Fluoride Free Cornwall Petition Spreads After Council Protest – September 10, 2013

water or flourideCFN –  A determined group of protesters filled petition sheets in front of City Hall in Cornwall Ontario.   After being rebuffed once, Liz Leduc and her team have starting a petition that can be signed across Cornwall and the area.

I shot some video of the group trying to get support from Councilor David Murphy.

The group updates on their Fluoride Free Cornwall Facebook page.  LINK

In Cornwall you can sign their petition at:

Lola’s Pub and Grub @616 Pitt St.

Uncle Brian’s Tattoo @319 Montreal Rd.

Physical Limits @ 120 9th St. W

CHOP Hair Design@ 506 2nd St W.

16 Comments

  1. Fluoride is a toxic chemical that should never have been added to drinking water. Recent dental research show that fluorides benefits are topical via toothpaste rather than systemic ingestion.
    The ADA in the US recommend parents not to use fluoridated tap water to reconstitute formula milk. If it is not safe for babies then why is an entire population being subjected to mass medication of an uncontrollable dose of fluoride? It is against our human rights. We have the right to say what we consume. No government or local authority has the right to drug us.
    Regards
    Aisling aka The Girl Against Fluoride

  2. The World Health Organization does not consider fluoride as an essential mineral element. So, no illness or disease (including dental decay) can result from being fluoride deficiency. There is in fact, no such thing as being fluoride deficient.

    You can however get too much fluoride. Fluoride toxicity shows up as dental fluorosis – a condition that both Canada’s Health Measure’s Survey and the CDC claim effects 41% of teens. The Canadian Pediatric Society also states, “Fluoride prevents caries mainly by its topical effect…Ingested fluoride, on the other hand, has little effect on caries but contributes significantly to the development of fluorosis.”

    Interestingly, it is more expensive to treat damaged tooth enamel from fluorosis than to fill a cavity.

  3. Men of science have spoken passionately against fluoride and fluoridation. Phillipe Grandjean has remarked on the lack of good studies on fluoride’s affect on the brain. (though we’ve been putting it in the water for 60 years) Dean Burk called it public murder on a grand scale after heading a department at the American Cancer society and studying and working there for 34 years on groundbreaking lifesaving research. Aarvid Caarlson winner ofthe 2000 Nobel Prize in medicine advised the government of Sweden and recommends pharmacologically active substances not be added to the environment. nor medication given to the public instead of the individual. He called it obsolete. Toxic waste should not be diluted then dumped into the ground and the waterways (through mopping sprinklers, toilets, baths, and washing) and it certainly shouldn’t be used to grow food, prepare food, be in most beverages and in one of life’s necessities. Most of the world has stopped doing this. The United States is far lower on the list of countries when arranged by lifespan. More people get fluoridated water in the United States than the rest of the world combined. It may be good for teeth at 1-3mg per day, but the dosage you get is probably higher. It affects the thyroid, the pineal, the brain, the kidneys, and the bones. This is about more than just teeth. Men of science speak against this, but to find anything for it one must turn to agencies, organizations, and bureaucracies.

    from the USDA http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12354500/Data/Fluoride/F02.pdf

    While daily intake of 1–3 mg of fluoride prevents dental caries, long-term exposure to higher amounts may have deleterious effects on tooth enamel and bone. from the world health organization. http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/123075/AQG2ndEd_6_5Fluorides.PDF

    “according to clinical research, the fluoride dose capable of reducing thyroid function was notably low-just 2-5 mg per day over several months” (Galetti & Joyce 1958) “this dose is well within the range (1.6 to 6.6 mg/day) of what individuals living in fluoridated communities are now estimated to receive on a daily basis.”

    But don’t take my word for it. Read it yourself. It’s out there. If you are only skeptical about that which you are uncertain you are not using skepticism properly. Take out your beliefs and give them an airing out on occasion.

  4. I will say again, fluoride needs to be removed from all municipal water supplies.

    – they do not measure the dose going in accurately.; You and the kids are being drugged against your will and consent!
    – it is a classified neurotoxin- it eats thru concrete!
    – it attracts heavy metals into the body, causing Alzheimers!

