blog comments powered by DisqusReally? We’re really arguing about fluoridation? In 2012? Sheesh. Maybe we can take up the Kennedy assassination next.
Anyway, after the letter from Tom Rogers (“Fluoride opponents not a fringe group,” Town Crier, Jan. 11), I decided to try to dig up some independent information. What I found, from a half-hour of web-browsing: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does not have any concept of class-4 poisons. The only references I could find to this phrase were on antifluoridation websites; there’s no reference to this on the EPA’s own site or anywhere else I was able to find. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration probably has never approved fluoride in drinking water because it’s not their job to monitor the quality of drinking water. That’s the EPA’s job – and the EPA, regarding fluoride, defers to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which describes fluoridation “as one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century.”
Glad to hear that tooth decay records are declining in Europe. But from what level to what level? Are those changes real and significant? Are they better or worse than in the U.S., in fluoridated or nonfluoridated areas? Without some real (gulp) science here, there’s no way to know what this claim means.
The American Dental Association “endorses the fluoridation of community water supplies and the use of fluoride-containing products as safe and effective measures for preventing tooth decay.” Look, this isn’t my field. But I’ve spent enough time in the science and engineering worlds to smell exaggerations and cherry-picked studies when I run into them, and it bothers me when fear and emotion rather than rationality determine public policy.
I (sigh) suppose there is still a place to have a rational discussion. But let’s do it from a foundation of facts and science. The right people leading that discussion might be those who have been trained in the medical and dental fields and know what they’re talking about. By the way, I’m still not completely sold on Oswald. That magic-bullet theory still bothers me.
Jim Miller, Los Altos
