The Effects of Fluoride on the Thyroid Gland

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The Effects Of Fluoride On

The Thyroid Gland

By Dr Barry Durrant-Peatfield MBBS LRCP MRCS

Medical Advisor to Thyroid UK

9-9-4

There

is a daunting amount of research studies showing that the widely acclaimed

benefits on fluoride dental health are more imagined than real. My main

concern however, is the effect of sustained fluoride intake on general

health. Again, there is a huge body of research literature on this subject,

freely available and in the public domain.

But

this body of work was not considered by the York Review when their remit was

changed from " Studies of the effects of fluoride on health " to

" Studies on the effects of fluoridated water on health. " It is

clearly evident that it was not considered by the BMA (Britsh Medical

Association), British Dental Association (BDA), BFS (British Fluoridation

Society) and FPHM, (Faculty for Public Health and Medicine) since they all

insist, as in the briefing paper to Members of Parliament - that fluoridation

is safe and non-injurious to health.

This

is a public disgrace, I will now show by reviewing the damaging effects of

fluoridation, with special reference to thyroid illness.

It

has been known since the latter part of the 19th century that certain

communities, notably in Argentina, India and Turkey were chronically ill,

with premature ageing, arthritis, mental retardation, and infertility; and

high levels of natural fluorides in the water were responsible. Not only was

it clear that the fluoride was having a general effect on the health of the

community, but in the early 1920s Goldemberg, working in Argentina showed

that fluoride was displacing iodine; thus compounding the damage and

rendering the community also hypothyroid from iodine deficiency.

Highly

damaging to the thyroid gland

This

was the basis of the research in the 1930s of May, Litzka, Gorlitzer von

Mundy, who used fluoride preparations to treat over-active thyroid illness.

Their patients either drank fluoridated water, swallowed fluoride pills or

were bathed in fluoridated bath water; and their thyroid function was as a

result, greatly depressed. The use in 1937 of fluorotyrosine for this purpose

showed how effective this treatment was; but the effectiveness was difficult

to predict and many patients suffered total thyroid loss. So it was given a

new role and received a new name, Pardinon. It was marketed not for

over-active thyroid disease but as a pesticide. (Note the manufacturer of

fluorotyrosine was IG Farben who also made sarin, a gas used in World War

II).

This

bit of history illustrates the fact that fluorides are dangerous in general

and in particular highly damaging to the thyroid gland, a matter to which I

shall return shortly. While it is unlikely that it will be disputed that

fluorides are toxic - let us be reminded that they are Schedule 2 Poisons

under the Poisons Act 1972, the matter in dispute is the level of toxicity

attributable to given amounts; in today's context the degree of damage caused

by given concentrations in the water supply. While admitting its toxicity,

proponents rely on the fact that it is diluted and therefore, it is claimed,

unlikely to have deleterious effects.

They

could not be more mistaken

It

seems to me that we must be aware of how fluoride does its damage. It is an

enzyme poison. Enzymes are complex protein compounds that vastly speed up

biological chemical reactions while themselves remaining unchanged. As we

speak, there occurs in all of us a vast multitude of these reactions to

maintain life and produce the energy to sustain it. The chains of amino acids

that make up these complex proteins are linked by simple compounds called

amides; and it is with these that fluorine molecules react, splitting and

distorting them, thus damaging the enzymes and their activity. Let it be said

at once, this effect can occur at extraordinary low concentrations; even

lower than the one part per million which is the dilution proposed for

fluoridation in our water supply.

The

body can only eliminate half

Moreover,

fluorides are cumulative and build up steadily with ingestion of fluoride

from all sources, which include not just water but the air we breathe and the

food we eat. The use of fluoride toothpaste in dental hygiene and the coating

of teeth are further sources of substantial levels of fluoride intake. The

body can only eliminate half of the total intake, which means that the older

you are the more fluoride will have accumulated in your body. Inevitably this

means the ageing population is particularly targeted. And even worse for the

very young there is a major element of risk in baby formula made with

fluoridated water. The extreme sensitivity of the very young to fluoride

toxicity makes this unacceptable. Since there are so many sources of fluoride

in our everyday living, it will prove impossible to maintain an average level

of 1ppm as is suggested.

What

is the result of these toxic effects?

First

the immune system. The distortion of protein structure causes the immune

proteins to fail to recognise body proteins, and so instigate an attack on

them, which is Autoimmune Disease. Autoimmune diseases constitute a body of

disease processes troubling many thousands of people: Rheumatoid Arthritis,

Systemic Lupus Erythematosis, Asthma and Systemic Sclerosis are examples; but

in my particular context today, thyroid antibodies will be produced which

will cause Thyroiditis resulting in the common hypothyroid disease,

Hashimoto's Disease and the hyperthyroidism of Graves' Disease.

Musculo

Skeletal damage results further from the enzyme toxic effect; the collagen

tissue of which muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones are made, is damaged.

Rheumatoid illness, osteoporosis and deformation of bones inevitably follow.

This toxic effect extends to the ameloblasts making tooth enamel, which is

consequently weakened and then made brittle; and its visible appearance is,

of course, dental fluorosis.

The

enzyme poison effect extends to our genes; DNA cannot repair itself, and

chromosomes are damaged. Work at the University of Missouri showed genital

damage, targeting ovaries and testes. Also affected is inter uterine growth

and development of the foetus, especially the nervous system. Increased

incidence of Down's Syndrome has been documented.

Fluorides

are mutagenic. That is, they can cause the uncontrolled proliferation of

cells we call cancer. This applies to cancer anywhere in the body; but bones

are particularly picked out. The incidence of osteosarcoma in a study

reporting in 1991 showed an unbelievable 50% increase. A report in 1955 in

the New England Journal of Medicine showed a 400% increase in cancer of the

thyroid in San Francisco during the period their water was fluoridated.

