What FAN means to me

by Janet Nagel, EdD

1) FAN is the go-to international organization for information and networking in the world-wide campaign to end the injustice and public health fiasco of fluoridation.  FAN is a source of support and inspiration for all of us who are committed to this goal.
2) Fluoridation will end in the US when most people realize that they’ve been deceived—snookered, I like to say.  And there are so many other good words for it.  Let’s use them: conned, duped, hoodwinked, hornswoggled, hustled, snowed, taken in, tricked . . . because fluoridation is humbug, absurd, a scam, a hoax, a boondoggle, a cult . . .
Using old Ed Bernays’ insidious mind-molding techniques, most health professionals, politicians and ordinary folks have been convinced—against logic and common sense--that just a “tiny bit” of a powerful protoplasmic poison miraculously protects everyone from the pesky scourge of tooth decay.  Of course, like the courtiers of that well-known naked emperor, one has to be of superior intelligence to understand that constant exposure to a tiny bit of an accumulative poison is actually salutary. Human rights zealots, freedom fanatics, legalistic sticklers, science deniers, simpletons, rabble-rousers and others are, of course, not able to grasp this arcane concept and need to be continually beaten back by the enlightened elite ;)
I think this deeply ingrained insider snobbery is a compelling force keeping the fluoridation belief system in place.  And, as a former believer, I know it takes a while to break out of that constantly reinforced brainwashing--like deprogramming someone rescued from a cult.
To break through the “insiderism,” I’ve come to think maybe ridicule can be a potent tool.  We can spotlight our public health “geniuses,” who can’t distinguish phony science from real science, who don’t know the difference between concentration and dose, who can’t tell human rights from a ham sandwich or professional ethics from a hockey puck.  Yes, fluoridation promoters are sinister, but they’re also silly, pompous, overwrought ignoramuses. And laughter has more impact than frowns.
3) In my child’s third year, dentists in the Dental Faculty Practice at UNC Dental School in Chapel Hill, NC, prescribed fluoride tablets and fluoride mouth rinse.  The treatment needed to be both topical and systemic, I was told.  Being a well-schooled health educator, I diligently followed the prescribed regimen.  So, of course, when his first permanent teeth emerged they were discolored by bright white flecks. They were not attractive.  The first few dentists I asked about this hemmed and hawed.  Finally one hesitantly told me it was dental fluorosis--from too much fluoride. I was put out.  No one ever told me that fluorosis was a possible “side effect” of fluoride treatment.  Not the grad school professors who sang the praises of fluoridation, not the dentists who prescribed the treatments for my child.  We stopped all further use of fluoride, of course.
About that time we left NC to travel for several years and gave up any thought of fluoride.  In 1992 we had bought a house in Bellingham, WA.  I read in the paper that fluoridation of our water was being proposed.  I thought parents should be able to choose whether or not their children are put at risk for dental fluorosis.  My husband Harry and I went to the city council meeting where it was going to be discussed.  So did quite a few other fluoridation objectors. 
After the council meeting we all gathered in the courthouse lobby.  Anne Anderson and Richard Foulkes invited everyone to meet at their home a few days later to discuss the situation.  That was the beginning of a 6-year collaboration, which stopped that fluoridation proposal in Bellingham, defeated a pro-fluoridation city council candidate, and eventually passed an ordinance prohibiting fluoridation in Bellingham.  Anne and I made several trips to the state capital to lobby against pro-fluoridation legislation, and Anne and Richard became more widely involved in the efforts to end this unethical, illogical and unhealthy practice.

I feel privileged to have been mentored by Anne and Richard and also by John Lee who came to Bellingham to assist us.  Although Harry and I had to turn our focus to other things for a number of years, fluoridation has remained a passion of mine.  Back in North Carolina, I now have some time to devote to it.
Janet Nagel, Ed.D., North Carolina.