine, one hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty five million Americans, So sixty two point one
Speaker 1: percent of the population we're getting fluoridated water from public
Speaker 1: systems at optimized levels. There were some more that were
Speaker 1: getting Florida Florida from or floridated water from naturally fluoridated
Speaker 1: but I don't know if it was like controlled or optimized. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: the goal, so that was nineteen eighty nine, sixty two
Speaker 1: point one percent. The goal for nineteen ninety was to
Speaker 1: get ninety five percent of the population on optimally fluoridated water. Obviously,
Speaker 1: this was not achieved, and the new goal was revised
Speaker 1: down to seventy five percent. By two thousand. We're still
Speaker 1: not quite there, but we are close, although we'll see
Speaker 1: what happens because of stuff that's been happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because they're trying to take it, take it all away.
Speaker 1: In the nearly eight decades since water fluoridation began, the
Speaker 1: health benefits have become clear. An average drop of thirty
Speaker 1: five to fifty percent in Carrie's rates in floridated communities.
Speaker 1: This translates also to economic benefits. Less money spent on
Speaker 1: restorative dental care in communities with fluoridated water, less time
Speaker 1: missed from work having to go to dental appointments. Not
Speaker 1: to mention, like, I know you'll get into some of these,
Speaker 1: like bigger picture, how dental health is health and how
Speaker 1: it like there are so many other systemic effects of that,
Speaker 1: and then there's like the self esteem and so on,
Speaker 1: like to have dental repair. Yeah, and I know that
Speaker 1: next week you're also going to get into more of
Speaker 1: like the some of the claims that people are making. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but from my reading, water fluoridation at the recommended level
Speaker 1: has not been linked with data to any negative health outcome.
Speaker 1: Of course, over consumption of fluoride can occur, which can
Speaker 1: be harmful, but at the recommended level, like what it
Speaker 1: is in our water, it is safe and effective. So
Speaker 1: why has there been such a strong and sustained opposition
Speaker 1: movement to fluoride?
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's get into it.
Speaker 4: I also, I don't think that I knew that it was.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's this podcast We Kill You. I'm not
Speaker 4: surprised that there's been like opposition from the get go,
Speaker 4: and like you know, like so strong and whatever.
Speaker 3: But I I.
Speaker 4: It's the same thing as so many other things that
Speaker 4: we're hearing so much more about today, where like I
Speaker 4: never thought about it for so long and now I
Speaker 4: can't stop hearing about it everywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and it's not just like it like people
Speaker 1: are actually talking about it more. I mean yeah, like
Speaker 1: RFK is talking.
Speaker 2: About it more. So you can't.
Speaker 3: You can't not talk about it.
Speaker 4: When it's flag yeah, literally, like on the news from
Speaker 4: the people who are the highest up making the decisions
Speaker 4: about our health in this country.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And I mean and like those other things like vaccines,
Speaker 1: like pasteurization, water fluoridation has long had its fair share
Speaker 1: of detractors and which have also like raw melk and
Speaker 1: vaccines have been growing in number as of late. And
Speaker 1: the ven diagram of these three groups is like a circle.
Speaker 2: Basically. It's just.
Speaker 1: So we can trace the origins of the anti floridation
Speaker 1: movement to Wisconsin in the nineteen forties. Okay, the Grand
Speaker 1: Rapids Muskegon experiment was on the horizon, but there was
Speaker 1: one outspoken Wisconsin dentist, doctor John Frish, who didn't want
Speaker 1: to wait fifteen years for his communities to start fluoridating.
Speaker 1: He had followed the work of Mackay and Dean and
Speaker 1: concluded that fluoride at an appropriate level was safe and
Speaker 1: effective and they should get started right away because he
Speaker 1: was a dentist and he cared about his patients and
Speaker 1: wanted them to not have cavities and carries, right Like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like, we can, we can prevent this.
Speaker 1: Right, which is also, Oh, I know, are you gonna
Speaker 1: talk about like big fluoride?
Speaker 2: And I was like, well, it's.
Speaker 4: Interesting to think about in the context of, like, in
Speaker 4: the context of a profession where at the time their
Speaker 4: main source of business was restorative dentistry, you might think
Speaker 4: that a dentist would want less fluoride because then their
Speaker 4: patients would have more cavities and they would have more business.
Speaker 1: It's like somebody coming in to it's like a family
Speaker 1: med doctor being like, ooh, my patients have diabetes and
Speaker 1: heart disease.
