fluoroquinolones and fluoride

Has Levaquin Ruined Your Life?

By Mary Sparrowdancer

c. 2012 All Rights Reserved

5-4-12

 

 

John Fratti alleges that Levaquin, a fluoroquinolone antibiotic marketed by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, J&J), had that exact effect on him: It ruined his life.

 

Mr. Fratti had been a healthy, athletic young man of 41, when he presented to his doctor's office in May, 2005, for a possible UTI and was prescribed Levaquin. After taking a second course of Levaquin in August, 2005, he began experiencing aches and pains that grew progressively worse over the following months. During that time he also developed other symptoms including vision problems, petite mal seizures, suicidal thoughts, insomnia, impaired circulation, severe fatigue, equilibrium problems, sound sensitivity, neuropathy, and tendinitis so severe at times he could not walk.

 

Far from being alone in experiencing what cutting-edge physicians are finally recognizing as "Levaquin-induced" toxicities, the other victims number in the unknown thousands, unknown because their cases rarely make mainstream media news. Their symptoms have been similar to those of Mr. Fratti, and over one thousand deaths have been noted, and the general population remains unaware of the dangers of fluoroquinolones, which are fluorinated antibiotics. Adding to the problem is the fact that "Levaquin-induced" toxicity can show up weeks, months and even longer after the patient has stopped taking the Levaquin, although many physicians do not realize this.

 

John Fratti, who received his MBA from James Madison University, went from a life excelling in sports such as basketball and racquetball, and excelling in his profession as a pharmaceutical sales rep, to being wheelchair-bound for several months, disabled and jobless. A skin punch biopsy at Johns Hopkins University noted unusual axonal nerve swellings and tears, and MRIs and a QEEG test noted abnormal brain function. John Fratti's diagnosis was "Levaquin-induced toxicity."

 

One might assume that a pharmaceutical representative might have been forewarned about taking a drug so dangerous that it can cause a lifetime of irreversible agony, but the bitter irony is that not even the representatives have been made fully aware of the flaws and dangers in many of the drugs they are selling, due to what Mr. Fratti alleges are deceptive marketing practices.

 

A "black box warning" was finally issued by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for fluoroquinolones in July, 2008. The warning came years too late for John Fratti and the thousands of others who innocently took a prescription in compliance with doctor's orders, only to find themselves severely damaged as a result. In addition, there is still no guarantee that the patients will be made fully aware of the "black box" adverse effects advisory prior to being given a prescription. Media must be used to raise awareness, and this is now the goal of Mr. Fratti in order to prevent others from suffering his fate. "If I can prevent others from suffering from this toxicity, it makes my life more worthwhile," he stated in a recent interview with Ed Silverman of Pharmalot.

 

Mr. Fratti began thoroughly researching the history of Levaquin, filing a Freedom of Information (FOI) request with the FDA for Adverse Events information for Levaquin. The FDA's MedWatch report that he received, titled, "Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS), Freedom of Information (FOI) Report, Selections for: Levofloxacin, Levaquin, From: 01-Nov-1997 to: 20-Jan-2010," with the disclaimer that the data cannot be used to estimate the incidence of adverse drug reactions.

 

The report indicates that there were 61,983 reactions reported to the FDA for Levaquin/levofloxacin, including over 1000 deaths, although this is apparently just a fraction of the actual reactions to Levaquin. According to a US Government Accounting Office (GAO) report to Congress, the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) is a voluntary one, and "includes an estimated 1 to 10 percent of adverse events." The FDA Report showed reactions that included joint pain, renal failure, insomnia, rhabdomyolysis, tendinitis, tendon rupture, headache, anxiety, pneumonia, vomiting, deafness, suicidal ideation, fibromyalgia, blindness, hallucinations, pancreatitis, diarrhea, leg amputations, foaming at mouth, tinnitus, abnormal liver function, heart attack, aggression, brain death, spontaneous abortion, death and "agonal death struggle" - dying in agony. This is a short list of only 27 reactions out of the total 61,983 reported in the FOI report, which in turn is only "an estimated 1 to 10 percent of adverse events."

