NZ letter

Fluoride by choice

Cut it out, Chris Price (letter "Fluoride dose", August 18). Actually, on second thought, keep it up — shooting yourself in the foot, that is.

Your letter did just that, again. I quote your closing paragraph: "Opponents [to fluoride] are only saying they don't want it in their water. They demand the water meet their own personal chemical specifications."

Chris, your many letters consistently assert your "knowledge" of fluoride. And yet you miss the glaring irony in your letter.

I am duty-bound, therefore, to spell it out in simple terms: You are demanding the water meets your personal chemical specifications, while at the same decrying the democratic right of others to do the same ...

I fancy I hear Chris Price's counter-argument already — "Personal specifications, when hundreds of millions of people across the world already drink fluoridated water?" No, Chris, you already stated that case in a Chronicle letter quite some time ago. And quite some time ago I responded with a Chronicle letter pointing out the equal hundreds of millions who do not drink fluoridated water.

If we all want to preserve our freedoms in this democracy, then those who want fluoride can buy the toothpaste with it in. It won't cost them because they buy toothpaste anyway. And the rest of us will do very well without the enforced chemical medication of something we don't want in our water.

And if there is any problem with that last bit of democratic, impeccable logic, I should be very interested indeed to learn of it, but only via these columns.

STAN HOOD

Aramoho