Sep 17, 2008

Chickenpox Parties and Fluoride

Not that these two things have anything in common with each other. They do to me. I have an opinion on both of them.

Chickenpox Parties

Questions: Do you trust what "everyone" says about vaccines? Do you ask what are the motives behind what people and companies say? Do you do any research on what others have told you?

Statements:

immunity the old-fashioned way, by catching the disease from an infected child and muddling through weeks of itchiness. Such chickenpox parties were also held in the pre-vaccine era because some experts argued it was safest for kids to get the disease early in life, when the effects tend to be relatively mild.
Getting kids infected can be harder than parents assume, experts said. Chickenpox is most contagious during a period of slightly more than one week, beginning a few days before lesions appear and lasting until scabs form on the chickenpox sores.
One recent study found that 70 percent of people hospitalized for chickenpox complications were otherwise healthy.

I wonder about this statistic. What percentage of people who get chickenpox are hospitalized and how old are they?

Read the entire article here.

Fluoride

Questions: Is Fluoride good for you? How is it made? Are there any side effects? What is a TOXIC dose? Why aren't all cities putting Fluoride in their water? Do all dentist recommend Fluoride for their patients?

Statements:

Fluoride in higher concentrations is a potent poison. In 1952, the Alcoa (AMEX:AA.PR) (NYSE:AA) aluminum plant in Vancouver, Washington was found to have illegally dumped up to 7,000 pounds of fluoride compound wastes into the Columbia River each month. The chemical contaminated the surrounding grass and forage and resulted in injury and death to cattle, according to a report in the Seattle Times.

Vancouver, Washington uses pure granular sodium fluoride to treat its water supply.

But the fluoride added to most public drinking water supplies, a compound called hydrofluorosilic acid, comes from phosphate fertilizer plants, where it is stripped from smokestack scrubbers that also capture trace amounts of heavy metals such as lead, arsenic and radium. If it weren't put into drinking water, it would be treated as toxic waste.

O.K. picture this one........ Hydrophuorosilic acid is a by product of a fertilizer plant. They collect it by scraping it from smokestacks along with lead, arsenic and radium. Great picture - now let's put that in our water, otherwise it will just go to waste. RECYCLE!
Employees who work with fluoride must wear protective clothing and respirators. A 1998 study by the International Society for Fluoride Research, published in the journal Brain Research, found that laboratory rats given fluoridated drinking water at the same concentrations used in public water systems suffered brain and kidney damage.
In 1999, a union representing 1,500 scientists, lawyers, engineers and other professional employees of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called for an end to fluoridation of drinking water, saying the practice "borders on a criminal act" on the part of government. EPA scientists cited scientific literature documenting "the increasingly out-of-control exposures to fluoride," the lack of benefits from ingesting fluoride and the potential hazards to human health, including the risk of kidney damage, gene mutations, cancer, reproductive effects, damage to bones and the nervous system, and dental fluorosis.
In 2006, Harvard researchers published a multiyear study reporting that exposure to fluoride at levels considered optimum by the American Dental Association increased the risk of bone cancer in boys by more than 500 percent.
Also in 2006, a report from the National Research Council recommended that the EPA lower its standard for naturally occurring fluoride, which is currently 4 parts per million per liter of water. The council cited adverse impacts including increased bone fractures and damage to neurological, immune and reproductive systems. Based on that report, the American Dental Association issued a new warning against the use of fluoridated water in infant formula, which was echoed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Melody Scheer, oral health coordinator for Clark County, said "If a child swallows toothpaste, or takes too many vitamin pills, that is where you can get an overdose."

Read the entire article here. I don' know if this is an argument for Fluoride or against it. Does that mean if my kids are drinking the water and using Fluoride toothpaste at the same time they can get an overdose. What is the dosage needed for a 50 pound kid? WANT THE ANSWER - scroll down.

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Sodium Fluoride: The LD50 for a rat is 75 MG/KG if given orally. LD 50 means the amount of a substance needed to be a lethal dose for 50% of the test population. For a 50 pound rat one would need 1.7 grams or 0.059 ounces.

The LDL for a human is 71 mg/kg in given orally. LDL mean lowest lethal dose. Sodium Fluoride is class 6.1 Poisonous Material for the DOT (Department of Transportation). Looking for the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS).

Hydrofluorosilic Acid:M There is no LD50 for this chemical. The DOT marks it as a Class 8 Corrosive liquid. Looking for the MSDS. We can use this chemical to etch glass!

The toxic dose of fluoride for a 2-year-old child weighing 22 pounds is 320 milligrams. Toxic fluoride doses are based on weight, and a toxic dose of fluoride for an 8-year-old child weighing 45 pounds is 655 milligrams. In comparison, an 8-ounce glass of water fluoridated to 1 part per million contains 0.25 milligrams of fluoride.

Taken from Colgate.

1 comment:

ZM said...

personally, I'm a fan of chickenpox parties. And of prodding the pediatrician gently. Ours likes vaccines, but admits that this one is mostly to save work days for parents. There are a very very few cases of chickenpox that you might regret sneering at the vax for, but only a very very few.

So, we're for the parties. Care to join us?