To the Editor:
In November, Damariscotta and Newcastle residents, who share a municipal water system, will vote on whether to retain fluoride in that system. Since the 1950s, the U.S. has been accustomed to water, toothpastes and mouthwashes infused with fluoride, with American Dental Association approval.
In the ’50s our environment, diet and amount of exercise were different, affecting total body health.
We’ve learned a lot since them. Science used to say asbestos was safe. Cigarette ads once featured doctors’ endorsements. Cigars and chewing tobacco, because not inhaled, were safe. X-rays were unlimited. (Anyone remember x-ray machines in shoe stores to measure children’s feet?) Atomic energy was a safe and cheap future. Nuclear waste could be safely disposed of.
Now, “safe” high fructose corn syrup has made soda cheaper than milk, but contributes, with high-fat fast food, to epidemic obesity and diabetes among children. Attorney ads on TV and drug recalls remind us of pharmaceutical dangers.
Why then are we reluctant to take a second look at fluoride? While the research on its cancer-causing ability is still unsettled, we know fluoride was commonly used as a thyroid suppressor until drugs could be created to replace it.
Why do about one in seven post-menopausal women have low thyroid? No endocrine gland operates independently, as is shown by the pituitary-thyroid-adrenal axis. If one malfunctions it is very likely the others do also. There is a reason small children are advised not to use fluoridated toothpaste.
Meanwhile, autoimmune diseases multiply alarmingly. See “Autoimmune Epidemic: Bodies Gone Haywire in a World Out of Balance” by Donna Jackson Nakazawa (Touchstone, 2008).
Perhaps in the 1950s fluoride was safer because no one then could foresee the overload we now bear: chemical smog we now breathe, chemicalized foods we eat, the medicalization of every tiny itch or burp, no place that is free of noise or light, and ever-present electromagnetism. Note the latest warnings: Keep the cell phone away from your ear or your groin, don’t let preschoolers use computers, computer use shortens children’s attention spans and changes their brains, don’t eat too much mercury-containing fish. Meanwhile oceans are awash in crude oil and nuclear material.
Would it not make sense to begin to remove, one by one, substances that are harming us, or at least do little or nothing positive, even if evidence is only strongly empiric?
That is common sense. Fluoride use to save children’s teeth cannot substitute for good dental care.
Where will we find a substitute for water? We’ll still drink and eat in other towns, and buy water-processed foods. We need a strong movement to get fluoride out of the water and food stream everywhere.
If people ask for fluoride-free toothpaste, the market will make it. Meanwhile, use baking soda and salt. If nothing else, think of fluoride removal as reducing the towns’ water treatment budgets by eliminating a chemical useless to the actual treatment of water.
There will be guided discussion groups on this issue on Thurs., Oct. 6 at 6:30 p.m. at Skidompha Public Library in downtown Damariscotta and Tues., Oct. 25 at 6:30 p.m. at Mobius Community Center, Bus. Rt. 1, Damariscotta, next to Rising Tide Market. Admission is free.
Lynne Norris
Newcastle
