We do not know how many children or teenagers had topical dental treatment with high concentration fluoride, before succumbing to infections which led to ME/CFS. Tests done by the Japanese researchers at the Nippon Dental College, Tokyo on potential hazards on high doses of fluoride showed that levels as low as 57 ppm could induce genetic damage and irregular synthesis of DNA in mammalian cells. These tests were undertaken to assess the hazards of rub on fluoride products used to prevent tooth decay, at concentrations of 9000 ppm (paper presented at a meeting of The Japanese Society for Cancer Research, August 23, 1982, cited in The Ecologist, 1986; 16: 249-52). Varnishes containing 20,000 ppm fluoride, supposedly to strengthen teeth, may in future be applied.

My son had fluoride treatment to prevent tooth decay in the autumn of 1979, after which his health dramatically deteriorated, commencing with gastric problems, various minor infections and glandular fever, followed by atypical measles, more infections and eventually resulting in ME in 1980.

In the end, the fluoride treatment didn't work in preventing tooth decay he's needed 15 fillings over nine years.

The American pathologist Majid Ali of Columbia University, New York, explains that chronic fatigue results from an "accelerated oxidative molecular injury". Only a well functioning enzyme system can protect us from such injury and maintain normal energy levels. In ME there is a high frequency of membrane deformities, due to increased oxidative stress on the cell membranes, which is why sufferers lack energy similar to what happens in fluoride poisoning (The Canary and Chronic Fatigue, New Jersey: Life Span Press, 1994).

Experienced researchers who have studied ME for decades maintain that, as with polio, it is brought on by damage to anterior horn cells caused by a gut virus, which explains why polio victims are paralysed or suffer from impaired motor function (B M Hyde et al, The Clinical and Scientific Basis of ME/CFS, Ottawa: Nightingale Research Foundation, 1992: 111-6). But fluoride has also been shown to damage anterior horn cells. Gastrointestinal disturbances, often referred to as IBS, are also known to play a significant part in ME, as they are in the chronic fluoride toxicity syndrome.

Severe sleep disturbances, or reversal of sleep rhythm, are a common feature in ME/CFS (Clin: 285-91). Deposits of large quantities of fluoride in the pineal gland of animals have caused similar problems (J Luke, Bellingham Conference, 1998).

At this point, no one knows just how much these syndromes overlap, or to what extent fluoride facilitates the development of ME by various biological agents. The indications are that fluoride may act as as a "facilitating co-factor" and exacerbate existing problems in such patients. Or it could be, as Dr H C Moolenburgh Dutch author and fluoride critic suggests, that ME is one of the end stages of a general chemical poisoning, with fluoride one of the worse offenders.

!ADoris Jones