 

In a Levaquin Approval Document from Johnson & Johnson to the FDA, Levaquin was approved on 12/20/1996. It was approved despite the fact that the FDA medical officer's conclusions state that there were significant flaws in both the protocol design and implementation of several of the studies for which its approval was based. The medical officer noted that the clinical assessment categories were inappropriate.

 

In an email to Sandra Bartlett of NPR, Mr. Fratti noted that, "JNJ Clinical Trials indicated that a sizeable percentage of Levaquin adverse events were delayed, starting many days after the last Levaquin dose. Because of this, many people do not realize that the health problems they are experiencing such as nerve, tendon and joint pain, and mood disorders may be the result of taking Levaquin. Although JNJ Levaquin Clinical Trials clearly showed that a sizeable number of adverse events may be delayed, JNJ fails to warn patients and physicians of delayed adverse events on the Levaquin label (with the exception of tendon issues and diarrhea.)"

 

Mr. Fratti went on to note that while the JNJ Clinical Trials only contained a few types of adverse events, the first label after Levaquin was approved listed dozens of adverse events. "It would appear," Fratti stated, "that JNJ knew there were dozens of adverse events, but JNJ failed to mention these extensive other adverse events in its Clinical Trials."

 

A shareholder proposal that was submitted to JNJ from a firm called "Harrington Investments," requested that JNJ address the health and social welfare concerns of people harmed by Levaquin, and reported that a news segment aired by PBS showed a young teacher named Jenne Wilcox who could no longer walk or work after taking Levaquin. The same PBS program included footage of John Fratti, who also lost his job after taking Levaquin. It states that "Senator Harkin and Senator Grassley's offices have begun an investigation into whether the FDA should issue more safety warnings for Levaquin." In addition, Mr. Fratti received letters from other elected officials, including more members of Congress promising to try and do something about Levaquin.

 

One must question why it is necessary for Congress and even the FDA to address something that is in reality the sole responsibility of Johnson & Johnson for marketing a potentially harmful and deadly product. This is particularly troubling when Johnson & Johnson's credo states, "We believe our first responsibility is to the doctors, nurses and patients, to mothers and fathers and all others who use our products and services."

 

In order to direct this question about credo adherence to the Johnson & Johnson board of directors, John Fratti bought enough JNJ stock in 2008 to make him eligible to attend a JNJ shareholder meeting in April, 2009. It was difficult for him to travel due to his Levaquin-induced injuries, but he made the trip and was allowed to speak.

 

"What I wanted to do," Fratti said during Mr. Silverman's interview in reference to why he had made that difficult trip, "was address the CEO and the board of directors about Levaquin to see if they would put further safety warnings on Levaquin.I made sure to be very civil as I want to be able to try attending the yearly shareholder meeting as often as possible." In his speech to the Johnson & Johnson shareholders and CEO, he mentioned the famed J&J credo, as well as the fact that in the JNJ shareholder booklet, JNJ claimed to be "caring for the world one patient at a time."

 

"Well, at that moment, I was that one patient." John Fratti said.

 

When he finished his speech, there was a loud round of applause by the shareholders. The previous year, Mr. Fratti states another injured person gave a speech to the CEO and directors of JNJ. His speech received a standing ovation from the JNJ shareholders.

 

After Mr. Fratti's speech in 2009, CEO William Weldon took a moment to sit and speak with Mr. Fratti while the eyes of the moved shareholders, media and investors looked on. Mr. Fratti states that he told Mr. Weldon more about his situation, that he had been in a Levaquin documentary called "Certain Adverse Events," and that he did not want others to suffer the way he had. Mr. Weldon told Mr. Fratti that he would "look into this and try to help." He took the information Mr. Fratti gave to him and walked away.

 

"And we haven't heard anything from him," Mr. Fratti said.

 

In response to this oversight or perhaps wanting to believe Johnson & Johnson's famous and often repeated vow of moral responsibility to patients as well as mothers, Fratti's mother, Katherine Fratti, a retired RN, wrote a letter to William Weldon reminding him of everything her son had lost after taking Levaquin. There was no audience to watch his response the letter, and William Weldon passed the responsibility for that mother's concerns on to the J&J "Office of General Counsel." Someone named "John O'Shaughnessy" wrote back to Mrs. Fratti stating, "Dear Ms. Fratti: Bill Weldon has referred to me your recent letter concerning your son John. As Bill stated at our Annual Meeting last year, we are all very sorry about the health issues confronting your son and understand your deep concern for him."

