Let us vote on fluoride

Sunday’s Oct. 17 Guest Opinion piece (“Fluoride stands out as safe, effective, important health tool”) by a doctor and a dentist favoring adding fluoride to Spokane’s clean drinking water left me wondering if cherry-picking “scientific facts” is now, sadly, becoming the norm, even by some well-educated citizens.

How convenient for them to assert that the studies and papers claiming fluoride causes neurotoxicity, poor brain development and IQ all had “poor study strengths” - meaning these scientists were incompetent! Duh, none of them knew any water may have lead or arsenic that can also be a harmful factor. Conversely, only those who found no connection were trustworthy and competent scientists! Wow!

Same goes for the “75 years of research” which they quoted to back their opinion. If that’s the case, how come virtually none of Europe want fluoride added to their water? Same goes for virtually the rest of the world. Several countries were convinced to add fluoride to their water, only to rescind it a few years later. All found it was doing more harm than good for various reasons. Some already had high natural fluoride in their water and were poisoning their people.

Only roughly 6% of the world population add fluoride to their water, with the U.S. making virtually 40-50% of that.

I am not against topical fluoride. It’s the ingestion of it that both pro and con facts are so debatable, with the weight leaning substantially towards the negative. This is not a question of personal liberty, herd immunity or conspiracy theories. It’s our drinking water!

Finally it comes down to this: Spokane County citizens should be heard - not herded - by voting their choice on this fluoride controversy.

Phil Zammit

Spokane