Amherst Town Meeting will vote on a citizens petition article targeting fluoride -- produced in China -- used in the municipal water supply.
The petition requests the town purchase the additive only from providers who can guarantee the purity of the product, and calls for the water department to test shipments to ensure they are free from contamination.
The town of course follows strict state imposed testing requirements on the water supply, and in the most recent "Water Quality Report" (2013) Lead and Copper tested below actionable levels, although those tests were taken in 2011.
The next test for lead (required every three years) is serendipitously scheduled for late October, in time for the Fall Special Town Meeting which starts November 5.
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11 comments:
Yeah, it certainly is a solution in search of a problem as the town already does the two things the petition demands.
"I do not want to get into a back and forth with people about fluoridation as this is settled science"
Unfortunately it is not. More and more people are seeing the science that shows fluoridation is not safe and demanding it be taken out of the drinking system. Fluoride is a dangerous by-product of the fertilizer industry and the only reason it is in water is that there is so much of it after fertilizer production that the industry figured out a way to get rid of it by claiming it helped your teeth. There has yet to be a single double blind study that shows this is true.
You can attempt to discredit Dr Mercola all you want. The State of NJ already tried and failed to do that. Many physicians who go above and beyond are targeted by regulatory commissions for rocking the boat. You often know they are correct when you see them constantly targeted. You can try to discredit the messenger all you want but you cannot discredit the science he presents. Fkouride is not what the ADA presents it as.
J Dent. 2014 Aug 12. pii: S0300-5712(14)00234-6. doi: 10.1016/j.jdent.2014.07.020. [Epub ahead of print]
Caries-preventive effectiveness of fluoride varnish as adjunct to oral health promotion and supervised tooth brushing in preschool children: A double-blind randomized controlled trial.
Agouropoulos A1, Twetman S2, Pandis N3, Kavvadia K4, Papagiannoulis L5.
Rom J Intern Med. 2012 Jan-Mar;50(1):61-9.
Fluoride--the danger that we must avoid.
Bălan H.
Int J Mol Sci. 2010 Sep 27;11(9):3610-22. doi: 10.3390/ijms11093610.
Exposure to sodium fluoride produces signs of apoptosis in rat leukocytes.
Gutiérrez-Salinas J1, Morales-González JA, Madrigal-Santillán E, Esquivel-Soto J, Esquivel-Chirino C, González-Rubio MG, Suástegui-Domínguez S, Valadez-Vega C.
Acta Odontol Scand. 2014 Sep 16:1-7. [Epub ahead of print]
May caries-preventive fluoride regimes have an effect on dental erosive wear? An in situ study.
Hystad Hove L1, Refsholt Stenhagen K, Mulic A, Holme B, Tveit AB.
Clin Toxicol (Phila). 2009 Apr;47(4):292-5. doi: 10.1080/15563650802660349.
Health effects of groundwater fluoride contamination.
Nayak B1, Roy MM, Das B, Pal A, Sengupta MK, De SP, Chakraborti D.
Physiol Res. 2002;51(6):557-64.
Fluoride plus aluminum: useful tools in laboratory investigations, but messengers of false information.
Strunecká A1, Strunecký O, Patocka J.
Pediatrics. 1986 May;77(5):758-61.
American Academy of Pediatrics. Fluoride supplementation. Committee on Nutrition.
Monogr Oral Sci. 2014;25:244-52. doi: 10.1159/000360557. Epub 2014 Jun 26.
Alternatives to fluoride in the prevention and treatment of dental erosion.
Buzalaf MA1, Magalhães AC, Wiegand A.
Monogr Oral Sci. 2014;25:230-43. doi: 10.1159/000360555. Epub 2014 Jun 26.
The role of fluoride in erosion therapy.
Huysmans MC1, Young A, Ganss C.
etc
So are saying this petition really is the camel getting its nose under the tent, aka banning fluoride?
Rene, I definitely won't ask the tooth fairy about this, as you suggest. She has a vested interest in me NOT taking flouride. Probably has a PAC about it...
Fact:Obama was not born in America.
Fact:Aliens routinely abduct and experiment on humans.
Fact:Guns keep us safe.
Fact:Immunization causes autism.
Fact:The angel Moroni revealed the secrets of the universe.
Fact:Jesus was a supernatural being.
Therefore.....
Fact:Fluoride is a vast conspiracy to harm us.
Such ignorance rules in a town of supposed intelligence...
Amherst, where God has been replaced by NPR and the greatest life lesson a child can learn is how to compose.
No conspiracy but certainly unnecessary…
Fluoride has nothing to do with improving potable water quality.
it is not required by state or federal law but instead by the vote of a community.
It was 1st (and only) proposed to improve dental health. Pediatricians now prescribe drops.
It comes at a cost to the town both financially and with the danger inherent to those in clean water supply management in the mixing of and maintenance of related equipment and pumps.
There are only 3 (Amherst, Holyoke, Longmeadow) communities in western Mass that fluoridate their water and only 140 of the 351 communities across the state.
Amherst cannot sell its water (e.g. to Hadley as has in the past been requested) to a community which does not fluoridate its water.
And so on…but enough said.
Is anyone still drinking tap water?
Fluoride in municipal water supplies is superfluous and potentially dangerous. Dentists continue to support the myth that it helps prevent tooth decay (even with fluoride toothpastes and treatments readily available and affordable). Adult teeth actually don't need ANY fluoride to remain healthy. The reason it remains controversial is because there is science behind the argument that it's unnecessary in municipal water.
If it's Sodium Floride, how is it any less harmful than Sodium Chloride ad it is the Sodium ion that we currently think raises blood pressure, and hence why salt is "bad."
I've also long wondered why the Florine ion doesn't react with organic matter the way the Chlorine one does -- or if it does, why the stuff it forms isn't every bit as dangerous as the stuff formed by the Chlorine ion?
I thought that maybe this debate had been settled at Town Meeting, but then came across a note that another anti-fluoride presentation is being made this month.
So I came across this discussion. Back on 9/18, Anonymous made a big show of citing 9 articles that purported to show the dangers of fluoride. Well, I read the articles or abstracts of all 9. Articles 3,4, and 6 are all lab-based experiments which show that maybe fluoride has some negative effects in rats or lab solutions, not relevant to our community fluoridation. Article 1 shows that twice-a-year fluoride varnish may not be helpful (but didn't mention community fluoridation). Article 5 shows that if you are ingesting 2-3 or more times the recommended limit of fluoride this is bad (but has nothing to say about lower levels, which is what our DPW tests in order to keep it safe). So, none of those articles are helpful.
Articles 7,8, and 9, though are articles that are all FIRMLY IN FAVOR of fluoridation (or at least show that it is helpful). Not wanting to rely on the AAP's recommendation from 30 years ago, I've pasting the AAP's updated recommendation (from last year):
"Community water fluoridation is the practice of adding a small amount of fluoride to the water supply. It has been heralded as 1 of the top 10 public health achievements of the 20th century by the CDC.34 Community water fluoridation is a safe, efficient, and cost-effective way to prevent tooth decay and has been shown to reduce tooth decay by 29%.35 It prevents tooth decay through the provision of low levels of fluoride exposure to the teeth over time and provides both topical and systemic exposure. It is estimated that every dollar invested in water fluoridation saves $38 in dental treatment costs (http://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/benefits/). Currently, although more than 210 million Americans live in communities with optimally fluoridated water, there are more than 70 million others with public water systems who do not have access to fluoridated water.”(http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/134/3/626.full)
So yes, please, if you're going to cite the evidence, please read the evidence.
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