Toothpaste can contain amounts of fluoride damaging to adults and lethal to children. Yet, manufacturers are lax about providing warnings or directions about a substance that is almost as toxic as arsenic.
According to the government and the dental association, you can't have too much of a good thing. We are being bombarded from every direction by fluoride. Every last one of our dental products from toothpaste to floss and toothpicks to fluoride drops or pills now contains fluoride. This of course means that, with any and every means of dental hygiene, we are ingesting some percentage (often unknown) of a substance that is more toxic than lead and almost as toxic as arsenic and still used in some quarters to kill rats.
Although America acknow ledges the potential toxicity of fluoride with warnings on labels, Britain has the flimsiest of controls over the claims made and warnings given about fluoride containing products. There is no control over daily consumption of fluoride and no limits on the amount an individual can purchase. If a person lives in an area with fluoridated water and uses fluoridated dental products, he could be taking in many times more fluoride in his daily diet than is considered acceptable. The World Health Organization warns that a chronic fluoride intake of 2.0-8.0 mg per day can lead to skeletal fluorosis, a debilitating and sometimes crippling bone disease.
The quantity of fluoride in toothpastes for children is even more of an issue as children, because of their smaller size, naturally can be poisoned with far lower levels. Dental fluorosis, where teeth are pitted and mottled because of too high an ingestion of fluoride, is well known in areas of water fluoridation.
The most damning aspect concerns the types of toothpaste being offered for children. Many of these toothpastes use enticing flavours such as orange, bubble fruit and strawberry a practice which only encourages them to swallow it. There is even a Barbie variety with a tutti frutti flavour.
Toothpaste and all over the counter dental products are controlled under the cosmetics section of the Medicines Act and administered by the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association, a trade organisation which advises manufacturers on labelling for toothpaste, mouthwash and dental floss. Manufacturers are allowed to include fluoride up to a concentration of 1500 ppm but, with no other information, this sort of statistic is meaningless to the average consumer. Fluoride toothpastes are also supposed to bear a warning about unsupervised toothbrushing with a pea sized amount of toothpaste to minimise swallowing by children under seven. It should also say that, if you are using fluoride supplements (pills or drops), you should consult your dentist. Mouthwashes also often include fluoride, but there seems to be no labelling regulation to cover stating the amount of fluoride contained. But, these are only recommendations and not hard and fast rules.
Since fluoride is not considered a drug either, manufacturers do not need to specify the amount of fluoride contained in their products or how much constitutes too high a daily dose. They also don't need to specify if they have a product licence or not as this is only required if some sort of therapeutic claim is made on the packaging.
To examine the levels of fluoride in dental products mainly toothpastes and the level of detail disclosed in the labelling on all products containing fluoride, holistic dentist Tony Lees conducted a survey of the products sold in most of the main outlets supermarkets and major chemists in a typical British city. He chose nearby Here ford and, in late April 2000, went undercover, purchasing one of each product in all the larger chain stores.