The "f" in your tap. get HFSA OUT. Vote OUT Fluoride
World Water day is observed by millions all over the world. It marks a day of adherence by governments to make water accessible and safe. Toronto's water is far from safe, and dangerously accessible. A fluorosilicate in the name of HEXAFLUOROSILICIC ACID (HFSA) is added to Toronto's public drinking water. HFSA is an industrial waste product from the phosphate fertilizer industry that comes mainly from Florida and China. It costs taxpayers millions a year to add, operate, and treat its side effects, including dental fluorosis. Dental Fluorosis is caused by excessive fluoride intake, consumed easily through food and beverages, tap water, and dental products. Dental Fluorosis costs significantly more to treat than the cavities it presumes to prevent.
On March 22, join the Vote OUT Fluoride campaign outside city hall to express your support for removing HFSA from our public water supply to make Toronto's water safe and accessible for everyone.
...I hate to break it to you, but 1 ppm (Toronto's level) is a safe level. That, and dental fluorosis is caused by ingesting fluoride, not topical exposure. So unless you swallow toothpaste it isn't going to have any effect.
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Who put the fluoride in our water? Was it the commies?
They always WERE messing with "our precious bodily fluids".
Here's some reputable info on fluoride:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/environ/fluor-eng.php
Cheers,
I'd ask for them to get rid of the flouride from my drinking water, but I've really enjoyed having a childhood free of cavities, and an adulthood with strong teeth, something my parents didn't have. I'd like my son to have a similar childhood and adulthood.
Why did some people think that flouridation was a communist plot?
And flouride is not unobtainium, and therefore can be classified as natural... whoops, wrong thread.
I believe it was this flouride issue that started David Suzuki on the path to activism. I think his father was a chemist in Trail and he was told that unrefined flouride waste was shipped to Seattle for water treatment when the idea was new. It certainly is not pharmaceutical grade. Why wouldn't you get your flouride in your toothpaste? Then I wouldn't have had a life with the symptoms of an over-dose.
@Pogge - yes, a few fatalities; not a pandemic, not the (hoped-for?) plague...the sky didn't fall.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic
@Michelle - bad teeth, diabetes and obesity are avoidable when diet is healthy and sugar-free.
http://www.gobeyondorganic.com/Weekly-News-Tips/how-were-we-fooled-into-...
@Sineed - As for this
"Here's some reputable info on fluoride:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/environ/fluor-eng.php"
Props up the status quo, but watering the lawn with fluoride will seed the future with problems. Like using mercury in dental fillings or scattering road salt, you are planting dragon's teeth.
Here's the Council of Canadians on fluoride in water (NAY)
http://www.canadians.org/water/issues/Unbottle_It/fluoride.html
Fluoride comes in many forms. There are organic, inorganic and pharmaceutical grade fluorides. The fluoride in most of Canada's public drinking water suply comes laced in a product called hexafluorosilicic acid (HFSA). This product is achived from brushing off the smoke stalks from the phosphate fertilizer indsutry. For every 40k ton truckload that goes to the city of Toronto, tax payers fork out $1500. These companies save $8900 for not having to manage this waste, and they're making a profit. This product also carries pounds of arsenic and lead that do not get removed at the treatment plants.
Proponents of fluorides missed the diligence boat by not informing consumers that the fluoride in their water is not the same kind of fluoride they use in dental products or that found naturally in ground water. They also failed to tell them that virtually all foods and beverages are prepared with fluoridated water, making further injestion unnecessary.
Take HFSA out. It's carcinogenic, expensive, unethical and unnecessary.
Fluoride gas chambers.
Information that comes from a source of authority, in your case, the government, does not qualify its "reputablness". I remind you that lead was also classified and touted as "safe" by people we ordinarly "succumb" to trust; governments, doctors, even scientists. It's a phenomenon that has brought us to these devastating times. It's not merely about questioning authority. This is the means, not the end. You must know how to adequatly assess, investigate and draw conclusions based on a sound understanding of scientific instruments of validation. Unfortunantly, most of the population lacks this necessary understanding. They also neglect to look at the scientific consensus, or rather lack thereof, of certain issues and possible medical hazards. There is absolutely NO consensus in the scientific community on the purported "benefits of fluoride".
I encourage you to study this further.
I saw the "Vote Out Fluroide" pamphleting at the Eaton Centre the other day, but I really thought it was some kind of viral marketing stunt for something else. Anyway, love to help but I'm really busy denying the moon landing.
I was the one in the cowboy boots. No "viral marketing", just an effort to educate the public. Anyway, I'm pleased to hear you saw us and had the time to drop in a friendly Hello.
