Talk:Fluoride toxicity/Archive 1

Archive 1

Untitled

For an October 2004 deletion debate over this page see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Fluoride poisoning

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• It seems obvious that this page was created in order to argue against public fluoridation of drinking water - a topic of debate in some parts of the U.S., and perhaps elsewhere. I took all that out, leaving virtually nothing, because Wikipedia is not a debate forum (or, at least, it shouldn't be). Please edit this to be an encyclopedia article, using facts, not surmizes, and trying to be NPOV. DavidWBrooks 21:37, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • David is INCORRECT. This article was created SOLELY because somebody asked me today about this issue and I searched for it in Wikipedia and did not find proper answers. So I decided to create the article and will work on it in the coming days. Whoever wants to contribute, feel free to do so.--AAAAA 23:35, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I changed the redirect by Rhobyte because I think this topic "Fluoride poisoning" deserves a separate article from the "Water fluoridation". I might move some info from the Water Fluoridation article to this one. --AAAAA 23:35, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • I changed it back. This article contains a single sentence of information, and any discussion of fluoride poisoning is well within the scope of Water fluoridation and Fluoride. Rhobite 00:44, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

I apologize for my over-hasty statements. The original article read to me as if it was meant to become an anti-fluoridation argument; I certainly shouldn't attribute motive to others. - DavidWBrooks 01:34, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That's my reading of the initial article as well. Water fluoridation also needs some help. Perhaps we need four separate articles:

• Fluoride should be about fluoride (d'oh).
• Water fluoridation should be about the techniques and history, not focussed purely on the debate as it is currently.
• A separate article is IMO merited on the debate, containing all three headed sections of the current Water fluoridation article.
• Fluoride poisoning should be about the currently accepted medical and scientific opinions, with attributed mention of any held in dispute by particular causes and movements.

Comments? Andrewa 05:42, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• • I agree 100% with with Andrewa. Also, whoever reads this, please start colaborating with the article. Any help will be appreciated.--AAAAA 11:00, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Agree. It will be regrettable to split up Water fluoridation, but with the arguments on policy you will never be able to add anything else. Also I'd like to note that fluoride, which you correctly note should be about fluoride chemistry, currently has very little of that. I t would probably also be a good idea to interlink them (like This article is about X. See Y for discussion on ...) to discourage topical spillover. Securiger 02:52, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

SB: I agree with the 4-way split.

I also think the fluoride poisoning article has merit; fluoride poisoning may occur from many causes other than fluoridation. There are also some villages in India full of crippling skeletal fluorosis cases that demand some kind of article all by themselves.

I do have an issue, though.

Fluoridation is widely regarded as safe and scientific by the US(even if there are dissents), but is widely regarded as unsafe and unscientific by most of the world (i.e. only 1% of europe fluoridates, Japan and China ban it, etc). There are a dozen or so medicine/chemistry nobel prize winners who oppose fluoridation as unsafe, and none who support it.

I'm however having difficulty having the people accept that the USA's scientific claims are often POV and shouldn't be mistaken for a worldwide widely accepted scientific NPOV. Despite the fact some 'vitamin dictionnaries' from the US and Canada claim "fluoride deficiency" causes teeth damage! The fact is you will not find Hypofluoremia(fluoride deficiency) in Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary simply because, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as human Fluoride Deficiency. [1]

If it's not possible to get a deficiency of it, therefore the non-debate articles will have to mention it's a medication.

I intend to make a very short mention (1 phrase) of the opposing views of Europe, Asia, Japan, etc. as part of some of the non-debate articles(as well as mention the status as a medication), with a link to the debate article. I think the non-debate fluoridation article needs to mention those two points to remain NPOV; the view of fluoride as a supplement and the illusion of worldwide scientific agreement are too strong to be left ignored.

The rest of the debate should be in the debate article, though.

(I have a habit of announcing changes in the talk pages before actually modifying the article - to avoid edit wars; I notice that others often just modify the article. Is one or the other practice better?)

