16 September 2012

Lithium the Next Fluoride in the Water?

(NaturalNews) Lithium, the psychiatric drug prescribed for depression, mania and bipolar disorder, is now being viewed as the new fluoride by some experts. These experts are calling for the addition of lithium to the water supply as a cure-all for social problems, including suicide, violent crime and drug use.

Dr. Gerhard Schrauzer, who published the first paper in 1989 connecting lithium in water supplies to a decrease in certain undesirable social behaviors, became interested in lithium after growing up next to a "miracle spring" in Franzensbad, Czechoslovakia. This lithium-containing spring was alleged to moderate the temperaments of women in particular. 
For centuries, people worldwide have been attracted to springs like these for their calming benefits, and scientists have since found the benefits to be credited to unusually high natural lithium levels. 
Of course this is how the addition of fluoride to the water supply came about. It was discovered that people with "Colorado Brown Stain" or "Texas Teeth", names that described a mottling and staining of the tooth enamel (http://www.fluoridealert.org/dental-fluorosis.htm), lived in areas in Colorado and Texas that had higher naturally occurring levels of fluoride (http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2009-11-27/921482/). It was believed that the naturally occurring fluoride in the water made the enamel of the teeth harder and more resistant to cavities, so it was suggested that fluoride be distributed through the water supply to benefit public health (http://www.fluoridealert.org/cdc.htm). 
Unfortunately, we now know that "Colorado Brown Stain" and "Texas Teeth" were cases of dental fluorosis, which can cause pitting and decay of teeth in its severe form, and may actually cause them to be structurally weaker (http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/teeth/fluorosis/moderate-severe.h...). 41 percent of American adolescents now suffer from this fluoride induced condition (http://www2.fluoridealert.org/Alert/United-States/National/Fluoridega...). 
This reminds me of the film Serenity, where a planet was terraformed and it's air supply was laced with a compound intended to pacify the population, with disastrous unintended consequences. Fluoride, lithium... I only wonder what accidental combination might create real reavers?
A 2009 study across 18 communities in Japan showed that those with higher levels of naturally occurring lithium were significantly less vulnerable to suicide. A study from this year corroborated the findings, showing that 4 to 15 percent of the variation in suicides across 99 counties in Austria was due to lithium content in regional water supplies. 
Adding lithium to the water supply could also have the unintended consequence of widespread personality homogenization, according to Peter Kramer, a psychiatrist at Brown Medical School. 
But there is a much more obvious problem. Dr. Paul Connett, director of Fluoride Action Network, has been fighting to get fluoride out of the water in the remaining 2 percent of countries worldwide that still fluoridate, and one of the major arguments against adding fluoride, or any drug -- lithium included, to the water supply is that you cannot control the dose that any one person will get. Connett argues that, to mass medicate in this way, the government would need to ensure that the dose for every individual in the society was at such a level that it would be safe and completely non-toxic -- this means accommodating an adequately safe dose for everyone including infants to large males or different races, ethnicities, ages and sexes (http://austintx.swagit.com/player.php?refid=05182011-21). 
If it were even possible to arrive at such a dosage, Connett argues that such a policy would violate informed consent because those drinking the water are not being made aware of the risks associated with the drug and do not have the right to opt out if they do not wish to assume those risks.

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