Science or Ethics?

Elections are looming closer, here in Lethbridge. We are all working hard to educate councillors and citizens. Often the conversations we have become bogged down with differing ideas about how fluoride affects our health. However, many other conversations (or heated arguments if you prefer) are spent hammering out whether or not governing bodies have the right to make medical decisions on our behalf. 

What do you think? Should the decision to keep/remove fluoride be based on medical science or ethics?

Does anyone have any questions about water fluoridation, or comments on my previous posts? Does anyone have any ideas that could help us fight this battle here in Lethbridge? Let's put our heads together and end this madness!

Letter to the Editor

I wrote this letter to the editor recently and it was published. It was in response response to Gordon Manville's letter to the editor, wherein he insisted on the necessity of fluoride for maintaining healthy teeth. 

"I have only been part of the anti-fluoride battle for a short time, and I am already tired of “science”. This is not a scientific disagreement. This is a battle between right and wrong, Gordon, between good and evil. It is a war between freedom and oppression.

 I find it extremely contradictory that you express great concern about public dental health, while making a living selling slurpees and every imaginable tooth destroying confection at your convenience store. If people have the right to destroy their teeth with highly acidic, dangerously sugary garbage, then why don’t they have the freedom to destroy their teeth by refusing fluoride? If you have the interests of others, it certainly doesn’t show by your actions.

However, I would like to step outside the box for a moment and make a bold claim. I simply don’t care how “well educated” or how “recognized” anybody is. Well known, prominent doctors have been making terrible public health decisions in the name of “cutting edge” science for over a century. DDT, asbestos, cigarettes, tetra-ethyl lead, CFC’s, Freon, arsenic, and thousands of pharmaceutical concoctions have been approved as harmless, or even beneficial, by our “institutes of research”. I just don’t care. I don’t trust scientists because they don’t have a clean rap sheet.

I am certain of this; it is unethical to force your public health ideals down my throat. I don’t want them, and I should have a choice. Your science is worthless drivel. If I don’t want fluoridation, I should have the freedom to opt out. If you want fluoride poisoning, then take some pills or shoot it in your veins. Make your choices and I will make mine."

I am tired of people suggesting that the most effective way to improve dental health is to ingest a harmful drug, when it is much more effective to eat whole foods and drink clean water. But, we do all have choices to make. RIGHT?

Here is the letter my friend Sean sent to the editor at the Lethbridge Herald in response to Dr. Suttorp's article. He brings up some very valid points that I encourage everyone to bring before their local councillors. 

"Dr. Suttorp, our Medical Officer of Health, has written a column entitled “Fluoride decision should be based on facts,” but all she has provided is propaganda riddled with error and misinformation.

Did Lethbridge “first introduce fluoride” in 1961 and remove it in 1965? No. Fluoridation began in 1974 after four rejections by plebiscites.

Contrary to Dr. Suttorp’s benign description, the fluoride used in our water supply isn’t “naturally occurring.” The City’s website says it’s hydrofluorosilicic acid - a toxic waste product scrubbed from the smokestacks of the fertilizer industry.

“Bait and switch” is what Dr. Suttorp has done by quoting studies on naturally occurring fluoride to support fluoridation with a Class D-1 hazardous waste.

Of course municipal water fluoridation is cheap! We are recycling industry’s toxic waste, which they would otherwise be required to dispose of at great cost.

Dr. Suttorp’s “estimate” that every $1 spent on fluoridation prevents $38 in dental treatment costs has been shown to be unsubstantiated. The study quoted includes an estimate of lost income of parents taking a child to the dentist while neglecting substantial costs of fluoridation itself.

Shall we take the endorsement of Health Canada as proof of fluoride’s safety or effectiveness? Neither Health Canada nor any of the agencies Dr. Suttorp cites has EVER tested hydrofluorosilicic acid, either for safety or efficacy in preventing cavities. And they’ve been dead wrong many times before.

Dr. Suttorp claims it’s her “responsibility to monitor the health of Albertans.”

What is she doing to monitor the dosage of this drug in the individuals of Lethbridge?

How does she justify administering a drug without our informed consent? Should any medical doctor get away with such an illegality and invasion of individual rights?

How can she administer the correct dose when one citizen drinks two glasses of water per day and another eight? What about the age, gender and general health of the individual?

I agree people must have access to ALL the information in order to form educated opinions. So let’s have the facts, indeed.

Dr. Suttorp, how about truly fulfilling your responsibility to us?

Sean Fife"

If enough of us cry out, we will be heard.

Our Medical Officer, Dr. Vivien Suttorp, submitted an article for publication in the Lethbridge Herald last week. It was angering. Apparently, everyone who opposes poisoning the water supply is a misinformed lobbyist. Is anyone else comfortable with how effortless it is for our medical authorities to lie to us and ignore their responsibilities?

We are all losing our health and it doesn't even seem like they are losing sleep. Come on people, let’s be angry about this. If somebody snuck into your home and slipped poison into your kid’s apple juice, wouldn't you be outraged? Wouldn't you seek justice? How is this any different? This is not the time to be silent.

