Fluoride

Vegetation samples were collected in June and Oct. 1970 at varying distances from the Anaconda Aluminium Co. plant at Columbia Falls, Montana. Determinations were of foliar F concn., injury index II (an estimate of gross amount of visible injury or ‘burn’ for foliage of a given year), insect pest populations, and F concn. in insects collected within 0.5 mile of the Al reduction plant. Vegetation in control areas contained <10 p.p.m. F. II was shown to be a conservative parameter of pollution since many samples with high F concn. did not show injury. F concn. in vegetation samples was used as the basis of pollution mapping, whereby the pollution index in ‘isopols’ is equal to the local F conc. (with 10 as the background value). Visible injury occurred above 30 isopols (on a total area of 69 000 acres) in susceptible species, viz. pines (Pinus albicaulis, P. contorta, P. monticola and P. ponderosa) and Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii); the herb Smilacina stellata was a particularly sensitive indicator of F pollution. Nearly all vegetation was injured moderately at 100-300 isopols and (except grasses) severely at 300-600 isopols. Characteristics symptoms of F injury in conifers included enlarged cell nuclei and hypertrophy of resin-canal epithelium and vascular parenchyma.

“In 1963 a study investigating the prevalence of dental fluorosis in 496 Caucasian children residing in Carnarvon, Western Australia, showed that 225 children (45.36 per cent) were affected. The endemic fluorosis was attributed to a change in the fluoride content of the town water supply from 0.4 to 1.5 ppm prior to 1958.”

The standards published herein have been promulgated as Public Health Regulations in the Federal Register.  As such they became effective April 5, 1992, as the Standards to which drinking water and water supply systems used by carriers and others subject to Federal quarantine regulations must conform.

“In previous publications, evidence was presented showing that the ingestion of fluorides during the formative stages of amelogenesis did, in fact, have an effect on the developing dentition, that the element was retained in blood and certain soft tissues and that a small percentage of patients manifested adverse systenric reactions. The data presented in this report confirm aud extend the findings in a larger number of subjects.”

“The study of a group of people living in Bartlett and Cameron, Tex., reported there is one of several related studies designed to provide information on the effects of excessive amounts of fluoride occurring naturally in a water supply.”

“A previous study of oral conditions among 61 laboratory workers exposed to various uranium fluorides, fluorine gas, hydrofluoric acid and calcium fluoride for up to thirty-six months, disclosed normal findings.  To ascertain whether chronic exposure to relatively higher concentrations of atmospheric fluorides can produce oral changes in workers, the following dental survey was conducted.”

We do know the use of drinking water containing as little as 1.2 to 3.0 parts per million of fluorine will cause such developmental disturbances in bones as osteosclerosis, spondylosis, and osteopetrosis, as well as goiter, and we cannot afford to run the risk of producing such serious systemic disturbances in applying what is at present a doubtful procedure intended to prevent development of dental disfigurements among children.  […]  Because of our anxiety to find some therapeutic procedure that will promote mass prevention of caries, the seeming potentialities of fluorine appear speculatively attractive, but, in the light of our present knowledge or lack of knowledge of the chemistry of the subject, the potentialities for harm far outweigh those for good.

Distribution of the element fluorine is so widespread throughout nature that a small intake of the element is practically unavoidable. Fluorides are general proto-plasmatic poisons, probably because of their capacity to modify the metabolism of cells by changing the permeability of the cell membrane and by inhibiting certain enzyme systems.