• Please DO add or correct whatever you like. For me: THE BIGGER THE BETTER. If you can, include A LOT of information. I personally like big articles. Small articles you can find anywhere on the internet.

Well I tend to pre-announce major changes if they directly oppose something someone else has done, make less controversial major changes straight away but often with an added explanation on the talk pages, and just do minor changes straight away. My subjective impression is that it does help avoid edit wars.

Anyway, if by "non-debate fluoridation article" you mean this page (fluoride poisoning), then I really hope you'll reconsider. This article should not be about fluoridation at all, it should be about the toxicology of fluoride ions. There is no debate on the subject; it is a well studied, well understood subject and there is no need for any POVness as long as everyone just sticks to the facts. If you start bringing the fluoridation debate in here, it is bound to spill over and turn this article into a mess as well. Just link to this one from water fluoridation; you will be able to point out that fluoride is indeed quite poisonous, they will point out that the dose makes the poison, and so on. Securiger 02:52, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Organofluorine compounds

"Organofluorine compounds do not contain soluble fluoride and thus are not toxic because of fluorine. Organofluorines include many kinds of compounds such as Teflon and fluoxetine." These lines need immediate citation or removal, otherwise it's just one-sided opinion. Also, what about when organofluorines(particularly Teflon) are heated? Doesn't that free the fluoride or at least produce vapors (possibly toxic?)? Wiki is not a debate forum, but it should at least explain that the topic is currently debated and list both view points, with appropriate studies and research cited on both sides. This of course should be presented in a neutral, balanced and unbiased way, but it still needs to present them. Presenting only one side of the issue at hand is, in itself, biased. It should be the individual's decision to decide which parts they agree with until the issue is wholly resolved. ♠♣VashTexan (talk) 15:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)♥♦

There are no "sides", "bias" or even "argument" with respect to this fact. Fluoride poisoning cannot be caused by materials that release no fluoride ions when ingested, whether or not they contain fluorine. There's no way around this; you can't have fluoride poisoning without fluoride. For example, fluorine-containing drugs aren't heated before ingestion, and do not release fluoride when metabolized. (Quite the contrary, the problems caused by organofluorine drugs are that they are too stable.) PTFE does not release fluorides (there are chemical reasons for this), and fluorides are not volatile. Perhaps you're thinking about the issues with that PTFE is known to release degradation products above 260 C. The vapors are less toxic than those given by ordinary cooking oils, and they aren't fluorides in the sense of fluoride poisoning. To compare, highest actually useful temperatures in cooking are around 200-230 C, above which foods begin to scorch and smoke on the pan. (see PTFE#Safety) It is generally very difficult to get organofluorines to react at all, even with the most reactive reagents known. --Vuo (talk) 19:18, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

This Article Is Too Blunt; It Needs To Be More Euphemistic and Roundabout by way of Medical Jargon

"In high concentrations, soluble fluoride salts are mildly toxic: 5-10 grams of sodium fluoride are required to kill most adult humans; a lethal dose is approximately 70 mg per kilogram of body mass"

This first sentence should read: "In VERY high concentrations, soluble fluoride salts CAN BE mildly toxic: 5-10 grams of sodium fluoride WOULD BE required to INDUCE MORTALITY IN most adult humans; A DOSE EXCEEDING 70 mg per kilogram of body mass CAN POTENTIALLY INDUCE MORTALITY"

The beauty of scientific euphemism is that, when something is politically unpopular yet true, the 'expert' gets to have his cake and eat it too. If, some years down the road, fluorides (re)gain worldwide recognition as poisons and are banned from human consumption (as has already happened in Belgium and elsewhere), the 'experts' whose positions are reflected in sentences such as the one above have the comfort of having TECHNICALLY spoken the truth. In the meantime, however, those same 'experts' are free of blame for criminal understatements about the toxicity of chemicals they are responsible for explaining to the world, because those understatements were made by way of SCIENTIFIC JARGON, which it is the 'scientists prerogative to use for understatement or overstatement as he sees fit.

