Perhaps you're confusing man-made chemicals with man-made elements?
Elements are the building blocks for chemicals, they are not interchangable.
For instance two atoms of the element Hydrogen (H) and one atom of the element Oxygen (O) make up the chemical Dihydrogen Monoxide (H2O) commonly referred to as water.
H2O is a chemical, Oxogen and Hydrogen are elements. It is correct that there are no man-made elements other than some transuracic ones which are created mostly in nuclear reactions.
The term man-made chemicals refers to chemical compounds, which are many elements chained together. There are many of these, they are not unusual, they're all around us. Your fingers are probably touching the plastic of your mouse right now. Many of these combinations of elements absolutely do not exist in the natural world and are entirely "man-made". Some are beneficial, particularly phamaceuticals. Some are unbelievably toxic, particularly dioxins. Some are neutral, like most plastics. All are most definitely man-made.
Do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, there are studies underway to fluoridate:
Salt
Flour
Fruit juices
Soup
Sugar
Milk
Ice cream
Ice cream, Sarah. Children's ice cream.
But seriously,
Mort, Garrett, and the others who brought up this issue in the thread are correct: there are no restrictions on the use of the word "natural" to describe any product. They could put radioactive waste in a can and there would be nothing stopping them from labelling it "100% Natural Radioactive Waste".
I would recommend doing some research. Read the ingredient labels, and search Google and/or Wikipedia to find out what is really in the natural products you're buying, or the "unnatural" products you're avoiding. What I like about using Wikipedia for this type of information is that they strive to present a Neutral Point of View (NPOV). They are usually pretty good about identifying issues for which there exists genuine controversy, or for which there is no consensus.
It's just so silly. Their product line is "all natural" ... only except they use fluoride (Na monofluorophosphate, derived from all natural "fluorspar, an ore") ... because IF YOU WANT TO PREVENT CAVITIES, YOU HAVE TO USE FLUORIDE. Otherwise, brush your teeth with a stick.
Also, scroll to the bottom and study the ingredient list on this one, which uses SLS & CAPB surfactants. All natural, I guess, just like the stainless steel chemical reactor they came out of.
Yes, "natural" is an unregulated term. A safe bet (at a minimum) is looking for "fragrance free" or products that specify that they use only 100% certified organic essential plant oils, which do not use phthalates.
For instance, Johnson's Baby Shampoo uses quaternium -15, a preservative that contains formaldehyde, a probable human carcinogen, according to the EPA. And "fragrance," as noted above, is a catch-all term disguising the presence of problematic phthalates.
So we have one product that "contains" an unspecified amount of another product, that is considered a "probable" (meaning, "we don't know") human carcinogen (nothing about what kind of dose or exposure is required for it to "probably" cause cancer in humans) by the EPA (a government agency with a long history of peddling politicized pseudoscience and faking results to produce predeterined outcomes.) And people make decisions based on this kind of "information". No wonder there's so much hysteria in this country.
In the spirit of Philip's informed post regarding elements, naturally occurring chemicals, and man-made chemicals, I think a distinction should also be made between natural and synthetic chemicals. Although most plastics don't occur in nature and must be man-made, some naturally-occurring chemicals, like sodium chloride (salt), and even hydrogen monoxide (water) can be just as easily (if not more easily) man-made as any non-naturally-occurring chemical. Man-made chemicals identical to naturally-occurring chemicals are generally referred to as synthetic.
Some people are of a mind to think that naturally occurring chemicals are superior to synthetic chemicals. That's why there's a market for Sea Salt ("from the frigid waters of the North Atlantic") and vitamins derived from plant and herbal extracts.
However, I'm of a mind to think that synthetic chemicals are identical in every way to the naturally-occurring chemicals they replicate. A water molecule from a hydrogen fuel cell, for instance, cannot be distinguished from a water molecule from the ocean, and vitamins produced using chemical reactions cannot be distinguished from vitamins produced from plant extracts.
You do realize that you can buy ordinary table salt without iodine, right? Or use kosher salt, which also doen't contain iodine. It isn't like the choices are iodized or sea salt.
I've never heard of anyone who could taste the difference between iodized and non-iodized salt of any kind, but if you do and have a preference then of course you should you do what you like.
But I hope you are getting iodine from some other source, as small amounts of the mineral are important to human health, especially thyroid health
This link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPA#Corruption provides some background to the issue that Joseph mentioned, but the nature of the information behind that link probably precludes further discussion of the issue, if this thread is to stay within forum rules.
NOTE: the link I provided is from a source that strives to present a neutral point of view, while the link that Robert R provides (in the post above this one) is from a partisan (Libertarian) publication.
Um, you refute the credibility of the EPA with some obsucre website called Reason-online?
Look Joe, it's well documented that formaldehyde is an occupational hazard, don't you think it's prudent to err on the side of caution for prolong exposure to common nonoccupatonal sources? Are you also going to argue with The International Agency for Research on Cancer when their epidemiological study [http://www-cie.iarc.fr/htdocs/monogr...62/formal.html concluded: "There is limited evidence in humans for the carcinogenicity of formaldehyde. There is sufficient evidence in experimental animals for the carcinogenicity of formaldehyde."
Are you going to argue with peer-reviewed studies published in PubMed?: