By David Tulis
The proposal to end the pouring fluoride into the district’s water supply is wise for two reasons — cost and public health.
For one, liquid hydrofluorosilicic acid costs about $8,000 a year but imposes up to $12,000 a year corrosion damage to pipes and valves. This is worrisome. If it corrodes metal, does it damage human tissue and nervous systems?
The North West Utility District met Tuesday in Soddy-Daisy. Please read my report of the conflict.
Recent directives from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control suggest that fluoride in water for human consumption be reduced to 0.7 parts per million from 0.9 ppm. This reduction is required in view of the many alternative sources for fluoride, from toothpaste to food. Fluoride is naturally occurring and stands at about 0.3 ppm.
Fluoride is an aluminum industry waste product discovered in the 1930s to have an increasing dollar value. People in the federal government who had financial and personal connections with the aluminum industry pushed fluoridation and it became standard practice.
But opposition is intensifying. Fluoride a neurotoxin, according to the journal Lancet in 2014. From the abstract: “Neurodevelopmental disabilities, including autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, and other cognitive impairments, affect millions of children worldwide, and some diagnoses seem to be increasing in frequency. Industrial chemicals that injure the developing brain are among the known causes for this rise in prevalence. *** [F]ive industrial chemicals [are] developmental neurotoxicants: lead, methylmercury, polychlorinated biphenyls, arsenic, and toluene. [Other] epidemiological studies have documented six additional developmental neurotoxicants — manganese, fluoride, chlorpyrifos, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, tetrachloroethylene, and the polybrominated diphenyl ethers. We postulate that even more neurotoxicants remain undiscovered. To control the pandemic of developmental neurotoxicity, we propose a global prevention strategy.”
I am a longtime journalist and writer. I was a copy editor of the Chattanooga Times Free Press 24 years, am owner and operator of Soddy-Daisy radio station AM 1240 Hot News Talk Radio and cover local economy and free markets on the airwaves and at Nooganomics.com. Here, I argue for local over national, personal over corporate, simple over complex, near over far, and for the blessings of Christianity and whole wheat bread.
Given widespread opposition to fluoride as a danger, and given that it is not required by federal or state law, I recommend you vote to stop fluoridation.
