Rethink Fluoride

The Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is very concerned because a Mount Desert Island town voted fluoride out of their water.

The CDC says they are concerned for our oral health and ultimate whole body health. This is the same CDC that testified that mercury should stay in our oral health regimen, permitting 207 pounds of mercury a year to enter Maine, to place directly in our mouths. This is the same CDC that refuses to post Maine waters with mercury fish consumption advisories, even though every water body in New Hampshire has these warning signs to protect the health of its citizens.

If the Maine CDC will not protect us from mercury even though their Web site has strong advisories for both dental and fish mercury, how can we trust what they say about fluoride?

My former neighbors in Mount Desert are well-educated and informed. Hydrofluorosilicic acid is recovered from the smokestack scrubbers during the production of phosphate fertilizer and sold to most of the major cities in North America, which use this industrial- grade source of fluoride to fluoridate drinking water, rather than the more expensive pharmaceutical-grade sodium fluoride salt.

The only other place fluorsilicic acid can legally be disposed of is in a hazardous-waste facility. Fluorosilicates have never been tested for safety in humans, and these chemicals are contaminated with trace amounts of heavy metals that accumulate in humans. Mass medication of an unapproved drug without informed consent and the freedom from involuntary fluoride medication certainly outweigh the right of society to enforce this public health measure, especially when the evidence of benefit is marginal at best.

I applaud my former neighbors for their vote and hope the Maine CDC will take a lesson from this and rethink their position.

Nathan A. Booker

Belgrade

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