The CDC, ADA, and local health officials continue to promote fluoridation even though just this January, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommended a nation-wide reduction in fluoride levels after it learned that 41 percent of American adolescents, ages 12-15, have dental fluorosis, a clear sign of overexposure to fluoride, and that the rate is continuing to increase steadily.
Only now is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Water reviewing the allowable amount of fluoride in drinking water, more than four years after the National Research Council reported to Congress that the current allowable fluoride levels (MCL/MCLG) were too high.
In the face of lax federal regulation, health activists are acting locally. More than 250 communities that have rejected fluoridation.
This year in New Hampshire and Arkansas, citizen groups got legislation introduced at the state-level which would require notices on all municipal water bills warning parents not to feed infants fluoridated water. Citizens in Tennessee, led by the Lillie Center were successful in getting a prominent team of bi-partisan legislators to call for an end to the promotion of fluoridation by the state. In Alaska, Fluoride Free Fairbanks along with many concerned citizens urged their city council to review fluoridation, and in March the city council's task force charged with studying the issue recommended that the city stop adding fluoride to their water. Clearly, a small group of educated and dedicated citizens can accomplish a lot when they organize locally against fluoridation.
Learn more about the dangers of fluoride by reading, "The Case Against Fluoride: How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep It There." Called a "painstakingly researched exposé of fluoridation's overall ineffectiveness and toxicity", it is a must read for anyone interested in fluoride issues, and provides a complete science-based analysis of the entire practice of fluoridation.
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