    Thanks for taking time on this issue.

    BD

  5. If Fluoride Free Cornwall wants to challenge water fluoridation, they will need to quit talking about the medical issues the surround fluoridation . . . and quit mentioning the constitution. Those issues are totally irrelevant and are best avoided altogether.

    What is of relevance is a ruling by a judge from the Ontario Superior Court that gives patients the right to refuse medication, even if the patient’s mental condition may be a cause of concern. As a result of that ruling, NO physician in Ontario has any legal authority to forcibly administer medication. Medical staff at nursing homes are required by law to ask permission of the person who holds power-of-attorney, in order to administer medications such as flu vaccines.

    If some one’s mental state is such that they have little or no comprehension, a family member or trusted friend may act as power-of-attorney. Individual elected members of a municipal council may not use their position to assume power-of-attorney over the health of citizens at large. If they collectively assert such power, there may be grounds to initiate a court challenge against such a council . . . with a good chance of a judge ruling against the municipal council.

    When the City of Calgary held their fluoridation hearings, they upheld the ruling of the Ontario Superior Court judge and denied representatives from the medical and dental profession from addressing the hearings. Several municipal councils that voted to discontinue water fluoridation, did so on the grounds that they had no right to forcibly administer medication to the citizens at large, via the municipal water distribution system.

    Initiating an anti-fluoride campaign at this time and on medical grounds will achieve nothing. The campaign needs to begin during the weeks and months prior to the next municipal election. One problem Fluoride-Free Cornwall will encounter is that majority of Cornwall Council are on friendly terms with management at the EOHU . . . . most of the present council may not want to recognise an Ontario Superior Court court ruling that prevents physicians from forcibly administering medication . . . neither will they want to recognise that they have no grounds to act as power-of-attorney on matters that pertain to the administration of medication to citizens at large.

    FFC . . . deal with this as the next municipal election nears.

  6. Fluoride was used by Hitler during WWII against the Jews in the camps to keep them calm before he exterminated them. Fluoride is found in toothpastes and other items and it is a highly toxic poison. Many cities in the US are banning fluoride and Calgary has done this just recently. Fluoride destroys teeth and bones along with many other ailments.

  7. HARRY VALENTINE offers sound advice and I subscribe to his common sense approach to this potentially contentious issue.

    The use of fluoride is a municipal issue, not provincial or federal. Lobbying your councilor of choice six months prior to the next municipal election would in all likely hood achieve the most desired results. To be perfectly democratic this issue should lie in the hands of the electorate via a simple yes or no question on the voting ballot. No real additional cost to the taxpayer, fair to all and removes the politics from the decision making process. Win win. No flip flopping from easily manipulated part time political wannabes.

  8. I think no. Natural water is found to contain between 0.1 and 2.4 ppm of fluorine. Fluoridation only adds about 0.7-0.8 ppm into drinking water, or 7 MICROgrams per liter of water.

    Fluorine poisoning takes 32 to 64 mg/kg (intestinal discomfort, about 0.2 mg/kg, or 8mg for the average adult), so that’s not really a threat. There are no known side effects to mild fluoride ingestion.

    However, and I’m quoting directly here, The US Task Force summarized the work: “According to the… rules of evidence, strong evidence shows that fluoridation is effective in reducing the cumulative experience of dental caries within communities”.
    (http://www.thecommunityguide.org/oral/fluoridation.html)

    The Australian review (a 2007 update of the 2000 UK review) said “The existing body of evidence strongly suggests that water fluoridation is beneficial at reducing dental caries” and found insufficient evidence of adverse health effects.
    (http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/…/Eh41_Flouridation_PART_A.pdf).

  9. ANTOINE to go a step further I have often listened to opponents to fluoridation cite that a significant number of European countries do not fluoridate. They omit what you have offered about the natural presence of fluorine in water. And of course they do not talk about the fact that certain European countries rather than adding additional fluorine to the water supply choose to add fluorine to table salt instead. However you slice it the resultant benefit is delivered to the vast majority with as you stated no adverse effects.

