Nathan Burge, Sartell
I would like to respond to a letter sent in by Jason Krueger urging people to contact their representatives to remove fluoride from our water. I want to dispel a common myth that leads to pseudoscientific statements made by people. Just because a molecule isn’t “natural” or is present in something humans don’t consume doesn’t mean it’s harmful or a “contaminant,” which you implied by stating fluoride is “a product originating from discharge from fertilizer and aluminum factories.”
To illustrate my point, I would like to provide a few examples. Arsenic is a natural compound yet it’s obviously not good for us. Table sugar can be made completely artificially in a lab yet it doesn’t become harmful the moment it’s artificially produced. Water is present in hydrochloric acid, industrial bleach and even tumors yet no one is trying to eliminate this “contaminate” from our lives.
I hope these examples have illustrated you can’t conclude the fluoride ion is a contaminate and dangerous to humans based upon this logic. You also implied fluoridation does not lead to an increase in dental health, with no evidence to back this up, when stating “a state law passed in 1967 forces individual cities to add a contaminant based on a theory that doing so would promote strong teeth.” The actual scientific evidence shows a 26-percent decrease in the measure of cavities in the population and a 14- to 15-percent increase in the number of children without cavities (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26092033). Fluoride has also been shown to be safe, with the only possible adverse effect at the recommended concentrations being a minor cosmetic change called fluorosis (http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/_files_nhmrc/file/publications/synopses/Eh41_Flouridation_PART_A.pdf).
Anyone reading this, please take into account the actual research done on this topic and make the informed decision. I urge you not to make legislators remove fluoride from our water, as the science says it is a benefit to our oral health. If any of your representatives try to do this, please inform them of the data. Politicians have never been good at science anyway.