It’s happening.  It really is.  People are waking up.

A few weeks ago I was at .a pool-and-movie party—just your typical Saturday night social gathering.  No fewer than five of the guests approached me to talk about water fluoridation.  Every one of them was against it.  These are average, everyday folks.  One asked whether I knew of a good non-fluoridated product for sensitive teeth.  Another, currently in nursing school, expressed her desire to go into an area of natural healing that would bypass such toxic “cures.”

I’m hearing a lot of this lately.  Everywhere I go, I talk to people from varied walks of life.  And while there are certainly plenty of those who feel sure their family dentist, with his or her endless endorsement of fluoride products and treatments, couldn’t possibly be wrong, at least as many are wary.  From college students and health store clerks to blue collar neighbors, City Hall employees, and the GoDaddy service rep I call on for help with this blog:  all know there’s something wrong with public drinking water.  Or they suspect it.  I’ve personally heard dentists express private reservations about the need for water fluoridation, an opinion they won’t necessarily share with their patients in the office.  The ADA is known to deal harshly with those who break ranks.  

Two recent conversations with my savvy sisters-in-law have particularly stoked my optimism.  One, the daughter of a career Army dentist who rose high in the ranks, lives out in the great American heartland.  The other, a high-powered nurse, resides on the east coast.  Knowing both are conservative politically, and not wishing to be considered a kook, I had hesitated to reveal my “radical” anti-fluoridation stance.  But after a full year of activism, I felt the time had come.  I first ventured to propose to the dentist’s daughter that fluoridated water is bad.

“That’s what my father always told us,” she replied, without missing a beat.  I was stunned.  “Your father said that??”

“Well, not in public, of course.  He had a career to look out for.  But he said it privately.” 

The nurse was equally forthright when .I gingerly broached the subject.  “Well of course.   It’s a poison,” she observed matter-of-factly..  “I’m glad I don’t have to drink it.,”  she added.  Her town's water isn’t fluoridated.  

Her position certainly does not represent organized medicine.  Another nurse friend of mine was dubious.  “I’d have to study it carefully,” she told me.  And what busy, hardworking adult has time to sit down to study anything nowadays?

Still—despite 50+ years of pro-fluoride propaganda bombardment  from all sides—more people are waking up all the time.  And that’s something to shout about.