Letter to the editor: Tynwald members should not back fluoride in tap water

Tynwald will vote on mass medication via fluoridation of the public water supply when it next meets on June 20. Hopefully it will again reject the proposal.

The NHS asserts that fluoridation is safe and effective, the only potential side-effect being tooth discolouration called dental fluorosis. Scientists associated with the Fluoride Action Network (FAN) would disagree.

The FAN website provides links to a lot of independent research and highlights certain facts.

Thankfully, most fresh water supplies contain very low levels of fluoride.

the average level of fluoride in unpolluted fresh water is less than 0.1 ppm, which is about 10 times less than the levels added to water in fluoridation programs (0.7 to 1.2 ppm). The frequent claim, therefore, that “nature thought of fluoridation first” does not withstand scrutiny.

For such reasons, developed nations have usually rejected fluoridation.

The United States, which fluoridates more than 70% of its water supplies, is the exception.

According to the British Fluoridation Society, there are more people drinking artificially fluoridated water in the United States than all other countries combined.

Therefore, if fluoridation is such a good thing, why is opposition to it strongest in the US?

At present, those who want to take fluoride can do so, but those who don’t want it can abstain. On such a controversial issue why should one side impose its belief on the other?

Name and address supplied

This letter was first published in the Manx Independent of June 15, 2023.

*Original full-text article online at: https://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/letter-to-the-editor-tynwald-members-should-not-back-fluoride-in-tap-water-621267