With regard to adding fluoride to Byron Shire’s water mains I am very much opposed; in fact I would go so far as to say that adding fluoride is to poison the water supply.
Although there are many documented cases of the adverse effects of fluoridated water, the worst in my view is the threat to human intelligence. Many studies have been conducted that confirm that fluoridated water lowers IQ, especially in children. To quote just one, which can be googled:
‘Analysis Of Children’s Serum Fluoride Levels In Relation To Intelligence Scores In A High And Low Fluoride Water Village In China’ (Quanyong Xiang, Youxin Liang, Bingheng Chen; Liansheng Chenb, Nanjing and Shanghai).
Much of this fluoride/IQ research takes place outside America. Perhaps this is not surprising.
In 1995 one of the earliest animal studies of fluoride’s impact on the brain in the US was conducted by Dr Phyllis Mullenix PhD, formerly of Harvard University. She too found a correlation between fluoridation of water and lowered IQ in children. However when her findings were published in the Journal of Neurotoxicology and Teratology, she was fired by the dean of the Forsyth Institute. The treatment meted out to this scientist sent a clear message to other researchers in the US that it was not good for their careers to look into the health effects of fluoride – particularly on the brain. (More details in Chris Bryson’s The Fluoride Deception.)
While both proponents and opponents of fluoride claim reams of science to back their claims it is a fact that there is a worldwide trend against fluoridation of the water supply.
In May of this year, the city of Portland, Oregon, voted overwhelmingly to reject adding fluoridation chemicals to the city’s water supply. Interestingly the city’s black population – for whom the benefits were most loudly claimed by proponents – voted almost one hundred per cent against. They had more to lose than anyone from the ill-effects suggested by the scientific panel who pointed out that there are safer, more effective and less intrusive ways to promote oral health than adding a chemical linked to thyroid disease, IQ loss, and other ailments to the water supply.
Likewise in Israel. On 29 July 2013, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that Israel must stop adding fluoride chemicals into public water supplies in one year. Among other concerns the High Court noted thyroid problems, dangers to the chronically ill and the prospect of a lowered IQ in the population at large.
No doubt proponents will claim science and offer refutations, but the Israeli example is telling. Whatever you think of their foreign policy, if Israel, along with the city of Portland and others, is concerned about lowered IQ, then so am I.
Surely then, the ‘precautionary principle’ applies. Even if one has a gut feeling that fluoridation is good for you, with so much peer reviewed evidence citing health concerns (to match all those claiming benefits) the right thing to do must be to cease and desist from putting fluoride in Byron Shire’s drinking water.
I am reliably informed that Councillor Basil Cameron is undecided. I would call upon him to review these facts (which can easily be googled) before casting his vote next Thursday.
Steve Devas, Byron Bay
