The Devil's Poison: How Fluoride Is Killing You

By Dean Murphy DDS

Fluoride and fluoridation will go down as one of the greatest controversies of the 20th century. Up until the early 1940’s, fluorine’s effect on life was always deemed poisonous. It was proven to be altering enzymes used by living organisms to carry out a multitude of essential processes.
Fluorine, the most reactive element on the planet, is also the strongest free radical. Scientists in the 1930’s and 1940’s experimented with this element to create the most deadly nerve gasses, rocket fuel, and radioactive U235 for the bomb. As a wood preservative, rodentcide and insecticide, fluorine compounds are second to none.
As an Orthodontist, I began investigating the increasingly prevalent lines and spots that I saw on the enamel of children. Like rings on a tree, they indicate excessive fluorine exposure. I started to ask the question, “How does fluorine cause these marks?”
Chronic doses of fluoride, like arsenic and lead, accumulate in our bodies causing a blockage in the way cells breathe and leads to the malformation of collagen. Cancer, diabetes, thyroid and neurological disorders, hormonal imbalances, heart disease, arthritis and osteoporosis have all been linked to chronic fluoride ingestion. We are now exposed to increasing doses of fluoride from toothpaste, rinses, water, food, medicines, showering, bathing, and even the air that we breathe. Our environment has become a literal fluoride dumping ground.
This book explores many chronic diseases that plague man today and looks at the scientists that connected these diseases to chronic exposures of fluoride.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jul 11, 2008
• ISBN: 9781426941382

Dean Murphy DDS

Dr. Murphy received his bachelor’s degree from Northern Illinois University in biology with an emphasis in anatomy and chemistry. He graduated Cum Laude from Loyola University Dental School where he also completed his post-graduate training in Orthodontics and Dentofacial Growth and Development. Presently, he is in the private practice of Orthodontics and is on staff at the University of Illinois working with Cleft Palate children. The Devils Poison represents 13 years of present day and historical research.

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DR. CRISTIANI

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The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who can’t read or write,

but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.

Alvin Toffler

I n 1924, an investigative team was called upon to look into the mysterious deaths afflicting cattle outside Paris. A biologist by the name Dr. Cristiani, led the investigation since it was feared that this disease might spread to other nearby farms and possibly infect people. Afer studying the cattle, the biologist termed the disease cachexia meaning wasting away. This was a summary description of what was happening to the cattle. Cristiani noticed a pattern to the disease process and described the findings as multiple bone fractures, weakness followed by extreme loss of weight and eventual death. He also noticed a rather large factory upwind of the farm and became suspicious. He decided to have the cattle analyzed for possible chemical contaminations. The bone analysis revealed the true cause of death was from chronic fluorine poisoning.

The team gathered grasses from the field and fed it to their laboratory guinea pigs. The animals quickly acquired the same symptoms and died of cachexia. The source of fluorine was from an aluminum factory that was emitting fluorine into the air and then descended onto the farmers fields with precipitation.

Cristiani determined through lab tests that the fluorine concentration in the grasses varied from 100 to 1000 ppm. When fed the fluoride contaminated grass, the guinea pigs would die varying from weeks to months after exposure. Cristiani then decided to put the fluorine compound, sodium fluoride to the test. This is the same compound frequently found in toothpastes and water supplies. He found its potency to be greater than the fluorosilicates found at the aluminum plant site. He came up with a mortal dose which was the amount necessary to kill a guinea pig in twenty- four hours. This became a basis for an acute dose. He then experimented with chronic doses or doses that were less than this acute dose but fed over a period of days or weeks. Dr. Cristiani wanted to determine if the fluoride was cumulative in the body of the guinea pig and if so, what duration of exposure could be tolerated. When he fed the guinea pigs 1/10th the mortal dose daily, the animals died after an average of 51 days. At 1/60th the mortal dose, death occurred in 233 days. At 1/80th the mortal dose, after 5 months into the experiment, a pair of guinea pigs gave birth to two small pups. Both pups died after being nursed for 30 and 58 days. At very small doses, Cristiani found the cachexia and eventual death could appear in the second or even third year of life. ¹²

