 Kelsey, a recent chemistry teacher graduate opposes fluoridation |
How surprising to see the water fluoridation lobby's stealth effort to rush fluoridation chemicals into our water through a lame duck City Council without even a vote by the public! Portlanders have rejected water fluoridation three times.
That any member of the Portland City Council would agree to such a surreptitious sneak attack less than a year after the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services slashed maximum fluoridation levels by 40 percent in the wake of a flood of new science on the health issues of fluoride is, at the least, disheartening.
Everyone agrees children's dental health is important. Dumping millions of pounds of fluoridation chemicals into Portland's world-class drinking water is a misguided 1950's style solution that threatens both our water and our health. What is needed are real solutions: increased access to dental care –particularly in the area of insurance coverage, improved children's nutrition and increased preventive care education for children and their caretakers. While many dentists, pediatricians and public health members continue the 60-year-long myth that water fluoridation is a risk-free short cut, modern science supports that water fluoridation is neither safe nor effective. While proponents claim fluoride is a "naturally occurring mineral" even the pro-fluoride U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has explained plainly, "All of the fluoride chemicals used in the U.S. for water fluoridation, sodium fluoride, sodium fluorosilicate, and fluorosilicic acid, are byproducts of the phosphate fertilizer industry." To see these source documents for yourself, please visit cleanwaterportland.org. Whether Portland chooses to spend half a million dollars a year to big-agriculture Simplot or to Mintchem in Shanghai, China, wouldn't that money be better spent right here in Portland, on our children, if it is truly about "the children"?
What should raise alarm, as well, is that like most waste byproducts, fluoridation chemicals are far from pure. The National Sanitation Foundation (NSF), which oversees drinking water additives, has reported that both arsenic and lead are regularly found in fluoridation chemicals added to drinking water. The human body tolerates no levels of lead, mercury or arsenic, yet these and other cumulative and toxic heavy metals come along with fluoride. During illness or to clear a headache we are reminded to "drink plenty of water." Drinking plenty of fresh, clean water flushes toxins from our body. Does it really make sense to be adding toxins to our wonderful water that cleanses the very toxins we are choosing to put in?
Whether it is these issues, or the large body of new scientific evidence just presented in the latest Harvard Medical Study by Choi on the impacts that fluoride has on childrens' IQ, all Portlanders should make time to learn more about what adding fluoridation chemicals would mean to Portland's world class water and our overall health.* It's clear the well-financed, pro-fluoride, all-about-teeth crowd would prefer to grab a majority of City Council votes rather than engage in a thoughtful public discussion. Where is the balanced public debate on this issue?
Some of our city representatives and their Coalition supporters have put a great and lengthy effort into this one-sided campaign push. Those of us willing to take a stand and are genuinely concerned about our health, as well as the health of an entire regional community, have been slandered and discredited for our positions. Can our City Council honestly ignore that many people -- particularly infants, the elderly, the under-nourished, the poor and the immune-compromised -- simply cannot tolerate this toxic water additive which is shown to only work topically.
The justification used by the pro-fluoride Coalition is that Oregon is facing a "dental crisis." Portland -- without fluoride -- actually fares better than most cities that do fluoridate!
Dental health is a whole health issue! The real crisis is the lack of good information, proper oral health, and adequate nutrients: healthy meals of immune-boosting fresh, local foods which limit acid production in the body and the mouth.
Instead, let's put our money where our mouth is by focusing attention on proper education and better information. While we may not all agree on water fluoridation, Portlanders should have the right to choose!
cleanwaterportland.org
fluoridefreepdx.org
fluoridealert.org
Dr Paul Connett will speak tonight, Tuesday, Sept. 11, at 7 p.m. in Eliot Chapel at the First
Unitarian Church, downtown Portland. 1011 SW 12th (corner of 12th & Salmon).
"The Case Against Fluoride: How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water
and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep It There," by Connett, Beck and
Micklem, provides a greater understanding of why water fluoridation is prevalent in so
many cities in the United States and why it is such a difficult community challenge to get
it out.
Read The Skanner News article: Fluoride in Our Water?
Read Mayor Adams letter supporting fluoridation
