Kamloops should follow Calgary and bring back fluoride

One of the things that appealed to me about Kamloops when I moved here in 1981 was its water. Kamloops water had been fluoridated since 1961.

image: Britannica

At the time, Calgary’s water wasn’t fluoridated. The attraction of moving to a city with fluoridated water was obvious: fluoridation is nature’s way of preventing cavities.

Fluoride research had its beginnings in 1901 when a young dental school graduate opened a dental practice in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He found that teeth were unusually discoloured and that dental cavities were low.

The reason for the cosmetic discolouration and low rate of cavities took years to unravel. It turned out that there was an unusually high level of fluorides in the water. Once the level of fluorides was lowered, the discolouration disappeared and dental health improved dramatically.

 Grand Rapids, Michigan, became the first place to add fluorides. The dental caries (cavities) among Grand Rapids children born after fluoride was added to the water supply dropped more than 60 percent.

Fluorides are naturally found in all water sources, except for rain water collected in barrels. Fluorides leach out of the soil into rivers, lakes and wells. The longer that water is in contact with soil, the greater the fluoride concentration.

Kamloops’ water is naturally fluoridated but only to one-half of the concentration required to be beneficial. After fluorides were added to supplement the natural amount, dental hygiene improved for all, even for those who couldn’t afford to see a dentist. My son, born in 1980, had no cavities.

Then, in 2001, a referendum was held in Kamloops on whether to have water meters installed and fluoridation removed.

The arguments against fluoridation back then sounded at lot like the ones today against COVID vaccinations -I should be free to have fluorides if I want.

Kamloops voters, cranky at the prospect of having to pay for what they imagined was free water, rejected water meters and fluoridation. Voter turnout was low at 37 per cent; 63 per cent of those rejected fluoridation.

I’m astonished how much fuss is made over simple health measures in some places and so little in others. When I was in Mexico I noticed that the salt is fluoridated –an obvious benefit where there are few central water systems.

And why aren’t people ranting about our iodized salt? It reduces iodine deficiency and boosts thyroid function in the production of hormones.

Like fluorine, naturally occurring iodine is found in rivers, lakes and wells but not enough to be beneficial. Fluorine and iodine are similar elements in that they are both halogens.

Calgary’s opinions have blown back and forth like the Chinook winds over the Rockies. They voted yes to fluoridation in 1998 and 1989, and then no in 2011.

In the last referendum, a substantial number; two-thirds of Calgary voters, approved fluoridation.

I think the difference is the pandemic. Even antivaxxers are shifting opinions about public health. They once thought that the issue was personal choice: they should be able to choose whether to receive the shot or not.

Now, the concept of what’s good for all overcomes vaccine hesitancy.

Now will Kamloopsians also come to their senses and return fluorides to our water supply?

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By the time the trekkers got to Kamloops

In April of 1935 they left their miserable camps and made their way to Vancouver. The camps had been set up in the middle of nowhere. Young men worked in the military-run camps for 20 cents a day under deplorable conditions in dead-end jobs with no end in sight.

Canada’s History Magazine

The camps were designed to harsh. Prime Minister Bennett had reluctantly set them up as a concession to the unemployed victims of the Great Depression. He was opposed to anything that looked like a handout, including even the appalling camps. He told a labour delegation in 1930: “Never will I or any government of which I am part put a premium on idles or put our people on the dole (Canada’s History magazine, August-September, 2016).”

The camps didn’t have to be that way, says historian Bill Waiser of the University of Saskatchewan. “In contrast to the American Civil Conservation Corps, a popular federal work-for-relief program across the border, the make-work projects and isolating conditions of the Canadian relief camps aggravated the gloom of the men who were in them.”

About fifteen hundred desperate men arrived in Vancouver and were warmly received. Huge public rallies and parades were held. On Mother’s Day in Stanley Park, three hundred women circled the men in the shape of a heart.

As is typical, provincial and federal governments wrangled over who was responsible for the men. Finally the men decided to take matters into their own hands and trek to Ottawa aboard boxcars. About one thousand left Vancouver in June of 1935. Governments made no attempt to stop them –convinced that the trekker’s tenacity would dissolve in the cold trip through the mountains.

By the time the trekkers got to Kamloops they were cold, hungry and dispirited. Unlike Vancouver, no warm reception awaited them. Nothing had been done to prepare for their arrival: Mayor W. J. Moffatt and the chief of police flatly refused requests for help.

Kamloops had problems of its own with hordes of desperate, unemployed men in formal camps and informal “hobo jungles” says Mary Balf, former curator of the Kamloops Museum, in her book Kamloops 1914-1945. In one case, on May 1, 1931, men flocked into the city to complain about the poor conditions in these camps. Police closed the bridge from North Kamloops to limit the numbers.

“The work camps continued rather haphazardly until the summer of 1936,” says Balf, “but never really worked well. . . frequently they were so badly managed that even the promised wages were not forthcoming.”

After 300 men joined the trekkers from Kamloops, they were revitalized. As word of the trekkers spread, they were soon regarded as folk heroes. Washtubs of stew awaited them when they arrived in Golden in June. Calgary citizens were struck by the youthful innocence of the men.