    Perhaps there is a conspiracy theory that could better explain the wide acceptance of fluorine. Or maybe years of data and countless experts simply have it right after all. Beyond me, put it to a vote and let the ignorant masses decide.

  10. The natural fluoride that occurs in drinking water in some locations is CALCIUM FLUORIDE . . . . also known as fluorspar (CaF2) and is relatively benign. Except that it is possible to also make jewellery from sintered (compression moulded) CaF2 . . . . this stuff carries a high price.

    Sodium Fluoride (NaF) is a by-product of the aluminium smelting process . . . to separate Aluminium from oxygen (Al2O3 . . . the natuiral state), the smelters add cryolite (Na2AlF6 . . sodium-aluminium-fluoride) to lower the melting temperature. When electrolysis is applied, the oxygen is liberated and the Sodium-fluoride is left . . plus fluoride emissions from the exhaust stacks.

    The Mohawk Council successfully sued several aluminium smelters located near Massena for the harm that sodium fluoride and gaseous fluoride caused on the reservation.

    Besides toothpaste, fluorine compounds are also used in anti-depressants and in some aenesthetic drugs. Due to pricing, municipalities no longer use either calcium fluoride nor sodium fluoride . . . the use a by-product from the fertilizer manufacturing industry called hydrofluorosilicic acid. With regard to comments made by the head of the EOHU re the compound, it is not a drug and he is NOT an industrial chemist.

    While the fluoride industry earns some $50,000 per annum selling this compound to Cornwall, they earn $-millions selling to large population centres. Health Canada has a member on staff who is on the public payroll . . . to promote water fluoridation . . .using the compound hydrofluorosilicic acid. This arrangement reeks of conflict of interest . . . government helping to promote some industry’s product.

    However, the issue as I see it, is that members of City Council have zero power-of-attorney over the health care and administration of medication to the citizens of the city. And the head of the EOHU has zero authority to forcibly administer medications to citizens at large, without their individual consent. City Council over-stepped themselves by asserting power-of-attorney over the health care of the citizens. This issue needs to be dealt with prior to the next municipal election . . . when they’d perhaps be a little more careful about asserting power-of-attorney over citizen’s health care.

  11. You want a fair shot at getting fluoride out of the cities drinking water?? remove the Mayor from sitting on the board of the EOHU, due to conflict of interest yet again. You can not have a council vote on an issue as hot as this with the Mayor running the show here, sorry.

  12. “Mayor Kiljoy” is right here. For years now I have seen Bare Ass on the board of many places and so as to block things from happening for the better. Bare Ass must go now and not a moment later. Very soon you will all see that what I said is all very true and more.

  13. Politicians avoid accountability to make an honest decision by saying they’re not scientists and must leave the decision to the “experts” or the public. But are the “experts” knowledgeable and properly informed about this issue? It has been proven otherwise, again and again. And are the people themselves qualified to decide? Obviously not. So where’s true leadership?

    Is fluoridation a democratic issue? Or is it an ethical one? Does democracy have the right to practice tyranny on those who rely on democracy for freedom of choice? Does democracy have the right to medicate against informed consent?

    Are there not glaring inconsistencies in the logic, attitude and approach of the pro-fluoride medical and dental establishments? Is their contradiction any wonder, seeing they receive funds from the fluoride industry?

  14. VICTOR HAFICHUK I have already stated that I am neutral on the issue of fluoridation simply on the basis that as an individual I am fully able to choose not to drink fluoridated water, period.

    So my inquiry regarding your comments is to further my understanding and information pertaining to the issue.

    You stated, to paraphrase, that “experts” have been proven not to be knowledgeable or properly informed ( which really would denote that they are not experts in the first place ) repeatedly.

    My question quite simply is what expert(s) have proven the other experts you speak of to be in error with their data ?

    In regards to whether the average voter is qualified, this uncertainty is why I stated in an earlier comment, “let the ignorant masses decide”. Would we be better off if this actually occurred? Possible not but democracy would have had its day on the issue.

