Arsenic in my Fluoride? CDC admits Yes

[razors edge]

New York – March 2007 -- Trace amounts of arsenic are found in fluoride chemicals added to drinking water supplies, reports the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) website. (1)

Fluoridation is a controversial attempt to reduce tooth decay in tap-water consumers.

Fluoridation chemicals - sodium fluoride, sodium fluorosilicate, and fluorosilicic acid (FSA) – are all derived from the manufacture of phosphate fertilizer, reports the CDC. Trace amounts of unwanted contaminants, such as antimony, barium, beryllium, arsenic and others, are allowed to remain in
fluoridation chemicals before flowing through America’s faucets (2)

The CDC reports, tests by National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) revealed arsenic was present in sample batches of FSA. When trace amounts were present, the treated water had an average of 0.43 parts per billion (ppb) of arsenic, with a high of 1.66 ppb attributable to the fluoride additive. (2)

Who's lookin' out for ya baby?

Edit:http://www.businessportal24.com/en/Arsenic_Fluoride_CDC_Yes_148089.html

[leftchick]

1. link?

though I have no doubt. There is no wonder some EU nations have banned floridation of water.

[razors edge]

2. Sorry, up now. n/t

[leftchick]

7. thank you

:)

[juno jones]

3. Bellingham WA is non-flouridated...

We've had to fight to keep it that way. Every few years they try to introduce it. I hate the hypocracy of the dentists who point to the numbers of poor children with dental problems and act as if flouride would magically change that without actually having to give them any real access to dental care. Thanks for the new info. I'll be happy to pass it on. It will be good ammunition when the bastards try to introduce it again. 'Cause you just know they will....

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Yeah, Bellingham chlorinates instead.

And they allow recreational boating in their source.

Probably should have gone with the fluoridation.

[razors edge]

17. I remember my dentist

putting a mouthpiece full of highly concentrated fluoride with vacuum attachment on me when I was about ten, They don't do that any more do they?

Didn't help, fluoridated water and toothpaste didn't either.

Fluoride is a poison isn't it?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. Fluoride is only poisonous at high concentrations.

The substance you're dentist used would have been higher than toothpaste, but still far lower than the minimum concentration needed to do harm.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. So, fluoride in tap water is at what concentration? 1 ppm?

So if that means arsenic in fluoride is 1 ppb, and fluoride in water is 1 ppm...

then the concentration of arsenic in water is, what, 1 part per quintillion?

(some one want to check my math)

I suspect that's considerably less than the natural occurence of arsenic in water.

[juno jones]

6. Probably true

But I filter anyway...as for the lake I know there has been controversy over use. I'm certainly not happy about it but believe me I've lived in places that treated their water system far worse. Oh well, maybe if gas prices get too high for the 'recreationists' to waste gas speedboating that will all become a moot point.

[StClone]

8. Arsenic is very common

In ground water, soil and volcanic venting. There is no proven health concerns with low level exposure and humans have been exposed for eons.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. Yeah, I just googled it.

Most organism's have between 1 and 100 ppm naturally in their bodies.

Somebody better call the CDC.

[trotsky]

10. Not the CDC!

They're in cahoots with big pharma, mercury producers, and now the powerful arsenic lobby! Aieeee!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. Oh! What am I thinking?!

Call Greenpeace!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

13. And General Ripper...

... apparently.

[Blue_Tires]

43. "Ice cream, Mandrake..........Children's ice cream."

"My God, Jack!"

[Blue_Tires]

45. this thread is useless without video evidence

best.film.ever!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekw3XVq1uHs

[razors edge]

12. Actually

I am worried about the fluoride myself. That and the chlorinated hydrocarbons, poly-biphenols, etc.

But somehow adding arsenic to the mix seamed bad to me.

Gotta be wary of the mixers.

[dragonlady]

14. Remember when fluoride was a Commie plot?

That kind of thinking kept it out of the water where I lived until my teeth were fully formed. So most of them got cavities. When you get older, the teeth weakened by fillings start breaking and wind up either getting a root canal or being pulled. That's not fun, and not cheap either. So I'm glad my kids drank water with fluoride (and had sealants, that's a huge advantage too). There's enough other crap in the water from lawn care products and industrial pollution that such a little bit of arsenic seems trivial.

[razors edge]

My first memories of a plot

involving fluoride revolved around the nuclear bomb makers needing somewhere to dump the waste that was piling up.

