Physician and New York Times bestselling author Mark Hyman, M.D., is calling for a federal investigation of water fluoridation, which is the long-controversial practice of adding fluoride chemicals to drinking water for the purpose of helping to prevent cavities. He is not alone. There is a growing chorus of influential leaders highlighting possible health risks from drinking fluoridated municipal water.

“There are numerous mechanisms by which uncontrolled dosing of fluorides through water fluoridation can potentially harm thyroid function, the body and the brain. A malfunctioning thyroid often leads to weight gain. And diabetics and patients with kidney disease are often thirsty, causing them to consume increased amounts of fluorides if they have access to only fluoridated water. Communities of color and the underserved are disproportionately harmed by fluorides because most rely on municipal water sources, many of which continue to add fluoride despite research showing the potential harms and negating the potential benefits,” states Hyman.

Decades-long unease with fluoridation is accelerating rapidly with a wave of new studies and media accounts describing how ingested fluorides can potentially be harmful. Key national environmental and social justice activist figures such as Erin Brockovich, Lois Gibbs and Alveda King have called for Fluoridegate scandal hearings and momentum for federal hearings is quickening as impacted constituency groups awaken to the issue.

Fluoride works topically, not systemically, which is why it makes no sense to add it to municipal water systems.

Christopher Hussar, DDS, DO, who practices in Reno, Nevada, is against treating municipal water with sodium fluorosilicate, also used as insecticide. “The majority of European nations discontinued fluoridating water when their research showed that it was not as efficacious as was originally proposed,” says Hussar, who agrees with Hyman that fluoride affects thyroid function because it displaces the iodine molecule, the precursor to thyroid hormones thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3), which is supposed to be absorbed by thyroid cells, the only cells in the body that absorb this molecule.

Hussar points to the National Institutes of Health statistics. “It’s alarming that 4.6 million people over age 12 have hypothyroidism, a disorder that occurs when the thyroid gland does not make enough thyroid hormone to meet the body’s needs. Thyroid hormone regulates metabolism—the way the body uses energy—and affects nearly every organ in the body.

The category of silicofluorides, under which fluoride falls, is not one of pharmaceutical-grade fluoride products. Fluoride in particular is a crude industrial waste product of the phosphate fertilizer industry and does not undergo any purification procedures.

Hussar has friends living in Naples. Due to his growing concern for their health, he has submitted a videotaped statement for an upcoming Collier County Commissioner’s meeting (CollierGov.net) regarding Collier County resident Camden Smith’s petition to end water fluoridation. Hussar’s testimony will add to that of Paul Connett, Ph.D., a former senior adviser for the Fluoride Action Network, who plans a brief statement.

Connett spent the past 20 years researching the issues of fluoride’s toxicity and the water fluoridation debate first as a professor of chemistry specializing in environmental chemistry and toxicology. In 2010, his research efforts culminated in the publication of The Case Against Fluoride: How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep It There.

Fluoride works topically, not systemically, which is why it makes no sense to add it municipal water systems. Connett reports that more than 300 studies have shown that fluoride is neurotoxic. These include 49 studies that have an association with fluoride exposure and lowered IQ in children and 34 animal studies that fluoride lowers their ability to learn and remember in standard maze experiments. In 2015, associations were also found between fluoride levels in water and ADHD.

“Although proponents use a long list of endorsements from government agencies and professional bodies that claim fluoridation is safe and effective, these endorsements date back to the 1950s and were made when there was virtually no science on the table. All they represent today is how difficult it is for bureaucracies to change their minds once they have adopted something as a ‘policy’. It’s so sad that when policy is king, science becomes a slave,” advises Connett.

Any member of the public may attend and sign up to be a speaker at the Collier County Commissioner’s meeting. Location: 3299 E. Tamiami Tr., Bldg. 5, third floor, Naples. For the agenda time, contact Collier County Communications at 239-252-8999.