Dear Citizen for Health,

As someone who works to stay informed about the issues that affect your ability to maintain your health and wellness, and to sift through the often complicated scientific evidence involved, you are certainly aware of the debate about the use of fluoride in drinking water. What is a health and wellness activist to think?

Well, chew on this:

• The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory says that fluoride is a chemical with “substantial evidence of developmental neurotoxicity”.
• And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) deems the use of fluoride in drinking water one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century.

What gives? Our own government can’t even agree whether fluoride is something to embrace or to avoid?

This contradiction continues to play out in the public forum. As an ingredient in toothpaste, fluoride has a reputation for being beneficial, even as momentum builds behind community efforts to stop adding this fertilizer byproduct to drinking water. For example, Beaumont, TX is considering halting the practice because the elevated levels of the chemical are corroding pipes.

Beaumont is just one of the latest in a line of communities that are reconsidering this practice that dates back to the 1940s. The Massachusetts town of Oak Bluffs is likely to end fluoridation as early as this summer. If these efforts succeed, these towns will join most developed nations, as well as cities from Barcelona to Zurich, from Berlin to Vancouver, in opposing water fluoridation.

We at Citizens for Health, your voice on issues affecting your health and wellness, are mounting a campaign to strip away the confusion and get to the root of what fluoride use means for you, with the support of our ally the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). In the coming weeks we will bring important information, interviews, white papers, and other resources, allowing you to decide for yourself if it makes sense to continue a practice begun in the 1940s – nearly three-quarters of a century before toothpastes, mouthwashes and rinses laden with fluoride became ubiquitous. How much is too much?

For a taste of what’s to come, here’s a homework assignment: Search the internet for “fluorosilicates”, and check out this article from our ally FAN.

Stay tuned for more on this issue, and for opportunities to take action.

Thanks, as always, for your participation.

The Citizens for Health Team