Group Urges Salina To Stop Adding Fluoride To Water
KSAL Staff - Mon 05:02 PM 05/21/2012
Grassroots organization launches campaign
A grassroots organization launched a campaign Monday to get the City of Salina to stop adding fluoride to the water supply.
Members of a group called "Salina Cares" spoke to city commissioners during a comment period during a study session before the Monday's meeting.
Group spokesman John Boesen first gave a little background. He said that in 1956 the public, by nearly a 5 - 1 margin, voted against adding fluoride to the Salina water supply. But 12 years later, in 1968, city commissioners made a decision to begin adding fluoride to the water.
"Salina Cares" contends that fluoride has "adverse environmental and health effects". The say that the adding of fluoride to the water amounts to an "illegal practice of forced medication".
"Salina Cares" wants the city to immediately stop adding fluoride to the water. Boesen said that there are six cities in Kansas that have stopped adding fluoride to their water supplies, including Hutchinson,Wichita, and McPherson.
Many health experts believe that fluoridation is beneficial. The fluoridation of public water has been hailed by the U.S. Center for Disease Control as one of the top medical achievements of the 20th Century.
The American Dental Association calls water fluoridation "unquestionably one of the safest and most beneficial, cost-effective public health measures for preventing, controlling, and in some cases reversing, tooth decay."
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troy
Monday 21 May 2012 17:55 Report this comment
Just who are these people? Are they affiliated with Friends of the River? Are they for or against the Expo Center? Are they happy with the recent unauthorized decision by our city council regarding homosexuals? It appears they are unhappy with the city council voting to add fluoride to our water back in 1968 so I can only assume they would be unhappy with the homosexual decision.
getumgranny
Monday 21 May 2012 18:14 Report this comment
LOL, well troy, you do raise some interesting questions about this group. I for one have never heard of Salina Cares, I would be interested to know more about them, and what their membership consists of. And, if we have been adding fluoride since 1968, and as far as I know, it hasn't killed anyone, why get our panties in a wad over something like this. I should think there are many more important issues to be fighting than this!!! I certainly do not feel like I was "forced medicated"!!!
RadarTech
Monday 21 May 2012 19:18 Report this comment
I would agree with the comments above. Let's put this "forced medication" comment into a different scenario. You know from the news clips/calling the city, that they use flouride. So if you didn't like it, buy bottled water from a source you know does not use it. No matter what a city/county tries to do to help citizens, some are going to gripe and moan their opinions. No matter how it affects the majority. I would like the city to put things like this to a vote for the citizens to voice the majority. Then and only then will you have a true account of where the citizens stand on the issues. Then we could tell the 1% of people that "majority rules", a person can't always get their way.
JMMcC
Monday 21 May 2012 21:31 Report this comment
1.Fluoride is the only chemical added to water for the purpose of medical treatment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) classifies fluoride as a drug when used to prevent or mitigate disease (FDA 2000). As a matter of basic logic, adding fluoride to water for the sole purpose of preventing tooth decay (a non-waterborne disease) is a form of medical treatment. All other water treatment chemicals are added to improve the water's quality or safety, which fluoride does not do.
JMMcC
Monday 21 May 2012 21:31 Report this comment
2.Fluoridation is unethical. Informed consent is standard practice for all medication, and one of the key reasons why most of Western Europe has ruled against fluoridation. With water fluoridation we are allowing governments to do to whole communities (forcing people to take a medicine irrespective of their consent) what individual doctors cannot do to individual patients. While referenda are preferential to imposed policies from government, it still leaves the problem of individual rights versus majority rule. Put another way: Does a voter have the right to require that their neighbor ingest a certain medication (even if it is against that neighbor's will)?
