City Worker Secretly Lowers Fluoride Levels in Water Supply

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Adding fluoride to drinking water has been an accepted dental preventative practice in many American communities going back to the 1940's.  It is a procedure that has a proven track record of lowering the rate of cavities - particularly in children

Today communities are generally responsible for deciding if their water supplies will be fluoridated or not,  and if they are,  then the amount of fluoride that will be added - usually based on recommendations from government agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control.  The CDC has stated that when recommended levels of fluoridation are followed, the rate of cavities or tooth decay decreases by about twenty-five percent.    

Setting water treatment standards is a community responsibility that is overseen by state governments.

That is the way is was supposed to be operating in the state of Vermont where roughly half of the inhabitants live in areas where the water is fluoridated - primarily in the more urban areas.  One of those communities is Richmond, a city of about 4,100 individuals.     People in Richmond thought their water was being fluoridated at a certain level.   However, the residents were surprised to learn last month that the fluoride levels in their water supply had been arbitrarily cut four years earlier by the city's water and wastewater superintendent on his own volition without input or direction from the city government.

Many were shocked, and many were angry.

One local mother told the city council that she had been surprised to learn that her children had cavities.  She has asked her dentist about adding a fluoride treatment at home, and he had assured her that the city had an adequate level of treatment in the local water supply.  The dentist was operating under the false assumption that the city was following its own established guidelines - but a rogue employee had gone off the range and was doing things his way.

The employee said that he had been worried about fluoride coming from China - and much of it does - and he had been reading material on-line about fluoride that concerned him.  The CDC has responded that fluoride coming from China is carefully inspected before it is allowed anywhere near local water systems.

But there is a cultural element in our country that does not trust science, or government, and especially not the CDC.  The government may say one thing, but if Facebook or social media promotes a conspiracy that runs counter to the government claim, well . . . Facebook MUST be right!

Community standards are set through citizen input to community bodies which are made up of officials elected to office by those communities.  Someone who is unhappy with a community standard has avenues available in which to educate others and work to change the standard, but an arbitrary and capricious decision by a hired functionary is not the proper way of making a change to the way a community operates.

Yes, many residents of Richmond, Vermont, were shocked and angry when the truth was ultimately revealed - and they all had a right to their anger.  That is not the way a representative democracy is intended to operate.