Fluoride – must we drink it?
Sue Brooks February 8th, 2009
I have personal concerns about mass medicating our community but have recently received enough email correspondence to raise the issue again. The Queensland State Government has legislated that all Queensland Local Governments must introduce flouride into our water supplies. This means that fluoride will become increasingly prevalent in our environment as well as inside us.
We will be paying to water our garden, to swim and to shower and bath in fluoride as well as to drink it and cook with it. There are many people who think this will be a good thing as it will reduce tooth decay. There are many other people, myself included, who wonder if the costs (both health and financial), outweigh the benefits.
In these, our scientific and medically advanced times, surely we know enough to be sure. Is fluoride good for us or is it bad for us? Or is the evidence so murky one way or the other that we should wait till we are sure? I often wonder why some diseases are increasing in frequency with our communities. Why are there more children diagnosed with autism than were in the past for example?
Personally I prefer to avoid being forced to ingest a substance that will have no direct benefit on my 50 plus year old teeth but may in fact have negative consequences for the rest of my body to which I am still somewhat attached. I am not sure that at this late stage continued debate is worthwhile but it is an election year. So let the debate continue. After all shouldn’t we be the ones deciding the quality of the water we pay to drink?