Speaker 2: This is great for me, and it's like it's not. No,
Speaker 2: it's not exactly that. And that's the point, right.
Speaker 4: It's like the people who go into these fields do
Speaker 4: it because they want to help people, because they care
Speaker 4: about people's health because they want for their patients to.
Speaker 3: To be better, to have healthy teeth. Like, but but.
Speaker 2: Raking in that dough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I honestly it's I mean it's it's baffling but
Speaker 1: not surprising. Yes, just like there's no logic, but but
Speaker 1: never need to begin with Yeah. So the sentence was like,
Speaker 1: I'm hyped about floride. Let's do this, Like, let's we
Speaker 1: don't need to wait for that. We've already we have
Speaker 1: had decades of people collecting data that show that this
Speaker 1: is like a good.
Speaker 2: Thing to do, okay.
Speaker 1: And so he started this like very active and enthusiastic
Speaker 1: campaign for water floridation across the state, and within a
Speaker 1: few years many communities had started adding floride to their
Speaker 1: water after this, because you.
Speaker 2: Know, he was like gung ho. And so when in nineteen.
Speaker 1: Fifty the US Public Health Service approved floridation for all
Speaker 1: communities in the US, Frish declared victory in a letter
Speaker 1: that he wrote to Mackay cease firing. The war is
Speaker 1: over direct quote from that, yeah, okay, which turned out
Speaker 1: to be a bit of a premature celebration. Frish's very
Speaker 1: vocal campaign won many over to the side of floridation
Speaker 1: and raised awareness overall, but it also attracted some critics,
Speaker 1: especially the very outspoken Alexander Wallace, who was a resident
Speaker 1: of Stephen's Point, Wisconsin and self appointed watchdog of the
Speaker 1: public treasury, local poet, and author of many letters to
Speaker 1: the editor. Notice how I didn't mention any scientific or
Speaker 1: dental training because I don't believe there was any. Right.
Speaker 2: I also just can picture one hundred.
Speaker 1: I mean basically, I'm picturing like parks and rec and
Speaker 1: like someone who goes to one of the town halls.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm picturing my parents' neighbor who is not too
Speaker 4: far away. I will not mention names, but has run
Speaker 4: for the board multiple times, et.
Speaker 2: Cetera, on the platform of anti florid.
Speaker 3: No, just on the platform of anti fun mostly.
Speaker 2: Oh got it.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, I don't like the swim team, and they
Speaker 3: don't like that anything anyways.
Speaker 4: Letters to the editor, Yeah, letters to the editor. Well
Speaker 4: they're important, Okay.
Speaker 1: They are, we love them sometimes. But yeah, his his stance,
Speaker 1: this guy, Alexander Wallace. His stance was that floride was poisoned. Okay,
Speaker 1: he you know, and and his evidence ranged from the
Speaker 1: misused like for instance, the USPS, the US Public Health
Speaker 1: Service at the time, still classified flora as experimental, and
Speaker 1: then it did not stay.
Speaker 2: But he said it was totally untested, right.
Speaker 3: Classic, it's a classic thing. Yeah, totally untested.
Speaker 1: Uh huh exactly, mRNA, I forget it. And then a
Speaker 1: lot of the time he just manufactured evidence, right, Like
Speaker 1: he said, fluoride is rat poison and will cause irreparable harm.
Speaker 3: Oh, he should listen to Strick nine.
Speaker 2: That's what I was gonna say. I'm like, strychnine is
Speaker 2: rat poison. We don't put that in the water.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so, despite not having any scientific evidence to support
Speaker 1: his claims and the fact that existing evidence refuted them,
Speaker 1: in fact, his opposition was highly publicized and ultimately successful.
Speaker 1: He set the precedent for this debate to be held
Speaker 1: in kind of a public forum, with him on one
Speaker 1: side and the data on the other.
Speaker 2: So interesting erin, so classic erin.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Naturally, this equal viewpoint representation confused the general public, who
Speaker 1: were led to believe that Wallace had as much data
Speaker 1: supporting his side as the scientist did as the dentist did.
Speaker 1: In September nineteen fifty, the citizens of Stephen's point rejected floridation,
Speaker 1: the first to do so in a monument to anti science,
Speaker 1: anti expert. This proved to not be a one off
Speaker 1: as pro floridationists had hoped. The outcome was plastered across
Speaker 1: national headlines and served as encouragement to other opponents of floridation.
