Citizens, activists react to inability to vote on fluoride

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Hiawassee Fluoride

HIAWASSEE, Ga. – Negative public feedback emerged following FYN’s report stating that Towns County citizens will not have a say on the potential addition of fluoride to their water. The controversial issue was expected to go before both county and city voters on the May 19 ballot due to many county residents consuming water from the City of Hiawassee’s supply. The news was initially announced via Towns County Board of Elections Chair Janet Olivia on March 3, with Olivia describing the change as government “miscommunication.”

Click to read: County citizens not permitted to vote on water fluoridation

FYN spoke with Towns County attorney Robb Kiker, March 5. Kiker explained that because only city residents signed a 2019 circulated petition to place the fluoride referendum on the ballot, county electors are not permitted to participate in the decision. Additionally, Kiker stated that a city cannot call for a countywide referendum.  FYN contacted Corbin McLain, the county resident who was tasked with collecting the signatures for the City of Hiawassee last summer. McLain stated that she was instructed by Hiawassee Mayor Liz Ordiales. per the Environmental Protection Divison (EPD), to solely garner city support for the ballot referendum. A total of 35 signatures were submitted to the Towns County Board of Elections, 10-percent of the Hiawassee citizens who voted in the last election, an amount mandated by the EPD. In a letter obtained by FYN, Georgia EPD relayed to Mayor Ordiales last year that both city and county citizens should vote on the measure, considering that Towns County residents receive City of Hiawassee water, per instruction from the State Attorney’s Office.

“We were under the impression that all voters would have the opportunity to cast their opinion on this matter,” Mayor Ordiales told FYN on March 5. “At this time, our attorneys, both County and City, are in touch with the State to determine how to proceed.”

Ordiales added that an update will be provided once a resolution is received from the EPD. FYN contacted several Hiawassee City Council members who expressed that county voters should have a say in the matter and that they were under the full assumption that would be the case.

FYN discussed the matter with Towns County Commissioner Cliff Bradshaw on numerous occasions throughout the past year, with Bradshaw consistently expecting a countywide vote to take place this spring.”I was surprised to hear the news,”Bradshaw said earlier this week. “I was led to believe that both city and county voters would decide on whether to add fluoride.”

Citizens opposing fluoridation of the local water supply have since launched a Facebook page to draw attention to the contested issue. While some proponents of fluoridation list the dental benefits attributed to the additive, critics claim that the dangers outweigh the good.

“The Fluoride Action Network (FAN) has documented hundreds of published, peer-reviewed studies finding evidence of fluoride’s harms,” FAN Chair Rick North told FYN on Thursday. “Many have been funded by the National Institutes of Health and have found that levels in fluoridated water are linked to significantly lower IQs and higher ADHD rates in children. Many organizations that once endorsed fluoridation have pulled back and no longer take a position, including the Alzheimer’s Association, National Down Syndrome Society, National Down Syndrome Congress, National Kidney Fund and Center for Science in the Public Interest. It’s actually one of the most widely rejected health interventions in the world, opposed by most nations, including nearly all in Europe, and 95% of the world’s population. Fluoride is available topically in toothpaste if people want it. But FAN believes that no one should be forced to ingest a drug they oppose through drinking water, taking away their freedom of choice.”

Dr. Johnny Johnson Jr., a pediatric dentist and President of the American Fluoridation Society, offered support for fluoridation in an email to FYN.

“Fluoridation has been identified as the most practical and cost-effective method of delivering fluoride to all members of a community, regardless of age, education, or income,” Johnson said in part. “These advantages, combined with fluoridation’s contribution to dramatic declines in both the prevalence and severity of tooth decay, led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to name water fluoridation one of ten great public health achievements of the 20th century. I work with the non-profit, all-volunteer, unpaid group of healthcare providers of the American Fluoridation Society.  Our work is to disseminate evidence-based credible science on water fluoridation.  We do not accept a single penny for our efforts.  The opponents to water fluoridation have scared pregnant moms and used fear-invoking pseudoscience to cause people to question water fluoridation. We work to defend and protect the health, safety, and well-being of our countries families.”

FYN will continue to follow developments on the fluoride referendum leading up to the May 19 General Primary.

7 Comments

  1. james Reeves March 6, 2020 at 11:46 am

    Exactly why should ADULTS be forced to drink this poisonous fluoride in every glass of water EVERY DAY OF LIFE
    and then suffer the resulting serious health problems (brain, thyroid, bones, kidney)?

    Modern science shows that ingesting fluoride, neither a nutrient nor essential for healthy teeth, doesn’t reduce tooth decay but is damaging to the body, especially brains, bones and thyroid glands.
    Put fluoride on your teeth (toothpaste), not in the water or your brains. Stop fluoridation. You will save money, protect the infrastructure and, more importantly, protect the health of residents forced to consume fluoride via the water supply.

    • Randy Johnson March 7, 2020 at 10:12 am

      James Reeves: Read the 2016 WHO fluoride review. Apparently you never have, because it describes the multiple ways fluoride/fluoridation reduces the risk of tooth decay in children and in adults.
      Search on: 2016 World Health Organization, Fluoride and Oral Health

      You have provided no evidence to support your claim that there is a poisonous level of “fluoride in every glass of water” that causes “serious health problems”. That lack of evidence is understandable, because there is no such evidence. A glass of fluoridated, treated water is no more poisonous than a glass of water treated with the chemical weapon, chlorine.