    As to your question does “democracy have the right” the answer is absolutely yes. Democracy is merely a vehicle for choice, not a definitive action that represents what is right or wrong. Democracy is the will of the people voicing what is acceptable.

    What exactly are the glaring inconsistencies in the”logic, attitude and approach” and what is their “contradiction”?

  15. “Fluoridation is the greatest case of scientific fraud of this century.”

    – Robert Carlton, Ph.D, former EPA scientist, 1992

    The history of forcing fluoride on humans through the fluoridation of drinking water is wrought with lies, greed and deception. Governments that add fluoride to drinking water supplies insist that it is safe, beneficial and necessary, however, scientific evidence shows that fluoride is not safe to ingest and areas that fluoridate their drinking water supplies have higher rates of cavities, cancer, dental fluorosis, osteoporosis and other health problems. Because of the push from the aluminum industry, pharmaceutical companies and weapons manufacturers, fluoride continues to be added to water supplies all over North America and due to recent legal actions against water companies that fluoridate drinking water supplies, precedent has been set that will make it impossible for suits to be filed against water suppliers that fluoridate. There is a growing resistance against adding toxic fluoride to our water supplies, but unfortunately, because fluoride has become “the lifeblood of the modern industrial economy”(Bryson 2004), there is too much money at stake for those who endorse water fluoridation . The lies of the benefits of water fluoridation will continue to be fed to the public, not to encourage health benefits to a large number of people, but to profit the military-industrial complex.

    The story begins in 1924, when Interessen Gemeinschaft Farben (I.G. Farben), a German chemical manufacturing company, began receiving loans from American bankers, gradually leading to the creation of the huge I.G. Farben cartel. In 1928 Henry Ford and American Standard Oil Company (The Rockefellers) merged their assets with I.G. Farben, and by the early thirties, there were more than a hundred American corporations which had subsidiaries and co-operative understandings in Germany. The I.G. Farben assets in America were controlled by a holding Company, American I.G. Farben, which listed on it’s board of directors: Edsel Ford, President of the Ford Motor Company, Chas. E. Mitchell, President of Rockerfeller’s National City Bank of New York, Walter Teagle, President of Standard Oil New York, Paul Warburg, Chairman of the federal reserve and brother of Max Warburg, financier of Germany’s War effort, Herman Metz, a director of the Bank of Manhattan, controlled by the Warburgs, and a number of other members, three of which were tried and convicted as German war criminals for their crimes against humanity. In 1939 under the Alted agreement, the American Aluminum Company (ALCOA), then the worlds largest producer of sodium fluoride, and the Dow Chemical Company transferred its technology to Germany. Colgate, Kellogg, Dupont and many other companies eventually signed cartel agreements with I.G. Farben, creating a powerful lobby group accurately dubbed “the fluoride mafia”(Stephen 1995).

    At the end of World War II, the US government sent Charles Eliot Perkins, a research worker in chemistry, biochemistry, physiology and pathology, to take charge of the vast Farben chemical plants in Germany. The German chemists told Perkins of a scheme which they had devised during the war and had been adapted by the German General Staff. The German chemists explained of their attempt to control the population in any given area through the mass medication of drinking water with sodium fluoride, a tactic used in German and Russian prisoner of war camps to make the prisoners “stupid and docile”(Stephen 1995). Farben had developed plans during the war to fluoridate the occupied countries because it was found that fluoridation caused slight damage to a specific part of the brain, making it more difficult for the person affected to defend his freedom and causing the individual to become more docile towards authority. Fluoride remains one of the strongest anti-psychotic substances known, and is contained in twenty-five percent of the major tranquilizers. It may not seem surprising that Hitler’s regime practiced the concept of mind control through chemical means, but the American military continued Nazi research, exploring techniques to incapacitate an enemy or medicate an entire nation. As stated in the Rockerfeller Report, a Presidential briefing on CIA activities, “the drug program was part of a much larger CIA program to study possible means of controlling human behavior”(Stephen 1995).

