Can you give some references which show that both the accumulation of fluoride in tissues is significant and toxic please? Only if both these conditions exist is there cause for concern. Since fluoride exists naturally in many groundwaters at concentrations around 500 parts per billion, I would imagine that organisms have come to adapt to that level without difficulty, and only if councils are being asked to add so much fluoride that the figure passes say 1 part per million would there be a problem. I do agree that fluoride concentrations of many parts per million are toxic by the way. The issue is the safe level, not whether it exists at all.

The issue Tony is bio-accumulation which continues until we die.

No mammal has been able to develop immunity to Fluoride because no cells have the ability to eject it, so that is why Fluoride was widely used in pest control. Some micro-organisms have evolved by developing specific Fluoride ion ejection channels.

Here is an introduction I wrote in 2015.

Technical Report Fluoride is a bio-accumulative, endocrine disrupting, neurot...

It is highly dangerous to send such circulars/directions from responsible institutions & persons, as already unabated pollution activities are taking place by the industrial sector. We all know that once polluted, it is very difficult to rectify the same. We also know that it is better to prevent than to allow the pollution to take place and try to rectify the same later.

There are WHO standards and National Water Quality Standards which restrict the amount of Fluoride in drinking water. In India the recommendation is less than 1 mg/l (desirable) and 1 to 1.5 mg/l as permissible in the absence of alternate sources. Many people in India are suffering from dental and skeletal fluorosis. If the argument is correct that our body will take care of any excesses, then why these ailments are present. Certainly there is some mischief somewhere (in sending such directions).

A report of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine (Washington) summarises the findings of an expert committee as follows:

Maximum-Contaminant-Level Goal: In light of the collective evidence on various health end points and total exposure to fluoride, the committee concludes that EPA’s MCLG of 4 mg/L should be lowered. Lowering the MCLG will prevent children from developing severe enamel fluorosis and will reduce the lifetime accumulation of fluoride into bone that the majority of the committee concluded is likely to put individuals at increased risk of bone fracture and possibly skeletal fluorosis, which are particular concerns for subpopulations that are prone to accumulating fluoride in their bone.

Many thanks Dr Narasimha Prasad. Skeletal Fluorosis was identified by the Australian NHMRC in 1954 as a major threat to humans due to contaminated groundwater bores that killed millions of farm animals in the 1940s, especially in Queensland. In 1954 the then members of the NHMRC referred to "Fluoride Storage Disease".

According to paragraph 7(1)(a)(ii) of the National Health and Medical Research Council Act 1992 (CTH) ("NHMRC Act") it is a function of the CEO of the NHMRC to advise the community on the prevention of disease.

NHMRC CEO Anne Kelso advised councilors of Oberon Council that "toxicologists on [NHMRC's] expert committee advised that fluoride is excreted regularly by the kidneys to achieve a ‘steady state’ that is safe for humans. This is different to lead which accumulates in the body".

It may be that irresponsible persons appointed as members of an NHMRC committee gave such egregiously incorrect (see below) advice to the CEO of the NHMRC. If so, it could be argued that the CEO of the NHMRC did not, in a narrow legalistic sense, give incorrect advice to Oberon councilors.

However, Anne Kelso's letters to councilors nevertheless indicate that she exceeded her statutory authority and engaged in misfeasance sufficient to warrant her dismissal. There are two issues at stake.

First, in writing to councilors of Oberon Council, the NHMRC CEO was not exercising her function of advising "the community". She instead was improperly intervening in a political matter specifically in relation to Oberon Council. The background to the matter is that NSW Chief Medical Officer Kerry Chant - who by s. 20(2)(c) of the NHMRC Act is an ex officio member of the Council of the NHMRC - at the same time was pressuring the same councilors of Oberon Council to seek approval under NSW legislation to fluoridate the public water supply under that council's control.

Secondly, the substance of the information which the NHMRC CEO conveyed to councilors of Oberon Council apparently is wrong. Fluoride, like lead, is bioaccumulative in bone. In each case the rate of bioaccumulation is rapid in children and diminishes in middle age - but apparently not so as to attain a steady state under conditions of constant, unvarying exposure.

It must also be borne in mind that the same CEO of NHMRC on 21 November 2016 approved the 2017 Fluoride Guidelines, thereby doubling the Australian tolerable upper intake level ("UL") of fluoride for 4‑8‑year olds from 2.2 mg per day to 4.4 mg per day. In consequence, the Australian UL for fluoride applicable to 4‑8‑year olds now stands at 200% of the corresponding American UL (2.2 mg per day) and at 176% of the corresponding European UL (2.5 mg per day).

It may fairly be stated that the CEO of NHMRC is not safe for humans.

Dear Tony and readers,

The introductory paper cited by Geoff supplies numerous references indicating toxic effects of fluoride in humans.

Palczewska-Komsa M., Kalisińska E., Kosik-Bogacka D., Łanocha N., Budis H., Baranowska-Bosiacka I., Gutowska I., and Chlubek D. Fluoride Accumlation in Dog Bones. Fluoride 47(2)98–108 April-June 2014. Available at www.fluorideresearch.org/472/files/FJ2014_v47_n2_p098-108_sfs.pdf is a reference indicating bioaccumulation of fluoride in bone without attainment of a steady state burden of fluoride in bone.

Weidmann et al., The Effect of Fluoride on Bone, Proceedings of The Nutrition Society Vol. 22, No. 1, 105-110 1963 compares bioaccumuation of fluoride in the bones of persons resident in English localities having public drinking water supplies of differing fluoride concentrations: Leeds (0.5 mg/L), South Shields (0.8 mg/L), and West Hartlepool (1.9 mg/L).

The results Weidmann et al. present in Fig. 1 could be taken to suggest that bone fluoride burden attains a steady state or even declines in persons of advanced age. However, this was a cadaver study in relation to which the drinking water-related habits of persons whose bones were examined were not recorded. It may be that the subjects who survived to an advanced age lived longer in part because they usually drank rain water or other low-fluoride water not sourced from the respective public water supply. It is possible that the dog femur study reported by Palczewska-Komsa et al. was less susceptible to this confounding factor.

It is a settled issue that every system in human body is vulnerable to the toxic effects of fluoride. There are both short term and long term effects when the fluoride is in excess of recommended levels. So the ‘disposal of industrial waste via Fluoridation of the public drinking water supply’ is wrong and not to be undertaken. Such disposal may bring about the combined toxic effects of both industrial wastes and fluoride(through fluoridation).