Fluoride & Arthritis: New Data Highlights Hazards of Current Safety Standards

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The Fluoride Action Network (FAN) has obtained data showing that the risk of fluoride to bone and joints is far worse than U.S. health authorities have thus far acknowledged. The data, which has never before been considered by any government, scientific, or public health organization in the U.S., shows that current safety standards do not protect against fluoride-induced joint pathologies, including osteoarthritis, and that many people whose bones and joints are seriously damaged by fluoride exposure will not be identified as suffering from fluoride toxicity under prevailing diagnostic standards endorsed by U.S. health authorities. Based on this heretofore unconsidered data, a serious reassessment about the safety of current fluoride policies is urgently needed.

Current “Safe” Fluoride Dose Is Toxic to Bone

In the United States, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has established 10 milligrams as the dose of fluoride that anyone over age 8 can ingest every day of their life without experiencing any toxic effect on their bone — including those with kidney disease. According to the IOM, it’s only when the dose exceeds 10 mg/day that fluoride can cause the earliest stages of skeletal fluorosis (a bone disease caused by fluoride). The IOM’s safety standard has long been known to be riddled with problems; today, FAN can state unequivocally that it is — empirically — false.

FAN has obtained and translated the findings of a comprehensive study from China which shows that skeletal fluorosis becomes detectable by x-ray (“stage 1″ fluorosis) at daily doses of just 6.5 mg/day. (Experts Group 2000) The study, which was the result of a coordinated research effort by a team of Chinese health agencies is the only study of its kind to systematically investigate the fluoride dose that causes the various stages of skeletal fluorosis. To do so, the health agencies focused on populations in China that receive fluoride almost exclusively from a tea drink known as “brick tea.” Based on their findings, the health agencies concluded that “the daily intake of fluoride from brick tea must not exceed 5 mg.” To put this in contrast, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has estimated that adults in fluoridated communities ingest up to 6.6 mg/day. (DHHS 1991).

The health agencies’ findings are consistent with the findings of other research teams in China. In 2003, for example, a study…

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