    The ‘dental caries prevention myth’ associated with fluoride, originated in the United States in 1939, when a scientist named Gerald J. Cox, employed by ALCOA, the largest producer of toxic fluoride waste and at the time being threatened by fluoride damage claims, fluoridated some lab rats, concluded that fluoride reduced cavities and claimed that it should be added to the nation’s water supplies. In 1947, Oscar R. Ewing, a long time ALCOA lawyer, was appointed head of the Federal Security Agency , a position that placed him in charge of the Public Health Service(PHS). Over the next three years, eighty-seven new American cities began fluoridating their water, including the control city in a water fluoridation study in Michigan, thus eliminating the most scientifically objective test of safety and benefit before it was ever completed.

    American ‘education and research’ was funded by the Aluminum Manufacturing, Fertilizer and Weapons Industry looking for an outlet for the increasingly mounting fluoride industrial waste while attaining positive profit increase. The ‘discovery’ that fluoride benefited teeth, was paid for by industry that needed to be able to defend “lawsuits from workers and communities poisoned by industrial fluoride emissions” (Bryson 1995) and turn a liability into an asset. Fluoride, a waste constituent in the manufacturing processes of explosives, fertilizers and other ‘necessities’, was expensive to dispose of properly and until a ‘use’ was found for it in America’s water supplies, the substance was only considered a toxic, hazardous waste. Through sly public re-education, fluoride, once a waste product, became the active ingredient in fluorinated pesticides, fungicides, rodenticides, anesthetics, tranquilizers, fluorinated pharmaceuticals, and a number of industrial and domestic products, fluorinated dental gels, rinses and toothpastes. Fluoride is so much a part of a multibillion-dollar industrial and pharmaceutical income, that any withdrawal of support from pro-fluoridationists is financially impossible, legally unthinkable and potentially devastating for their career and reputation.

    Funded by US industrialists, in an attempt to encourage public acceptance of fluoride, Edward Bernays, known also as the father of PR, or the original spin doctor, began a campaign of deception to persuade public opinion. Barnays explained “you can get practically any idea accepted if doctors are in favour. The public is willing to accept it because a doctor is an authority to most people, regardless of how much he knows or doesn’t know”(Bryson 2004). Doctors who endorsed fluoridation didn’t know that research discrediting fluoride’s safety was either suppressed or not conducted in the first place. Fluoride became equated with scientific progress and since it was introduced to the public as a health-enhancing substance, added to the environment for the children’s sake, those opposing fluoride were dismissed as cranks, quacks and lunatics. Fluoride became impervious to criticism because of a relentless PR offensive, but also because of it’s overall toxicity. Unlike chemicals that have a signature effect, fluoride, a systemic poison, produces a range of health problems, so it’s effects are more difficult to diagnose.

    Recently declassified US Military documents such as Manhattan Project, shows how Fluoride is the key chemical in atomic bomb production and millions of tonnes of it were needed for the manufacture of bomb-grade uranium and plutonium. Fluoride poisoning, not radiation poisoning, emerged as the leading chemical health hazard for both workers and nearby communities. A-bomb scientists were ordered to provide evidence useful for defense in litigation, so they began secretly testing fluoride on unsuspecting hospital patients and indignant, mentally retarded children.. “The August 1948 Journal of the American Dental Association shows that evidence of adverse effects from fluoride was censored by the US Atomic Energy Commission for reasons of “national security” (Griffiths 1998). The only report released stated that fluoride was safe for humans in small doses.

