The Effects Of Fluoride On

The Thyroid Gland

By Dr Barry Durrant-Peatfield MBBS LRCP MRCS
Medical Advisor to Thyroid UK
9-9-4

There is a daunting amount of research studies showing that the widely

acclaimed benefits on fluoride dental health are more imagined than real.
My main concern however, is the effect of sustained fluoride intake on
general health. Again, there is a huge body of research literature on this
subject, freely available and in the public domain.

But this body of work was not considered by the York Review when their
remit was changed from "Studies of the effects of fluoride on health"
to "Studies on the effects of fluoridated water on health." It is clearly
evident that it was not considered by the BMA (Britsh Medical
Association), British Dental Association (BDA), BFS (British Fluoridation
Society) and FPHM, (Faculty for Public Health and Medicine) since they
all insist, as in the briefing paper to Members of Parliament - that
fluoridation is safe and non-injurious to health.

This is a public disgrace, I will now show by reviewing the damaging

effects of fluoridation, with special reference to thyroid illness.

It has been known since the latter part of the 19th century that certain
communities, notably in Argentina, India and Turkey were chronically ill,
with premature ageing, arthritis, mental retardation, and infertility; and
high levels of natural fluorides in the water were responsible. Not only
was it clear that the fluoride was having a general effect on the health
of the community, but in the early 1920s Goldemberg, working in
Argentina showed that fluoride was displacing iodine; thus compounding
the damage and rendering the community also hypothyroid from iodine
deficiency.

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Highly damaging to the thyroid gland

This was the basis of the research in the 1930s of May, Litzka, Gorlitzer
von Mundy, who used fluoride preparations to treat over-active thyroid
illness. Their patients either drank fluoridated water, swallowed fluoride
pills or were bathed in fluoridated bath water; and their thyroid
function was as a result, greatly depressed. The use in 1937 of
fluorotyrosine for this purpose showed how effective this treatment
was; but the effectiveness was difficult to predict and many patients
suffered total thyroid loss. So it was given a new role and received a new
name, Pardinon. It was marketed not for over-active thyroid disease but
as a pesticide. (Note the manufacturer of fluorotyrosine was IG Farben
who also made sarin, a gas used in World War II).

This bit of history illustrates the fact that fluorides are dangerous in
general and in particular highly damaging to the thyroid gland, a matter
to which I shall return shortly. While it is unlikely that it will be
disputed that fluorides are toxic - let us be reminded that they are
Schedule 2 Poisons under the Poisons Act 1972, the matter in dispute is
the level of toxicity attributable to given amounts; in today's context
the degree of damage caused by given concentrations in the water
supply. While admitting its toxicity, proponents rely on the fact that it
is diluted and therefore, it is claimed, unlikely to have deleterious
effects.

They could not be more mistaken

It seems to me that we must be aware of how fluoride does its damage.

It is an enzyme poison. Enzymes are complex protein compounds that
vastly speed up biological chemical reactions while themselves remaining
unchanged. As we speak, there occurs in all of us a vast multitude of
these reactions to maintain life and produce the energy to sustain it.
The chains of amino acids that make up these complex proteins are

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linked by simple compounds called amides; and it is with these that
fluorine molecules react, splitting and distorting them, thus damaging
the enzymes and their activity. Let it be said at once, this effect can
occur at extraordinary low concentrations; even lower than the one part
per million which is the dilution proposed for fluoridation in our water
supply.

The body can only eliminate half

Moreover, fluorides are cumulative and build up steadily with ingestion

of fluoride from all sources, which include not just water but the air we
breathe and the food we eat. The use of fluoride toothpaste in dental
hygiene and the coating of teeth are further sources of substantial
levels of fluoride intake. The body can only eliminate half of the total
intake, which means that the older you are the more fluoride will have
accumulated in your body. Inevitably this means the ageing population is
particularly targeted. And even worse for the very young there is a
major element of risk in baby formula made with fluoridated water. The
extreme sensitivity of the very young to fluoride toxicity makes this
unacceptable. Since there are so many sources of fluoride in our
everyday living, it will prove impossible to maintain an average level of
1ppm as is suggested.

What is the result of these toxic effects?