I sent this letter to the editor at the Herald. I don’t know if it will be published so I am posting it here. I will also post the letter my friend sent in. If any of you would like to be represented here as well, then please speak up. I want everyone’s voice to be heard.

To the editor-

                                   

“It is an indisputable fact that too much fluoride can cause bodily harm or death. Why hasn't this limit been defined by our Medical Officer, Dr. Vivien Suttorp? She reassures us that our health is being monitored, but she can’t possibly know how much fluoride we are being exposed to. There is fluoride in the toothpaste. There is fluoride in the mouthwash. It’s at the dentist and in prescription drugs. It’s in processed foods and even in fresh vegetables. Why do we need it forced into our drinking and bathing water as well?

Every person has a different body, with different sensitivities and needs. What if I drink more water than most people or have to shower more often? I don’t think our Health Officer has ever stopped to consider both sides, and yet she accuses those who do of being misinformed.

 The truth is, I have considered the information and I don’t want fluoride in my family’s drinking water. Unfortunately, I can’t make the best decision for my own wellness, like she suggests, because no one is giving me a choice.”

Martin VanPopta

I've just spent some time reading the script of an on-line question period that took place in December 2012. Dr. Cynthia Morrow was being questioned about the validity and efficacy of public water fluoridation. It is clear that she had no practical understanding of how fluoride supposedly works, or at least was unwilling to share it. She claimed that all of the anti-fluoride studies are “non-generalizable”, and that the studies she was citing were peer-reviewed science. She provided the following links to pro-fluoride “studies” that, she said, defend fluoridation effectively.

 http://www.thecommunityguide.org/oral/fluoridation.html 

http://www.ada.org/sections/newsAndEvents/pdfs/fluoridation_facts.pdf

If you felt like you were chasing your tail reading this literature, its okay; so did I. Fortunately, I did find this buried treasure. Apparently the pro-fluoride movement shares this story with pride.

During the 1930s, Dr. H. Trendley Dean, a dental officer of the U.S. Public Health Service, and his associates conducted classic epidemiological studies on the

geographic distribution and severity of fluorosis in the United States. These early studies were aimed at evaluating how high the fluoride levels in water could be before visible, severe dental fluorosis occurred. By 1936, Dean and his staff had made the critical discovery that fluoride levels of up to 1.0 part per million (ppm) in the drinking water did not cause the more severe forms of dental fluorosis.  Dean additionally noted a correlation between fluoride levels in the water and reduced incidence of dental decay.

So, are we supposed to be set at ease by this kind of science? They carefully calculated exactly how much fluoride it would take to cause severe dental fluorosis, and then set the safe limit slightly below that amount. Aren't they concerned if people suffer from mild dental fluorosis (which I do), or other internal bodily harm?

What is even more alarming is that Dr. Ada Bennett, Medical Officer of Health, Alberta South Zone, recently suggested, in a local radio interview, that Lethbridge citizens would not be at risk until we had 10-15 times more fluoride in the water. That would be 10 to 15 ppm. According to Dr. Dean, at 10-15 ppm everybody in Lethbridge would be suffering from very severe dental fluorosis.

Why are we expected to believe Dr. Bennett? She might wear a white coat, but these are not white lies.

While I was reading Doug Kaupp’s 2011 Fluoride Report to Lethbridge City Council, the last paragraph really stuck out to me. He was discussing steps that he would suggest if the fluoride use were to be discontinued. He writes:

“In order to receive favourable pricing, the utility purchases the fluoride chemical [hydrofluorosilicic acid] in bulk, delivered by tanker truck. Therefore, we have storage facilities large enough that these shipments can be received with minimum storage levels to manage the risk of running out [what a tragedy that would be]. The amount of HFS acid storage on site can range from 3-20 tonnes. This represents between one and five months supply. The operational preference would be to avoid the cost of chemical disposal by continuing fluoridation of the water long enough to consume the chemical inventory.”

Does this upset any of you? If as citizens we decide that fluoride is in fact poisonous, our General Manager of Water And Wastewater would prefer to continue diluting the toxic waste into our water, rather than pay the chemical disposal cost. I called SENA Waste Services in Swan Hills to determine the cost of such a disposal. The cost for disposing of “municipal water grade” fluoride started at 1 dollar per kilogram, depending on, get this, the levels of other toxic contaminants.

So, according to Kaupp’s report, the Lethbridge fluoride storage facility has a 20 tonne capacity, which represents about a five month supply. From this, I estimate our yearly fluoride usage at 48,000 kilograms. That means, that every year, we are fluoridating our water with toxic waste that would otherwise cost nearly $50,000 to dispose of. It is easy to see why the fertilizer manufacturers are thrilled to sell us this stuff, instead of footing the disposal bill themselves.

Come on everyone, let’s give our heads a shake. This is total nonsense, and it’s high time for it to stop.