I’M fed up with the government wanting to put fluoride in our water.

I’ve done nothing about it – haven’t been to a rally, written a letter, tramped over town with a slogan on my t-shirt. Nothing. There’s probably a heap of people like me who don’t want it but haven’t actually done anything to show anyone how they feel.

You can throw all the statistics at me you like, you pro-fluoride people, but I’m not going to read them. Likewise with the anti-fluoride. I don’t need scientific evidence to back up my position.

As far as I’m concerned the issue is about sticking anything in the water.

Okay, I can hear you whining at me you pro-fluorides. I can hear you saying ‘she’s a moron; doesn’t she know her water supply is already chockers with chlorine and the like?’

Yeah, yeah, I know that. Don’t try and trick me with your cleverness. Those chemicals are there because they make the water pure enough to drink. I don’t have a complaint about that.

It’s the medicating aspect of it that gets my goat.

There’s a debate about whether or not fluoride is actually a poison or not. I seem to recall something about it being a by-product of fertilisers, but I could be wrong.

That’s my point, though; I don’t need to know that stuff. That’s not what bothers me. It’s that government is going to put me on a medical regiment whether I like it or not.

Once the fluoride is in the water the government is medicating me against my will. And, of course, the medicine will be in just about everything – not just in the glasses of water I chug down.

I don’t need medicating. My teeth are fine. In fact I have lovely teeth with only one filling. But again that’s not the point.

If my teeth were falling out of my head and collapsing around even the softest food I still don’t want the government to put fluoride in the water. Let me decide what I am going to do about my teeth.

There’s talk about the dental health of the country declining. That’s not a surprise. The dental vans that used to call at schools and see every kid’s teeth are a thing of the past. The free milk we used to have at recess when we were kids has long since gone.

If the government was really serious about doing anything for our kids’ teeth, bring back the free dental check-ups for primary kids, bring back the free milk.

If it’s dead keen on making sure kids ingest fluoride, give fluoride tablets to the schools to hand out to the kids each morning. The parents could then sign the form saying ‘yes, we’ll have that’ or ‘no, buzz off’.

It’s about choice. It’s about medicating against our will. It’s about solving a specific problem (failing dental health in kids) with an enormous non-specific super-invasive solution.

Don’t sprout statistics at me any of of you. Don’t send me glossy brochures printed with money that could be spent on a term’s worth of free milk for every kid in Geelong.

Don’t even talk to me unless you want to answer my question – what gives anyone the right to medicate me against my will?

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