USA - Activists seeking ban on fluoride in water

BOSTON — Activists are pressuring the state to ban the practice of adding fluoride compounds to public drinking water, saying it amounts to mass-medicating without public consent.

A proposal that went before a legislative panel on Monday would outlaw the practice. Filed by Sen. Barbara L’Italien, D-Andover, on behalf of a constituent, it would end a decades-old public health campaign aimed at preventing tooth decay.

“Medical mandates like this are politics pretending to be science,” said Karen Spencer, a Gloucester activist who is involved with anti-fluoridation campaigns. “No government has the right to put something into our water supplies that harms people’s health. It’s immoral.”

Spencer, one of several people who supported the ban during the hearing on Monday, said studies are increasingly linking negative health impacts — such as gastrointestinal ailments, thyroid disorders, kidney diseases and even autism — to adding fluoride to the water.

But Dr. John Fisher, a Salem dentist and a trustee of the Massachusetts Dental Society, said the health benefits are indisputable.................

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After 72 years of fluoridation, the US is facing a dental health crisis and created a new one - dental fluorosis (discolored teeth) has increased in severity and incidence since fluoridation began.  This opened up a lucrative new market for dentists to cover up  fluoride damaged teeth as these before and after dentist advertisements will attest to http://tinyurl.com/DentalFluorosis

This added income also allows dentists to continue to neglect low-income folks who need their care the most. 80% of dentists refuse Medicaid.  The American Dental Association successfully lobied to have dental removed from Medicare and even Veteran's aren't given dental care. Fluoridation gives the illusion that organizaed dentistry cares about the low income people who aren't welcome in their dental chairs.