    During the Cold War, Dr. Harold C. Hodge, who had been the toxicologist for the US Army Manhattan Project, was the leading scientific promoter of water fluoridation. While Dr. Hodge was reassuring congress of the safety of water fluoridation, he was covertly conducting one of the nation’s first public water fluoridation experiments in Newburgh, New York, secretly studying biological samples from Newburgh citizens at his US laboratory at the University of Rochester. Since there are no legal constraints against the suppression of scientific data, the only published conclusion resulting from these experiments was that fluoride was safe in low doses, a profoundly helpful verdict for the US Military who feared lawsuits for fluoride injury from workers in nuclear power plants and munitions factories. Fluoride pollution was one of the biggest legal worries facing key US industrial sectors during the cold war. A secret group of corporate attorneys, known as the Fluorine Lawyers Committee, whose members included US Steel, ALCOA, Kaiser Aluminum, and Reynolds Metals, commissioned research at the Kettering Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati to “provide ammunition”(Bryson 2004) for those corporations who were fighting a wave of citizen claims for fluoride injury. The Fluorine Lawyers Committee and their medical ambassadors were in personal and frequent contact with the senior officials of the federal National Institute for Dental Research, and have been implied in the ‘burying’ of the forty year old Kettering study, which showed that fluoride poisoned the lungs and lymph nodes in laboratory animals. Private interests, sought to destroy careers and censor information by ensuring that scientific studies raising doubts about the safety of fluoride never got funded, and if they did, never got published.

    During the 1990’s, research conducted by Harvard toxicologist Phillis Mullenix showed that fluoride in water may lead to lower IQ’s, and produced symptoms in rats strongly resembling attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Just days before her research was accepted for publication, Mullenix was fired as the head of toxicology at the Forsyth Dental Center in Boston. Then her application for a grant to continue her fluoride and central nervous system research was turned down by the US National Institute of Health (NIH), when an NIH panel told her that “fluoride does not have central nervous system effects”(Griffiths 1998).

    Despite growing evidence that it is harmful to public health, US federal and state public health agencies and large dental and medical organizations such as the American Dental Association (ADA), continue to promote fluoride. Water fluoridation continues, despite the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s own scientists, whose union, Chapter 280 of the National Treasury Employees Union, has taken a strong stand against it. Dr. William Hirzy, vice president of Chapter 280, stated that “fluoride (that is added to municipal water) is a hazardous waste product for which there is substantial evidence of adverse health effects and, contrary to public perception, virtually no evidence of significant benefits”( Mullenix 1998). Although fluoride is up to fifty times more toxic than sulfur dioxide, it is still not regulated as an air pollutant by the American Clean Air Act. Since thousands of tonnes of industrial fluoride waste is poured into drinking water supplies all over North America, supposedly to encourage gleaming smiles in our children, big industry in the US has the benefit of emitting as much fluoride waste into the environment as they like with absolutely no requirement to measure emissions and no way of being held accountable for poisoning people, animals and vegetation.

    In August 2003, the EPA requested that the National Research Council, the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), re-evaluate water fluoride safety standards by reviewing recent scientific literature, because the last review in 1993 had major gaps in research. “Neither the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), nor the National Institute for Dental Research (NIDR), nor the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry has any proof on fluoride’s safety or effectiveness”(Sterling 1993). The International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology has classified fluoride as an unapproved dental medicament due to it’s high toxicity and the US National Cancer Institute Toxicological Program has found fluoride to be an “equivocal carcinogen” (Maurer 1990).

    Currently the US government is continuing to introduce further fluoridation schemes throughout the country, including the Water Act passed in November 2003, which has made it impossible for water companies to undergo civil or criminal hearings as a result of adding fluoride to public water supplies.

    In a society where products containing asbestos, lead, beryllium and many other carcinogens have been recalled from the marketplace, it is surprising that fluoride is embraced so thoroughly and blindly. It seems absurd that we would consider paying the chemical industry to dispose of their toxic waste by adding it to our water supply. Hiding the hazards of fluoride pollution from the public is a capitalist-style con job of epic proportions that has occurred because a powerful lobby wishes to manipulate public opinion in order to protect it’s own financial interests. “Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country… our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of” (Bernays 1991).