      All water treatment chemicals are poisonous at high exposure levels, they are regulated to be within safe levels when diluted in drinking water, and they help protect the health of citizens in different ways.

      You mention “modern science”, but you can provide no specific, legitimate scientific evidence (modern or otherwise) to prove any of your opinions. What do you hope to convey with this repetitious gibberish except providing additional proof that you have no legitimate scientific evidence to support your opinions.

      Since there is no legitimate scientific evidence to support your opinions, you constantly employ two common anti-science tactics, which I have described and provided supporting evidence. You can click on my name for the web page or you can:
      > Search on: fluoridation reviews and studies: cyber-nook
      > Just before the reviews, locate: – Gish Gallop & Argumentum ad nauseam anti-F tactics
      > Select the Description &/or Example option

      In the Examples section, you can find JR’s comment above (or others like it alleging forced consumption) repeated over 30 times (Argumentum ad nauseam). You can also find dozens of other completely unsupported claims, mostly randomly dumped out, one after another, with no supporting evidence whatever (Gish Gallop).

  2. Christine Massey, M.Sc. March 6, 2020 at 2:45 pm

    AFS President J. Johnson also told Calgary that “AFS is a non-profit org whose members do not accept any $$” (pg 696: https://pub-calgary.escribemeetings.com/FileStream.ashx?DocumentId=110166). But Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner says that AFS’s V.P. Myron Allukian told them that his water fluoridation presentations are part of his livelihood. (I learned this because I had to appeal to the IPC in order to get a transcript of an illegally closed meeting held by the Region of Peel.) The AFS V.P. fought hard to keep his presentation to Peel Council private because it was his “intellectual property, which he invested heavily in .. He submits that it is a part of his livelihood and should not be made public”. The relevant case it detailed here: https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onipc/doc/2018/2018canlii44347/2018canlii44347.html

  3. Randy Johnson March 7, 2020 at 10:52 am

    Fluoridation is a public health measure, and a vote would only make sense if all citizens were experts on the complex scientific and health-related issues that contribute to making an informed decision.

    The safety of fluoridation can be discovered in two ways:
    1) By any impartial individuals who understand the science well enough to personally evaluate the published evidence and root out the disingenuous tactics utilized by fluoridation opponents which enable them to present a study as supporting their opinions that fluoridation is harmful, when in fact, they all have one or more of the following characteristics: 1) The study referenced had nothing to do with drinking optimally fluoridated water (OFW); 2) The study examined exposure to fluoride ions at far higher levels than found in OFW; 3) Actual study conclusions were deliberately distorted, misused &/or misstated to fit anti-F propaganda; 4) The study conclusions only suggested a possible weak correlation (or association), not a causal relationship; 5) The study didn’t consider or adjust for numerous other factors potentially associated with the alleged risk, and it proved nothing; 6) The study was unrepeatable; 7) The study was demonstrably flawed and had significant limitations &/or 8) The claim was a complete fabrication.

    2) By any impartial individuals who may not fully understand the complex scientific evidence, but choose to accept the conclusions of virtually all science and health organizations in the world.

    In contrast, fluoridation opponents, like vaccination opponents and other anti-science activists, can only promote their unsupportable opinions by scaring the majority of citizens into fearing fluoride exposure at any level or vaccines Unfortunately, they can often be successful by manipulating the data (trusting that most people won’t examine or understand the studies – a long list can be impressive) and by tossing suspicion of greed, incompetence &/or indifference onto the science and health experts in the world (the overwhelming majority) who disagree with them. Again, search on science or health organizations that support either the anti-fluoridation or anti-vaccination opinions – you won’t find any – note FAN, nyscof, the CHD (with an anti-vax agenda), INFOWARS Mercola.com and Natural News don’t constitute health organizations.

    For legitimate scientific evidence that supports fluoridation as a safe and effective public health measure and for refutations of anti-fluoridation opinions, search on:
    > Fluoridation Facts, American Dental Association
    > Fluoridation | Open Parachute
    > American Fluoridation Society
    > Fluoridation Reviews and Studies – cyber-nook
    > Fluoridation and the Scientific Consensus – cyber-nook
    > AFS response to 2017 NYSCOF press release, Fluoridation

  4. Christine Massey, M.Sc. March 11, 2020 at 5:43 pm

    Grade school math proves that every 350 ml of “optimally” fluoridated water has the same dose of F (.25 mg) that everyone (Health Canada, FDA, CDC, CDA, ADA etc) says young kids must spit out or avoid entirely:
    https://www.fluoridefreepeel.ca/advisement-1-for-kingston-council/

    0.7 ppm fluoride concentration means there is 0.7 mg fluoride in each litre (each 1000 grams) of water.

    0.35 L x 0.7 mg / L = 0.245 mg fluoride In every 350 ml glass of water.

    A typical pea-sized bit of fluoridated toothpaste that everyone says kids need to avoid or spit out contains 0.25 mg fluoride. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5014a1.htm

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