Speaker 1: The message was who needs science and facts when you've
Speaker 1: got fear and doubt. They realized it was a heck
Speaker 1: of a lot easier to instill doubt and fear than
Speaker 1: dispel it. The anti floridationists of the nineteen fifties were
Speaker 1: a motley crew, mostly quote unquote independent thinkers like Wallace,
Speaker 1: alternative medicine advocates, supplement brands, really supplement brands, not surprising,
Speaker 1: but also just like.
Speaker 3: Like, could you be more basic?
Speaker 2: You know, it's like predictable.
Speaker 1: Then there were chiropractors and groups like the John Birch Society,
Speaker 1: which if you haven't heard of it is a right
Speaker 1: wing libertarian conspiracy theory anti communist group that is also
Speaker 1: an inspiration to the current administration, and the ku Klux Klan.
Speaker 2: The KKK was big in the anti fluoride movement in
Speaker 2: the early Yes.
Speaker 3: I could see that I could see that yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was very like, wait, what what It's one of
Speaker 4: those where you go and then when you think about it,
Speaker 4: because this is something that's working on the public health,
Speaker 4: and so it's going to be helping everyone, right, all
Speaker 4: including people quote unquote undesirable and in fact maybe more
Speaker 4: So we'll talk more about that next week for sure.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, okay, that is I mean, and that is
Speaker 1: like a big I think part of the like the
Speaker 1: point is also cruelty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we.
Speaker 4: Should withhold this withholding from people who don't deserve it,
Speaker 4: because if you can afford it, you can just buy
Speaker 4: fluoridated toothpaste. If you can afford it, you can just
Speaker 4: get tried zelans, right, if you can afford.
Speaker 1: It, yep, okay, And so that is one big motivator
Speaker 1: for why people were and are anti fluoride, but there
Speaker 1: were many other reasons as well, and so you know,
Speaker 1: just like raw milk, these groups are not a monolith
Speaker 1: or like this anti fluoride movement is on a monolith,
Speaker 1: and there's a mix of people who have been preyed
Speaker 1: upon and those who are doing the praying looking into
Speaker 1: the perpetrators or originators of this miss and disinformation The
Speaker 1: reasons they give for why fluoride is bad have evolved
Speaker 1: over time, and they can generally be split into three categories,
Speaker 1: sometimes overlapping. All right, you've got number one fraudulent health claims,
Speaker 1: Number two feelings of personal freedom violations slash conspiracy theories,
Speaker 1: and number three claims that fluoride doesn't work slash economics.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well yeah.
Speaker 1: So the first concrete fraudulent health claim that proved to
Speaker 1: be quite sticky was that fluoride causes cancer, and I
Speaker 1: think this is still touted today occasionally. This misconception originated
Speaker 1: from leaked preliminary results of an animal study out of
Speaker 1: the University of Texas that was specifically looking at this question,
Speaker 1: and early results seemed to suggest that mice that drank
Speaker 1: fluoridated water developed cancer earlier than those that did not,
Speaker 1: and the press ate that story up. Of course, they
Speaker 1: ran with it before any closer examination. I mean, these
Speaker 1: are preliminary, preliminary results. It didn't matter, right, And then
Speaker 1: once once the researcher who was involved in this did
Speaker 1: like a closer examination, it was revealed that the experiment
Speaker 1: was totally invalid. All of them, both the experimental and
Speaker 1: control groups were being fed chow that had a fluoride
Speaker 1: level of forty two parts per million, which like all
Speaker 1: of them, all of them, both the experimental and so
Speaker 1: it was like it was dear water.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 1: It was too late, like this, this correction was too late.
Speaker 1: The follow up was not nearly as widely publicized as
Speaker 1: the initial results, and even if people came across the correction,
Speaker 1: the association between cancer and floride would be in their
Speaker 1: minds already, where it's like, I'm not saying that fluoride
Speaker 1: causes cancer, you know what I mean. Or they would
Speaker 1: be like I read a news story about florid and cancer,
Speaker 1: but I can't remember what is the.
Speaker 3: Thing that, yeah, right, totally, and you're.
Speaker 2: Like, I'm not sure what it was. So I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna err on the side of caution. Caution, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And then reputable studies.
Speaker 1: So like since then, since those that experiment and that
Speaker 1: news story, reputable studies, there have been so many of
Speaker 1: them because the fear was so high that examined cancer
Speaker 1: and floride have found no association, But that didn't stop
Speaker 1: the anti fluoridationists claiming that fluoride causes cancer. And again
Speaker 1: we're talking about the levels that are the optimized levels
Speaker 1: in public drinking water. And cancer was far from alone,
Speaker 1: and being blamed or florid was far from alone. Cancer
Speaker 1: was one of many things.