 

That was the extent of the first paragraph, perhaps indicating that there was actually very little understanding of one mother's "deep concern" for her son's ruined health and life. O'Shaughnessy then stated that he could not respond "substantively" to her letter, "in light of the fact that your son has instituted a lawsuit." With the eyes of the shareholders, the media, and investors no longer watching, Bill apparently washed his hands of that "first responsibility," promised in the JNJ credo.

 

Mr. Fratti has most recently been interviewed by investigators of the FDA's Office of Criminal Investigation, who became interested in Levaquin events after the elected officials who responded to Mr. Fratti's letters wrote to the FDA. Part of the problem regarding the lack of product safety, is undeniably the "revolving door" situation within regulatory agencies in Washington, D.C. Through those "revolving doors," corporate representatives move easily from large firms into government agencies, spend time regulating their own products, and then return to lucrative positions back within the firms. The main goal in such a scenario obviously cannot be consumer safety.

 

A statement found on Johnson & Johnson's website declares, "About Johnson & Johnson, one person at a time.inspires and unites the people of Johnson & Johnson. We embrace research and science - bringing innovative ideas, products and services to advance the health and well-being of people. Our approximately 114,000 employees at more than 250 Johnson & Johnson companies work with partners in health care to touch the lives of over a billion people every day, throughout the world."

 

John Fratti is still unable to live a normal life, work, or play sports. He remains in constant pain. On April 26, 2012, he spoke again in a shareholder's meeting, asking that JNJ provide more safety warnings about Levaquin. He still wants the "research and science" they claim to embrace to restore his health and the health of the many thousands of others who have and are suffering in this current national calamity - a calamity in which lives have indeed been "touched" by another product originating from Johnson & Johnson, a monopolistic mega-firm that apparently remains untouchable.

 

Bill stepped down as CEO on April 26, 2012, but he took a moment once again to sit and speak with John Fratti, saying again that he would like to help Mr. Fratti and now stating that because he is retired, he would have more time to do so. Bill mentioned possibly researching the genetic component that makes some people more susceptible to the injuries from Levaquin, and he stated again that he truly did care. "I hope he follows though on his pledge to initiate medical research on this important health issue," John Fratti said. Taking over as the new CEO of Johnson & Johnson is Alex Gorsky.

 

Promising headlines following the recent changing of CEOs include, "New J&J CEO Plans Realistic, Optimistic Future," and that Gorsky is presenting a reassuring front, vowing to adhere to the values and responsibilities contained in the famous J&J credo.

 

According to the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the DOJ brought a lawsuit against JNJ in 2010, alleging illegal "kickbacks" that resulted in false Medicaid claims, and questionable marketing practices for J&J's fluorinated antipsychotic, Risperdal, as well as Levaquin and other J&J drugs. DOJ alleges J&J conspired with Omnicare, Inc. to promote J&J drugs above all other brands in nursing homes. The DOJ further alleges that Alex Gorsky was vice president of sales and marketing and then president of J&J's Janssen unit during the time of investigation, that Gorsky has "relevant knowledge" concerning the matter, and that the DOJ wishes to question Gorsky under oath.

 

As of April, 11, 2012, J&J refused to make Gorsky available to testify.

 

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Mary Sparrowdancer is an internationally published book author, and an investigative journalist in Tallahassee, Florida. She is a columnist for Jeff Rense at rense.com. She has over 30 years of study in laboratory science, including 20 years study of rabies, and over nine years studying the damaging effects of fluoride. She writes about medicine, health, science, nutrition, gardening and politics. In 2004, she contacted JNJ's Ortho-McNeil, then-manufacturer of Levaquin, essentially putting them on notice that Levaquin contained an extremely high level of fluoride, and asking their "medical expert" how much of the fluoride was bio-available after ingestion. The "expert" as well as a chemist laughed and said, "None. You don't get fluoride from Levaquin, you get it from toothpaste and drinking water." Clinical tests in India have proven otherwise. The reactions to Levaquin (and Cipro) are similar to those of fluoride poisoning.

