In March 2013, Windsor Council voted to stop adding hydrofluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6) to the public water supply.  Naturally occurring calcium fluoride (CaF) is still present.

Following a two-year safe water campaign, hours of debate, stacks of evidence and messages from the community, our council voted WITH our water supplier’s, the Windsor Utilities Commission, recommendation to stop adding hydrofluorosilicic acid to the public drinking water supply.

In December 2014, a Liberal MPP submitted a petition calling for mandatory fluoridation whereby the province would force all water suppliers in Ontario to add this hazardous waste grade fluoridation chemical to the drinking water supply.  “Calgary Alberta, Dorval Quebec and Windsor Ontario are such examples of stupidity…”, he said.

How dare this MPP from Mississauga call our council and our community stupid!  His own community’s municipal council is currently facing lawsuit for their continued use of this untested, unregulated chemical.
Windsor council had the foresight to end this practice before such action was brought here at the expense of Windsor taxpayers.

Perhaps you’d like to write your council and THANK THEM for their progressive, protective action to make our water safer by ending artificial chemical fluoridation.

WINDSOR COUNCIL:
francis@city.windsor.on.ca

jelliott@city.windsor.on.ca

rbortolin@city.windsor.on.ca    Rino’s position

cholt@city.windsor.on.ca

esleiman@city.windsor.on.ca

joagignac@city.windsor.on.ca

irek@city.windsor.on.ca

bmarra@city.windsor.on.ca

hpayne@city.windsor.on.ca   Hilary’s position

pborrelli@city.windsor.on.ca

mayoro@city.windsor.on.ca

Here are our MPPs’ email addresses, they need to know that we like our Safe Water just the way it is:
Windsor West: Lisa Gretzky    LGretzky-QP@ndp.on.ca

Windsor-Tecumseh: Percy Hatfield    PHatfield-QP@ndp.on.ca

Essex: Taras Natyshak    tnatyshak-co@ndp.on.ca

Chatham-Ken-Essex: Rick Nicolls rick.nicholls@pc.ola.org

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION

Richmond’s Citizens Vote to End Water Fluoridation

Richmond, October 19, 2014.  It was today that Richmond held its public consultation on water fluoridation. This was a historic event as it was the first public consultation or referendum where the population was asked to vote and they rejected fluoridation. This outcome is a result of the tireless work over a 2½ year period by a group of citizens, primarily young mothers concerned with their family’s health.

They first succeeded by getting a parliamentary commission on the issue back in April 2013. Even though the conclusions from this commission were in fluoridation’s favor, the commissioners did insist that social acceptability was necessary before proceeding with the installation of fluoridation systems and did not want to make fluoridation mandatory throughout Québec like the Public Health Agency wanted. They left the choice to fluoridate or not to each individual municipality.

The fact that Richmond’s citizens rejected fluoridation at 76%, despite the fact that they will have to reimburse a $127 000 penalty, clearly shows that there is a lack of social acceptability when people are well informed by those promoting as well as those opposing water fluoridation. We would like to thank the local media who were interested in this issue and allowed both sides to be equally represented.

The government will have to take note of the lack of social acceptability found in this public health measure. More and more citizen groups opposed to fluoridation are emerging in Québec, Canada and across the world, challenging the fluoridation dogma. 

This is an ideal occasion for the government, who is searching for ways to reduce its spending, to cut this program which is evaluated at some $4 million. This is a lot of money spent on fluoridating only 3% of the population’s water. When we know that we only drink 1% of this water, the expense does not seem justified, especially since the remaining 99% is thrown back into our aquatic environment which is very sensitive to this contaminant.

The Citizens for Healthy Water in Richmond committee would like to thank the Réseau sans fluor, the Coalition Eau Secours, the Front commun pour une eau saine, the CREE, the Amis de la terre du Val-Saint-François as well as all the other citizen groups who are working hard to stop water fluoridation in their communities. The committee wholeheartedly thanks all the citizens who helped get the word out and went to vote; democracy has spoken. They also wish to recognize the openness of the municipal council who organized this exercise in democracy that contrasts the methods used by the Public Health Agency to introduce fluoridation in Québec’s municipalities.

This conclusion clearly shows that when citizens decide to get involved, it is possible to have a positive impact and see real change happen.

The Windsor Utilities Commission made the announcement that it has received approval from the Ministry of Environment to decommission the fluoridation equipment.  The hydrofluorosilicic acid tap has been turned off!  It will take a few days for the current treated water reservoirs to run out. What is to become of the left over hydrofluorosilicic acid now that it has legally lost its ‘water treatment’ label?  It reverts back to hazardous waste and must be dealt with as such!  “Rossi said the unused remnants of WUC’s supply will be trucked away by a hazardous waste removal company.”

