Comment 61537

By JasonAAllen (registered) - website | Posted March 25, 2011 at 15:05:46 in reply to Comment 61527

I have had flouride in my water (in Calgary) since I was a teenager - it's the main thing I credit my almost total lack of cavities to, despite my (admittedly) atrocious dental hygeine habits. I have no plans to have other kids, but we are all voracious consumers of Hamilton tap water. Having done much of the research on this topic while I was in Calgary - I'm inclined to agree with Ryan.

The potential harm seems to lie entirely with the outliers - and while I sympathize with their difficulty, I feel that the overall health benefits to the majority, far outweigh the small potential risk for a very small number of people.

I don't mean to sound cavalier, but we make trade-offs all the time when it comes to public good vs. the needs of small groups of individuals. It's part of living in a population large enough to be called a society.

We know that some people suffer adverse effects from living/playing near high voltage transmission lines - for most people, however, it is not an issue. So then does it make sense to no longer transmit electricity long distances, because of the health dangers to a small number of people? Or does it make sense to encourage those people to live far away from electriciy corridors.

In the same way, if there are people who find their health to be affected by flouride, they have the bottled water option, and I think we should go one step further than encouraging it, and probably subsidize it, with proper medical documentation. However for the majority of people - the risk is so low, and the benefit of greater dental health is so high, that it seems to be worth the trade-off.

Comment edited by JasonAAllen on 2011-03-25 15:07:51

Whatever you do, don't mention the Red Hill Valley Parkway!

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