Mark, I checked on the NIH, State of California and OSHA websites for their list of known and/or suspected carcinogens and/or mutigens and stannous flouride (or just plain flouride) was not on it. So where did you get that information?

And don't tell anybody that Cisplatin and Tamoxifen (and also ionizing radiation for that matter) ARE known carcinogens. One of lifes little ironies -to get cancer from the cancer treatment!

Hi gary, Where I saw it was an MSDS sheet for one of the products but not a brand I am familiar with. Tonight I tried to find it again from home and so far I can't. I'll look in my browser history at work and repost it here tomorrow.

I must admit as I was looking for that particular item I have found that the whole subject of floride (especially floridated water) is heavily debated. My interest is not to take part in that debate here but to suggest caution MAY be in order. It is facinating though if you have some time do some searching.

There is no debate about the stuff being toxic if ingested so be careful.

Hi Mark,
Yeah -you're definitely NOT supposed to ingest it. I wonder how that works with drinking water -hence the debate, which I won't get into either. I drink mainly bottled water myself. The foam stuff leaves very little residue after the trays are put on the teeth, and with mondo dry mouth, it just hasn't been a problem.

I am definitely going to call my dentist and give it a try unless he knows something different!

I am definitely going to call my dentist and give it a try unless he knows something different!

Gary, Here is the MSDS that I was talking about. As I read it I am thinking that the carcinogen it is showing is actually the Sodium Saccharin!
http://www.essix.com/professional/msds/tech_msds_gel.html

I am not suggesting we stop using floride, just that we be careful.

I think what everyone here needs to remember, and I have written extensively about this in previous posts, is VOLUME OF EXPOSURE. The government is now telling us that saw dust.... yes, wooden sawdust, is a carcinogen. But you need a lifetime of working with it without protection to have it be of consequence to you. We know that nickel is a carcinogen, yet it is in all of our coins that we handle everyday. It is in the plating on tons of the silverware we eat with and put in our mouths etc. I could create a list that would fill this whole page of listed carcinogens that at some level you come in contact with almost every day. But you are unlikely to be exposed to enough volume of any one of them for it to be of consequence, unless you work intimately with it in your vocation 8 hours a day. Please consider the exposure levels of all these things you would like to list as risks to your life, and consider that the government and other institutions in their testing of some of these things, gave the lab animals levels that in the normal course of our lives we would never be exposed to. Many of these carcinogens when they are bound to another molecule are less harmful. Fluoride is one of many that this occurs with. Non-bonded fluoride does not exist in oral care products. It has other molecules such as sodium (and many others) attached to it. As to fluoride, it has been in our water for a long time, but again not pure fluoride. Considering that America consumes as much, if not more, soft drinks as it does water, there is a whole 'nuther argument that could be started here as to which is most likely to be of a health concern to you. You don't want to be swallowing your fluoride treatments; if you do, you'll probably throw it up anyway since your stomach isn't going to like this stuff. But the amounts that we consume, even as oral cancer survivors, are likely not going to change our lives. Getting osteoradionecrosis after losing teeth to caries and periodontal disease is a much greater risk for us. Fluoride combined with good oral hygiene will prevent this. So look at your carcinogen lists and find bonded fluorides on them, and then look at what safe levels of those are, estimate your volume of exposure in the next 50 years, and you will likely find that it is a non issue. You may be more logical to consider this is a choice between two evils...which one has the most likelihood of occurring in your life time, fluoride poisoning, (or even more remotely a cancer caused by fluoride) or ORN?