Is Our Drinking Water Safe?
Almost two years ago, against the wishes of the majority of San Diegans, our tap water began being treated with hydrofluosilicic acid (artificial fluoride), not calcium fluoride. What I have learned with the assistance of scientists with the EPA, dentists and chemists is that artificial fluoride is 35 times more toxic (lethal dose 150mg/kg as opposed to 5,000mg/kg) than calcium fluoride. It also binds to bones and tissues to a far greater degree than natural fluoride, thus causing myriad potential health disturbances.
To demonstrate how people can make a difference, this past month a broad coalition of Portlanders resoundingly rejected adding fluoridation chemicals to the city’s water supply. By a 61 percent to 39 percent margin, Portland voters agreed with the position of most western nations that there are safer, more effective, and less intrusive ways to promote oral health than adding a chemical linked to thyroid disease, IQ loss, and other ailments to the water supply.
Portland’s clean water campaign was spearheaded by Clean Water Portland (CWP), a broad coalition formed in August 2012 after a newspaper revealed secret ongoing fluoridation meetings with Portland City slots Council members that were illegally kept off the record. With virtually no public input, the City Council mandated fluoridation for the city on September 12. CWP then led an unprecedented effort that gathered over 40,000 signatures in less than 30 days to halt the mandate and force the referendum vote.
Additionally, this past month, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed a bill that requires chemical companies to fully disclose all the chemicals they are dumping into Utah’s water along with the toxic fluoride which has been represented for more than 60 years across the U.S. as a means of preventing dental caries. The bill – H.B. 72 – is not designed to permanently stop water fluoridation or make a statement about whether fluoride’s rewards (its alleged property of preventing dental caries) outweighs its risks for causing various types of cancer, osteoporosis, MS and a host of other diseases. The bill is simply designed to force companies such as Thatcher and Mosaic Chemical to disclose exactly what is contained in the entire witches-brew batch of fluoridation chemicals being dumped in Utah’s drinking water.
The fluoridation companies came under intense scrutiny after Utah’s analysis of various spills and releases of the fluoridation chemicals revealed that in addition to fluoride, there were several other toxic chemicals far in excess of allowable limits for safe drinking water – chemicals that included aluminum, arsenic, lead, mercury and beryllium which, when mixed with fluoride, become especially active and dangerous to human health.
What does this mean for those of us in San Diego? It means it is time to bring this information to our new mayor, Mr. Filner, and our council members. It’s time they also ask the question that the governor of Utah poses, “What chemicals are you putting in our drinking water, and what harm can they create?
To learn more about this topic, visit San Diegans for Safe Drinking Water’s web site: www.sdsdw.org.
Category: Health & Fitness, Local News