When Cristiani performed an autopsy on the deceased guinea pigs killed by fluoride poisoning, he found changes in bony structures as well as soft tissue. He found that the most profound soft tissue changes were in the thyroid gland and the pituitary gland. This is most disturbing as these endocrine glands regulate, directly or indirectly, many hormones. Human anatomists use to call the pituitary organ the master gland because of its control over so many vital bodily functions. The thyroid gland is the base control of all metabolism and its importance can be realized in the fact that it is the first functioning endocrine organ in the developing human fetus. Cristiani found that the exposed guinea pigs pituitary glands were greatly reduced in size and volume compared to control animals. Microscopically, the glands lost their structural order and the cells appeared to be squeezed against others. The cells appeared atrophied with little protoplasmic substance inside the cell. ¹³ He realized that not only could the fluoride cross the blood-brain-barrier and interfere with the endocrine system, but when given such small doses, the fluorine could accumulate in the tissues eventually causing disease when the concentrations reached certain levels.

Christiani’s work would be studied and play a very important role in the investigation of fluoride by future doctors like Roholm, Short, Panditt and Waldbott.

12 Christiani, H., Chausse,P. Quantites Quotidiennes Minima De Fluorure De Sodium Capables De Produire La Cachexia Fluorique Comptes rendes des sl’eances de la Sociletle de biologie et de ses filiales. Vol. 96 4-1-27 pp. 842-

13 Cristiani, H Modifications Histologiques De La Glande Hypophysaire Dans La Cachexia Fluorique Comptes rendes des sl’eances de la Sociletle de biologie et de ses filiales. Vol. 103 3-28-30 p.981-982

OUR HEALTH DEFENDERS

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In the end, we will remember not the words of our

enemies but the silence of our friends.

Martin Luther King Jr.

T here are many so-called health-freaks in the world today that claim just about everything is harmful to you. In my years of researching this book I have come across a great many of them.

One in particular caught my attention. It was not a person at all but a group of people. In fact it was a Union. This employees’ union actually filed a grievance demanding employers supply its members with un-fluoridated drinking water at the office. They claimed the public water supply of the District of Columbia (Washington D.C.) was unfit to drink because of the presence of fluoride.

This National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) local 2050 comprises some 1400 employees, mostly toxicologists, biologists, chemists, engineers, lawyers, with many holding doctorate degrees. What caught my undivided attention is that this group of employees all work for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

OUR VERY OWN EPA.

Since 1985, the Union got involved with fluoridation when an employee complained to the Union that he was being forced to write that fluoritic damage to teeth was only a cosmetic problem and not a health problem. When Union employees looked into the matter they discovered that the EPA was under political pressure to set a maximum contamination level at 4 mg/per L (4 ppm). At 4 ppm, the EPA knew that a great majority of children (over 80%) would develop moderate to severe dental fluorosis including pitting, enamel defects, and white to brown spots on teeth. After an attempt to settle this within the Agency, the Union became publicly vocal and since 1998 has been very outspoken about not only the hazards of fluorine exposure but also the unethical ways the EPA management sets this standard.

In 1990, the Senior Science Advisor and Toxicologist in the Office of Drinking Water at the EPA was fired when he said a review should be undertaken to expose a cover-up of a study done by the National Toxicology Program showing fluoride is a probable human carcinogen. He realized the final published version of the national report was different from the findings of the experiment. The original report had said clear evidence of carcinogenicity in male rats, but the final report was altered to read equivocal evidence of carcinogenicity in male rats. This report also had evidence of neurotoxicity due to fluoride. After a court battle, the EPA reinstated him with full back pay, benefits, and monetary compensation. ¹⁴

In June of 1998, Dr. Robert Carton and Dr. J. William Hirzy expounded in great detail the Union’s ethical battles with the management of the EPA. ¹⁵ They reveal politics at its ugliest – the compromising of scientific findings and professional integrity, for the benefit of certain powerful influential groups – even at the expense of human health and human lives. The EPA has an extremely important obligation. It must set policies and limit contaminants in water that will not harm the average citizen, not harm the young or the elderly, and not harm the sick or weak. The 1975 Safe Drinking Water Act states the EPA needs to identify contaminants in drinking water and set a recommended maximum contamination level for each. According to its own Union, at the 23rd annual conference of the National Association of Environmental Professionals, this is not happening. These levels would result in no known or anticipated adverse effects and allow an adequate margin of safety. Everyone has the right to drink safe water. The public relies on the EPA, trust their findings, and pays for their salaries and their research.

