You & Yer Fancy Book Lernin', Nuts To That

The pointless water-fluoridation debate continues apace in London, Ontario. Last night the civics works committee heard from a variety of people on the benefits, and horrors, of water-fluoridation. Anyone who has followed this exhausting non-issue for the last twenty-years could have told you how it was going to play out, but I'll let the reporters tell you:  

Earlier in the evening, tempers flared during the presentation by Dr. Bryna Warshawsky of the Middlesex-London Health Unit. When she said it was safe to use fluoridated water to mix baby formula, a man yelled "that's not true." Coun. Stephen Orser, who has recently become convinced of fluoride's risks, was clear in his challenging of presentations by Warshawsky and Peter Cooney, Health Canada's chief dental officer. Much of the crowd was clearly opposed to fluoride. People cheered whenever someone offered even a hint of an anti-fluoride statement.

Not surprisingly, when rational thought and scientific consensus is on the table, experts are booed and jeered by the crowd, and challenged by Stephen Orser. Fucking genius Stephen, with his shiny new Google M.D., is now convinced that years and years and years of studies about water fluoridation, and it's efficacy, are wrong. Like the anti-wind turbine folks, the wifi-is-evil crowd, the goddamn-Bilderburgers-are-controlling-us-all group, and the LARPers (fucking LARPers), these groups attribute all kinds of evils to their pet chimera. In this case, the daughter of Typhon is fluoride, which like Bill Clinton's penis, is the most powerful force in the universe. There is no evil it cannot inflict upon you once you are under its sway.

Fluoridation is safe and effective for preventing tooth decay.

From the CDC, "Scientists have found a lack of evidence to show an association between water fluoridation and a negative impact on people, plants, or animals.”

The Canadian Dental Association, the American Dental Association, the CDC, The Federal-Provincial-Territorial Committee on Drinking Water; these groups are not made up of evil people. They are not poisoning you for some nefarious purpose. The overwhelming weight of evidence supports water fluoridation as a public good. Groups of engineers and concerned homeopaths cannot be held in equal regard when they rage against fluoridation. We have to, at some point, defer to the consensus opinion of experts, or nothing can get done and no public good can result in any facet of our lives. There are groups and studies pro and con EVERYTHING. They cannot be held in equal regard at all times. "He said, she said" is not the way to do public policy. We simply must stop arguing at some point and get on with doing the right thing. When the weight of evidence against water-fluoridation even remotely approaches the evidence for, then we should take a look at it. As it stands, it does not.