USA - LETTER: Fact checkers can't be pro-fluoride

This letter is in response to Dr. Denise Johnson's letter to the editor in The Meadville Tribune, "Fact checker needed for fluoride talks."

I think hospital and college officials are not so much interested in facts being checked concerning public discussions about public water fluoridation as much as they want the fact checkers to be people who are aligned with their views on fluoride.

It is interesting that Dr. Johnson would like the fluoride foot soldiers from the state health department to fact check our discussions. Clean Water Meadville will accept those conditions as long as medical doctors, toxicologists and basic science PhDs from groups that oppose fluoride are given those same opportunities.

There are thoughtful ideas about minorities and children and fluoride that are in stark opposition to the Happy Smiles philosophy about public health initiatives.

Civil rights activist Andrew Young, ambassador to the United Nations and lieutenant for Dr. Martin Luther King, on Oct. 6 wrote a letter to the governor of Georgia, Nathan Deal, in an effort to repeal Georgia's water fluoridation law.

Young is quoted from this letter saying, "Dentists said fluoridation would help level the playing field for minority communities, but now we see in documents publicized by The Lillie Center that African Americans and other groups are actually disproportionately harmed by fluorides causing all forms of dental fluorosis teeth disfigurement. Plus we have more diabetics and kidney patients in African American communities, and they deserve not to be kept in the dark and forced to drink fluorides like the state mandates it."

Young also said, "This is a civil rights issue, and the people have a right to have the full story given to them, rather than highly edited, misleading talking points."

CHRISTOPHER KNAPP