 

 

 

 

tfk, thanks for the very informative post. we spoke before on this subject. i have done much research on this subject and have been laughed at and ridiculed for it by some members here. imho there is a connection between the fluoride compounds and benzos but i can't prove it. all the symptoms of benzo w/d are identical to chronic fluoride poisoning, fibromyalgia and toxic reactions to fluoroquinollones. it's a shame that money is always before health treatments for the pharma co 's and investors. all i can do now is pray that i get my health back somehow. let me know how you are feeling kathy, rstud

I like the article; there are definite parallels between benzos and levaquin/cipro in terms of overprescription and lack of good data among medical providers. 

 

I think the thread title is a bit misleading, though. Fluoroquinolones aren't toxic as a result of their fluoride content any more than strychnine is toxic because it's got hydrogen in it.

The last form of fluoride that we meet is the organofluoride group. These are compounds which have fluorine covalently bonded to carbon atoms. One of the organofluorines, which you have probably handled, is the plastic PTFE. This is poly tetra fluoro ethylene, used in non-stick frying pans. It consists of long chains of carbon attached to itself with two fluorines attached to each carbon. It is very stable and resistant to chemical attack. Fluorine is frequently added to pharmaceuticals. These drugs, when they are metabolized, break down in the body and produce fluoride ion. The net result is that these drugs carry fluoride into very sensitive places, like the brain, where it can cause problems. Little investigation has been done on this aspect of organofluorines.

 

 

 

 

Can you cite anything to that effect I can read? I've spent a fair amount of time looking at the pharmacokinetics of various fluoridated drugs and have yet to find anything that convinces me that the C-F bond ever gets broken inside the human body. In fact, that's the primary reason it's an attractive bond to build a drug around. As you say, it's very resilient to metabolism, but that prevents it from ever getting into the body in its raw form. There are a lot of fluoride scare sites on the internet, and I've spent a fair amount of time looking at them, and they all either have no basis in science or cite discredited theories and junk science which does not make sense to anyone with a rudimentary background in organic chemistry. If there's some actual research I'm overlooking, I'm quite open to looking at it, but I have yet to see anything compelling.

 

Beyond that, there are no fluoridated benzodiazepines as far as I know, so I think this is pretty far off topic for this forum. Symptoms of benzo withdrawal are pretty likely to be consistent whether or not someone has any fluoride in their body, because benzo withdrawal arises from disrupted GABA signaling. Because benzo withdrawal symptoms are so intense and so varied, it's easy to draw symptomatic parallels between benzo w/d and a huge variety of other conditions (and I say this as someone who early on underwent all kinds of useless diagnostic tests for physiological conditions that turned out to be w/d related) -- but all this really tells me is that the same set of symptoms can arise from a diverse and varied set of causes.

 

I'm not laughing or ridiculing you; I think the idea of adding fluoride to water as a brute-force way of bringing it into contact with teeth is a dubious proposition at best. However, fluoride is a normal part of ground water in large parts of the world, and doesn't seem to cause serious problems that can be demonstrated in controlled studies until you get into doses which are orders of magnitude higher than what occurs in treated water. As far as environmental toxins go, it's pretty far down the list of things I worry about just because I'm exposed to so many things which are demonstrably carcinogenic or mutagenic on a daily basis.

 

 

Hi rstud, havent seen you on the boards in ages.  I am much the same at 4 months out, struggling with agoraphobia, horrible muscle problems but still a conspiracy theorist ha.  How are you doing? 

Hi rstud, havent seen you on the boards in ages.  I am much the same at 4 months out, struggling with agoraphobia, horrible muscle problems but still a conspiracy theorist ha.  How are you doing?