To summarize some of the points raised by this Conference regarding fluoride:

1. The public health service that was charged with providing advice to EPA, had a conflict of interest.

2. The committee selected by the PHS to provide advice to EPA was biased.

3. Deliberations of the committee were not honestly presented in their draft report.

4. The draft report was altered by unknown individuals without prior (or subsequent) approval of the committee.

5. Individuals who knew of fraud and deceit in the report did not report their observations to the appropriate authorities.

6. EPA management ordered the support document developed by EPA professionals to be rewritten in conflict with the known facts.

7. Important calculations and observations were omitted from the selection of the final standard for apparently political purposes, namely, to support a long-standing public health policy.

Key findings were omitted from final reports, such as documentation of skeletal, arthritic, ligament damages from chronic exposure to fluoride, and the fact that silicofluorides used by 90% of municipalities to fluoridate their water (and derived from phosphate fertilizer agencies) are untested in a long term clinical trial with any type of control group.

In June of 2000, Dr. Hirzy appeared before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Wildlife, Fisheries and Drinking Water. ¹⁶ Dr. Hirzy’s appearance was no accident. The senate subcommittee had been looking into fluoridation in drinking water due to a continued public outcry as to its safety. He was the logical expert to address the question since he was the Senior Scientist in Existing Chemicals Assessment Branch, Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics/office of toxic substances at the EPA Headquarters in Washington. He has a B.S. in chemistry, a doctorate in organic chemistry from University of Missouri, taught college chemistry for 20 years, filled the position of risk assessment expert for the EPA for 18 years, and received numerous honors and awards – far from a radical health-nut freak.

His 10-page testimony is staggering.

Dr. Hirzy presented evidence to support the long suspected health effects of fluorine exposure. He called fluoridation a fifty year experiment on the American people without informed consent. Fluoride exposures are excessive and uncontrolled. He cited the National Institute of Dental Health Signs of Fluoride Over-exposure in the mid 1980’s and that the figure today is undoubtedly much higher. There is epidemiological evidence showing elevated bone cancer in young men related to fluoridated water consumption. In addition, he alluded to bone fractures, hyperactivity and attention deficit, carpel tunnel, early onset of puberty, lowered I.Q. in children, kidney and brain damage. He mentioned the results of a fifty-year study in Kingston, New York (unfluoridated) and Newburg, New York (fluoridated) that showed no difference at all in cavity rates.

He recommended four things to the senate subcommittee;

1. That congress order an independent review of a cancer study previously ordered by a congressional committee and performed by Battelle Memorial Institute.

2. That silicofluorides (obtained from fertilizer companies) undergo toxicity studies since no chronic exposure studies have been carried out. Also, that an MCL (Maximum Contamination Level) be set for this chemical.

3. Order an epidemiological study comparing children with dental fluorosis to those not displaying overdose during their growth and development years for behavioral and other disorders.

4. He asked for a joint congressional committee to give the only substance that is being mandated for ingestion throughout this country the full hearing that it deserves.

One final note about the 1400 members of the National Treasury Employees Union; The grievance that was filed asking the EPA to provide un-fluoridated drinking water to its employees was based on a calculation from a study by Vanier, Isaacson and colleagues, ¹⁷ and published in the journal Brain Research, showing fluoride induced cerebrovascular and nervous tissue damage at very small doses. Based on these and other findings, the scientists/employees of the EPA came up with a reference dose for fluoride of .000007 mg/kg – day. (This means that for every kg a person weighs, he should consume no more than .000007 mg per day of fl-). If a person of average weight consumes one quart of fluoridated water at 1ppm, the amount in one quart of water would be more than 100 times this reference dose.

