by Dr. Mercola

The US government has finally admitted they’ve overdosed Americans on fluoride and, for first time since 1962, are lowering its recommended level of fluoride in drinking water.

About 40 percent of American teens have dental fluorosis, a condition referring to changes in the appearance of tooth enamel—from chalky-looking lines and splotches to dark staining and pitting—caused by long-term ingestion of fluoride during the time teeth are forming.

In some areas, fluorosis rates are as high as 70-80 percent, with some children suffering from advanced forms.

The former recommendation called for a fluoride level of 0.7 to 1.2 milligrams per liter (mg/L) of water. The new upper limit set by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is 0.7 mg/L, to prevent these visible signs of toxic overexposure.

Why Is a Drug Added to Water When the Dose Cannot Be Controlled?

It’s quite clear that when you add fluoride to drinking water, you cannot control the dose that people are getting, and fluoride is in fact not only a non-essential mineral but a toxic drug. This alone is one of the reasons why fluoride shouldn’t be added to drinking water at any level.

If a doctor somehow managed to force a patient to take a drug with known toxic effects and failed to inform them of the dosage and frequency, and never monitored their health outcome, they would be medically negligent and liable to legal and medical board action.

Yet water utilities administer this drug without a prescription, at the behest of the government, without any idea of who will get what dose and for how long, and without monitoring for side effects.

Fluoride is added to drinking water to, in theory, prevent a disease (tooth decay), and as such becomes a medicine by FDA definition. While proponents claim this is no different than adding vitamin D to milk, fluoride is not an essential nutrient. Moreover, fluoride isn’t even approved by the FDA for the prevention of cavities.

We now know that at a limit of 0.7-1.2 mg/L causes a great many people to overdose on the drug. Will an upper limit of 0.7 mg/L protect everyone forced to drink fluoridated water?

Considering the fact that people also get fluoride from toothpaste, dental rinses, processed foods, and beverages, the chances of overexposure are still present, even at this lowered level.

Read the Full Article at Mercola.com.