JMMcC
Monday 21 May 2012 21:33 Report this comment
3.The dose cannot be controlled. Once fluoride is put in the water it is impossible to control the dose each individual receives because people drink different amounts of water. Being able to control the dose a patient receives is critical. Some people (e.g., manual laborers, athletes, diabetics, and people with kidney disease) drink substantially more water than others. 4.The fluoride goes to everyone regardless of age, health or vulnerability. According to Dr. Arvid Carlsson, the 2000 Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Physiology and one of the scientists who helped keep fluoridation out of Sweden: "Water fluoridation goes against leading principles of pharmacotherapy, which is progressing from a stereotyped medication -- of the type 1 tablet 3 times a day -- to a much more individualized therapy as regards both dosage and selection of drugs. The addition of drugs to the drinking water means exactly the opposite of an individualized therapy" (Carlsson 1978).
JMMcC
Monday 21 May 2012 21:33 Report this comment
People now receive fluoride from many other sources besides water. Fluoridated water is not the only way people are exposed to fluoride. Other sources of fluoride include food and beverages processed with fluoridated water (Kiritsy 1996; Heilman 1999), fluoridated dental products (Bentley 1999; Levy 1999), mechanically deboned meat (Fein 2001), tea (Levy 1999), and pesticide residues (e.g., from cryolite) on food (Stannard 1991; Burgstahler 1997). It is now widely acknowledged that exposure to non-water sources of fluoride has significantly increased since the water fluoridation program first began (NRC 2006).
JMMcC
Monday 21 May 2012 21:34 Report this comment
Fluoride is not an essential nutrient (National Research Council [NRC] 1993; Institute of Medicine [IOM] 1997, NRC 2006). No disease has ever been linked to a fluoride deficiency. It has never been shown that ingested fluoride is needed to produce decay-free teeth. Not a single biological process has been shown to require fluoride. On the contrary there is extensive evidence that fluoride can interfere with many important biological processes. Fluoride interferes with numerous enzymes (Waldbott 1978). In combination with aluminum, fluoride interferes with G-proteins (Bigay 1985, 1987). Such interactions give aluminum-fluoride complexes the potential to interfere with signals from growth factors, hormones and neurotransmitters (Strunecka & Patocka 1999; Li 2003). More and more studies are indicating that fluoride can interfere with biochemistry in fundamental ways (Barbier 2010).
JMMcC
Monday 21 May 2012 21:35 Report this comment
The level in mothers' milk is very low. Considering reason #6 it is perhaps not surprising that the level of fluoride in mother's milk is remarkably low (0.004 ppm, NRC, 2006). This means that a bottle-fed baby consuming fluoridated water (0.6 – 1.2 ppm) can get up to 300 times more fluoride than a breast-fed baby. There are no benefits (see reasons #11-19), only risks (see reasons #21-36), for infants ingesting this heightened level of fluoride at such an early age (an age where susceptibility to environmental toxins is particularly high).
JMMcC
Monday 21 May 2012 21:35 Report this comment
8.Fluoride accumulates in the body. Healthy adult kidneys excrete 50 to 60% of the fluoride they ingest each day (Marier & Rose 1971). The remainder accumulates in the body, largely in calcifying tissues such as the bones and pineal gland (Luke 1997, 2001). Infants and children excrete less fluoride from their kidneys and take up to 80% of ingested fluoride into their bones (Ekstrand 1994). The fluoride concentration in bone steadily increases over a lifetime (NRC 2006). 9.No health agency in fluoridated countries is monitoring fluoride exposure or side effects. No regular measurements are being made of the levels of fluoride in urine, blood, bones, hair, or nails of either the general population or sensitive subparts of the population (e.g., individuals with kidney disease).
