The City of Airdrie received a presentation at the Dec. 4 council meeting arguing against the use of fluoride in City drinking water.
Municipal drinking water in Airdrie comes from the City of Calgary, which approved the reinstatement of water fluoridation after 62 per cent of electors voted in favour of reintroducing fluoridation of the municipal water supply in 2021.
This vote came exactly 10 years after the City of Calgary discontinued fluoridation.
Dr. Robert Dickson, who has been practicing medicine in Alberta for over 30 years and co-led the anti-fluoridation program in Calgary in 1999, told the City of Airdrie council that there is currently a window of opportunity to stop Calgary.
“It’s an extremely bad decision by Calgary city council, they don’t want to hear any more of the science, even though there’s great new Canadian science,” Dickson said in his presentation to Airdrie Council. “I think we should put a moratorium on it, and you folks and the people of Strathmore and Chestermere could help us with that.”
According to the City of Calgary website, capital costs for infrastructure at two water treatment plants cost the City $28.1 million, up from the initial estimate of $10.1 million.
Based on the current timelines, fluoridation will be in place by September 2024, which also includes water in the City of Airdrie.
Dickson is the founder of Safe Water Calgary and the chair of Fluoride Free Canada.
According to him, water fluoridation is not safe, ethical, effective, or cost effective, and it is not needed for any bodily function.
He said fluoridation is a waste of taxpayers dollars as 99 per cent of it goes down the drain in toilets, showers, sinks, lawns, car washes, and industrial use.
“About one per cent is consumed, and even then the vast majority of people that know there’s chemicals like chloride in the water will not drink City water, they’ll use bottled water,” Dickson said. “It’s a very inefficient way of medicating people, even if it did work.”
Fluoride added to drinking water is not pharmaceutical grade sodium fluoride, he said.
According to the City of Calgary website, hydrofluosilicic acid is added to the water, which Dickson claimed was an industrial waste product from the fertilizer industry.
The Calgary website states this compound is used by approximately 75 per cent of the utilities in North America that fluoridate their water.
Dickson said the compound is not cleaned or processed, and comes with traces of lead, arsenic, bromine strontium, and more.
He then presented a graph comparing tooth decay trends in countries with fluoridation and those who don’t fluoridate their water.
Each country showed a significant downward trend in tooth decay between 1965 and 2000, regardless of their fluoride use.
“All of those countries ended up at virtually the same place with cavities,” Dickson said. “So did water fluoridation have anything to do with it? Absolutely not. That’s out of the World Health Organization’s own data.”
Dickson claimed there are hundreds of animal studies that show neuro-toxicity and other harms from fluoride.
“Ninety-five per cent of the world doesn’t fluoridate, 97 per cent of Europe does not fluoridate, why should we?” said Dickson. “It’s the most rejected practice on the planet.”
Additionally, removing the fluoride ion from water is expensive, he added.
“Nothing will take fluoride out of the water, except for very expensive reverse osmosis systems,” Dickson said.
City of Airdrie Response
In response, City of Airdrie administration presented Alberta Health Services (AHS) statement on fluoridation:
“Alberta Health and Alberta Health Services recognize that community water fluoridation effectively prevents tooth decay, especially among people who are most vulnerable. It offers significant benefits with very low risk and reaches all residents who are connected to a municipal water supply. Therefore, Alberta Health and Alberta Health Services endorse community water fluoridation as a foundational public health measure to prevent tooth decay and improve oral health.”
The AHS website also states that the City of Calgary stopping water fluoridation in 2011 after being in place since 1991 provided an opportunity to compare children’s tooth decay in Calgary to those in the City of Edmonton where fluoridation remained since 1967.
“The research confirms that fluoride cessation in Calgary has had a negative impact on children’s oral health,” the website states. “This change occurred quickly, within three years after cessation of community water fluoridation.”
Administration also pointed out that fluoride naturally occurs in the Bow and Elbow Rivers, in concentrations varying throughout the year, between 0.1 and 0.4 mg/L as stated on the City of Calgary website.
Retort from Dickson
In response, Dickson pointed out that this naturally occurring fluoride is calcium fluoride, not hydrofluosilicic acid that is being added by the City.
“Calcium fluoride is natural in virtually all ground water in the earth's crust, [but] is quite different from hydrofluosilicic acid; a waste product from the fertilizer industry,” he said.
He said allowing residents to vote on whether to medicate others is not ethical, and that the process of water fluoridation isn’t done with informed consent.
He told Airdrie council if they did want to stop fluoridated water from entering the City of Airdrie, they should put a reverse osmosis plant at the entry of where it comes from Calgary to remove it.
