Photo by CG Editor Austen Verrilli
By CG Editor Austen Verrilli
The Athens Messenger recently published an article detailing an Athens City Council meeting where local residents and Ibriham Alassaf, a libertarian candidate for Athens County treasurer, demanded that fluoride be removed from the city’s water system.
It seems odd to me that people oppose water fluoridation, especially as a person who has had too many cavities to count. A renege on fluoride would probably leave me sitting in my room toothlessly gumming pizza. I’d cry in the corner as I used my last molar on sour candy, “Why didn’t I brush my teeth after each chewy morsel? Oh the sweet, sumptuous, raw tongued, teeth aching pain!”
A conspiratorial friend explained his theory on fluoridation to me. He says fluoride is a governmental test. He says the all-seeing “they” fluoridate water as a base for future water additives unknown to the public. Likewise the Athens Messenger article brought up the idea of “mass medication without consent.”
Who knows, our realities could slowly shift as the government and super-corporations add mind altering chemicals to our water. Eventually we could all become numb, smiling sheep blissfully unaware of the puppet-masters exploiting us for their own gains.
Rational thinking screams “NO WAY!” to this dystopian notion. Still manipulation of the public has happened before, look at North Korea. One could argue it happens every day through media as we get bombarded by commercials and newscasts.
You are getting sleepy… so sleepy. The next time you read the word “fluoride” you will go and drink ten glasses of water.
Let’s get back to fluoride then. (Maybe hypnosis doesn’t work as well as I thought.)
Fluoride is in fluoridated water, most food, tooth paste and other dental products. The benefit of fluoridation is dental health. A report from the U.S. Surgeon General explains that fluoride makes tooth enamel more resistant to decay and fluoride can even reverse tooth decay.
Fluoride though is not without it’s bad effects on the human body. Excess fluoride consumption early in life can cause dental fluorosis. It is especially prevalent in developing teeth of children from birth to age-eight according to Webmd.com. Dental fluorosis causes teeth to be resistant to cavities but teeth also start to become lightly stained, pitted and eventually become brown or yellow.
Fluorosis also occurs in the bones. People with high fluoride intakes over long periods of time have joint pain, deformed limbs, deformed spines and calcified ligaments according to a 2009 journal article in Clinical Toxicology that studied villages in India where high amounts of fluoride occurs naturally. Fluoride concentrations in the urine of seven severely affected village residents ranged from 2 mg/L to 5 mg/L.
The Athens Messenger article reported that Athens resident Greg Broadhurst says he had a heart valve replaced due to calcification. Fluoride could have been a contributing factor.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services even recommended last year that U.S. heath officials reduce fluoride amounts in water from a range of 0.7 to 1.2 parts per million to a maximum of 0.7 parts per million.
The dangers of fluoride, then, are certainly real for those with excessive exposure. But Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” vision of mass public doping is still in the distance somewhere. At least we can gnash our pearly whites when that time comes.
To fluoridate or not, that is the question
Posted by College Green Editor on 2/10/12 • Categorized as Commentary
Photo by CG Editor Austen Verrilli
By CG Editor Austen Verrilli
The Athens Messenger recently published an article detailing an Athens City Council meeting where local residents and Ibriham Alassaf, a libertarian candidate for Athens County treasurer, demanded that fluoride be removed from the city’s water system.
It seems odd to me that people oppose water fluoridation, especially as a person who has had too many cavities to count. A renege on fluoride would probably leave me sitting in my room toothlessly gumming pizza. I’d cry in the corner as I used my last molar on sour candy, “Why didn’t I brush my teeth after each chewy morsel? Oh the sweet, sumptuous, raw tongued, teeth aching pain!”
A conspiratorial friend explained his theory on fluoridation to me. He says fluoride is a governmental test. He says the all-seeing “they” fluoridate water as a base for future water additives unknown to the public. Likewise the Athens Messenger article brought up the idea of “mass medication without consent.”
Who knows, our realities could slowly shift as the government and super-corporations add mind altering chemicals to our water. Eventually we could all become numb, smiling sheep blissfully unaware of the puppet-masters exploiting us for their own gains.
Rational thinking screams “NO WAY!” to this dystopian notion. Still manipulation of the public has happened before, look at North Korea. One could argue it happens every day through media as we get bombarded by commercials and newscasts.
You are getting sleepy… so sleepy. The next time you read the word “fluoride” you will go and drink ten glasses of water.
Let’s get back to fluoride then. (Maybe hypnosis doesn’t work as well as I thought.)
Fluoride is in fluoridated water, most food, tooth paste and other dental products. The benefit of fluoridation is dental health. A report from the U.S. Surgeon General explains that fluoride makes tooth enamel more resistant to decay and fluoride can even reverse tooth decay.
Fluoride though is not without it’s bad effects on the human body. Excess fluoride consumption early in life can cause dental fluorosis. It is especially prevalent in developing teeth of children from birth to age-eight according to Webmd.com. Dental fluorosis causes teeth to be resistant to cavities but teeth also start to become lightly stained, pitted and eventually become brown or yellow.
Fluorosis also occurs in the bones. People with high fluoride intakes over long periods of time have joint pain, deformed limbs, deformed spines and calcified ligaments according to a 2009 journal article in Clinical Toxicology that studied villages in India where high amounts of fluoride occurs naturally. Fluoride concentrations in the urine of seven severely affected village residents ranged from 2 mg/L to 5 mg/L.
The Athens Messenger article reported that Athens resident Greg Broadhurst says he had a heart valve replaced due to calcification. Fluoride could have been a contributing factor.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services even recommended last year that U.S. heath officials reduce fluoride amounts in water from a range of 0.7 to 1.2 parts per million to a maximum of 0.7 parts per million.
The dangers of fluoride, then, are certainly real for those with excessive exposure. But Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” vision of mass public doping is still in the distance somewhere. At least we can gnash our pearly whites when that time comes.