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the fluoride in Toronto's water

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

I doubt this will surprise the people who know me, but I'm starting to side with the tinfoil hat wingnuts on the fluoridation of water.

It's because a) the fluoride that's added to our water isn't the natural version of the substance but is a "byproduct" scrubbed from smokestacks in the fertilizer and aluminum smelting industries (for instance, see the second-last paragraph in this coverage and b) and among the places I've lived several don't add fluoride to the water (e.g. all of Japan, the Niagara region, Vancouver and Calgary). What I think finally convinced me on this issue was this unusually good coverage in the Globe and Mail (which points out, among other things, that the practice of fluoridating water is essentially unknown and unmissed in outside of the Anglosphere).

Happily, this isn't something to simply watch in dismay. I can sign a petition and watch in dismay.