14 National Toxicology Program Critique of Peer Review Draft Report. Give at 18th conference of the International Society for Fluoride Research. Humboldt State University, Arcata, California August 4th 1990

15 Applying the NAEP code of ethics to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Fluoride in Drinking Water Standard. Proceedings of 23rd annual conference of the National Association of Environmental Professionals 20-24 June 1998. San Diego, California USA by Robert Carton Ph. D. and Jullian Herzy Ph. D. (available at www.rui.net/-fluoride/naep.htm

16 Statement of Dr. J. William Hirzy before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Wild Life, Fisheries and Drinking Water United States Senate June 29, 2000

17 Vainer, J.A., Jensen K.F., Horuath, W. and Isaacson,R.L. Chronic Administration of Aluminum-fluoride or NA – fluoride to rats in Drinking Water: Alterations in neuronal and cerebro-vascular integrity Brain Research 784 284-298 (1998)

WHAT IS FLUORINE?

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And all the science, I don’t understand. It’s just my job five days a week.

Elton John Rocket Man

I n order to decipher the questions surrounding fluoride, we must understand the basics of what fluoride is and what it is not. To review the literature today concerning fluoride is extremely frustrating. Its description varies from a cure for osteoporosis and dental decay to a carcinogen and an element wreaking havoc on every organ and system in the body. All statements and articles cannot be true. They are far too contradictory. How can we make sense of this?

Let’s start at the basics. Fluorine is an element found in nature. If you look at a periodic table in any basic inorganic chemistry text you will find it in the upper right hand corner of the table. The element is classified as a halogen, along with iodine, chlorine, and bromine. It is not and never will be a mineral. As a halogen, it is the king. It will displace all the other halogens at binding sites it comes across or comes in contact with, so it will compete with compounds containing chorine, iodine or bromine. Fluorine is also extremely small, (second only to hydrogen) with one of the smallest atomic radii found in nature. This adds to its permeability and its ability to travel great distances if airborne.

Linus Pauling created a table called Electronegativity Values for the elements. Electro-negativity is a measure of the atom’s attractiveness to electrons. Pauling classified fluorine as having the highest electron negativity value of any element. It loves electrons and will borrow and steal electrons from other elements it comes in contact with, sometimes with explosive results. The lower the electron negativity of an atom such as magnesium, calcium, or potassium, the more likely it will donate its electrons. Fluorine will bind to these minerals in nature and borrow its electrons to achieve its own stability.

In fact, fluorine is so reactive that it is used in the production of the nuclear fuel uranium (235) from uranium (238) by borrowing its electrons and leaving the isotope extremely unstable.

In nature, if we again look at the periodic table, we will realize that if fluorine is to be found, it will probably be associated with members at the opposite end of the table. Compounds involving calcium, phosphate, potassium and especially the metals which have a tendency to lose electrons readily, (e.g.: NA+, Al+, Mg+, Fe) are attractive to fluorine and its contamination of these elements has posed a problem to industrialized man. He wants all of these metal elements in a pure form, yet fluorine is the frequent unwanted guest. The most common compounds containing fluorine in nature are fluorspar, which is a calcium fluoride compound (CaF2) and cryolite, which is a double fluoride of aluminum and sodium. Fluorine is also found in phosphate rocks and can comprise about 4% of the compound. Other common fluorine compounds are biotite, tourmaline, muccovite and apatite which is a CA+ phosphate compound.

Much of the fluorine used by dentists and municipalities today are considered contaminants to the aluminum, phosphate and steel producers. Due to its highly reactive nature, it is both expensive and hazardous to get rid of fluorine in its isolated state.

Trace amounts of fluorine are found just about everywhere in nature. In fact, it is the 13th most abundant element in nature but never occurs by itself due to its reactivity with other elements. Nature had done an excellent job of deactivating this highly reactive element. Mans use of fluoride in industry is extensive. It is used in the manufacture of stainless steel, processing uranium, the ceramic industry, etching and frosting of glass, developing concrete and cement, alkylating petroleum, electroplating, sterilizers in breweries, and insecticides. For years it has been used as a wood preservative in which telephone poles would be dipped, thus preventing bacterial and fungal agents from destroying the wood.

Throughout the forties and fifties, fluorine compounds were developed for refrigerants, rubber, lubricants, aerosols, and especially plastics including Teflon. Today, the pharmaceutical companies have developed a liking for fluoride and numerous drugs on the market today contain variable amounts of fluoride. Some of these will be explored in greater detail.