 

hello tfc, still in the frying pan 9 months out. keep up the "theories" rstud

Still in the frying pan?  Well I am not glad to hear that.  PM seems to be down...if it ever comes up I will send you a facinating document about fluoride I found.  Here is another good one...This woman is a real heroine: 

 

The story of Maryanne Godboldo

and her fight against the Therapeutic State

 

 

kathy, this is interesting. hope you are feeling better, rstud  http://www.slweb.org/ftrcfluorinatedpharm.html

 

http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/ebook/978-0-85404-813-7

 

http://www.gaia-health.com/articles351/000365-fluorine-poison-rampant-pharmaceuticals.shtml

tfk, more " junk science theories"  rstud        http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/health/cipro.htm

Mass hysteria seems present as governments, pharmacies and individuals everywhere are stockpiling this drug. Pharmacies are reporting record sales, and on-line prescription services and Internet sites are found selling the drug at more than $7.00 per pill.

 

People everywhere, hyped into believing their flu-like symptoms are caused by anthrax exposure and mis-informed by irresponsible media reports, are taking CIPRO, and worse yet — are giving it to their children.

 

Wow is this true rstud??  Mind control, its unbelievable how easy it is. 

Mass hysteria seems present as governments, pharmacies and individuals everywhere are stockpiling this drug. Pharmacies are reporting record sales, and on-line prescription services and Internet sites are found selling the drug at more than $7.00 per pill.

 

People everywhere, hyped into believing their flu-like symptoms are caused by anthrax exposure and mis-informed by irresponsible media reports, are taking CIPRO, and worse yet — are giving it to their children.

 

Wow is this true rstud??  Mind control, its unbelievable how easy it is.

 

tfk, when "they" control the media, fda, and most of the food and water we consume it seems to make things too easy. since i've been poisoned i question everything, 9/11 , financial collapse, food supply(gmo's) the endless war on terrorism. we are in unparelled times in our world right now. omg there i go sounding like a "conspiracy theorist" again,lol. rstud

Well I was a "conspiracy theorist" way before I was poisened so how dumb was I to take that xanax...I guess I didn't want to know because I liked it until it turned on me.  Anyway, conspiracy theorist is just a phrase to discredit us...I prefer "critical thinker". 

There is no "they". There are just groups of people fueled by greed. There is no conspiracy because there's no left hand and no right hand, just a quasi dysfunctional system of economics built on human suffering.

 

I've worked in the media on and off for a long time. There is no secret agenda for what to print that gets distributed through a secret hotline. Papers and networks run the stories that they believe will maximize their consumption in a way that won't scare off their advertisers.

 

Cerivastatin causes death via renal failure. If fluoride was the culprit, I'd expect cardiac arrest to be the cause of death in most cases. There are definitely other fluoridated drugs that cause renal problems, but this is due to their direct mechanism of action and not due to some un-observable fluoridation process.

 

There is definitely a large group of people who control a disproportionate amount of the worlds resources and game the system to their own advantage, but they don't need to use bizarre and unlikely methods to achieve their ends. Everything can be bought and sold, so once you have enough money you can do whatever you want.

 

The site linked above has all kinds of obvious problems, the most glaring one I see at a glance is this:

The most common side-effects reported due to CIPRO (2-16%) are gastrointestinal in nature and equal those reported when children accidentally ingest "too much" fluoride from their toothpaste - such as nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Why?

 

Virtually all antibiotics cause GI symptoms as significant side effects, because they destroy the normal ecosystem of microorganisms in the stomach. This is not limited to fluoridated antibiotics. Toothpastes have a good number of other ingredients in them which can cause stomach distress. If excess fluroide caused massive stomach distress, you'd expect to see significant GI issues among people who drink abnormally large amounts of water such as people who work out, and this is not the case.

 

The reason cipro got a black-box warning relates to its tendency to cause tendon ruptures, which is not associated with fluoride overdose.

Just like BAYCOL and other fluorinated drugs, ciprofloxacin is a potent inhibitor of the thyroid hormone-regulated P 450 enzyme system in the liver.

Fluoride is not a P-450 inhibitor. Cipro may be; this is a fairly common enzyme for drug metabolism (and also inhibited by graprefruit juice). If cipro is metabolized by P450 and impacts P450 that does provide another clue why it's especially troublesome during benzo w/d (benzos are also metabolized by P450).

 

Taking Ciprofloxacin can spur germs to mutate so that future bacterial infections become untreatable. During the last decades a dramatic increase in bacterial strains multiresistant to antibiotics, particlularly CIPRO - has been reported (30, 31, 32). This increase has led to the occurrence of incurable bacterial infections with a fatal outcome, and a particularly serious problem in connection with hospital-acquired infections.