What does Windsor have to look forward to now that the water is free of hazardous waste?  According to the fluoridation lobby, dental decay will spike and one dentist has even claimed that decay rates will double.  We’re not sure what he could possibly be basing this opinion on, however, because the available fluoridation cessation literature shows that fluoridation is unnecessary.

Fluoridation Cessation Science

1) Dr. Amir Azarpazhooh (DDS) concluded, among other things, that “a global decrease in dental caries has occurred regardless of fluoridation status” and “despite a historical interpretation that the removal of fluoride would result in an increase in dental caries the findings… do not support this claim.”.
http://cof-cof.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Azarpazhooh-Oral-Health-Consequences-Of-The-Cessation-Of-Water-Fluoridation-In-Toronto-MSc-Thesis-Report-Faculty-Of-Dentistry-–-University-Of-Toronto-City-Of-Toronto-Public-Health-August-2006.pdf

2) The prevalence of caries (assessed in 5927 children, grades 2, 3, 8, 9) decreased over time in the fluoridation ended community while remaining unchanged in the fluoridated community. Maupome´et al, Patterns Of Dental Caries Following The Cessation Of Water Fluoridation, Community Dentistry And Oral Epidemiology, (2001) 29 37–47 http://cof-cof.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Maupome´et-al-Patterns-Of-Dental-Caries-Following-The-Cessation-Of-Water-Fluoridation-Community-Dentistry-And-Oral-Epidemiology-2001-29-37–47.pdf.

3) “In contrast to the anticipated increase in dental caries following the cessation of water fluoridation in the cities Chemnitz and Plauen, a significant fall in caries prevalence was observed.”
SOURCE: Kunzel W, Fischer T, Lorenz R, Bruhmann S. (2000). Decline of caries prevalence after the cessation of water fluoridation in the former East Germany. Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology 28: 382-9.

4) “In 1997, following the cessation of drinking water fluoridation, in contrast to an expected rise in caries prevalence, DMFT and DMFS values remained at a low level for the 6- to 9-year-olds and appeared to decrease for the 10/11-year-olds. In the 12/13-year-olds, there was a significant decrease, while the percentage of caries-free children of this age group had increased…”
SOURCE: Kunzel W, Fischer T. (2000). Caries prevalence after cessation of water fluoridation in La Salud, Cuba. Caries Research 34: 20-5.

5) “The fact that no increase in caries was found in Kuopio despite discontinuation of water fluoridation and decrease in preventive procedures suggests that not all of these measures were necessary for each child.”
SOURCE: Seppa L, Karkkainen S, Hausen H. (2000). Caries Trends 1992-1998 in Two Low-Fluoride Finnish Towns Formerly with and without Fluoridation. Caries Research 34: 462-468.

Official Advice – Eat Well, Brush Your Teeth

According to this article recently posted in the Windsor Star: Health officials offer advice after fluoride’s demise, public health is aware that our diet is an important factor for dental health and that if children swallow too much fluoride there is a ‘risk’, though Arsenault is referring to swallowing purified fluoridated toothpaste and not hazardous waste fluoridation chemicals added to drinking water such as infants would be swallowing despite having no teeth.
It is interesting to note in this article that the public health officials admit that the Union Water Station (servicing Leamington, Kingsville, and Essex) is fluoridation free because H.J. Heinz uses that water to make baby food and would have to remove the fluoride (and hydrofluorosilicic acid’s co-contaminants of lead, arsenic, mercury and more) before using the water to make baby food; and yet, these same public health officials claim it is perfectly safe for parents to use fluoridated water (complete with co-contaminants) to mix with baby formula and early weaning foods for our infants.

How do they justify this inconsistency?  The Canadian Paediatric Society states “Because the action of fluoride is topical, NO FLUORIDE should be given before teeth have erupted.”  And of course, we wouldn’t want to increase our children’s exposure to any of the co-contaminants found in fluoridation chemicals.

Thank you to those Windsor Councillors (and those councillors in Tecumseh and Lasalle that supported this safe water campaign) who took the progressive step to protect formula fed infants by voting to end water fluoridation. The public water supply for Windsor, Tecumseh and Lasalle is now safer for our babies to drink and bathe in, not to mention those with thyroid and kidney dysfunction and more…

Windsor is not the first city to go against the advice of the fluoridation lobby.  But it is one of the first Ontario cities to have council vote to end the policy after 51 years.  The decision is getting noticed and is being talked about outside our community.