My

particular concern is the effect of fluorides on the thyroid gland

Perhaps

I may remind you about thyroid disease. The thyroid gland produces hormones

which control our metabolism - the rate at which we burn our fuel. Deficiency

is relatively common, much more than is generally accepted by many medical

authorities: a figure of 1:4 or 1:3 by mid life is more likely. The illness

is insidious in its onset and progression. People become tired, cold,

overweight, depressed, constipated; they suffer arthritis, hair loss,

infertility, atherosclerosis and chronic illness. Sadly, it is poorly

diagnosed and poorly managed by very many doctors in this country.

What

concerns me so deeply is that in concentrations as low as 1ppm, fluorides

damage the thyroid system on 4 levels.

1.

The enzyme manufacture of thyroid hormones within the thyroid gland itself. The

process by which iodine is attached to the amino acid tyrosine and converted

to the two significant thyroid hormones, thyroxine (T4) and liothyronine

(T3), is slowed.

2.

The stimulation of certain G proteins from the toxic effect of fluoride

(whose function is to govern uptake of substances into each of the cells of

the body), has the effect of switching off the uptake into the cell of the

active thyroid hormone.

3.

The thyroid control mechanism is compromised. The thyroid stimulating hormone

output from the pituitary gland is inhibited by fluoride, thus reducing

thyroid output of thyroid hormones.

4.

Fluoride competes for the receptor sites on the thyroid gland which respond

to the thyroid stimulating hormone; so that less of this hormone reaches the

thyroid gland and so less thyroid hormone is manufactured.

These

damaging effects, all of which occur with small concentrations of fluoride,

have obvious and easily identifiable effects on thyroid status. The running

down of thyroid hormone means a slow slide into hypothyroidism. Already the

incidence of hypothyroidism is increasing as a result of other environmental

toxins and pollutions together with wide spread nutritional deficiencies.

141

million Europeans are at risk

One

further factor should give us deep anxiety. Professor Hume of Dundee, in his

paper given earlier this year to the Novartis Foundation, pointed out that

iodine deficiency is growing worldwide. There are 141 million Europeans are

at risk; only 5 European countries are iodine sufficient. UK now falls into

the marginal and focal category. Professor Hume recently produced figures to

show that 40% of pregnant women in the Tayside region of Scotland were

deficient by at least half of the iodine required for a normal pregnancy. A

relatively high level of missing, decayed, filled teeth was noted in this

non-fluoridated area, suggesting that the iodine deficiency was causing early

hypothyroidism which interferes with the health of teeth. Dare one speculate on

the result of now fluoridating the water?

Displaces

iodine in the body

These

figures would be worrying enough, since they mean that iodine deficiency,

which results in hypothyroidism (thyroid hormone cannot be manufactured

without iodine) is likely to affect huge numbers of people. What makes it

infinitely worse, is that fluorine, being a halogen (chemically related to

iodine), but very much more active, displaces iodine. So that the uptake of

iodine is compromised by the ejection, as it were, of the iodine by fluorine.

To condemn the entire population, already having marginal levels of iodine,

to inevitable progressive failure of their thyroid system by fluoridating the

water, borders on criminal lunacy.

I

would like to place a scenario in front of those colleagues who favour

fluoridation. A new pill is marketed. Some trials not all together

satisfactory, nevertheless, show a striking improvement in dental caries.

Unfortunately, it has been found to be thyrotoxic, mutagenic,

immunosuppressive, cause arthritis and infertility in comparatively small

doses over a relatively short period of time.

Do

you think it should be marketed?

Fluoridation

of the nation's water supply will do little for our dental health; but will

have catastrophic effects on our general health. We cannot, must not, dare

not, subject our nation to this appalling risk.

References:

L

Goldemberg - La Semana Med 28:628 (1921) - cited in RH, DeEds F

- " The Synergistic Action Of Thyroid On Fluoride Toxicity "

Endocrinology 26:851 (1940).

G

Litzka - " Die experimentellen Grundlagen der Behandlung des Morbus

Basedow und der Hyperthyreose mittels Fluortyrosin "

Med

Wochenschr 63:1037-1040 (1937) (discusses the basis of the use of fluorides

in anti-thyroid medication, documents activity on liver, inhibition of

glycolysis, etc.).

W

May - " Behandlung der Hypothyreosen einschlieblich des schweren genuinen

Morbus Basedow mit Fluor " Klin Wochenschr 16: 562 - 564 (1937).

Sarin:

(GB: isopropyl methylphosono-fluoridate) is a colorless, odorless volatile

liquid, soluble in water, first synthesized at IG Farben in 1938. It kills

mainly through inhalation.

Cyclosarin

(GF) and Thiosarin are variants. Pennsylvania Department of Health

http://www.dsf.health.state.pa.us/health/cwp/view.asp?a=171 & q=233740

Sarin:

(GB: CH3-P(=O)(-F)(-OCH(CH3)2)

Source:

A FOA Briefing Book on Chemical Weapons http://www.opcw.org/resp/html/nerve.html

Gerhard Schrader, a chemist at IG Farben, was given the task of

developing a pesticide. Two years later a phosphorus compound with extremely

high toxicity was produced for the first time.

IG

Farben: " ...the board of American IG Farben had three directors from the

Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the most influential of the various Federal

Reserve Banks. American IG Farben. also had interlocks with Standard Oil of

New Jersey, Ford Motor Company, Bank of Manhattan (later to become the Chase

Manhattan Bank), and AEG. (German General Electric) Source: Moody's Manual of

Investments; 1930, page 2149. "

http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/chapter_02.htm