I have never seen a drug report from the government I trusted so its all suspect for me.

I kind of prefer to treat myself or my family as we chose, not as a bureaucrat tells me is good for me.

But those days are long gone.

[hedgehog]

15. There was an article in Prevention magazine about fluoride a

few months back. The author suggested that fluoridation was somewhat similar to HRT in the sense that it sounded like a reasonable idea but no one really did any research before instituting it. If I understood the gist of the article properly, using a fluoridated toothpaste is sufficient to get the benefit of fluoride while there is increasing evidence that fluoridated water can actually cause problems. Who knew?

[razors edge]

18. Too much a good thing? n/t

[hedgehog]

19. Everything in moderation

[papau]

16. "Lawyer Paul Beeber, President, New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation."? n/t

n/t

[Mugu]

21. Everything is a poison, everything.

Too much water will kill you, too much oxygen will kill you, and too much vitamin C will kill you. The dose makes the poison. Less than 2 ppb, that’s less than two cents in a million dollars. At that level it’s probably good for you in as much as your immune system gets a chance to figure out how to deal with it.

Regards, Mugu

[razors edge]

30. Dilution is

the solution to pollution.

Not always, but it makes us sleep better.

Just don't tell a stainless steel welder about orange juice, might make him worry.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Even miniscule amounts of chromium 6 can cause cancer. Blame that do-gooder nutrient, vitamin C.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-03/bu-c6a031207.php

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

22. How about the fact that fluoride is a major ingredient in Prozac? Luckily my town doesn't

place fluoride in the water. I also don't use toothpaste with fluoride.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

25. Major ingredient?

There are fluorine atoms bonded to carbon in the molecular structure of prozac. But that's a different situation entirely.

[Mugu]

28. I can’t speak for anybody but myself,

but I spit and rinse after brushing my teeth. So I don’t worry about ingesting the fluoride in the toothpaste. Hell, I even use a concentrated fluoride rinse on my teeth, don’t swallow that either.

Once I get the braces off, the implant installed, and a crown mounted I’ll be able to smile at people again. Assuming that I get the urge. Life is good.

Regards, Mugu

[Faux pas]

23. Isn't arsenic a heavy metal that builds up in the body over

time and eventually kills you? Or am I just dreaming?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

24. No.

Arsenic is a metalloid. It can build up in your body and kill you if you've got large amounts of arsenic in, say, your drinking water. It's a problem in certain geographical locations like Bangladesh. It's certainly not a problem at the levels described in the OP.

You maybe be thinking of mercury, which once you're exposed it sticks to your bones, and you've got it for good.

[Faux pas]

27. Thank you for clearing that up for me. I'm doing about four different

things at once and taking the time to google wasn't one of them.

:)

Peace.

[Mugu]

26. I believe that you are thinking of lead arsenic

which used to be a popular poison as opposed to elemental arsenic or arsenic trioxide that is used as a poison today.

There was a guy that thought he could slowly poison his wife with arsenic and get away undetected. The problem was that the small doses that he gave her caused her immune system to figure out how to deal with the problem and she wouldn’t die. So he gave her enough to kill eighty (that’s right 80) people and she still survived it.

Regards, Mugu

[Faux pas]

29. Thank you. My tin foil hat seems to color my interpretation of

things. LOL

I absolutely do not trust anything the government does for our 'own good'.

[Liberal In Texas]

31. Steam water distillers.

We've been using one for years and years...probably around 15 or so now (same one).

The water it produces tastes so good, when you're forced to drink other water, it tastes nasty. Even bottled water has a taste to me now.

There are scads of them available in many price ranges (just google "water distiller").

From the ccrane company FAQ:

Distillation kills biological contaminants such as bacteria, parasites, cysts, and viruses, and removes organic and inorganic chemicals, heavy metals, volatile gases, and other contaminants. The water produced is pure and contains no solids, minerals, or trace elements. Steam distillation is the only water purification method that removes virtually ALL contaminants.
http://www.ccrane.com/faqs/water-distillers.aspx#2

[razors edge]

34. I operate several large

industrial boilers, and collect the condensate for reuse.

Going to start bringing some home, soon.

[Liberal In Texas]

35. Do they do the same job as a distiller?

Because just boiling water isn't going to do it. It was kind of hard to tell from your description.

Boiling water will not get rid of salts, heavy metals, or other chemicals which may be present in the water. In fact, many are left behind. As the pure water evaporates into steam, the water left behind in the kettle becomes MORE concentrated with contaminants.