I can only wish that criminally misleading articles like this could not exist on Wikipedia. It could be left to other websites to explain the issue; it could be left to the pharma-giants and their cronies in government medical organizations to criminally understate politically-incorrect truths - at least they have an excuse; their salaries and even careers depend on the understatements. But Wikipedia is just too popular; it needs to be brought into the fold, else people would be 'misled' into 'hysteria' by 'non-scientists' preaching 'pseudoscience' and detracting from the proliferation of perfectly 'safe and effective' substances which just so happen to be 'healthy for our economy' as well.

Zinbielnov —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.10.170.203 (talk) 19:53, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

This isn't the forum to discuss the issue in general. Offhand, I can't think of any use of fluoride salts that involves eating them in amounts capable of causing acute fluoride poisoning. --Vuo (talk) 18:38, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Mentioning organofluoride in lede?

There has been and may be some back and forth on the mentioning organofluorine compounds in the lede. Many readers will not understand that "organofluorides" (sufficiently pervasive jargon that it is a wikipedia redirect) do not release fluoride ions and thus are are not subject to the concerns raised in this article. Often, article ledes indicate potential areas of confusion to guide the non-specialised reader.--Smokefoot (talk) 23:58, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining your concern, but, IMHO, it is not helpful to "violate" WP:lead to this end. -Shootbamboo (talk) 00:17, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

It's a definition issue. When people have something that contains fluorine, they might look up 'fluorine' and end up on this page. However, the toxicity of organofluorines is entirely compound-dependent and not related to fluoride release. (The exception is when fluoride is explicitly a leaving group as in carbonyl fluoride.) --Vuo (talk) 10:02, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Vuo, that while the three of us might have specialist knowledge, the mention of organofluoride compounds is logical. In a perfect world, readers would have advanced appeciation of the difference between fluoride salts and the (usually) rock-like C-F bond. Rather than getting into a revert battle, we could ask for others' opinions.--Smokefoot (talk) 14:12, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree that I am raising a definition issue. It is a policy issue. -Shootbamboo (talk) 16:19, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think they should be mentioned in the lead. The section under possible sources is the place to clarify this, and it does a decent job. It looks like the last sentence in that section should clarify that those chemicals do not release fluoride. It might also be appropriate to mention that these chemicals may have various different toxicities arising from their own chemical properties. II | (t - c) 20:59, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Rename page

It seems logical to rename the page Fluoride toxicity instead of Fluoride poisoning. Poisoning has the POV of acute toxicity but this page also addresses chronic toxicity. Therefore, it seems appropriate to rename the page with the more general Fluoride toxicity to be inclusive off all aspects addressed. -Shootbamboo (talk) 21:49, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. II | (t - c) 19:02, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree too; I didn't realize this discussion was ongoing, when I remarked the same over there. Xasodfuih (talk) 19:17, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Alternatively, we could split the article in two: one dealing with long-term effects of exposure above recommended level, and another article dealing with acute poisoning. Xasodfuih (talk) 19:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree with rename. Broader title is more accurate.YobMod 13:03, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Glaring Inconsistency

At the very end when they talk about the definitive paper, they describe it as being about fluoriNe - not fluoriDe. Either this is a typo or the paper is completely irrelevant to this topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PurrfectPeach (talk • contribs) 04:38, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't make a difference in this case. Read the review referenced. --vuo (talk) 13:14, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The journal "Fuoride" is not recognized by PubMed

PubMed, an archive overseen by the US National Institutes of Health, archives thousands of biomedical and related journal citations and abstracts, regardless of nationality: "Participation in PMC is open to any life sciences journal that meets NLM's standards for the archive. A journal must qualify on two levels: the scientific quality of the publication and the technical quality of its digital files." The journal "Fluoride" is not recognized by PubMed and one wonders if citations to this journal are therefore credible sources.--Smokefoot (talk) 14:52, 14 March 2010 (UTC)