In this episode of The Dr. Hedberg Show, I interview Melissa Gallico about fluoride.  We talked about where fluoride comes from, why it was added to our water supply, how to know if your water is fluoridated, how to filter fluoride, other sources of fluoride, the fluoride-acne connection, the fluoride-thyroid connection, how to detoxify fluoride with iodine, and how to petition your local legislators to remove fluoride from your water supply.  I was not aware of the fluoride-acne connection so this was an enlightening podcast that everyone should listen to who has acne or a thyroid issue.

Dr. Hedberg: Well, welcome everyone to the "Dr. Hedberg Show." This is Dr. Hedberg, and really looking forward to the interview today. I'm talking to Melissa Gallico. And Melissa is the author of the book "The Hidden Cause of Acne: How Toxic Water Is Affecting Your Health and What You Can Do About It," and also a book called "F is For Fluoride: A Feasible Fairy Tale for Free Thinkers 15 and Up." She's a former military intelligence officer, Fulbright Scholar and intelligence specialist at the Federal Bureau of Investigation where she instructed classes for FBI analysts at Quantico, and provided analytics support for National Security Investigations. She graduated with honors from Georgetown University, and she has a master's degree from the University of St Andrews in Scotland. So, Melissa, welcome to the show.Melissa: Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Hedberg: Yeah. So I heard you on the...first I heard you on the "15-minute Matrix" podcast, and was really interested in what you were talking about. I've studied fluoride a little bit over the years, but just mainly related to how it affects the thyroid. But why don't we just start out with some basics regarding fluoride and fluoridated water? So can you talk about why fluoride was added to the water? Why did they do that, how did it happen, and how can people tell if they have fluoridated water?

Melissa: Sure. So in the mid-20th century, dentists started...well, originally, they noticed that fluoride caused brown stains on teeth, and it's a condition called dental fluorosis. So that's where they started studying fluoride and its effect on tooth enamel. And eventually, they started developing a theory that, you know, too much fluoride is bad for your tooth enamel, it causes this cosmetic staining, but maybe a little bit of fluoride is actually good for your tooth enamel and makes it stronger and prevents cavities.

So that's the theory behind why they add it to the water supply today. They've been doing it for over 70 years. And they just think of it as adjusting the fluoride level to, like, this optimal dose that helps prevent cavities. And that's what I always assumed it was, I always drank fluoridated water, and I used fluoride in my toothpaste, and I had the treatments at the dentist. I never really thought about it. But when I got older and I realized that fluoride was affecting my health in negative ways, I looked into it more. And I looked into the history and realized that behind that very nice story that I believed and that I, you know, told myself and just assumed was true, there's actually a very deep pollution scandal there.

And people are always surprised when I talk about pollution and fluoride, because we've forgotten that fluoride was the leading form of air pollution at the time the science was being developed in the mid-20th century. It's a common element in the earth's crust. So when we started these large-scale mining operations for things like aluminum or phosphate, these companies were emitting just toxic amounts of fluoride into the atmosphere, and it was causing a lot of lawsuits. So the fluoride would go into the atmosphere, it would end up on the grass, poisoning cattle,