 

This is very true, but also true of all antibiotics and one of the reasons overuse of them is creating serious problems. Non-fluoridated antibiotics have the same issue.

 

Photosensitization can result when light interacts with chemical agents in the skin and eyes. This process can produce undesirable clinical consequences, such as phototoxicity (i.e. exaggerated sunburn), photoallergy, or photocarcinogenicity. People receiving CIPRO or any other fluoroquinolone are warned on the product inserts not to expose themselves to direct sunlight. Rashs develop on the areas exposed.

 

Upon UVA-irradiation the "fluorine" of numerous fluoroquinolones such as lomefloxacin and fleroxacin, are "lost" as fluoride (36).

 

"We have discovered that anions can activate visual photoreceptors in the dark. One anionic activator is the commonly used dental agent fluoride. The data on in vitro preparations indicate that these anions modulate photoreceptor biochemistry and may effect photoreceptors sensitivity..."

 

Paragraphs 1 and 3 are true; paragraph 2 is completely unsubstantiated, there is no evidence that exposure to sunlight causes cipro to break down, and I'm hard pressed to imagine how it would break down into fluoride at all, inside the body or outside. I can find no evidence that the paper cited as "36" shows anything of the sort, have a look:

http://nidb.nih.gov/search/searchreport.taf?projectbib=Y&ipid=52792&rpid=

 

 

I wouldn't even call that site junk science, it's just junk.

Pharmaceuticals and agrochemicalsThe carbon-fluorine bond is commonly found in pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals because it is generally metabolically stable and fluorine acts as a bioisostere of the hydrogen atom. An estimated one fifth of pharmaceuticals contain fluorine, including several of the top drugs.[15] Examples include 5-fluorouracil, flunitrazepam (Rohypnol), fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil), ciprofloxacin (Cipro), mefloquine, and fluconazole. Fluorine-substituted ethers are volatile anesthetics, including the commercial products methoxyflurane, enflurane, isoflurane, sevoflurane and desflurane. Fluorocarbon anesthetics reduce the hazard of flammability with diethyl ether and cyclopropane. Perfluorinated alkanes are used as blood substitutes.

 

 

Yes... exactly. The C-F bond survives normal human metabolism, thus fluoridated drugs do not release fluoride into the body.

tinfoilkathy, have you heard of this? is it reaching to believe valium and other psychotropics contain either a fluoride or chlorinated compound. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flunitrazepam                                                                                      the research i've read on fluoride metabolism states it is absorbed through the g i tract and 50% is excreted through the renal system.  hope you are feeling better!!! rstud

 

 

Flunitrazepam is the only fluoridated benzo which I am aware of. Diazepam has a chlorine molecule in it, but so does table salt.

 

I am confused what you are speculating about. Setting aside for the moment the fact that Flunitrazepam will never release free fluoride into the body, if the side effects of these drugs were in any way due to their containing fluoride or chlorine, then you'd expect a benzo which does not have either of these (Nitrazepam, for instance) to not create those side effects. In fact all the benzos have the same side effects and withdrawal associated with them. So, it's not "reaching", it's factually inaccurate. I'm sorry to keep hammering this thread but I think it's dangerous to have information circulating on here which is inaccurate and scary to someone who doesn't have any background in OC.

 

Benzos (and most other drugs) get their effects profile from their structural shape, and not from their constituent atoms. A decent analogy is thinking about keys to the same lock cast in silver, iron, steel and gold (the key is an analogy for a benzo molecule, the lock is an analogy for the receptor ligand agonized by the benzo). If the key fits in the lock, the result will be the same. Different keys may have different properties which may make them more desirable as far as how long they last, etc -- but the function of the key (turning the lock tumblers) is completely divorced from the material that the key is made out of.

Spengler, what is OC anyway?

organic chemistry, which I should point out I have never studied formally. I probably have about the same grounding in the material as a second year biology student.

