Letter: Local municipalities wrong on fluoride | Letters To The Editor

To the editor:

The Jan. 13 article “Fluoridated water case is going to federal court” has finally put the issue of fluoride in our drinking water on the “front page.” For those of you who don’t care about your health, who are stubborn, or who think they know more than the growing body of evidence to the contrary on the issue of adding poison to our drinking water, stop reading right now, for you have joined the “unteachables.” For those of you who do care about your health and our environment, please read on.

The case mentioned in the Times article is about the federal Environmental Protection Agency) failing to fulfill its duty to follow the law; and the applicable federal laws are the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972, the Clean Water Act (CWA) of 1977, and the Water Quality Act of 1987. The CWA of 1977 prohibits the “mass medication of the public” through water supplies for the simple reason that you cannot control the dose of chemical per person. If you drink one glass of tap water per day, and I drink 10 glasses, I’m getting 10 times the dose (for example) of sodium fluoride that you are.

Sodium fluoride (NaF) is a man-made “forever” chemical (it does not break down in the environment) — as opposed to calcium fluoride, found naturally in small quantities in some water supplies — that is added to municipal water supplies in the misguided belief that it helps prevent cavities. More on that later. Caveat: both the American Dental Association and the manufacturer of Crest toothpaste websites explain that a topical application to the teeth (i.e. brushing) with a fluoride toothpaste is the most effective way of reducing cavities.

Sodium fluoride is a Federal Class 6.1 toxin that falls between lead and arsenic on the poison scale. The NaF that is added to all Cape Ann water supplies is Chinese industrial waste that is a byproduct of the Chinese fertilizer and aluminum industries. The EPA has not enforced the Clean Water Act and the Toxic Substance Control Act (enacted by Congress in 1976) that prohibits the mass medication of the public through municipal water supplies, which is why the federal court in Berkeley, California, has overridden the EPA’s rejection of an attempt by the Food & Water Watch and several other organizations to force the EPA to simply enforce the laws already in place.

All of this sounds complicated, and to some extent it is. What is most disturbing is that local boards of health (Gloucester, Manchester and Rockport), as important as they are to many local health issues, have become defacto militant enforcers for the artificial fluoridation of public water supplies, absolutely unwilling to admit that artificial fluoridation of drinking water is not good for the public health or the environment. Accompanying all chemicals used in the U.S. is something called Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), that explain what a chemical is, where it comes from, its uses, and a detailed report on the chemical’s toxicity. For NaF (man-made sodium fluoride, which is also used as an insecticide), the MSDS (available by law from your local water treatment plant) specifically states: “Acute Oral toxicity, Acute aquatic toxicity, Fatal if swallowed, Harmful to aquatic life with long lasting effects, Avoid release to the environment.” There is a much longer list of dangers and hazards of NaF in the MSDS that accompany the chemical, but I’ve listed enough to get your attention to the fact that this is not stuff we want to be drinking! And speaking of drinking — if you drink local beer from any of the local breweries (Essex, Gloucester, Ipswich), you’re also drinking sodium fluoride. Same goes for soy milk, canned soups, juices with added water, and any foods made with local water supplies. I should mention here that none of the water filters available at grocery stores will remove NaF from water. Only steam distillation or reverse osmosis filters are capable of that. Once it’s in the water, it’s both extremely difficult and expensive to remove.

So lets look at this from the environmental perspective: less than 2% of artificially fluoridated water is actually consumed by humans. The other 98% or so of artificially fluoridated drinking water produced at local water treatment plants is used for flushing toilets, bathing (showers), watering lawns and gardens, used in washing machines and dishwashers, and a plethora of industrial uses including making beer at local breweries, and carwashers. Gloucester began adding NaF to its drinking water in 1981. Since then, the city of Gloucester has released 250 tons of NaF into the environment. That’s the equivalent of five 50-ton railroad tank cars of a “forever poison” dumped into the environment! Manchester and Rockport began artificially fluoridating their water supplies in 1982.

Since then, Rockport has dumped approximately 25 tons of sodium fluoride into the surrounding environment. In all three communities, that means into the ground and into the ocean — a Class 6.1 toxin that is a “forever” poison. Artificially fluoridating water supplies in an attempt to reduce cavities is like using dynamite to swat flies. The “side effects” far outweigh any benefit.

Finally, there is no proven statistical difference in cavities between communities that fluoridate their drinking water and those that don’t. Seventy-three percent of Massachusetts communities do not artificially fluoridate their water supplies, including Worcester (the second-largest city in the commonwealth), all of Berkshire County and all of Cape Cod. Eighty-one percent of Maine communities, 87% of Vermont communities, and 63% of New Hampshire communities do not artificially fluoridate their water supplies. Nearby cities/towns that do not fluoridate their water supplies include Amesbury (since 2009), Rowley and Georgetown.

Artificially fluoridating water supplies is a political decision, not a scientifically proven one, as 18 Nobel Prize-winning scientists and chemists have testified to. Sodium fluoride (a “forever toxin”) added to the water we drink is medically, ethically and morally wrong.

Alan MacMillan

Rockport

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from Gloucester Daily Times can be found here ***