I grew up drinking well water. Good genes means I never had problems with my teeth. Well, that and wicked awesome dental hygiene, including twice yearly flouride treatment at the dentist's. Montreal, where I currently live, does not put flouride in its tap water. A lot of people who are all super anti-flouride buy organic toothpaste with no flouride in it as well (or do so not knowing of the lack in the water supply). The dentist my daughters see rolls her eyes at the number of cavities she sees compared to her practice in Toronto.
I have never seen any reputable facts that actually support the claims made by the anti-flouride crowd.
I'd love to see a source for this claim.
What does diabetes and obesity have to do with anything, Tigana? Did I claim that flouride prevents diabetes and obesity?
A study by Statistics Canada just revelaed there is no statistical significance between children's cavities in Quebec (that doesn't fluoridate) and Ontario (fluoridates). The WHO reports similar findings. This is why roughly only about 6% of the world's population fluoridates, with 98% of western Europe against the practice.
Studies by the National Research Council (NRC) have found detrimental helath effects including lowered IQ at just under 0.3 ppm. Fluoride in your toothpaste has roughly 1450 ppm and at least 1/2 of this remains in gums after rinsing.
http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/accidents/lethal.html
Seconding this.
Truth is, progressive people should support fluoridation because it's basically dental insurance for the poor: if you can't afford to take your kids to the dentist, fluoridation means they will have stronger teeth than they otherwise would have.
My dentist explained it thusly: I asked him about wisdom teeth, and why so many people need to have them out. He explained that the natural thing to happen is that at least some of molars in front of your wisdom teeth would be rotten by the time you were eighteen, so then these late-emerging teeth meant that you entered adulthood with some functioning molars. Modern dentistry and fluoridation meant that more people were keeping their molars, so the wisdom teeth get crowded out and have to be removed.
Our natural state is to die before we're 40 with a mouthful of rotten teeth.
IQ is pretty slippery to measure in the 1st place. A cup of coffee raises your IQ. Sleep deprivation lowers your IQ.
Michelle, perhaps diet/nutrition protect against tooth decay as well as obesity and diabetes.
Sineed, many skulls of pre-colonial peoples show sets of perfect caries-free teeth.
From the Material Safety Data Sheet on Sodium Fluoride:
http://www.sciencelab.com/xMSDS-Sodium_fluoride-9927595
Special Remarks on other Toxic Effects on Humans:
Tigana. Before attributing the high rate of suicide amongst dentists to exposure to "chemicals" (and most studies do identify dentists to be at "higher than average" risk for suicide... although they are usually lumped in with other health professionals, doctors, apparently, also have a high suicide rate) take into account the psychological factors... the personality "type" that is represented in the field and the highly negative social feedback they get from their patients. I find the explanations regarding stress (environmental and self-imposed) and its relationship to suicide amongst dentists a little more plausible than tossing exposure to "chemicals", seemingly out of the blue.
How old were they when they died?
This notion that the modern Western diet is responsible for tooth decay, and that pre-colonial people had perfect teeth, is, like human teeth without dentistry and fluoride, pure rot.
Actually if you look at the Inuit they had remarkable teeth until they were introduced to the modern world, I think a good case good be made for sugar being at the root of much tooth decay and sugar goes back quite a ways. I recall reading that when they first introduced the idea of adding sugar to beer they actually rioted in England. Now they put it in salt.
I prefer to keep my exposure to unnecessary chemicals to a minimum and given that it is available in toothpaste I have to wonder why is it necessary for it to be in the water supply. I don't trust a system that on a regular fucking basis demonstrates that greed without regard for the impact on human life is the way of the world, is in fact celebrated as capitalism.
The "safe" limits are based on studies they did on men, men are not women, children are not men. Women have more body fat, chemicals linger in body fat, look at the rate of breast cancer today. Forty years ago breast cancer was rare.
Further, what are the synergistic effects of the various chemicals we are exposed to? Nobody fucking knows. I take that back, cancer, cancer, cancer.
I agree. If you want flouride, buy toothpaste.
You would.
Wouldn't the small amount of fluoride in water qualify it as "homeopathy", and shouldn't that make it appealing to the anti-science crowd?
You can pretend it's just been watered down and watered down and watered down, but through the miraculous "memory" of water it can protect you from fluoride poisoning!
If that doesn't help, pretend it's a magic healing crystal that realigns your chakra from the inside.
How about tackling a really good progressive issue: clean water for Canadian Natives?
I completely agree. Clean, fluoridated water.