Thank you spengler...Ok let me get this straight...benzos get their effect from their structural shape and not what is in them?  In other words...hmmm..they are totally unnatural and there is nothing in nature to compare?  Is there something in the chemical world to compare...like industrial waste or such?  Please pretend I am a 10 year old when you answer this question spengler.....

I did the best I could, but this is wordy, as this is not a simple subject and I've only covered 10% of it here at best.

 

Elements are made of atoms (carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, fluorine, plutonium, etc) which are the building blocks of molecules. All the known elements are listed in the periodic table according to their weight (http://www.ptable.com/Images/periodic%20table.png). Some elements will remain stable as a collection of single atoms (gold, fluorine, aluminum, etc). Other elements will not do this -- for instance, oxygen atoms will combine with other oxygen atoms to form a molecule with 2 oxygen atoms in it (which we'd write as o2).

 

This combination happens because an atom is a set of electrons and protons which are bound to a nucleus. (In fact, atoms are themselves made of smaller particles called quarks, but that's the 'quantum' level, and is not relevant to this discussion). There are different 'rings' of electrons around the nucleus, and physical laws dictate that under certain circumstances atomic particles will be attracted to each other and bind together on these rings. Molecular oxygen (o2) is a very simple molecule; it's also possible to combine different atoms into more complex molecules. An obvious example is water, 2 hydrogen atoms bound to a single oxygen (h2o):

http://www.nucleardarkness.org/include/nucleardarkness/images/water_molecule.gif

 

Oxygen has 8 protons, 8 neutrons and 8 electrons; hydrogen has 1 of each. Bonded in this way, water is a stable molecule. Even though it's got hydrogen and oxygen as its components, if you drink a glass of water it goes through your digestive tract as molecules of h2o, and is excreted through the kidneys in urine still as h2o (mixed with urea and other waste products which dissolve in water but do not change the molecular composition of water).

 

Some things are changed when they go through the body, there are a lot of ways this can happen. Acidic compounds will dissolve some molecular bonds, which is how stomach acid breaks food down. A 'protein' is a complex organic molecule (organic in this context means "contains carbon", carbon is the essential atomic building block of life on earth) which will react in specific ways with other organic molecules. A simple example is "lactase", which is the enzyme that digests a protein called "lactose" which is found in milk. People who do not have enough lactase will not be able to digest milk properly, which is why they are called "lactose intolerant" -- their bodies cannot process the lactase in milk in the normal way, so they will get stomach upset etc as the body fails to break down the lactase in milk.

 

Drug metabolism is even more complex, but there are a couple key points here. Neurons, which are a primary cell of the nervous system (brain, spinal cord, nerves) have "receptors" on their surface. These are special proteins which can be thought of as "locks". Like a lock, they have a specific shape. A nerve cell is connected to other nerve cells around it, and capable of sending signals to them which will in turn cause those other nerve cells to do something in response (which may just be passing that signal on down the line). A nerve cell has many, many receptors on it, and each one is a specific shape. Other molecules called "transmitters" have a complimentary shape which will fit into the lock and cause something to happen in the cell. For instance, GABA is a transmitter which is called an "inhibitory" transmitter, because when it bonds to a nerve cell it has the effect of causing that cell to be less active. 

 

Psychoactive drugs, more or less, are molecules that do not naturally occur in the body which have a shape that is similar enough to a transmitter molecule to "fit in the lock", but different enough to cause a novel reaction of some kind. For instance:

http://i.imgur.com/J8EU2.jpg

 

On the left is serotonin (5-hydroxy-tryptamine / 5-HT), which is a transmitter known to be involved in a large number of sensory and emotional experience. On the right is the entirely synthetic molecule 5-methoxy-alphamethytryptamine (5-MEO-AMT) which is a hallucinogenic drug. 5-MEO-AMT is close enough to serotonin that it binds at the serotonin receptor site, but it's not serotonin, and it causes the nervous system to behave unpredictably. Because serotonin is so intimately involved with sensory and emotional experience, drugs like 5-MEO-AMT create widespread disruption to basic awareness (hallucinations, euphoria, terror, trance states, etc).