Storage of fluorine is also a major problem. Because it is the strongest oxidizing element known, it will destroy containers made of steel, copper or nickel. The containers need to be lined with a fluoride product like rubber or Teflon to prevent destruction.

FLUORIDE IN PLANTS, WATER, AND VARIOUS ANIMALS

Fluoride in natural sources of water can be found in trace amounts all over the world. These trace amounts are always bound to minerals that are also found in the water. They are never found as elemental free fluorine and it is never found as sodium fluoride. This fact is extremely important in the consideration of fluoride ingestion. Absorption of fluoride in man is dependant upon the aqueous solubility of the fluoride salt and its state at the time of ingestion. In other words, the bioavailability of fluorine from ingesting mineral water at 1 ppm is not the same as ingesting 1 ppm of NAF or stannous fluoride. The bioavailability of fluorine from sodium fluoride (the fluoride used in municipal water supplies and toothpaste) is 100%. The bioavailability of fluorine from hard water with other minerals present such as calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, is generally less than 50%. The absorption of fluorine from sodium fluoride is also 20 times faster than fluorine from limestone or other inorganic means.

Fluorine can also be found in many of our foods. Many teas are found to contain fluorine from 9 to 399 ppm. The fluorine in tea is thought to be a natural ingredient. It is not. Fluorine found in tea is from air-borne pollution, primarily from the burning of coal and petroleum, or from its uptake by fertilizers and the fluorine found in the water. Tea leaves have an airborne affinity for fluorine. Tea grown in an enclosed, air filtered environment, contains no fluorine.

Fluorine can also be found in bones of contaminated animals and used as food source such as bone meal. Bone meal can contain as much as 8000 ppm. Phosphate baking powders are also contaminated with fluoride compounds such as cryolite, barium fluosiliate and fluoroarsenate.

Fluorine has a strong affinity in nature for elements found on the opposite end of the periodic table. Phosphates, calcium, magnesium potassium products should all be suspect to fluoride contamination, especially in the concentrated form. Calcium diphosphate and calcium triphosphate are especially prevalent in fortifying many of our foods and drinks. It is frequently found in baby foods, orange juice and many products reporting a calcium supplement. There are researchers who have sampled calcium dietary supplements and have found fluoride contaminations as high as 5000 ppm. The average concentration in Dr. De Eds study measuring the amounts of fluoride in the mineral supplement dicalcium phosphate was 2700 ppm. ¹⁸ The recommended daily dose of this supplement for infants was 1/4 to 1 teaspoonful and children 1/2 to 1 1/2 teaspoonful. At 1 teaspoonful per day taken as a supplement, the daily fluorine intake was 10 mg. This is 20 times the amount known to cause mottled enamel in children.

Pablum was touted as the perfect baby food in the 1940’s through the 1960’s. Dietitians were promoting it through marketing to mothers who couldn’t breast feed their baby. Pablum had a hidden problem. It contained anywhere from 6 to 22 ppm of fluorine with an average of 12 ppm. ¹⁹ The source was the calcium phosphates from the ground up bones of cattle. The cattle were getting the fluorine from minerals placed in their feed and in mineral licks. Both of these can be very high in fluorine. The cattle are usually killed as teenagers or very young adults so the chronic fluorine poisoning was not yet evident. The fluorine accumulates up the food chain and as we age it builds up. Some doctors correlated the high fluorine intake in children with the radical increase in cases of muscular dystrophy. ²⁰

The effect fluorine has on the developing pituitary and thyroid glands, as well as the nervous system and brain, is a great cause for concern and will be explored in the upcoming chapters.

18 DeEds, Floyd PhD The Toxicity of Fluorine in Dicalcium Phosphate American Journal of the Medical Sciences 203 May 1942 p.687-692

19 Ham and Smith Fluorine Balance Studies on Four Infants Journal of Nutrition vol. 53 (2) June 1954

20 Commander Guy Carr The Red Fog Over America CPA Book Publishers Or 1955

FREE RADICALS

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You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

Abraham Lincoln

O ur bodies are continually producing and deactivating free radicals. They are needed in many everyday bodily functions like digestion, metabolism, hormone signaling and our immune-defense system. These free radicals are used to carry out vital functions but if they are not controlled or if the body is exposed to free radical types and amounts that it cannot deactivate, then a disease process sets in.