Speaker 4: There we go, one of many ill health effects. Yes,
Speaker 4: that was blamed on fluorid.
Speaker 2: Oh so many.
Speaker 1: And I know that you're going to go into more
Speaker 1: next week. But like vaccines, floride has been held responsible
Speaker 1: for whatever health threat preoccupied the general public at a
Speaker 1: certain time, you know, like at one point it was Alzheimer's,
Speaker 1: another time it was blamed for AIDS, IQ, infertility, brittle bones,
Speaker 1: take your pick. The more fringe ones were oily sweat, undue,
Speaker 1: financial anxiety, and nymphomania.
Speaker 3: Okay, isn't that Yeah, all of it's bizarre.
Speaker 2: I know, I know I should undo financial anxieties. Yeah,
Speaker 2: okay on a daily just I was gonna say, like
Speaker 2: undo undo?
Speaker 3: Is it undue? Is it undo? Right?
Speaker 1: And occasionally they ventured into the more conspiracy side of things,
Speaker 1: especially with the anti communism fears so widespread during the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties. And I think that's also
Speaker 1: where the KKK got involved, where it was like, we
Speaker 1: don't like this is communism. Essentially, this is socialized medicine.
Speaker 3: And right there, we don't do that on us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1: Some people genuinely believed that it was like a Soviet
Speaker 1: plot designed to harm the American public, and this belief
Speaker 1: was parodied in the nineteen sixty four movie Doctor Strangelove.
Speaker 1: Or it was a strategy, one person claimed, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure this was not just one person's opinion.
Speaker 2: There was a strategy to quote unquote weaken the Aryan race.
Speaker 1: Again, the parallels with raw milk are astonishing, but not surprising.
Speaker 3: So interesting, Aaron.
Speaker 1: And so this is kind of where these health concerns
Speaker 1: bleed over into the personal freedom conspiracy side of things. So,
Speaker 1: from the beginning of fluoridation, one of the leading complaints
Speaker 1: was that fluoridation in water represented a violation of personal freedoms,
Speaker 1: that parents should be able to choose what to feed
Speaker 1: their children, and that fluoride was mass medication, starting us
Speaker 1: on a slippery slope where the government could put whatever
Speaker 1: they wanted into the water without our knowledge or consent,
Speaker 1: or just that it represented a deadly step towards socialized medicine,
Speaker 1: where people could you know, where health is a right, right,
Speaker 1: or healthcare is a right, and this seemster we even
Speaker 1: imagine that possibility. This seems to be a consistent sentiment
Speaker 1: motivating people at the ballot box seventy years ago as
Speaker 1: well as today, like these are all things that are
Speaker 1: still around.
Speaker 2: The mass medication.
Speaker 1: Complaint arose and gained traction at a time where things
Speaker 1: like DDT or asbestos were found to be highly toxic
Speaker 1: after decades of use and like being freely used in
Speaker 1: everyone being reassuring.
Speaker 2: That no, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine.
Speaker 1: Right where tholidamide slipped through the cracks and where a
Speaker 1: quote unquote back to the soil, natural movement was taking hold,
Speaker 1: and so to some fluoride represented yet another chemical we're
Speaker 1: adding to our bodies without enough research.
Speaker 2: And I think what I find truly.
Speaker 1: Fascinating about that is that fluoride is in so many
Speaker 1: sources of water naturally, right, it's in water.
Speaker 4: It's interesting to look at it in that way, like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is something that we're adding. This is something that
Speaker 4: is naturally quote unquote naturally found in so many sources,
Speaker 4: sometimes at such a high level that it is causing
Speaker 4: potential ill effects. But then putting it into our water
Speaker 4: at lower levels is seen as potentially harmful when it's
Speaker 4: really just trying to replicate something that exists in nature.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, and it and it's and it is
Speaker 4: valid that we have.
Speaker 6: Done things one hundred thous a lot of data, right like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: it's we have done things that.
