Good afternoon, Mayor Leffingwell and councilmembers.  One subject we haven’t touched on much here is the question of dosage.  Fluoride is, after all, promoted as a medication.  When a dentist prescribes fluoride tablets as a supplement for children, he or she bases the dosage on the child’s size and age, and monitors the results.  When we drink fluoridated water, everyone is getting the same concentration—1 ppm—not a few times a year but every day for a lifetime—and there is no follow-up whatsoever. 

So there we are:  everybody— man, woman and child—receiving 1ppm fluoride in their drinking water forever, regardless of weight, age, activity level, or state of health.  Let’s look at how that universal level was arrived at. 

Early in the 20th century, several eastern-trained dentists who went west to practice noticed an interesting phenomenon.  People in a few areas of Texas and Colorado who drank water with a naturally high fluoride content—sometimes 4 ppm or more—had deeply stained teeth that seemed—paradoxically—resistant to decay.  Government health bureaucrats eventually got wind of their findings and declared, in effect:  “Let’s bring down the fluoride concentration to a point where the tooth staining, called fluorosis, is minimized and the decay fighting capacity is adequate”. Why exactly 1 ppm?  Well, it sounds good and is easy to calculate with. 

The dentists had failed to recognize that the people in those small study populations had more in common than the consumption of high-fluoride water.  First, their water was also exceptionally high in calcium, a natural tooth builder.  Second, they were prosperous farmers and ranchers who ate healthy unprocessed foods and invested in dental care. 

At the time the 1 ppm standard was set up, drinking water was virtually our only source of ingested fluoride.  Today we’re bombarded with it on all sides—from food, toothpaste, pesticides and drugs. Yet no adjustment has ever been considered.  Our entire population, from infants to athletes and construction workers is still being medicated at the same single, unmonitored rate based on some arbitrary “average” per capita consumption.  It’s time to stop.  Thank you.