To simplify, a free radical could be an element, compound or complex molecule that wants to share or steal another molecules electrons. By itself, a free radical is unstable. Stable molecules have electrons that exist in pairs. If a molecule has an electron that does not have a partner, it becomes unstable and reactive – a free radical.

Stable structures have electrons that exist in pairs. If a molecule has an unpaired electron, that molecule becomes unstable. Depending on the strength of the remaining electrons, the unpaired electron will want to donate itself to another molecule thereby making itself stable but usually creating another unstable molecule…another free radical. This chain-reaction can be both rapid and very destructive to the body. This downhill spiral can be stopped by an antioxidant that freely donates electrons and in the process becomes stable. Examples of antioxidants would be vitamins (like A, D, E, C), minerals (like selenium, copper, germanium), amino acids (like histidine and lysine), carotenoids (like lycopene), bioflavonoids, proanthocyanids and different herbs (like garlic and ginkgo biloba).

Lipids in cell membranes are especially subject to attack by free radicals. Electrons are held not as tightly in lipids and lipoproteins. Cholesterol in its free radical form can become concentrated in plaques contributing to strokes and heart disease.

In the mid 1950’s, free radicals were being singled out as the primary cause of aging. They had already been investigated as the culprit in many disease processes but the progression of aging, illness and death was suddenly explainable by the imbalance of fee radical occurrence and the body’s inability to neutralize them.

Common sources of free radicals include ozone, cigarette smoke, toxic chemicals, processed food, sunlight and other ionizing radiation like radon and X-rays. Drugs are a large part of free radical exposure today including common ones like aspirin, antacids, and antihistamines. Air pollution and impurities in our drinking water are also contributing to our overexposure to fee radicals.

On an elemental level, singlet oxygen and other forms of oxygen like superoxide (O2-) and the hydroxyl radical are not only used by the body to kill microbes and viral intruders, but exposure can cause damage to the brain, spinal cord, retina (macular degeneration) and lens of the eye (cataracts). It’s damaging capabilities to all membranes, muscles, cartilaginous surfaces (arthritis) and even the cells DNA leading to chromosomal aberrations like cancer, is well known and documented.

Oxygen is found in the upper right corner of the periodic table. It’s electro negativity, (its ability to attract electrons) is the second highest of all the elements. This makes oxygen potentially very dangerous to a biologic system as a source of free radicals. There is only one element more electronegative known to mankind, and that is fluorine. It is this feature of fluorine that has made it so popular in the industrial boom of the 20th century. The electro- negativity combined with its small size, has enabled scientists to join it with a host of other elements and compounds to create previously unknown substances like Freon, Goretex, Teflon, plastics, rubber, concrete, and improve the properties of steel, aluminum, nickel, iron and create monsters like atomic bombs and nerve gasses.

Fluorine has made all of these things possible but this same property has made fluorine extremely dangerous to life. It is the ultimate free radical and the chaos that it causes in a biologic system can be traced back to its stealing of electrons and it binding to substances that easily donate electrons.

As aging is correlated with the bodies inability to cope with free radicals, we can now begin to understand why one Ph D Biochemist, John Yiamouyiannis, appropriately labeled fluorine, the aging factor. ²¹

21 Fluorine the Aging Factor Dr. John Yiamouyiannis

Health Action Press, Delaware, Ohio 1993

ABSORPTION OF FLUORIDE THROUGH THE LUNGS AND SKIN

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Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.

We have guided missiles and misguided men.

Martin Luther King Jr.

T he skin and lungs have been forgotten in nearly every exposure study dealing with toxicants like fluoride. The skin is the largest organ in the body with a surface area of an adult covering about 22 square feet. Children are especially vulnerable to toxins from absorption. Their skin is sensitive, softer, more porous and they tend to take longer baths. According to a 1998 EPA report, children have a greater surface area to body weight ratio than adults, which may lead to increased dermal absorption. Blood flow rates are generally higher in children and along with their growth, will tend to absorb more through the skin than adults.