Some of the coverage has been ‘pro-industrial waste fluoridation chemicals as solutions to tooth decay’; this coverage is predictably most often from the editors of newspapers.   However, some journalists are trying to understand Windsor’s decision.

Following the decision, Windsor ON Mayor Francis explains why he voted NO to fluoridation on London ON radio:

Windsor Utilities Commission Chair and Council Member Bill Marra discusses Windsor’s decision making process, February 25, 2013 on TVO The Agenda(click image):

After a long night of delegations, council voted 8 to 3 to end the artificial fluoridation of Windsor’s water.  Thank you to the progressive forward thinking council members that could see through the unproven opinions and endorsements of the fluoridation lobbyists.

Voters need to seek and support those candidates that are not afraid to challenge the status quo and who listen to the will of the people.

In the end, many councillors said they couldn’t support the mass medication of the population against their will and made reference to the many other methods of obtaining good oral health that don’t involve dumping hazardous waste into our drinking water.

Councillor Dilkens advised that when fluoridation began, fluoridated toothpaste was not available.

Councillor Jones cited several experts who are allowed to have independent opinions and who are opposed to fluoridation, implying that the public health and dental community are required to promote fluoridation as ‘safe and effective’.  He also brought up research that attributes improved oral health from naturally occurring calcium fluoride to the calcium and not the fluoride.

Councillor Payne and Valentinis thought councillors should follow the advice of Public Health.  Councillor Gignac offered very little to the discussion and stuck to the out-dated propaganda that the CDC claims fluoridation is a top 10 public health measure – these folks were not interested in addressing the lack of proof of safety nor the scientific evidence that fluoridation is unnecessary.

Mayor Francis questioned that if this policy was so important why hasn’t public health ever lobbied Kingsville or Leamington to start fluoridation.

Councillor Maghnieh said he couldn’t support a policy that wasn’t protective of formula fed infants.

Councillor Marra pointed to the fact that all the legislation is provincial and that health care was a provincial issue, not a water systems one.

Councillor Hatfield said that the choice to ingest fluoride should be up to the individual.

Councillor Halberstadt called fluoridation a paternalistic policy and questioned Peter Cooney’s lobbying for continued use of mercury fillings; mercury is a known neuro-toxin that our chief dental officer claims is a good alternative for the poor.

Indeed it seems these toxic health policies are often targeting the poor.   Mercury fillings for the poor but if you can afford it you can get fillings without this toxin.  Water treated with hydrofluorosilicic acid for the poor but if you can afford it you can protect your family with expensive filter systems.

Local dentists attempted to use fear-mongering claiming that dental decay will increase significantly.  However their own statistics showed less than one cavity difference between fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities and several studies were provided to the council that proves when fluoridation ends, dental decay does not increase.  However, dental fluorosis rates decrease.

A mother of a child with dental fluorosis who is also the wife of a dentist made this remark about the meeting:

I personally found the minimization of dental fluorosis insulting and disconcerting.  The medical and dental folks completely avoided any reference to the costs involved (and for which dentists profit) to remedy the cosmetic issues.  My own husband has struggled with it in dealing with our own son.  Bleaching was ineffective, and I believe he has lately resorted to some manner of micro abrasion.  I don’t even want to ask him how much an off-the-street patient would be paying out of pocket for that treatment. Let it suffice to say it would be punitive over and above knowing that your child was exposed to toxic levels of any compound.

There were several parents in attendance with children that have been diagnosed with dental fluorosis, the visible sign of fluoride poisoning.  There were also those that are sensitive to fluoride that can’t ingest fluoridated water.  Going forward, parents in Windsor, Tecumseh and Lasalle will be better able to monitor their children’s fluoride exposure now that their drinking, cooking and bathing water will be free of it and the water will be safe for everyone.

Congrats to all the safe water advocates and citizens that let it be known that they want water to just be water and not a vehicle for unregulated drugs.

Video of the meeting will be available soon.

The time is NOW!  Windsor Council is holding a special meeting to decide the fate of WUC customer’s drinking water.  Will they continue to medicate the water indiscriminately or will they take precaution and make the drinking water safe for everyone?

Thank you to Anne Jarvis of the Windsor Star for sharing the truth about where this supposed ‘tooth medicine’ comes from.

The yucky origin of fluoride

By: Anne Jarvis, The Windsor Star, Windsor, Ontario 25-Jan-2013 –

Why would a city pay to force its residents to ingest nocuous industrial waste for no reason?

That’s what the reams of documents on fluoridating water, the conflicting claims and counter-claims threatening to bury city council, boil down to.

