Birmingham please note: some areas in America are challenging fluoridation of the water supply

A 2014 review paper in The Lancet Neurology identified a number of potential development neurotoxins in children. One of these — fluoride — has continued to fuel discussion in America since the article’s publication, as the water supplies of approximately 74 percent of the U.S. population have fluoridation.

Some U.S. municipalities are reassessing the amount of fluoride in their water sources — or whether to fluoridate at all. Below is news from America, for more detail see the Chemical Concern website.

In July, the commissioners of Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee,voted to stop adding fluoride. On the morning of August 4th, the city council of Port Angeles, Washington,stopped fluoridation of the municipal water supply following four ethics complaints against council members and repeated, intense City Council public comment sessions.

Early in 2016, residents of Healdsburg, California opposing fluoridation mounted a campaign for a moratorium on the additive until the city and fluoride suppliers provide detailed chemical reports and a written statement verifying its safety for ingestion. 

In Collier County, Florida a debate over fluoridation has started. Camden Smith, the commissioner’s assistant, is to petition commissioners to stop fluoridation of the county’s drinking water. She said she will raise issues about the health and safety of using cavity-preventing fluoride in drinking water and ask commissioners to “stop putting a medical treatment into a public utility.”

Patton Borough, Pennsylvania is another town which has ended fluoridation due to the corrosion and metal leaching caused by the chemical additive.  According to Borough water engineer David Cunningham, of Keller Engineers, “because Patton has older water lines, the added fluorosilicic acid seemed to be loosening sediment and causing corrosion. ‘The fear is that you’re going to raise lead and copper levels.’

We read that voters in Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, Wells, Ogunquit, Arundel, and portions of Biddeford and York, Maine will have the opportunity to end fluoridation (‘an outdated practice;) on election day in November.

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As University of Kent research published in the BMJ, found higher levels of hyperthyroidism in the fluoridated West Midlands,compared with the unfluoridated area in Greater Manchester, more of its residents might agree with Florida’s Camden Smith who says:

“I respect anyone’s choice to put medical treatment in their water and I ask to be given the same choice. Nobody should be forced to ingest fluoride”.