The lungs are even more neglected as a route of toxin exposure. In an adult, the actual respiratory membrane surface area is about equivalent to a floor area 25 x 30 ft. At an average of .6 microns in thickness, the surface is ideally structured to handle rapid diffusion of gas and minute particles in the air.

To cite an example, a study recently published in the journal Science and Total Environment the cancer risk from another halogen compound, chloroform, was examined for skin absorption and inhalation during a 10 and 20 minute shower. Total exposure was compared when looking at ingestion, inhalation and skin absorption. A total of 137 tap water samples were selected from 26 locations in Taiwan. They found that in a twenty -minute shower, the exposure to chloroform from the shower water inhalation and skin absorption was actually higher than the daily ingestion ²² through drinking and cooking.

The National Academy of Sciences came up with the method to figure out the acceptable amount of chemicals allowable in our drinking water. This method is used by our American EPA to monitor ‘safe’ levels of contaminants in our drinking water. These safe levels, called an acceptable daily intake, is based on an average adult ingestion of 2 liters of water or 1 liter for a child.

The fault in this method is the disregard to other routes of exposure through the drinking water such as through the processing of food, preparation of food, taking a bath, showering, swimming or jumping into a hot tub. Showering involves not only the skin as being a route of absorption, but also exposes the lungs through the inhalation of fine mist.

Fluorine penetrates the skin with ease. There are numerous reports of exposure to fluorine compounds like hydrofluoric acid and sodium fluoride, and even deaths due only to skin exposure. Skin penetration is variable and there are many factors that have to be considered in determining the overall toxin exposure. Younger individuals will absorb more than older ones. The dryer the skin, the less the absorption. The warmer the temperature, the greater the absorption. Skin conditions such as rashes, psoriasis, eczema, sunburn, or cuts and abrasions will increase the absorption. Shaving, with its scratches and microabrasions, will increase absorption. The respiratory conditions like asthma, bronchitis, a cold or even a sore throat can increase absorption. Ph effects absorption as will soaps such as the common sodium lauryl sulfate ²³ which greatly increases the permeation of chemicals such as fluoride. Different areas of the body absorb differing amounts. In test solutions, the forearm and hand can be relatively impermeable (8.6%) compared to the scalp, forehead, stomach, underarm and scrotum (near 100% penetration.)

The presence of multiple compounds has been shown to have an even greater effect on penetrating the skin and toxins in combinations can become more readily absorbed than a single substance. ²⁴

Three scientists working for the Office of Research and Standards, Massachusetts Department of Environmental Quality Engineering tested three organic contaminants found in water, Toulene, Ethylbenzene and Styrene. Using three different concentrations .005, .1 and .5 mg/L (fluorine is typically 1 to 2.5 mg/L in our public water supplies) they exposed a 70 kg adult to a bath for 15 minutes at 80% immersion, a 10.5 kg infant bathing for 15 minutes at 75% immersion and a 21.9 kg child swimming for 1 hour at 90% immersion and measured the absorption compared to ingestion of water (adults 2 L/day, children 1 L/day). The temperatures were between 23 and 25 c. They found that the body received more contamination from absorption, average of 64% of the daily exposure, than from drinking water which was 36%, with a range of 29 to 91 % of the total daily dose. The highest contamination was from the swimming pool which was actually found to be ten to twenty -times the levels received from drinking. ²⁵

Besides the fluorine, other halogens such as chlorine and bromine are now placed in swimming pools at much higher concentrations. Bromine is a well- known human sterilizing agent, used during WWI on troops to curb sexual appetite and reduce pregnancies. Bromine had been shown to lower spermatogenesis and interfere with reproduction in humans exposed to doses of bromine vapor. ²⁶ It has also been linked to thyroid problems ²⁷ and cancer ²⁸ of the kidney, thyroid and mesothelium in rat studies.

Sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS) is probably the most widely used detergent in bath soaps, bar soaps, liquid soaps, detergents, shampoos and toothpaste. In one study at the University of Oslo in Norway, the plasma level of fluoride was measured after brushing of the teeth in