Speaker 4: Are quite harmful, So it makes sense to I don't know,
Speaker 4: it's so complicated Aaron.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think the other facet of that too
Speaker 1: is that, you know, going back to naturally fluoridated sources
Speaker 1: of water, is that that that have been shown that
Speaker 1: have been linked to you know, whether it's teeth modeling
Speaker 1: or something else. Anti fluoridationists don't make any effort to
Speaker 1: reduce to the florid that occurs naturally. If they think
Speaker 1: that fluoride is such a big problem, really, then they
Speaker 1: don't really seem I shouldn't be surprised concerned with helping
Speaker 1: to remove or limit florid in communities with naturally overflorid water. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just like, it's only don't put florid in my water.
Speaker 4: Don't put it in my water. But if you move
Speaker 4: to Colorado Springs, you're on your own.
Speaker 1: Well, I think I think I think they take this
Speaker 1: out of Yeah, I'm sure they do, not to hate
Speaker 1: on Colorado space.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm sure they're doing fine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, that is it is interesting, And I think
Speaker 4: that just kind of points out It's like who. I
Speaker 4: think what it shows is like, who is it that
Speaker 4: is the one perpetuating these claims and what is the
Speaker 4: intent behind what they are doing it for? Are they
Speaker 4: using any data that may or may not be legitimate? Maybe,
Speaker 4: but what is the intention behind that? And is it
Speaker 4: just to discredit science? Because that's what it often comes
Speaker 4: down to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and it also like, again, I think
Speaker 1: it comes back to those who are hearing this information
Speaker 1: and buying into it and those who are originating it
Speaker 1: and perpetuating it. So there are different motivators I think
Speaker 1: for that. And so the final argument against fluoride was
Speaker 1: that it doesn't work, or that the benefits of florid
Speaker 1: can be achieved solely through fluoride containing products such as
Speaker 1: toothpaste and mouthwash is topical fluoride. Following that, the argument
Speaker 1: goes that water fluoridation is wasteful since only a small
Speaker 1: proportion is actually ingested, as opposed to being used to
Speaker 1: like wash dishes, or shower, Okay, and I know you'll
Speaker 1: get more into the details. So systemic versus topical fluoride,
Speaker 1: but systemic fluoridation does make a difference, as we discussed
Speaker 1: in the prevention of tooth decay, and in fact, Calgary
Speaker 1: in Canada had previously voted to stop fluoridation around ten
Speaker 1: years ago and then recently voted to put it back
Speaker 1: in since the rate of tooth decay in children increased. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like from where I'm standing that the trend
Speaker 1: has been more often than not in the other direction,
Speaker 1: with states like Utah banning fluoride in the water, which
Speaker 1: means that even if a community wanted to fluoridate, they couldn't.
Speaker 1: And so now if you want systemic fluoride in Utah,
Speaker 1: you have to get a prescription. And so of course, yes,
Speaker 1: you have to get a prescription from whom you can
Speaker 1: go to the dentist. I think you can get one
Speaker 1: from a pharmacist, your doctor. And so, of course, just
Speaker 1: like with every other personal freedom medical issue, this disproportionately
Speaker 1: impacts those who are the most disadvantage, who lack access
Speaker 1: to a dentist or can't afford supplements. But that rarely
Speaker 1: concerns anti fluoride activists who are more than happy to
Speaker 1: sell you their purification systems or their book outlining how
Speaker 1: to eliminate fluorid from your diet. When it comes to fluoride,
Speaker 1: it's more of the same with what we see for
Speaker 1: raw milk and vaccines, a focus on deregulation, on privatization,
Speaker 1: and redefining expertise. And this debate over fluoride has continued
Speaker 1: because it has been framed as a debate with science
Speaker 1: and evidence on one side and sentiment on the other.
Speaker 1: And again, like we get it right, the historical opposition especially,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure just how many health outcomes were evaluated
Speaker 1: in naturally fluoridated versus unfluoridated communities before they started artificially fluoridating.
Speaker 3: Did they look at every possible outcome right.
Speaker 2: Or probably not? Yeah, but at that time. No.
Speaker 1: It has been eighty years, eighty years since water was
Speaker 1: since fluoridated water was started in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Speaker 2: And that means that.
Speaker 1: Over those eighty years, we have collected a wealth of
Speaker 1: data that would allow us to detect an association between
Speaker 1: fluoride and so many things, and we haven't really found
Speaker 1: those associations, and people are still looking. People are still
Speaker 1: continuously evaluating because that is what science does, that is
Speaker 1: how it works. But when you've got tiktoks and forums
Speaker 1: claiming that fluoride is harmful for your kid or it's
Speaker 1: giving you cancer, it's hard to shake those fears that doubt,
Speaker 1: especially when the pro fluoride movement is much quieter. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: I knew so little about how fluoride worked before we
Speaker 1: picked this as a topic. I did know that it
Speaker 1: was like in a development. I just thought it was like, oh, mouthwash,
Speaker 1: that's fine, right, And I can't but think that the
Speaker 1: lack of awareness and understanding is contributing to the gains
Speaker 1: that the anti floridationists have made in the past few years.