First the immune system. The distortion of protein structure causes the
immune proteins to fail to recognise body proteins, and so instigate an
attack on them, which is Autoimmune Disease. Autoimmune diseases
constitute a body of disease processes troubling many thousands of
people: Rheumatoid Arthritis, Systemic Lupus Erythematosis, Asthma
and Systemic Sclerosis are examples; but in my particular context today,
thyroid antibodies will be produced which will cause Thyroiditis resulting
in the common hypothyroid disease, Hashimoto's Disease and the
hyperthyroidism of Graves' Disease.

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Musculo Skeletal damage results further from the enzyme toxic effect;
the collagen tissue of which muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones are
made, is damaged. Rheumatoid illness, osteoporosis and deformation of
bones inevitably follow. This toxic effect extends to the ameloblasts
making tooth enamel, which is consequently weakened and then made
brittle; and its visible appearance is, of course, dental fluorosis.

The enzyme poison effect extends to our genes; DNA cannot repair
itself, and chromosomes are damaged. Work at the University of
Missouri showed genital damage, targeting ovaries and testes. Also
affected is inter uterine growth and development of the foetus,
especially the nervous system. Increased incidence of Down's Syndrome
has been documented.
Fluorides are mutagenic. That is, they can cause the uncontrolled
proliferation of cells we call cancer. This applies to cancer anywhere in
the body; but bones are particularly picked out. The incidence of
osteosarcoma in a study reporting in 1991 showed an unbelievable 50%
increase. A report in 1955 in the New England Journal of Medicine
showed a 400% increase in cancer of the thyroid in San Francisco during
the period their water was fluoridated.

My particular concern is the effect of fluorides on the thyroid gland

Perhaps I may remind you about thyroid disease. The thyroid gland
produces hormones which control our metabolism - the rate at which we
burn our fuel. Deficiency is relatively common, much more than is
generally accepted by many medical authorities: a figure of 1:4 or 1:3 by
mid life is more likely. The illness is insidious in its onset and
progression. People become tired, cold, overweight, depressed,
constipated; they suffer arthritis, hair loss, infertility, atherosclerosis
and chronic illness. Sadly, it is poorly diagnosed and poorly managed by
very many doctors in this country.
What concerns me so deeply is that in concentrations as low as 1ppm,
fluorides damage the thyroid system on 4 levels.

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1. The enzyme manufacture of thyroid hormones within the thyroid gland
itself. The process by which iodine is attached to the amino acid
tyrosine and converted to the two significant thyroid hormones,
thyroxine (T4) and liothyronine (T3), is slowed.

2. The stimulation of certain G proteins from the toxic effect of

fluoride (whose function is to govern uptake of substances into each of
the cells of the body), has the effect of switching off the uptake into
the cell of the active thyroid hormone.

3. The thyroid control mechanism is compromised. The thyroid

stimulating hormone output from the pituitary gland is inhibited by
fluoride, thus reducing thyroid output of thyroid hormones.

4. Fluoride competes for the receptor sites on the thyroid gland which
respond to the thyroid stimulating hormone; so that less of this hormone
reaches the thyroid gland and so less thyroid hormone is manufactured.
These damaging effects, all of which occur with small concentrations of
fluoride, have obvious and easily identifiable effects on thyroid status.
The running down of thyroid hormone means a slow slide into
hypothyroidism. Already the incidence of hypothyroidism is increasing as
a result of other environmental toxins and pollutions together with wide
spread nutritional deficiencies.

141 million Europeans are at risk

One further factor should give us deep anxiety. Professor Hume of

Dundee, in his paper given earlier this year to the Novartis Foundation,
pointed out that iodine deficiency is growing worldwide. There are 141
million Europeans are at risk; only 5 European countries are iodine
sufficient. UK now falls into the marginal and focal category. Professor
Hume recently produced figures to show that 40% of pregnant women in
the Tayside region of Scotland were deficient by at least half of the
iodine required for a normal pregnancy. A relatively high level of missing,
decayed, filled teeth was noted in this non-fluoridated area, suggesting

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that the iodine deficiency was causing early hypothyroidism which
interferes with the health of teeth. Dare one speculate on the result of
now fluoridating the water?