    Most Countries Reject Water Fluoridation
    Statements from European and other Health, Water, & Environment
    Authorities on Water Fluoridation
    Austria:
    “Toxic fluorides have never been added to the public water supplies in Austria.” (M. Eisenhut, Head of Water
    Department, Osterreichische Yereinigung fur das Gas-und Wasserfach Schubertring 14, A-1015 Wien, Austria,
    February 17, 2000).
    Belgium:
    “This water treatment has never been of use in Belgium and will never be (we hope so) into the future. The main reason for that is the fundamental position of the drinking water sector that it is not its task to deliver medicinal treatment to people. This is the sole responsibility of health services.” (Chr. Legros, Directeur,
    Belgaqua, Brussels, Belgium, February 28, 2000).
    China:
    Fluoridation is banned: “not allowed”
    Naturally high fluoride levels in water are a serious problem in China.
    “Bartram said there were many other ‘silent threats,’ including excessive fluoride in the water supply in China, India and the Rift Valley in Africa. In China alone, 30 million people suffer crippling skeletal fluorosis.” (Jamie
    Bartram, Coordinator of the WHO’s Water, Sanitation and Health Program, March 22, 2002)
    The Chinese government now considers any water supply containing over 1 ppm fluoride a risk for skeletal fluorosis. (Bo Z, et al. (2003). Distribution and risk assessment of fluoride in drinking water in the West Plain region of Jilin Province, China. Environmental Geochemistry and Health 25: 421-431.)
    In China, the World Health Organization has estimated that 2.7 million people have the crippling form of skeletal fluorosis.
    Czech Republic:
    “Since 1993, drinking water has not been treated with fluoride in public water supplies throughout the Czech Republic. Although fluoridation of drinking water has not actually been proscribed it is not under consideration
    because this form of supplementation is considered:
    · uneconomical (only 0.54% of water suitable for drinking is used as such; the remainder is employed for hygiene etc. Furthermore, an increasing amount of consumers (particularly children) are using bottled water for drinking (underground water usually with fluor)
    · unecological (environmental load by a foreign substance)
    · unethical (“forced medication”)
    · toxicologically and physiologically debateable (fluoridation represents an untargeted form of
    supplementation which disregards actual individual intake and requirements and may lead to excessive healththreatening intake in certain population groups; [and] complexation of fluor in water into non biological active forms of fluor.” (Dr. B. Havlik, Ministerstvo Zdravotnictvi Ceske Republiky, October 14, 1999).
    Denmark:
    “We are pleased to inform you that according to the Danish Ministry of Environment and Energy, toxic fluorides have never been added to the public water supplies. Consequently, no Danish city has ever been fluoridated.” (Klaus Werner, Royal Danish Embassy, Washington DC, December 22, 1999).

    Finland:
    “We do not favor or recommend fluoridation of drinking water. There are better ways of providing the fluoride our teeth need.” (Paavo Poteri, Acting Managing Director, Helsinki Water, Finland, February 7, 2000).
    “Artificial fluoridation of drinking water supplies has been practiced in Finland only in one town, Kuopio, situated in eastern Finland and with a population of about 80,000 people (1.6% of the Finnish population).
    Fluoridation started in 1959 and finished in 1992 as a result of the resistance of local population. The most usual grounds for the resistance presented in this context were an individual’s right to drinking water without additional chemicals used for the medication of limited population groups. A concept of “force-feeding” was also mentioned.
    Drinking water fluoridation is not prohibited in Finland but no municipalities have turned out to be willing to practice it. Water suppliers, naturally, have always been against dosing of fluoride chemicals into water.”
    (Leena Hiisvirta, M.Sc., Chief Engineer, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finland, January 12, 1996.)
    France:
    “Fluoride chemicals are not included in the list [of ‘chemicals for drinking water treatment’]. This is due to ethical as well as medical considerations.” (Louis Sanchez, Directeur de la Protection de l’Environment, August 25, 2000).
    Germany:
    “Generally, in Germany fluoridation of drinking water is forbidden. The relevant German law allows exceptions to the fluoridation ban on application. The argumentation of the Federal Ministry of Health against a general permission of fluoridation of drinking water is the problematic nature of compuls[ory] medication.” (Gerda Hankel-Khan, Embassy of Federal Republic of Germany, September 16, 1999).
    Hungary:
    Stopped fluoridating for technical reasons in the 1960s. However, despite technological advances, Hungary has chosen to remain unfluoridated.
    India:
    Naturally high levels of fluorides in groundwater have affected at least tens of millions with skeletal fluorosis, often resulting in crippling skeletal fluorosis. The Indian government has been working to remove the fluorides from drinking water sources to alleviate this crisis. In India, 17 of its 32 states have been identified as “endemic” areas, with an estimated 66 million people at risk from crippling skeletal fluorosis and 6 million people seriously afflicted.
    Israel:
    Recently suspended mandatory fluoridation until the issue is reexamined from all aspects: medical, environmental, ethical and legal. “From our experience in Israel and the world when the fluoride issue is studied from all aspects it is rejected.” (Representative Shimon Tsuk, Israeli Parliament)
    June 21, 2006: The labor, welfare and health Knesset (Israeli Parliament) committee called on the ministry of health to freeze the extension of the fluoridation of drinking water in Israel and to study the issue in depth in order to determine whether to continue with the project or to cancel it completely. Conclusions are to be expected within a year. Until then, municipalities and Mekorot (Israel national water company) are not required to build new fluoride installations.
    Committee Chairman MK (Member of Knesset) Moshe Sharoni and MKs Ran Cohen and David Tal claimed during the investigation that the potential damage to public health and environment from fluoridation may be greater than the benefits from decreased dental cavities.

