Yorktown’s Decision to Discontinue Fluoridation Ignores Science
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
As a movie buff I’d like to quote one of the funniest movies of all time, “Dr. Strangelove”: “Do you realize fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face.”
In the film, General Ripper claimed that water fluoridation was destroying “our precious bodily fluids,” a reference to the claim that water fluoridation was a conspiracy designed to weaken U.S. willpower and make the country susceptible to a Communist takeover.
In Yorktown, there’s no communist takeover, but there is “kakistocracy” at Town Hall, one where decisions are being made by people with no medical credentials, who simply ignore scientific method peer-reviewed research, which prompts these questions.
Why did the Republicans at Yorktown Town Hall ignore the Westchester health commissioner? Why did they ignore the comments of Dr. Robert Amler, vice president and dean at New York Medical College, who previously was chief medical officer at the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and Dr. Ronnie Myers, dean of Touro College of Dental Medicine? Other local dentistry sources ignored how during the public hearing 99 percent of the 2,800 dentists in the Mid-Hudson Valley favor fluoridation.
Why would you not consult a good source like the Westchester-based Consumer Reports, which reported that “fluoride is effective at reducing cavities.” After all, its mission is to work for independently verified transparency in the marketplace.
In Calgary, Alberta, Canada, the City Council banned fluoridation in 2011, and now due to an increase in tooth decay and cavities in children, residents wanted it put back. As one researcher at the University of Calgary said, “the decision to ban fluoridation had a clear result: It was a source of ‘avoidable and potentially life-threatening disease, pain, suffering, misery and expense…especially [for] very young children and their families.’”
Respectfully, I listen to my dentist, and I’d like to see this Town Board consider why the use and practical applications of the scientific method has resulted in longer life spans.
If Republican Town Board members disregard their dentists and other medical professionals, do they all share wooden teeth from George Washington’s time? Or do they want to go back to the time of George Washington’s wooden teeth?
Wendy Frank
Yorktown
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