No fluoride thank you

For those of you that are thinking about voting for the re-introduction of fluoride in our drinking water, I would like you to consider a counter viewpoint before making your decision. What prompted this idea of re-fluoridation in the first place was the media's publicity of the result of one study, conducted by university students, over an extremely small sampling of people who had more cavities than in previous years, prior to fluoride being cut out of the water. Unfortunately, the study did not take into account that the people who had more cavities might've had a worse diet than those who had fewer cavities. The study didn’t take diet or income bracket or lifestyle into account, nor did they show what cavity rates were like over a longer period. 

Folks, we are not the only jurisdiction who have grappled with whether or not fluoride should be introduced into the water system. There are many jurisdictions who have never done it, and their cavity rates are lower than places where they do have fluoride in their water. I think this is an important point, because data doesn't lie, especially if you look at a lot of it. If it is actually true that not having fluoride in the water is bad for the dental health of the population, then all the places that don’t have it should have really high levels of cavities. And they do not. Only 4% of the water in Quebec is fluoridated. I wasn't able to get recent stats for BC, but Quebec's rate of cavities is on par with everywhere else. 

Health Canada warned against drawing conclusions one way or the other because the studies to date have not considered other fluoride intake factors, such as the most common intake - toothpaste. In Alberta, actual stats show that communities that do NOT add fluoride to their water showed similar decreases in tooth decay as those that did add fluoride. In one example of the inconsistencies of the data, Radway AB showed a 9% increase in decay with a natural well water fluoride amount of 0.12 ppm. Yet, Busby AB showed a 69% decrease in decay using well water with 0.19 ppm of fluoride. As a reference, communities that fluoridate their water tend to add 1.0 ppm artificially.

Also, those that are for re-introducing fluoride will cite that there is a lot of support amongst dentists. What they don’t tell you is that there are as many or more dentists who don’t support the re-introduction of fluoride, never mind the fact that there are quite a few people worried about what long-term effects drinking fluoride on a regular basis could have on your health, considering that too much fluoride is actually bad for you. Does your dentist let you swallow the fluoride rinse? No. Why is that?

But I am willing to put all of that aside, even if it can be shown that fluoride in the water is good for your dental health, and that if you don't, data indicates it's bad for the dental health of the general population, there is one problem that no one seems to take into consideration. Dosing. The problem with putting fluoride in the water is that there is no way to accurately dose everyone who's drinking that water. 

The reason I say this is because if you fill the tub with city drinking water, depending on where you live, your water may be blue and smell very strongly of chlorine. We asked the City to test our water a few years back after having constant strong chlorine odour and taste, and they admitted that the level of chlorine in our water was rather high and that nothing could be done about it. Let that last part sink in. This is because it is impossible to accurately dose chlorine levels in the water so that everybody gets the same amount. There are going to be some people that hardly get any, there are going to be people that are going to get way too much. I happen to be one of the latter. And my concern is that if it's not possible to limit how much chlorine gets in my drinking water, how are they going to possibly limit how much fluoride gets in my drinking water.

Here are countries with no fluoridation that have great dental health: Switzerland; Sweden; Norway; Netherlands; Latvia; Italy; Hungary; Greece; Germany; France; Finland; Estonia; Denmark; Croatia; Czech Republic; Belgium; Austria.

Back to more stats. Kentucky has the highest rate of tooth decay in the US. 98% of its residents get fluoridated water. Draw your own conclusions. 

I vote no fluoridation. Health Canada doesn't support it. There aren't any conclusive studies that suggest it helps. There may be no conclusive data that it harms, but if it doesn't help according to modern statistics, why bother forcefully medicating a population against their will?

If they put fluoride back in the water, I won't be drinking tap water anymore. Think about the people who can't afford to do that.