Arkansas Blog

Purity Of Essence = Peace On Earth

You can buy fluoride tooth paste for topical treatment. Your annual or semi-annual visit to the dentist will also get you a heavy duty topical treatment of fluoride.

I don't think the Constitution mentions anything about any gubbermint being responsible for mass medications. This may be difficult for the aluminum companies to accept but I read the damn thing again and found no mention of the right to be mass medicated by the feds.

Wonder how many filters local bottlers must install just in case a city's chlorine or fluoride injectors go haywire? You can sue the bottler, you must get permission to sue a city.
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Sure, you can do fluoride yourself, IF you know the city is not adding it. In this case, Conwaycorp stopped adding it without bothering to inform the public and without having any public discussion of the decision.

Will make a good lawsuit for sure. I know a few local lawyers who will crank one up (always on behalf of the public good of course) if they can figure out a way to get sufficiently compensated for their benevolent work on behalf of a grateful populace.

Was there any flouride not going to a nursing home? That'll work. There's the angle.

I've lived in Conway for 14+ years and never knew the water WAS fluoridated!!

According to the American Dental Health Association:

Children and adults who are at low risk of dental decay can stay cavity-free through frequent exposure to small amounts of fluoride. This is best gained by drinking fluoridated water and using a fluoride toothpaste twice daily.

Children and adults at high risk of dental decay may benefit from using additional fluoride products, including dietary supplements (for children who do not have adequate levels of fluoride in their drinking water), mouthrinses, and professionally applied gels and varnishes.

Fluoridation of community water has been credited with reducing tooth decay by 50% - 60% in the United States since World War II. More recent estimates of this effect show decay reduction at 18% - 40%, which reflects that EVEN IN COMMUNITIES THAT ARE NOT OPTIMALLY FLUORIDATED, PLEOPLE ARE RECEIVING SOME BENEFITS FROM OTHER SOURCES (E.G. BOTTLED BEVERAGES, TOOTHPASTE).

Additional reading shows an Arkansas connection to the discovery that fluoride prevents tooth decay. From an ADA publication - Fluoridation Facts:

"In Bauxite, H. V. Churchill, chief chemist with the Aluminum Company of America (later changed to ALCOA), was using a new method of spectrographic analysis in his laboratory to look at the possibility that the water from an abandoned deep well in the area may have high levels of aluminum-containing bauxite that was causing mottled teeth. What he found was that the water contained a high level of naturally occurring fluoride (13.7 ppm). When Dr. McKay learned of this new form of analysis and Dr. Churchill's findings, he forwarded samples of water from areas where mottled enamel was commonplace to Dr. Churchill. All of the samples were found to have high levels of fluoride when compared to waters tested from areas with no mottled enamel."

You can go to the CDC website (click on blue name) to search for water systems in Arkansas. Conway started fluoridation in 1968. No date is given for Central Arkansas Water System. It seems most water systems in Pulaski County do add fluoride and have been doing so since the late '60s and early '70s.

What engineer specced a metal for a halide injection system that wouldn't stand up to halides? I'm sure that engineer is still cashing his checks.

This is all of a piece. The executives at GM & Ford who kept the production lines cranking out gas guzzlers all the while the price of gas was inching upward. If those bastards aren't still cashing their checks, they got a huge one to just go away.

The bigdogs at all the mortgage lenders who pushed the subprime loans and talked gullible pension admins into buying them.

All of it is of a piece. We're going down and greed is leading the way.

eLwood...

Yes you can get fluoride from the topical delivery devices..dentifrices, topical gels, and your regular dental visits, however this application helps to minimize incipient lesions(little cavaties that are starting) but does absolutely nothing to strenghten the deeper enamel or the dentin inside the tooth. Fluoride when consumed by children from birth to approximately 13 years of age incorporates into the teeth as they are forming, making them stronger and more resistant to decay. The cost per water customer per year to fluoridate water is so minimal in the broad scheme of things should not even come into the argument. With fillings costing from $80.00 and up, it would only have to prevent one cavity to pay for the cost of that one water customer for life. If I were a dentist, Conway looks like a good place for me to move in about 15 years...