Canada - You’ve heard of Big Oil and Big Pharma, now meet Big Fluoride.

By Joe Fries - Prince George Free Press
April 05, 2011 1:13 PM
You’ve heard of Big Oil and Big Pharma, now meet Big Fluoride.
On Monday, city council heard from the Prince George Safe Water Coalition, which called on it to reconsider its policy of adding fluoride to the municipal water supply ostensibly to improve residents’ dental health.
Famed fluoride fighter Dr. James Beck told council some studies suggest water fluoridation has negligible - if any - health benefits, and can actually be harmful to some people. Further, he continued, medicating a population without its consent is unethical. The University of Calgary biophysicist played a key role earlier this year in convincing politicians in that city to end water fluoridation there.
Outside council chambers, Beck said health officials who still support water fluoridation are well-meaning, but misguided.
“There are reasons to think there are sectors that profit a lot from the promotion of fluoridation, and that’s how it got started in the 1930s and ‘40s in the United States.”
The phosphate fertilizer industry in particular, he said, made extensive use of fluoride, and went on a public-relations offensive when waste products began killing people and animals. And once the U.S. government began using fluoride in the uranium enrichment process, the fix was in. “There was a big interest in making fluoride seem nice,” Beck said.
Sham health studies were conducted, he continued, which earned the approval of the American Dental Association, “and from then on, it took off.”