I was horrified to find out where the fluoride added to our drinking water comes from: it’s an industrial derivative called hydrofluorosilicic acid, and it comes from the scrubbers of smokestacks at fertilizer factories. As Dr. Hardy Limeback writes in a letter to council, “I find it absurd that industrial toxic waste is shipped to the water treatment plants in large tanker trucks and trickled into the drinking water of major cities in North America.”

Limeback is a dentist and former head of preventative dentistry at the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Toronto who has studied the effects of fluoride on teeth and bone. He also served on the U.S. National Academy of Sciences subcommittee on fluoride in drinking water. He’s not a crank. He was a leading authority on fluoride who was often cited by health officials defending fluoridation – until he could no longer ignore the research. In 1999, he changed his position and apologized to his faculty and students, saying he had “unintentionally misled” them.

Why did he change his mind? “I was initially concerned with the chronic accumulation of fluoride in teeth causing dental fluorosis and in bone causing changes in our skeletal system, which was the focus of my research at the University of Toronto,” he told me in an interview, “but then I found out industrial waste was being used to fluoridate the drinking water. The chemicals used in over 90 per cent of cities in North America are fluorosilicates: they are contaminated with cancer-causing arsenic and radioactive particles and have never been tested for safety in humans.”

Fluorosis is irreversible scarring or mottling on children’s teeth, and it has increased significantly in North America. No one, not even proponents of fluoridation, disputes that it’s caused by fluoride. Limeback calls it a biomarker for fluoride poisoning. The main source is fluoridated water. It’s worse in cities with fluoridated water, and it decreases in cities that stop adding fluoride to their water. Municipalities in New Hampshire are required to put warnings on their water bills about fluorosis.

If fluoride damages tooth enamel, it made sense to question whether or not it also damages bone, Limeback reasoned.

Indeed, studies suggest that fluoride accumulates in bone with age, making it more brittle and increasing the risk of hip fractures in the elderly.

Fluoride has also been associated with lower IQ, adverse effects on the thyroid and pineal glands and increased risk of bone cancer, and more studies have been recommended. The people conducting this research aren’t cranks, either.

They’re from institutions like the National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council in the U.S. and the Harvard School of Public Health. These studies are published in places like the Journal of the American Medical Association. There are Nobel laureates who oppose fluoridation.

Yet many public health officials, including local Medical Officer of Health Dr. Allen Heimann, continue to defend fluoridation, saying there “needs to be very strong evidence” to discontinue it.

I prefer this argument by Dr. James Beck, a retired medical doctor in Calgary who successfully lobbied his city’s council to stop adding fluoride to water: “Any minimally responsible health official would admit there are doubts (about the safety of fluoride),” he told me, “and even with these doubts, you keep giving this stuff to people until someone tells you with absolute certainty this is toxic? That doesn’t make sense.”

Health officials, including Heimann, warn of a rise in tooth decay if cities stop fluoridating. But fluoride’s effect is topical; it helps prevent decay when it touches teeth, not when it’s ingested. And cavities have dropped dramatically in developed countries around the world regardless of whether they fluoridate (most of Europe doesn’t fluoridate). This is because of fluoride toothpaste, milk fortified with Vitamin D, penicillin that kills bacteria that cause decay, better oral hygiene and access to dental care.

Adding fluoride to drinking water, once thought to be the best way to ensure that everyone receives equal care, is now seen to pose unfair risks. Some people, like construction workers and athletes in hot weather, drink a lot more water. Some, such as those with kidney failure, can’t excrete the fluoride properly. Those with poor diets are believed to be more susceptible to the risks of fluoride. And some people can’t afford bottled water to avoid drinking fluoridated water.

Fluoride is classified in the U.S. as an “unapproved drug,” yet it is administered without consent, without warning about the risks, and its effects aren’t monitored. We’d never do that with any other drug.

So why does the public health establishment continue to support fluoridation?

“To save face,” according to Limeback. “Everyone believes they are right because they are backed by so many other organizations that believe they are right.”

Yet, he maintains, “none of them do original research (… clinical trials to prove safety) and large portions of the fluoride toxicity literature (are) being ignored.”

Limeback’s credibility and reputation were attacked when he changed his position. He retired from academia early because of his stand.

So this is what city councillors in Windsor are up against when they meet Monday to debate whether to continue adding fluoride to our water. They need to remember what Beck, the medical doctor, said: ” … even with these doubts, you keep giving this stuff to people until someone tells you with absolute certainty this is toxic? That doesn’t make sense.”

Please come out to show your support for safe water: Council Chambers, January 28, 2013 at 6pm.