On the eve of Ohio’s primary elections, debate at the Athens City Council meeting was once again storming about the city’s water fluoridation.
Abe Alassaf, an Ohio University senior studying history, continued his several-month crusade to remove the chemical from Athens’ drinking water system. He said he is confident he and his compatriots will receive the 464 required petition signatures to have a referendum appear on November’s ballot.
Jared Wren, a J Bar employee, agreed and said citizens should have the right to decide what is and is not put in their bodies.
“As a concerned citizen, I would like to raise awareness to the fact that fluoride is a drug,” Wren said. “Even if a drug gives me the teeth of Brad Pitt, makes me as tall as Shaquille O’Neal and gives me the brain function of Stephen Hawking, it should be my decision to put it in my body.”
Athens resident Dane Waller used information he said he received from the Athens Water Treatment Plant to challenge statements made at last week’s meeting by James Gaskell, Athens City-County Health Department’s health commissioner.
“In this statement from the Athens water plant, sodium fluoride is said to be an inorganic acid,” Waller said. “Last week, an Athens official said it was organic, and this is not true.”
Waller also cited evidence of negative health effects related to fluoride consumption from the aforementioned water plant information and Roger Masters, a professor at Dartmouth College.
“One of the chronic problems listed is death,” Waller said. “Diluting an acid is never good for us in any sense of the term. Dr. Roger Masters at Dartmouth has uncovered a relationship between water fluoride and lead toxicity.”
Councilman Jeff Risner, D-2nd Ward, said he would like to receive more direct testimony from experts in the field.
“When you quote someone who is quoting an article, things can be lost in translation,” Risner said. “The Dartmouth professor’s quotes were from a letter written on Dartmouth letterhead, not an article. I can’t say it’s ever been peer-reviewed. The letter says there is a direct correlation between fluoride and lead, but how you can possibly come up with that statistically is beyond me.”
Risner said he sees no reason to stop the addition of the chemical.
“I think the public health benefits outweigh the negatives,” Risner said. “The main argument that seems to come up is that people don’t want it in their water because they want to choose what they put in their body. Every one of those people has vaccination scars, which they were forced to take as babies, but are alive because of it. At some point, you have to look at the common good.”
io312410@ohiou.edu
