By Charles Carpenter

LB 245 will require cities of over 1,000 to place fluoride in their water. An amendment may provide an opt-out provision. It seems to me we have opted out before but apparently our no votes regarding this issue seem to be ignored because someone else seems to know what is best for us.

The amount of negative information regarding fluoride is on the increase. Many individuals that have promoted the use of fluoride in the past say no to fluoridation today.

According to the National Academy of Sciences here are three reasons:

1. The fluoridation goal of delivering 1 milligram (approximately 1 ppm) of fluoride to a child per day has already been reached or exceeded in non fluoridated communities. In the 1940's, public water was chosen for delivery because it would be the child's only access to fluoride. What we have since learned is that fluoride is in most colas and fruit juices at concentrations of 1 ppm and up; in well known cereals at two to10 times the concentration intended for our water; in products using white grape juice as a sweetener or in children's juices at 3 to 7 ppm; and, because of fluoride residue, on lettuce at 180 ppm and raisins (which no child will scrub) at 55 ppm. U.S. Public Health Service documents (in 1991) show that fluoridated communities were receiving three to seven times the optimal goal. In 1986-87, 30 percent of children in fluoridated communities already showed signs of dental fluorosis (overdose) according to the National Institute of Dental Research. Fluoride is the most bone seeking element known to mankind. The U.S. Public Health Service has stated that fluoride makes the bones more brittle and dental enamel more porous. What is known is that the tooth surface becomes harder but the tooth itself becomes more brittle. So would a topical application be more effective than internal ingestion since it accumulates deep within bones and can cause cancer?

2. Adding fluoride to the water mass medicates. Although promoters of fluoridation insinuate that children are deficient in fluoride, 98 percent of Europe and our own continent's professional organizations have seen that the adverse effects have gotten out of hand and that there is a need to adjust for uncontrolled exposure. In 1995, the American Dental Association Council on Scientific Affairs and the American Academy of Pediatrics, which have lobbied for fluoridation, created new recommendations for controlled-dose supplementation, which are intended to be a substitute for fluoridated water in nonfluoridated communities. The American Dental Association, on Nov. 9, 2006, sent an alert to all of its members that infants are probably getting too much fluoride if their formula is being mixed with water that contains fluoride. At the same time, an article in a British journal, The Lancet, reported that fluoride may damage a child's developing brain. In the same year, the Food and Drug Administration stated that fluoridated water marketed to infants cannot claim to reduce the risk of cavities. Water is supposed to be safe for everyone. Why add a chemical that makes it knowingly unfit for young children?

3. The hazardous waste substances used in 90 percent of fluoridation have never been tested either alone in distilled water, or in combination with other chemicals and contaminants found in tap water. The most common substances now used for fluoridation are hydrofluosilicic acid and sodium silicofluoride, which are waste products that are captured in scrubber systems of the phosphate fertilizer industry. The resulting toxic waste cannot be diluted by 1, 3 or 10 million to one and dumped into an ocean, a river or a landfill or allowed to escape into the air because it would kill animals, people and plants. It cannot even be given away because it would still be classified as a Class I toxic waste and would have to be neutralized at the highest rated hazardous waste at a substantial cost. Yet, if a water district will pay 35 to 45 cents per gallon for transportation, the 23 percent solution in industrial waste water is magically pronounced benign and shipped, untreated, to be mixed into our water. If it were not a hazardous waste, it could have been added to salt or some other naturally accessible food source, just like iodine is, and then we would be free to choose for ourselves. According to Dr. Charles Gordon Heyd, past president of the American Medical Association, "Using water as a vehicle for drugs is deplorable." Is this government sponsored use of an unlicensed drug?

What has not been discussed is all of the well documented evidence showing the adverse health effects of fluoridation, including the reasons for the warnings on your toothpaste tubes. This whole debacle might best be summed up by the following quote: "Fluoridation it is the greatest fraud that has ever been perpetrated and it has been perpetrated on more people than any other fraud has," states Professor Albert Schatz, Ph.D. (Microbiology), discoverer of streptomycin and a Nobel Prize winner.

Charles Carpenter is an instructor at GI Public Schools, CCC and Doane College. Carpenter has a bachelor's and master's degree in science and is a resident of Grand Island.