Yellow, Pitted Teeth from Fluoridated Toothpaste

19-year-old Erin Habib has never liked to smile, especially not for a camera. “If you look really close, there’s little dents in it, in between the teeth, there’s yellow stains, that’s more obvious,” she says, describing her smile. Erin’s dentist believes she damaged her teeth by “eating” toothpaste as a child. Too much fluoride can […]

DuPont to pay $1.1 million for 1997 spill

The DuPont chemical plant in western Louisville will pay $1.1 million to settle a federal Clean Air Act complaint stemming from a major spill of dangerous hydrogen fluoride six years ago. Half the money will be paid as a civil penalty, with the rest going toward eight local projects, including a $71,000 “green buffer zone” […]

UPI Investigates: The vaccine conflict

WASHINGTON, July 20 (UPI) — The screaming started four hours after 8-month-old Chaise Irons received a vaccination against rotavirus, recommended in June 1998 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for every infant to prevent serious diarrhea. Within a day he was vomiting and eliminating blood. Doctors performed emergency surgery, saving him by repairing […]

Fort Collins Council Votes to Continue Fluoridation

Fluoridation lives, but opponents are vowing a continued fight. The City Council on Tuesday night voted to continue fluoridating Fort Collins water, with several members saying they trusted the opinions of local and national health experts. “Who do you trust?” Mayor Pro Tem Bill Bertschy asked. “Who do you believe? I think we’ve made the […]

Fort Collins Water Board: “Many Concerns” about Fluoridation

Reporting of the Fort Collins Water Board’s vote to recommend doing away with fluoride in the city’s water supply (April 25) may have left the impression that some of us were recommending this to save money. The dollar cost to continue fluoridation was a very minor concern compared with a number of other considerations: While […]

Piney Point: An ecological powder keg

The defunct Piney Point fertilizer plant is a disaster in the making. The 700 million gallons of acidic water in the gypsum storage stack threatens to break through the walls and spill into Tampa Bay. Even if the square mound’s walls of fine, white, packed gypsum hold, rains threaten to push the water up and […]

Commentary on Fort Collins Fluoride Issue

When the Water Board recommended the city stop fluoridating the water, the city manager denigrated them and called for public input. However, public input opposed fluoridation. Only the dental industry spoke in favor of fluoridating with an industrial waste from Cargill pollution scrubbers. More than 60 health-care providers signed a petition to stop fluoridation because […]

Paducah plant workers receive medical testing

PADUCAH, Ky. — James “Smoothy” Wilkerson is thankful for his $150,000 share of the more than $110 million paid to compensate sick Paducah nuclear workers. He’s even happier that a tiny tumor in his right lung was detected early by a scanner that sees lung images as thin as paper. Wilkerson, 72, of South Fulton, […]

Fort Collins council poised to decide fate of city water

Fluoride. Merely utter the word in Fort Collins these days and you might get an earful. Residents of the city seem staunchly divided on whether to continue adding the oft-championed cavity-fighter to drinking water. It is an issue that many have sunk their proverbial teeth into. And it is drawing near a possible end. The […]