21st Century Junk Science

Windsor, one of the ten largest cities in Canada, has the distinction of having voted in a mayor whose intelligence quotient is obviously impaired. Because a vocal and strident group of residents has declared the use of fluoride in the city's drinking water to be an invasion of their rights not to be exposed to the effects of chemicals, Mayor Eddie Francis has convinced himself that their reasoning trumps that of medical science.

Windsor's city council appears to be peopled with those as bright as the mayor himself. On January 19 they made modern Canadian history by voting 8 to 3 to end the addition of fluoride to the city's water supply. Windsor's dentists are in a state of disbelief. They hadn't, obviously, been aware, that they were living in the midst of such a medieval mindset that would end up imperilling the health of the city's children.

It has been more than adequately proven that fluoridation causes a 20% to 40% reduction in dental caries among children. Water fluoridation has been endorsed as a health measure by the World Health Organization, the European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry and in developed countries throughout the world through their dental associations.

But the Windsor city council obviously knows something really important that world health authorities are unaware of. "Chemicals", according to Mayor Francis, will no longer have a place in his city's water supply. It will be of immense interest, if the city proceeds on this health-retrograde path to read future statistics on the state of children's teeth in Windsor several years down the road.

Perhaps in the near future, as swiftly as possible when the next municipal election comes due, the majority of the citizens of Windsor will be able to take ameliorative action and vote out the incumbent dolts who obviously are incapable of reading any of the peer-reviewed medical literature affirming the benefits of fluoridation in municipal water supplies.

Their dependence on anecdotal tales of adverse reactions to "chemicals" in their drinking water seems much more preferable to these bright minds than actual scientific and medically-proven conventions.