JMMcC
Monday 21 May 2012 21:36 Report this comment
10.There has never been a single randomized clinical trial to demonstrate fluoridation's effectiveness or safety. Despite the fact that fluoride has been added to community water supplies for over 60 years, "there have been no randomized trials of water fluoridation" (Cheng 2007). Randomized studies are the standard method for determining the safety and effectiveness of any purportedly beneficial medical treatment. In 2000, the British Government's "York Review" could not give a single fluoridation trial a Grade A classification – despite 50 years of research (McDonagh 2000). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to classify fluoride as an "unapproved new drug"
JMMcC
Monday 21 May 2012 21:37 Report this comment
11.Benefit is topical not systemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 1999, 2001) has now acknowledged that the mechanism of fluoride's benefits are mainly topical, not systemic. There is no need whatsoever, therefore, to swallow fluoride to protect teeth. Since the purported benefit of fluoride is topical, and the risks are systemic, it makes more sense to deliver the fluoride directly to the tooth in the form of toothpaste. Since swallowing fluoride is unnecessary, and potentially dangerous, there is no justification for forcing people (against their will) to ingest fluoride through their water supply. 12.Fluoridation is not necessary. Most western, industrialized countries have rejected water fluoridation, but have nevertheless experienced the same decline in childhood dental decay as fluoridated countries. (See data from World Health Organization presented graphically in Figure 1).
JMMcC
Monday 21 May 2012 21:40 Report this comment
Fluoridation's role in the decline of tooth decay is in serious doubt. The largest survey ever conducted in the US (over 39,000 children from 84 communities) by the National Institute of Dental Research showed little difference in tooth decay among children in fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities (Hileman 1989). According to NIDR researchers, the study found an average difference of only 0.6 DMFS (Decayed, Missing, and Filled Surfaces) in the permanent teeth of children aged 5-17 residing their entire lives in either fluoridated or unfluoridated areas (Brunelle & Carlos, 1990).
JMMcC
Monday 21 May 2012 21:41 Report this comment
15.Tooth decay is high in low-income communities that have been fluoridated for years. Despite some claims to the contrary, water fluoridation cannot prevent the oral health crises that result from rampant poverty, inadequate nutrition, and lack of access to dental care. There have been numerous reports of severe dental crises in low-income neighborhoods of US cities that have been fluoridated for over 20 years (e.g., Boston, Cincinnati, New York City, and Pittsburgh). In addition, fluoridation has been repeatedly found to be ineffective at preventing the most serious oral health problem facing poor children, namely "baby bottle tooth decay," otherwise known as early childhood caries (Barnes 1992; Shiboski 2003). 16.Tooth decay does not go up when fluoridation is
JMMcC
Monday 21 May 2012 21:43 Report this comment
stopped. @Getumgranny Fluoride may increase hip fractures in the elderly. When high doses of fluoride (average 26 mg per day) were used in trials to treat patients with osteoporosis in an effort to harden their bones and reduce fracture rates, it actually led to a higher number of fractures, particularly hip fractures (Inkovaara 1975; Gerster 1983; Dambacher 1986; O'Duffy 1986; Hedlund 1989; Bayley 1990; Gutteridge 1990. 2002; Orcel 1990; Riggs 1990 and Schnitzler 1990). Hip fracture is a very serious issue for the elderly, often leading to a loss of independence or a shortened life. There have been over a dozen studies published since 1990 that have investigated a possible relationship between hip fractures and long term consumption of artificially fluoridated water or water with high natural levels.
JMMcC
Monday 21 May 2012 21:53 Report this comment
I am not in the mentioned group I just googled is Flouride.
troy
Monday 21 May 2012 22:20 Report this comment
JMMcC you're hired. You leave for bootcamp tomorrow. If you put 1/2 as much into killing Muslim terrorists as you put into this disertation on fluoride we'll win the War on Terrorism in a week!
TheChurch
Monday 21 May 2012 22:20 Report this comment
WOW! LOL @ the first several posts, if that's not an indicator that long term potential fluoride consumption could lead to brain damage then I don't know what is... ;) Really? "Who are "these" people" "What do they think of the River Project?" WTF is wrong with you folks? Wanna talk about your city spending your money adding a drug to the public water that is not safe, nor effective? Or how about the fact that its totally unnecessary and arguably a violation of YOUR PERSONAL LIBERTY AND FREEDOM.