Displaces iodine in the body

These figures would be worrying enough, since they mean that iodine
deficiency, which results in hypothyroidism (thyroid hormone cannot be
manufactured without iodine) is likely to affect huge numbers of people.
What makes it infinitely worse, is that fluorine, being a halogen
(chemically related to iodine), but very much more active, displaces
iodine. So that the uptake of iodine is compromised by the ejection, as it
were, of the iodine by fluorine. To condemn the entire population,
already having marginal levels of iodine, to inevitable progressive failure
of their thyroid system by fluoridating the water, borders on criminal
lunacy.
I would like to place a scenario in front of those colleagues who favour
fluoridation. A new pill is marketed. Some trials not all together
satisfactory, nevertheless, show a striking improvement in dental caries.
Unfortunately, it has been found to be thyrotoxic, mutagenic,
immunosuppressive, cause arthritis and infertility in comparatively small
doses over a relatively short period of time.

Do you think it should be marketed?

Fluoridation of the nation's water supply will do little for our dental
health; but will have catastrophic effects on our general health. We
cannot, must not, dare not, subject our nation to this appalling risk.

Dr Barry Durrant-Peatfield
obtained his Medical degrees in 1960 at Guy's Hospital London. He left
the NHS in 1980 to specialise in thyroid illnesses drawing inspiration
from the work of infamous Dr Broda Barnes, at the Foundation that
bears his name, Connecticut, USA. He has been a medical practitioner
for over forty years specialising in metabolic disorders during which
time he became a leading authority in the UK for thyroid and adrenal

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management. For over twenty years he also ran a successful private
clinic and became a nation-wide leading authority on thyroid and adrenal
dysfunction, but clashed with establishment medicine in the management
of thyroid illness. He is the author of The Great Thyroid Scandal (see
opposite page), he currently lectures at nutritional colleges in London as
well as conducting his own teaching seminars. Barry will shortly be
opening a diagnostic clinic in the UK for thyroid and adrenal disorders
where he will provide advice on diagnosis and treatment with special
interests in nutritional aspects. For further information contact: Dr B
Durrant- Peatfield 36A High St, Mersham, Redhill Surrey, RH1 3EA.
Tel: 44 (0)1737 215462 <mailto:Email: info@drpeatfield.com>Email:
info@drpeatfield.com
Web site: http://www.drpeatfield.com
References:
L Goldemberg - La Semana Med 28:628 (1921) - cited in Wilson RH,
DeEds F -"The Synergistic Action Of Thyroid On Fluoride Toxicity"
Endocrinology 26:851 (1940).

G Litzka - "Die experimentellen Grundlagen der Behandlung des Morbus

Basedow und der Hyperthyreose mittels Fluortyrosin"
Med Wochenschr 63:1037-1040 (1937) (discusses the basis of the use
of fluorides in anti-thyroid medication, documents activity on liver,
inhibition of glycolysis, etc.).

W May - "Behandlung der Hypothyreosen einschlieblich des schweren

genuinen Morbus Basedow mit Fluor" Klin Wochenschr 16: 562 - 564
(1937).

Sarin: (GB: isopropyl methylphosono-fluoridate) is a colorless, odorless

volatile liquid, soluble in water, first synthesized at IG Farben in 1938.
It kills mainly through inhalation.

Cyclosarin (GF) and Thiosarin are variants. Pennsylvania Department of

Health
http://www.dsf.health.state.pa.us/health/cwp/view.asp?a=171&q=233740

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Sarin: (GB: CH3-P(=O)(-F)(-OCH(CH3)2)
Source: A FOA Briefing Book on Chemical Weapons
http://www.opcw.org/resp/html/nerve.html Gerhard Schrader, a
chemist at IG Farben, was given the task of developing a pesticide. Two
years later a phosphorus compound with extremely high toxicity was
produced for the first time.
IG Farben: "...the board of American IG Farben had three directors
from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the most influential of the
various Federal Reserve Banks. American IG Farben. also had interlocks
with Standard Oil of New Jersey, Ford Motor Company, Bank of
Manhattan (later to become the Chase Manhattan Bank), and AEG.
(German General Electric) Source: Moody's Manual of Investments;
1930, page 2149."

http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/chapter_02.htm

At a later date, Namaste will be publishing a more in-depth article

outlining the devastating affects that fluoride, aspartame and MSG have
on the endocrine system.
Dr Durrant-Peatfield wiill be answering frequently asked questions on
thyroid illness in Namaste's next issue. Send your questions to us
preferably by
email to: info@namastepublishing.co.uk