 

This gets more complex when we look at the liver. A basic function of the liver is to purge toxins from the body and break active compounds down into inactive ones. This can have a wide array of effects. For instance:

http://i.imgur.com/9es6W.jpg

 

On the right is morphine, which is a chemical that occurs naturally in the human body in tiny quantities, and regulates pain signaling (it also occurs in the poppy plant in large amounts, which is why poppies can be made into opium). On the left is heroin, which is made by chemically altering morphine with a series of other chemicals. When heroin is injected, two things happen: first, heroin binds directly to a set of receptors called the opiate receptors, eliciting strong feelings of euphoria and sedation. Next, as it circulates through the blood, it goes through the liver. There is a set of enzymes in the liver which 'digest' opioids, and when heroin is exposed to these enzymes, it is converted into morphine. The morphine then continues to circulate through the body (also eliciting feelings of euphoria and sedation). Finally, the morphine circulates through the liver again, where it is broken down into smaller, inactive molecules (which do not bind to opiate receptors) which are eventually excreted through urine. These by-products of drug digestion are called metabolites. This is what drug tests look for. If someone is tested to see if they have consumed heroin, what their urine is actually screened for is the metabolite that morphine is broken down into (which is why standard drug tests cannot differentiate between someone who's taken heroin or morphine, the end product is the same).

 

So, back to fluoridated drugs. Fluoridated drugs are organic molecules (meaning they contain carbon) which also contain fluorine. Just like oxygen will form a strong bond with hydrogen to make a stable water molecule, carbon will bond with fluorine. This is the "C-F bond" (carbon-fluorine). This is probably the single 'strongest' bond in organic chemistry, meaning that it is resilient against any metabolism in the body. This does not mean that a fluoridated drug doesn't undergo any changes in the body; most (but not all) drugs undergo some series of changes as they pass through the digestive tract, liver and kidneys. What it does mean is that whatever changes the drug molecule undergoes, the carbon-fluorine bond remains intact.

 

For example, here's fluoxetine (prozac):

http://i.imgur.com/pNgbh.jpg

 

The fluorine atoms form 3-to-one groups with a carbon, which is the CF3 shown on the right.

 

After passing through the human body one (of the many) metabolites of prozac is norfluoxetine:

http://i.imgur.com/avw2L.jpg

 

The fluorine is still bonded to carbon in the same configuration. This is just one of maybe a half dozen things that Prozac breaks down in to, but all of the metabolites which contain fluorine, contain it as CF3, bonded to carbon.

 

So, it's not that it "doesn't matter" what the atomic components that make a drug up are, as much as what matters is what compound is put into the body, and what other compounds arise as a result. There absolutely are chemicals which are active drugs which have toxic byproducts from normal metabolism (one that comes to mind is the synthetic opiod MPTP which is metabolised into 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium, a highly toxic compound which causes irreversible destruction to the dopamine system resulting in parkinsons-like symptoms). As I said, this is incredibly complex, and my background in the material pales in comparison to anyone who is looking at drug design as a career choice.

 

The bottom line is that fluoridated drugs are a popular approach to drug design exactly because the C-F bond is extremely strong and will not break down inside the human body, hence it can be used to build the skeleton of active drugs which will be resilient against metabolic attack. If the body could easily destroy the C-F bond and release free fluorine, we'd never have invented fluoridated drugs because they wouldn't work, they would be broken down before they could do anything useful.

 

Thanks for trying to explain spengler but my head just about exploded while reading that...it might as well be in another language.  Do you think benzos could be made from commercial disinfectant product?  I read that in anatomy of an epidemic. 

I'd have to see the actual paragraphs in the book to know what point the author was trying to make. If the question is, "can some commercial cleaning products be used as part of a synthesis of a benzodiazepine", then the answer is yes, but that's not scary. Many commercial cleaning products are strong solvents, acids or bases -- which would be necessary for just about any molecular synthesis. If the question is "are benzos made out of Clorox and therefore toxic", the answer is definitely no.

 

This book is probably the best primer on the general subject, but it's incredibly dense:

http://www.amazon.com/Textbook-Practical-Organic-Chemistry-Edition/dp/0582462363

 

there isn't really a more lightweight explanation of any of this. My only formal background is basic chemistry in high school and biology in college, and while I think I have a better understanding of drug mechanics than the average person who doesn't care about it, I'm hardly an expert.