To: The Iowa State House, The Iowa State Senate, and Governor Kim Reynolds

End The Fluoridation of Sioux City's water system

Water fluoridation is a peculiarly American phenomenon. It started at a time when Asbestos lined our pipes, lead was added to gasoline, PCBs filled our transformers and DDT was deemed so “safe and effective” that officials felt no qualms spraying kids in school classrooms and seated at picnic tables. One by one all these chemicals have been banned, but fluoridation remains untouched.

Why is this important?

Yes, fluoride occurs naturally in some waters and so do other toxics like lead and arsenic. What the dentists didn't tell you is public municipalities are using a synthetic waste version of fluoride, mostly scrubbed from the exhaust stacks of phosphate fertilizer plants. And it's not the pharmaceutical fluoride in toothpaste, which advises you to seek immediate help from a poison control center if you swallow anything larger than a pea size serving. There's a serious reason behind the warning.

This is where real science legitimizes our concerns about what this halogen is doing to our teeth and body tissues.

The dentists didn't explain that international peer-reviewed studies have confirmed fluoride eventually wears down the enamel of a tooth surface, rather than improving it. In fact, 41 percent of younger Americans now have some type of dental fluorosis, the pitting and discoloring of the teeth from an overexposure of fluoride.

And it doesn't stop there. More international teams have found fluoride can negatively affect the thyroid, the brain, the nervous system, and is a proven contributor to bone cancer in young boys.

Even the vaunted Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a warning that fluoridated water should not be mixed with baby formula because its fluoride dose is 250 times greater than mother's breast milk.

Should a public municipality be in charge of an individual’s oral hygiene? And if fluoridated water is in everything from processed foods to taking a shower, then managing the dosage is absolutely impossible.

For the above reasons and a thousand more we move to stop the fluoridation of not only Sioux City but our entire surrounding area immediately. Signed concerned citizens.