    Japan:
    Rejected fluoridation: “…may cause health problems….” The 0.8 -1.5 mg regulated level is for calciumfluoride, not the hazardous waste by-product which is added with artificial fluoridation.
    Luxembourg:
    “Fluoride has never been added to the public water supplies in Luxembourg. In our views, the drinking water isn’t the suitable way for medicinal treatment and that people needing an addition of fluoride can decide by their own to use the most appropriate way, like the intake of fluoride tablets, to cover their [daily] needs.” (Jean-
    Marie RIES, Head, Water Department, Administration De L’Environment, May 3, 2000).
    Netherlands:
    “From the end of the 1960s until the beginning of the 1970s drinking water in various places in the Netherlands was fluoridated to prevent caries. However, in its judgement of 22 June 1973 in case No. 10683 (Budding and co. versus the City of Amsterdam) the Supreme Court (Hoge Road) ruled there was no legal basis for fluoridation. After that judgement, amendment to the Water Supply Act was prepared to provide a legal basis for fluoridation. During the process it became clear that there was not enough support from Parlement [sic] for
    this amendment and the proposal was withdrawn.” (Wilfred Reinhold, Legal Advisor, Directorate Drinking Water, Netherlands, January 15, 2000).
    Northern Ireland:
    “The water supply in Northern Ireland has never been artificially fluoridated except in 2 small localities where fluoride was added to the water for about 30 years up to last year. Fluoridation ceased at these locations for operational reasons. At this time, there are no plans to commence fluoridation of water supplies in Northern Ireland.” (C.J. Grimes, Department for Regional Development, Belfast, November 6, 2000).
    Norway:
    “In Norway we had a rather intense discussion on this subject some 20 years ago, and the conclusion was that drinking water should not be fluoridated.” (Truls Krogh & Toril Hofshagen, Folkehelsa Statens institutt for folkeheise (National Institute of Public Health) Oslo, Norway, March 1, 2000).
    Scotland:
    In November 2004, after months of consultation, Scotland – which had been unfluoridated – rejected plans to add fluoride to the nation’s water.
    Sweden:
    “Drinking water fluoridation is not allowed in Sweden…New scientific documentation or changes in dental health situation that could alter the conclusions of the Commission have not been shown.” (Gunnar Guzikowski,
    Chief Government Inspector, Livsmedels Verket — National Food Administration Drinking Water Division, Sweden, February 28, 2000).
    Switzerland:
    In April 9, 2003, the City Parliament of Basel, Switzerland voted 73 to 23 to stop Basel’s 41 year water fluoridation program. Basel was the only city in Switzerland to fluoridate its water, and the only city in continental western Europe, outside of a few areas in Spain.

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