TheChurch
Monday 21 May 2012 22:23 Report this comment
I think this is a great example of local folks just getting together to do what they believe is the right thing, and going through the legit process to do that..you know how people always say "you can't do anything about it..?" Well yeah, you can and apparently these folks are. Good for them. I support them 100%. I support any persons right to CHOOSE TO USE FLUORIDE, however it is wrong for a city to add it to the water supply. That's the PUBLIC water supply.
TheChurch
Monday 21 May 2012 22:24 Report this comment
If you want to drink fluoride everyday then YOU GO BUY YOUR OWN AND ADD IT IF YOU FEEL THE NEED. There is no reason to IMPOSE A MEDICAL TYRANNY onto the public. Never mind the potential negative environmental consequences... But I do understand that without being able to form a strong argument FOR fluoridation, you would be somewhat limited to irrelevant posts...I do get that..As for that group good for them good luck to you I suspect that many awake citizens may very well seize the opportunity to do something overwhelmingly simple and good for their city and the people in it..hope it works out for ya.
Iamgonnagetu
Monday 21 May 2012 23:16 Report this comment
One thing for sure after June 4 this group is covered by the new ordinance so now what do you do city commissioners?
nyscof
Tuesday 22 May 2012 02:33 Report this comment
Fluoridation Opposition is Scientific, Respectable & Growing More than 4,038 professionals (including 331 dentists and 518 MD’s) urge that fluoridation be stopped citing scientific evidence that ingesting fluoride is ineffective at reducing tooth decay and has serious health risks. See statement: http://www.fluoridealert.org/professionals-statement.aspx Eleven US EPA unions representing over 7000 environmental and public health professionals are calling for a moratorium on fluoridation.
nyscof
Tuesday 22 May 2012 02:34 Report this comment
The Centers for Disease Control reports that 60% of 12-15 year-olds are affected with fluoride overdose symptoms – dental fluorosis, white spotted, yellow, brown and/or pitted teeth. Yet, tooth decay crises are occurring in all fluoridated cities, states and countries. See: http://www.FluorideNews.blogspot.com Emergency room are flooded with people in dental pain, costing taxpayers millions of dollars, because 80% of dentists refuse Medicaid patients, 130 million Americans don’t have dental insurance. Many of those that do can’t afford dentistry’s high out-of-pocket costs. No American is or ever was fluoride-deficient. Americans are fluoride-overdosed and dentist-deficient.
CORRECTION
Tuesday 22 May 2012 09:05 Report this comment
We could look at it this way. How much of our tax money is being wasted down the drain? Even if fluoride was beneficial, we waste it every time we use our public water for anything other than drinking. With more efficient methods of delivery (fluoride toothpaste), why would we continue this practice? It's a small step but if we don't start changing these things, we never will. @JMMcC - Thanks for the informative posts. I learned something today.
FluorideFreeFL
Tuesday 22 May 2012 12:05 Report this comment
There a dozens and dozens of good reasons to keep the fluoride OUT of our water and zero reasons to keep it in. Floridians, please join us in our effort to stop the practice of putting toxic chemicals in our tap water. Fluoride Free Florida http://fluoridefreeflorida.com/join-us/ On Facebook, “click to join” in upper right hand corner http://www.facebook.com/groups/fluoridefreeflorida/ 50 Reasons to Oppose Fluoridation http://fluoridefreeflorida.com/
Sirrayiv
Tuesday 22 May 2012 21:05 Report this comment
It amazes me how stupid the majority of people are in this country. Adding fluoride to the water supply was created by the Nazis to subdue the Jews in concentration camps. This technique has been implemented here in the United States, and when you combine it with the Aluminum being sprayed on us, you will begin to see a very sinister plot working behind the scenes. Google "what are they spraying on us" or "chem-trails" and prepare to be blown away.
JMMcC
Tuesday 22 May 2012 21:10 Report this comment
Sodium Flouride is derived from Aluminum.