Speaker 1: Despite being named as one of the top public health
Speaker 1: achievements of the twentieth century, the top ten, it's in
Speaker 1: the top ten.
Speaker 2: Wow, floride does not have enough hype.
Speaker 1: People talking about how many teeth have been saved, how
Speaker 1: much less people have had to spend all thanks to
Speaker 1: a relatively straightforward and inexpensive solution. Florid Tell you.
Speaker 2: What, tell you what?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right, Aaron, I don't really hear any florid
Speaker 4: hype people. I know, I can't remember a florid hype
Speaker 4: person me either.
Speaker 1: And I think that it's because, like, on an individual level,
Speaker 1: you go to the dentist and you get floride. Like,
Speaker 1: where is the political activism from pro floridation. It's just
Speaker 1: a really interesting thing, and I think that Florida doesn't
Speaker 1: really get the attention it deserves in the public health
Speaker 1: arena as like a way to prevent Okay, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: dental carries. It's actually the significance of that is much
Speaker 1: bigger than we think it is.
Speaker 4: Well, it's also like, like we've said many times on
Speaker 4: this podcast, aarin, when public health is working well, you
Speaker 4: don't know that it's working at all. I don't know that, right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: when we're preventing carries with you didn't even know that
Speaker 4: your water was fluoridated and you have less carries than
Speaker 4: a community that doesn't have floridated water. You don't think
Speaker 4: about it, right, And then if you start hearing that
Speaker 4: something is bad, that's when you then start questioning, Ye,
Speaker 4: what are you doing to me without my knowledge, without
Speaker 4: my consent, who made this decision?
Speaker 3: What data are you using?
Speaker 1: We've been doing this for eighty years and it's but
Speaker 1: it really seems like gains are being made for the
Speaker 1: anti floridationists.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And there's a lot more to say erin about what
Speaker 4: we know about about the effects of fluoride negative neutral,
Speaker 4: how is it working, what's up with carries.
Speaker 2: What half carries?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we're going to get into all of that
Speaker 4: next week and I cannot wait.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yeah me, I am really excited. I
Speaker 1: feel like this was just a teaser to be like,
Speaker 1: now florides.
Speaker 4: So good to set the stage of like this is
Speaker 4: how you know what I mean, especially as we talk
Speaker 4: about like what is the evidence? Now we can also
Speaker 4: look at like this is how long things have been
Speaker 4: going on for.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So well, in the meantime, if you would like to
Speaker 1: read more, I did got some sources. Okay, So there
Speaker 1: was a book called Fluoride and Carrie's Prevention by John
Speaker 1: Murray published nineteen eighty two. Maybe a paper by Ripa
Speaker 1: from nineteen ninety three, A half century of community water
Speaker 1: fluoridation in the United States, A great paper by McNeil
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty America's Longest War, the Fight over Fluoridation, And
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about, just like carries
Speaker 1: in generally and over a time. Caselts nineteen ninety eight
Speaker 1: carries ancient plague of humankind.
Speaker 3: Ancient plague, And I've got so.
Speaker 1: Many more, honestly, but those are the ones that I'm
Speaker 1: going to shout out.
Speaker 2: So yeah, take a look at our website.
Speaker 1: If you want to see all the sources for this
Speaker 1: episode and all of our episodes.
Speaker 3: This podcastmikill you dot com.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you to Bloodmobile for providing the music for
Speaker 1: this episode and all of our episodes.
Speaker 4: Thank you to Tom and Leanna and Brent and Pete
Speaker 4: and Mike and all of exactly right, Jess, thank you all.
Speaker 3: We have so many people that help out with this
Speaker 3: and we really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do. Thank you also to our listeners. We
Speaker 2: hope that you enjoyed this episode. Did it answer some
Speaker 2: of your questions?
Speaker 3: Any of your questions and you have more questions?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well answer them, I think maybe. And as always,
Speaker 4: as special shout out to our patrons. Thank you so
Speaker 4: much for your support. It really does mean the world
Speaker 4: to us.
Speaker 2: It does well. Until next time, wash your hands
Speaker 3: You filthy animals.