A free public meeting on Monday, June 16, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., at the Chestnut Hill Public Library, 8711 Germantown Ave., about the pros and cons of fluoridation in municipal drinking water.

by Beverly DeCer

Ed. Note: Beverly DeCer, RN, a local resident, is the founder of Flouride Free Philadelphia, a grassroots advocacy organization which is sponsoring a free public meeting on Monday, June 16, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., at the Chestnut Hill Public Library, 8711 Germantown Ave., for those individuals interested in the still-controversial issue of fluoridation in municipal drinking water. This is strictly an opinion piece. We welcome opinions either for or against this one.

The policy of water fluoridation has been in effect for 60 years. It started in the late 1940s when industrial fluoride pollution began to generate lawsuits toward the major corporations for worker injuries and catastrophic damage to surrounding communities. The military industrial complex also had an interest in the public acceptance of the mounting amount of fluoride in their environment, since huge amounts of fluoride were needed for their nuclear weapons. Water fluoridation science was brought to us by laboratories owned by corporations, like the Mellon Institute and the Kettering Laboratory. This same cabal brought us asbestos and lead in our gasoline in complicity with our government.

The Secretary of the Treasury at the time, Andrew Mellon, owner of Alcoa Aluminum, a huge fluoride polluter, gave the U.S. Department of Health the green light to begin experimenting with water fluoridation in Flint, Michigan, and Newburg, New York, without animal studies! This was the 1950s, not a stellar moment for human rights. One leading fluoride scientist, Harold Hodge, injected plutonium into unsuspecting patients in his other efforts.

Of course, a great PR man, Edward L. Bernays, was hired to roll out the program, and he was highly successful in convincing the public to drink dilute amounts of a chemical that is more toxic than lead. Bernays' tenet was that people trust and will listen to their doctors and dentists.

The chemical companies who sell this hazardous, toxic chemical are making billions, especially since they do not need to pay to have this byproduct disposed in a landfill. It is a financial bonanza for them! It is a no-win health challenge for the public.

Fluoride may structurally harden your teeth when it comes in contact with your tooth enamel, but just because your teeth are harder does not make them structurally sound. Dentists have not gone out of business. We are simply conditioned to accept fluoride as something wonderful that dentists have recommended for us, and we mindlessly brush or swish with it every day…as well as drink it. One of the most striking examples that fluoridation does not work is in the state of Kentucky, which is 100% fluoridated. (PA is 40%.) Yet Kentucky also has the distinction of having the most toothless adults over the age of 18, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). On the other hand, Utah which is only 2% fluoridated, ranks among the top states of elderly adults with all of their teeth.

Is fluoridation effective? No. World Health Organization statistics prove that countries which do not fluoridate have no worse dental health than the U.S. Italy has better dental health statistics! The CDC boasts continually, “Fluoridation is one of the 10 most successful health programs.” The CDC spins statistics which show a decline in decay over the last 40 years and point to fluoridation as the cause, but ALL industrialized countries have reduced decay, fluoridated or not.

97% of European countries stopped fluoridating in the '70s and '80s when it became clear the fluoridation was not harmless, nor was it right to mass “medicate” a population without informed consent. In the U.S., our corporate-ocracy was keeping a tight rein on the status quo by branding leaders or scientists who spoke out against fluoridation as troublemakers, or worse, they would lose their jobs.

Fluoride has been labeled as carcinogenic, a neurotoxin, endocrine-disrupting protoplasmic poison, but we continue to pump it into our water. Nobel Prize winning scientists have spoken out against adding a toxic chemical to water, but the pro-fluoride lobby continues to brand harmful evidence as “junk science.”

Is fluoridation a hoax? Yes. Studies agree, including the government-funded Iowa Study, which reported, “Achieving a caries-free status may have relatively little to do with fluoride intake” (Journal of Public Health Dentistry, 2009), but the facts have not been turned into action to reverse this political policy.

Dental fluorosis, a symptom of fluoride toxicity, is epidemic, and 41% of American teenagers now have a form of this disfigurement of their teeth. Make no mistake, fluoridation continues because our bureaucracy cannot admit they were wrong, and there is a huge pro-fluoridation lobby backed by millions of dollars and corporate power. The Pew Charitable Trust spends millions to promote fluoridation. Why?

Retired biochemist Vivian Schatz, of Mt. Airy, calls fluoridation “a religion.” The papers of her late husband, Albert Schatz, were published all over the world in the 1960s, which proved that fluoride is a neurotoxin. He could not get them published here in the U.S.! Many defend fluoridation vehemently and will not examine the scientific evidence. There is also a “cognitive dissonance” which makes our psyche unable to accept that our government/medical hierarchy could be promoting a policy that is harmful. Now with social media and access to information, people are waking up quickly.

Help turn the tide on water fluoridation. Call your national, state, and city representatives and kindly demand that fluoridation end. Attend the public meeting on Monday, June 16, 6:30 to 8:30 pm, at the Chestnut Hill Public Library. For more information, visit Fluoride Free Philadelphia on Facebook, or email fluoridefreephiladelphia@gmail.com.

Fluoride Free Philadelphia is not a registered non-profit, simply a grassroots organization. “We no not have a website,” said Ms. DeCer, “because we do not have the money or manpower. Facebook is now the best way to reach out to the community and to interact with other groups, politicians and other individuals.”