A lengthy monologue about the perceived dangers of fluoride from Councillor Michael Van Holst didn’t lend anymore traction to a motion at city hall that would direct staff to look at lowering the rate of fluoride in London’s drinking water.

Van Holst and fellow councillors Steve Hillier and Elizabeth Peloza were the only city politicians at Tuesday night’s committee meeting who voted in favour of having staff examine lowering the rate from 0.7 parts per million to 0.6 parts per million.

Van Holst consistently used the word “victim” to describe people who feel that they’re being “poisoned against their will” by water fluoridation.

“They suffer physical trauma, emotional trauma, they have to discover the cause without help from a medical system that doesn’t believe the cause exists,” he said.

At one point, Van Holst tabled a motion to have staff look at removing fluoride from the water entirely — but it failed with the support of only two councillors: Van Holst and Hillier.

“I’m not persuaded by the people who want to end fluoridation,” said Ward 4 Councillor Jesse Helmer. He pointed out that a lot of substances — even water itself — can be bad for you at higher levels.

“I do not believe that there is a conspiracy of people who work in public health who are trying to protect the fluoridation manufacturers, the people who produce this industrial byproduct.”

The debate, which had Van Holst making a bizarre comparison with cinnamon hearts at the last committee meeting, prompted Ward 10 Councillor Paul Van Meerbergen cautioning against “junk science.”

“Health Canada did multi-year studies, a systematic review of health risks associated with fluoride in drinking water, and then concluded the weight of evidence in all currently available studies does not support a link between fluoride in drinking water even at 1.5 milligrams per litre… which is more than double what we’re currently doing.”

*Original article online at https://globalnews.ca/news/4956156/motion-to-examine-reducing-fluoridation-level-goes-down-the-drain-at-london-city-hall/

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