Fluoride Is a Metabolic Poison

Fluoride has long been used as a metabolic poison. Plants in Africa, South and Central America, and Australia have evolved a way to uptake fluoride from the soil and water, and concentrate it into their tissues. When animals eat the plants, they die, with a lethal dose being 0.25 to 0.50mg/kg. This antiherbivore adaptation has been noticed by people. Farmers and ranchers collect the plants, dry them, and use them to make poisoned baits for rodents, dingoes, and other predators of their livestock and crops. A similar poison has been developed and used around the world, named 1080. It’s called sodium fluoroacetate. The chemical formula is FCH2CO2Na. It is a metabolic poison, which is persistent in the environment, and indiscriminately kills any animals that eat it, or any other animals which eat the poisoned animals, such as eagles, vultures, condors, and so on. 1080 has been banned in the US, although it is still used in Mexico and many other countries.

Fluoroacetate poisons by shutting down the ATP producing citric acid cycle in the mitochondria of animalian cells. The fluoroacetate substitutes for acetate, which is a two-carbon molecule, essential in the energy-producing citric acid cycle. The fluoroacetate binds to coenzyme A, forming fluoroacetyl CoA. The fluoroacetyl CoA then combines with the enzyme citrate synthase to produce fluorocitrate. Fluorocitrate binds irreversibly to the enzyme aconitase, thereby stopping the citric acid cycle, which stops the production of the essential cellular energy molecule ATP.

Symptoms are digestive distress, convulsions, seizures, resulting in cardiac arrest.

The reason that the fluoride doesn’t kill the plants but does kill animals is that plants have a different chemical pathway to produce ATP.

Fluoride is known as a metabolic poison in biochemistry. In medical labs, sodium fluoride is added to blood samples, to stop the enzymatic metabolism of glucose, while it is being shipped to the laboratory, for analysis for blood sugar levels (glucose). Fluoride is also used in many antibiotics, chemotherapy drugs, antidepressant drugs (SSRIs), hormone analogs, and many others. In these drugs the fluorine atom is usually bound to a carbon. Fluorine-containing drugs are especially potent because humans and animals don’t have any enzymes in the liver that can break down fluorine compounds, so the drug keeps circulating through the system, over and over again! Inhaled anesthetics are fluorine drugs. Fluoride binds insolubly to calcium and magnesium in nerve and muscle cells, thereby shutting down function. Fluoride is known to be neurotoxic, as well as highly carcinogenic!

Fluoride poisons most enzymes, and hormones, as well as many other important biomolecules. The reason fluoride is so destructive to biomolecules is that it has a greater nucleophilicity than hydroxyl groups, and can substitute for OH on carbon in all the important biomolecules. In biochemistry it is said that fluoride trumps all, because fluoride has a greater nucleophilicity and binding energy than any other atom. Fluorine-carbon bonds are easy to make, and are very hard to break! In all of biology there is only one enzyme known to be able to break down carbon-fluoride bonds, fluoroacetate dehalogenase. It is found in a soil microorganism. Fluoride, the F- ion, is found all over the world, in water, soil, and in rocks. Volcanoes out gas large quantities of fluorine. Coal-burning power plants release large amounts of fluorine into the atmosphere (~8% of smokestack gas is F). Fluorine is found in large quantities in phosphate fertilizer, which is known to go into the crops, grown with that phosphate fertilizer. Fluoride is found in high levels in volcanic areas of the world. The fluoride in the soil and rocks dissolves into the water, and is often present in toxic amounts in “drinking water.” In China, recent studies have found that children drinking well water with 1 mg/L fluoride have a 5 to 10 point lower IQ compared with children drinking well water with 0.4mg/L Fluoride. The US Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new limits on fluoride in drinking water of 0.9mg/L. That is quite a change from the previous maximum contaminant level (MCL) of 4mg/L! China has set a MCL of 1.0mg/L. Some well waters in New Mexico have been found to be as high as 12mg/L fluoride. Many people in such areas of high fluoride water use “reverse osmosis” filters to purify their drinking and cooking water. Reverse osmosis and steam distillation do take the fluoride out of the water. Fluoride binds to calcium in the body, and precipitates onto the tendons and ligaments, causing arthritic symptoms. Fluoride also binds to bone and teeth, causing osteofluorosis and dental fluorosis. Fluoride poisoning is common in many parts of the world and, where iodine is deficient, causes hypothyroidism. Fluoride is known to outcompete iodine at the thyroid gland, thereby shutting down thyroid hormone production. It has been found that women who are pregnant and suffer from untreated hypothyroidism give birth to children with the now-common disease attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. This can be prevented by screening for thyroid function and iodine intake, and by the avoidance of fluoridated water, food, and drugs. It must be noted that the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, contains enough fluoride to adversely affect thyroid function. Also, a phosphate fertilizer product called monocalcium phosphate or dicalcium phosphate or tricalcium phosphate contains 1% fluoride. This product is being used in animal feed and human foods as a calcium-phosphorous source. There is enough fluoride in this product (1%) to cause thyroid antagonism in humans. Dicalcium phosphate is often used as a binder in pills in medicines and vitamin/mineral tablets. It is found in breads and crackers, milk substitutes, and many other human food products. Read the labels! Fluoride poisoning causes slower mental functioning, lowers metabolism, is carcinogenic, and causes arthritis, depression, and many other problems. Fluoride is a poison. Fluoride is used as an insecticide and rodenticide. Fluoride residues are on and in foods. Beware of it!

Find out more at http://fluoridealert.org.

Russell Dobkins

P.O. Box 249

Gila, NM 88038

575-535-2905

russelldobkins@yahoo.com