Reader concerned about fluoridated water

Greg Hession, Letter to the Editor

This story is just one version of the truth about water Fluoridation.

Post Second World War there was a movement started in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1945, to artificially fluoridate the domestic water supply as a means of mass medicating the public to promote oral health. That is to say, by introducing fluoride, it was believed that children's teeth would form a harder surface before erupting through the gums, hence making them more resilient to cavities.


What we are talking about here is the most reactive element known to mankind, fluorine. Number 9 on the periodic table of elements. An inorganic halide. It is the 17th most abundant element on planet earth. Most often it occurs in minerals such as Bauxite and Fluorspar, the raw ore products used in the Aluminum and Phosphate fertilizer industries. It has been referred to as 'evil' by some chemists who work with it. It is an enzyme disruptor, a neurotoxin, it is used in chemistry to deconstruct molecules, it is found in many anti-depressant pharmaceuticals, and it is a component of many anesthetics. Fluoride was once prescribed to people diagnosed with hyperthyroidism from the 1940's through to the 1970's because of it's know ability to reduce thyroid gland activity.

Fluoride is know to mineralize tissues in the human body, such as teeth, bones, muscle, ligaments, the kidneys and the pineal gland located at the center of the human brain. Fluoride is not essential for any biological processes in the human body.

The acute and chronic toxicological effects of Fluorides have been know since the late 1800's.

Currently, water Fluoridation takes place in approximately 70% of communities across North America. Water Fluoridation is achieved by injecting a chemical into the water supply at the water treatment plant.

This chemical is an industrial waste byproduct known as Hydro Fluosilic Acid (HFS) it can also go by many other names. HFS is collected from the smoke stacks of phosphate fertilizer plants by a wet-scrubber system. This liquor is then shipped from a company called Lucier Chemical Industries, in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, by railcar, to Canada by Cleartech, and sold to various Towns and Cities across the Nation.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has approved this chemical for use in Water Treatment. But it has never been approved by the Food & Drug Administration for human ingestion at any concentration. The NSF certifies that the HFS contains less than the allowable amounts of Arsenic, Barium, Beryllium, Cadmium, Chromium, Copper, Mercury, Lead, Antimony, Selenium and Thallium.

Last year over 225,00 people in the United States were killed as a result of using FDA approved medicines.

Modern pharmacology would state that if you are a doctor prescribing medication, you would want to make sure that you are prescribing the right medication to the right person at the right dosage at the right time. Under these current mass medication programs, none of this is under control. Furthermore there are few medical doctors or dentists trained on how to monitor for the effects of chronic Fluoride toxicity.

Your tooth paste contains Fluoride in the form of Sodium Fluoride. If you read the label on the back of your tooth paste, it says something like: "Keep out of the reach of children under six years of age. Use only a pea sized amount for brushing. If more than is used for brushing is swallowed, get medical help or contact the poison control center right away." The reason it says this is because Sodium Fluoride is a poison. That's why it is the main ingredient in many pesticides and rodenticides. From this information we can see that in order for Fluoride to be effective in promoting better oral health it is to be applied topically not ingested.

To think that systemic ingestion of Fluoride is only going to have an effect on the surfaces of your teeth is naive and would be nothing short of a biological miracle. The fact is that systemic ingestion of Fluoride effects most systems in your body, albeit very slowly and insidiously.

By adding Fluoride to the domestic water supply, you have lost your right to choose whether or not you want it in your tap water. If you don't want it, then why should you pay for it?

If we as a collective are not successful in having artificial Fluoridation ended, what is next in line for mass medication? Perhaps anti-depressants, or maybe some sort of diet medication to help us all lose a few extra pounds?

There ought to be a Town policy that says something like:

"The Town is responsible for providing clean and safe drinking water for everyone."

That would make sense wouldn't it? Instead, municipalities to great lengths to clean the water through, sedimentation, coagulation, flocculation, chlorination and then just when its at it peak water quality, they go and add a Class 8 toxic industrial waste byproduct. Awesome.

Some people are more sensitive to Fluoride than others. Some members of the population are at higher risk of Fluoride's toxic effects than others, such as the young and the unborn, the elderly and those with kidney disease. Why aren't these members of our community considered?

Eric Sevareid's Law states:

"The chief cause of problems is solutions"

I believe in the case of water fluoridation this couldn't be any more true.

For decades now, Health Canada and the Canadian Dental Association have applauded the health benefits of water Fluoridation. The United Nations has called water fluoridation one of the greatest achievements in public health in the last 20 years.

It has been woven into the fabric of our public health policy and is not to be questioned. However in 2006, the National Research Council (NRC) announced new findings that said ingestion of Fluoride does not effect the enamel of the teeth prior to eruption. This statement completely overturns the previous misconception that it did, and should have been the nail in the coffin for water fluoridation. But, if it was safe all of these years, and suddenly isn't now, then surely there would be reason for possible litigation against the public health ministries, wouldn't there be?

Governments who continue to chose to Fluoridate the water are riding a tiger and they don't know how to get off. My advice to them would be to follow the leadership of town's like Windsor, Ontario or the City of Calgary and just stop it.

Don't pay any attention to the propaganda that the Federal or Provincial Governments are feeding you. The buck stops here at the lowest level of governance.

I hope current town councils have sufficient moral back bone to understand this very important ethical issue and in due course will do the right thing. In the mean time, if you are a resident in a community that Fluoridates their water, I encourage you to do your own research, then contact your town council with your concerns.