[razors edge]

36. 10 million BTU boilers

The 250 PSI steam is sent out to heat the process and then collected in condensate collection tanks.

I test the boiler make up water for ph, and hardness, soften through a reverse osmosis filter, then feed the boiler with a combination of treated city water and returned condensate. The boilers are tested twice daily for sulfate and phosphate levels, as well as dissolved solids.

Complete steam to condensate cycle, not boiler water, which is just concentrated crap we trap with a flocculant and blow down the drain.

Been running Ohio Special boilers for a while.

[Liberal In Texas]

37. Industrial equipment? What is it used for?

Just a consumer-level kind of guy here.

[razors edge]

38. Liquid Asphalt

storage and blending.

About twenty million gallons total storage, some hot oil, mostly steam heated to 300F+.

Edit sp

[Liberal In Texas]

39. Interesting. You learn something every day on DU.

I assume that if you are going to use one of these babys for drinking water, that it wouldn't have any of that tasty asphalt in it!

[razors edge]

41. If we don't eat it

every day, we at least were it home, lighter fluid is a necessity.

I feel like a traitor at times, I spent four years in remediation of volatile organics from epa super fund sites, now I work in the petro industry.

But my company has let me spend millions cleaning up a 45 year old plant and keeping it that way, so I love them for that.

[Liberal In Texas]

42. Good for you, and them for doing it.

(Although I suspect they wouldn't be doing it without government "encouragement".)

[razors edge]

46. Not this time

I have, over the years, encouraged them somewhat with my knowledge of the costs associated with a consent order.

But asphalt is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to crude, it has been cooked under high temp and high vacuum to remove all short chain molecules and is pretty well safe to eat. The rain water a lot of people collect ran off of asphalt shingles.

Shortly after I started an EPA investigator showed up unannounced for an inspection and was going to write us up for some asphalt on the ground, I asked how she would make it back for a follow up inspection to make sure we had cleaned up all asphalt on my companies private property, after she had successfully removed all the asphalt that has been laid on public property in the form of the road that brought her here? Never heard from them again in 10 years.

I love my company because they do what is right, not what is cheap.

As a remote field office they rely upon the on site manager to call the shots on what needs to be done and after a few questions they agree to get the job done right.

Edit: we have not had one lost time accident in over 200,000 man hours, ten years. They don't short the teamsters on the contract either.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

55. organic chemicals? volatile gases?

The problem with distillation is that it doesn't do much in the way of removing volatile organic compounds with boiling points below or near that of water. Unless you're using a fractionating device, it which case it'd be inefficent.

If you want to make good drinking water after distillation, pass it through a charcoal filter at least.

[Jcrowley]

32. Have you seen this?

In 1939, ALCOA-funded scientist Gerald J. Cox was one of the first to note that "The present trend toward complete removal of fluoride from water and food may need some reversal." Cox also proposed that this "apparently worthless by-product" might reduce cavities in children. Cox fluoridated lab rats, concluded that fluoride reduced cavities and declared flatly: "The case should be regarded as proved."

In 1939, the first public proposal that the US should fluoridate its water supplies was made, not by a doctor, or dentist, but by Cox, an industry scientist working for a company threatened by fluoride damage claims.

Undoubtedly, most proponents were sincere in their belief that the procedure was safe and beneficial. Nonetheless, their unquestioning endorsement of fluoridation made possible a master public relations stroke. If the leaders of dentistry, medicine, and public health supported pouring fluoride into the public's drinking water - proclaiming to the nation that there was a "wide margin of safety" - how were they going to turn around later and say industry's fluoride pollution was dangerous?

If fluoride could be introduced as a health-enhancing substance that should be added to the environment for the children's sake, those opposing it would look like quacks and lunatics.

http://www.rvi.net/~fluoride/000062.htm

What is put in approx. 70% of the US water supply is in fact not fluoride at all, a toxin itself, but is hydrofluosilisicic (sp?) acid and approx. 90% of that comes from Cargill phosphate fertilizer scrubber plants in Hillsborough Bay, Fla. I encourage you to disbelieve this and investigate further. There are also uranium isotpoes in the US fluoridated water supply as well as many other heavy metals.

Learn more:
http://fluoridealert.org/

http://fluoridealert.org/50-reasons.htm

http://www.fluorideaction.org/nrc-fluoride.htm

The rest of the world knows better and here in never-never land people are brainwashed and flippant.

[razors edge]

33. Wow

Thats even more depressing. Not only do we shit on our children, we do it for money.

[Redstone]

40. Oh, Christ. In the 1960s, the nutters called fluoridation a "Commie Plot." Now we have

this. Did anyone notice the part about trace amounts?

Like we don't have things that are actually important to worry about...


Redstone

[razors edge]

48. You came late to the pile on

Redstone, there are plenty of responses expressing your indignation. I didn't write the damn report, I did post it. My apologies.

[Redstone]

49. Nah, you don't gotta apologize to me. But my friendly advice would be to examine

the source a bit more closely next time. That guy who sent out the press release is an obvious crank case.

Redstone

[razors edge]

50. Thats always a problem here,

we all tend to post sidelined issues that are not our normal concern with a eye on the stories not covered.

My comment about who's lookin' out for you, was not to say I was, It was sarcasm about the fact no MSM was going to tell you any bad news concerning the arsenic issue. I was not happy with the * admin upping the levels allowed when I heard about it years ago, and when I came across this story and posted it in GD, not LBN. I expected no response on this to be truthful.

Edit: sp

Edit#2 I truthfully expected no response.

[gravity]

44. Thats still at safe levels

There is dangerous chemicals in everything, but just at very small amounts that don't cause any harm.

1ppb is a really small amount

[razors edge]

51. Thats correct

it is a very small concentration, but I have worked remediation sites where 0.5 ppb was the required level for closure.

I never worked on arsenic, or studied the PELs on it so I may have posted something that has caused more alarm than needed.

[politicat]

47. What a NON STORY.

Our local ground water has more arsenic in it than that just by being our local ground water. I'm thinking that those concentrations border on the homeopathic.

Reminder, folks: Arsenic is damaging at levels greater than 1 part per 100,000. Below those concentrations, that's what's naturally in the soil and water. My home-grown carrots have arsenic concentrations higher than that found in the fluoride samples because we have arsenic in our soil.

It's not a reason to stop fluoridation. For anyone who knows people who grew up without it, for anyone who knows 23 year olds who have full dentures because they didn't have access to fluoride (though she did have excellent, GM funded dental care), this type of release is so dishonest it's painful.

[razors edge]

52. We had floridation

and all my siblings and myself had cavities and more.

You could be right, but either way, I'll pass on eating your carrots, never liked them anyway.

[politicat]

53. It's in all the local produce...

In the 1 ppb range. Which means that local meat runs in the 10 ppb range, because grazers are bioconcentraters. And Colorado is a beef producing state, as well as a potato producer. (We grow the red ones.) It's a mineral.

The bigger issue is that we hear the word arsenic and run for the hills, scared to death. But it's not that bad in minute quantities. Homeopathic doses (which these are) can't harm.

My mom's generation and my cousins who still live in our old well-water village have terrible teeth, even though all of them were "Crest Kids" and had dental care. My sisters and I lived in places with municipal fluoridation, and we totally see the difference. My cousin, who is the same age as my little sister, (and whose father is a cousin to my father, though there's no other relationship, so it's not an inbreeding thing) and had better dental care (her dad worked for GM while ours was Navy, and DoD dental care wasn't pretty in the early 80s) just lost the last of her teeth. At 24. Her brothers aren't doing much better, but they haven't had a baby, and it seems that babies aren't good for mum's teeth. It's a common thing in that area -- and all of the local dentists now prescribe daily fluoride washes for children and fluoridated bottled water for nursing moms. And it's improving the general dental health of the community. So if less arsenic than I get from a bowl of vegetable soup is the price... that's an easy choice.

[Mugu]

54. Around here (north central Illinois) we have radium

in the water and radon in our basements. I think that I would rather have arsenic, at least it doesn’t give off any radioactive gases.

Regards, Mugu

[razors edge]

57. I don't have

a family comparison I could make like you, ( both with and without ) which I believe to be important in making a comparison.

I don't believe it hurt my teeth, so I can't rail against it for that, I just don't trust the mayor to know his Biological Chemistry when he signs the contract to supply the chemicals that are dumped in the municipal water supply.

[Ninja Jordan]

56. Yums yum yummy. I love flouride. Never had a cavity in my life.

The naturalists can have their own water if they want.

[pinniped]

58. Arsenic is also in chicken.

.