More men joined the trek in Alberta but not my father. He was in a camp in Jasper at the time building the national park. He never told me about the camp conditions in Jasper. Perhaps he preferred to forget the depression and the stigma of unemployment. Perhaps, like some of the projects in the U.S., the building of parks gave purpose to his work.

As the popularity of the heroic trekkers grew, the federal government began to worry that they might actually get to Ottawa. By the time they got to Regina, the feds decided they would go no further. On Dominion Day in 1935, Regina police and RCMP raided a rally attended by thousands of trekkers and supporters. A riot ensued with hundreds of injuries and two deaths.

The trek ended but not without a cost to the feds. In October of 1935, Bennett’s government was defeated. A year later the camps were closed down.

Pro-cavity groups proven wrong

Tooth cavities have increased in Calgary since the city stopped adding fluorides to its water in 2011 according to a study published in the journal Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology. Researchers from the University of Calgary compared the number of cavities in children for Edmonton, where water is still fluoridated, with Calgary where it is not.

The lead author of the study is candid: “This study points to the conclusion that tooth decay has worsened following removal of fluoride from drinking water, especially in primary teeth, and it will be important to continue monitoring these trends.”

The pro-cavity groups –let’s call the anti-fluoridation groups what they are – ran a scare campaign against the fluoridation of Kamloops’ water supply in 2001 and won.

Like good scare campaigns, theirs contained an element of truth. Yes, fluorides are produced by chemical companies but to claim that they were dumping their toxic byproducts into our water was misleading. Yes, too much fluoride can lead to fluorosis but that would take much more than what was added to Kamloops’ water.

Let’s get the facts straight; ones that I challenge the pro-cavity groups to deny. All water is naturally fluoridated. As I said in my column of 2001 “All river water, well water, filtered water, reverse osmosis water, bottled water, and tap water is fluoridated.  The only water that isn’t is rain water collected in sterile containers, and distilled water.”

No wonder: Fluorine is the 13^th most abundant terrestrial element. The concentration of natural fluorides depends on the acidity of the water and length of time in contact with rocks and soil. River water is less fluoridated than well water. Kamloops’ water is naturally fluoridated with more than one-half the concentration necessary to prevent tooth decay.

Fluoridation is nature’s way of reducing cavities. The benefits of fluoridation weren’t discovered by some mad scientist who experimented on his tortured patients by pouring fluorine down their throats. The benefits were discovered incidentally in the early 1900s by a Colorado Springs dentist, Frederick S. McKay, who noticed that many of his patients had brown stains on their teeth and reduced cavities. The brown stains were caused by too much fluoride (fluorosis). When the fluorides were reduced, the stains went away and the benefits remained.

If our water is already fluoridated, you might reasonably ask, why add more? At about 0.5 parts per million, Kamloops’ water doesn’t have quite enough. When I wrote my column in 2001, the recommended amount was 1 part per million but according the Calgary study, 0.7 parts will do.

Some countries act responsibly. I just returned from Mexico where I noticed that fluorine are added to salt, much in the way that iodine (another halogen) is added to ours to prevent of intellectual and developmental disabilities, and thyroid gland problems. Children in Mexico are protected from the pro-cavity groups.

I take the issue personally. While researching Kamloops before moving here, one of the appealing features was the city’s fluoridated water supply. My son grew up with flawless teeth due to fluoridation, dental hygiene, and heredity. I don’t know of any studies in Kamloops but my dentist tells me that he sees more cavities now, especially in low income families.

The dental health of Kamloops’ most vulnerable have been put at risk because of a misguided lobby.

Zombie Canadian mining company stalks Costa Rica

The vital statistics of Infinito Gold, based in Calgary, don’t look good. It has no functioning mines and a negative working capital of $154 million. Monitor magazine assesses their condition bluntly: “Infinito should be six feet under.”

Yet, it staggers on. The only thing keeping the zombie mining company going in Costa Rica is cash infusions from Calgary billionaire Ronald Mannix. He refuses to let it die.

If you’ve been to Costa Rica, you know how important eco-friendly tourism is to the small Central American country. Infinito seems to have been blind to that culture when they bought land on the border of Nicaragua to build an open-pit mine fifteen years ago.

When I visited the area near the border of Nicaragua in 2012, Costa Rican pride in their pristine rivers and forests was evident.  Back in June 2002, on the occasion of World Environment Day, the Costa Rican president of the time, Abel Pacheco, banned open-pit mining completely.

But not even banishment could stop the mining company from lurching forward. In an apparent bribe, Mannix flew to Costa Rica in 2008 to offer $200,000 to a Foundation named after the new president Oscar Arias Sánchez. Suspiciously, shortly after the trip, the president decreed that the open-pit mining ban was lifted.

Costa Ricans were incensed and through a citizen court secured a moratorium on Infinito’s activities; regrettably, not before the company had done $10 million in damage to the proposed mining site.

Costa Rica’s attorney general wanted to get to the bottom of Sánchez’s motives for lifting the ban. While that move would be virtually impossible in Canada under the iron fist of the PM, Costa Rica’s attorney general boldly investigated possible wrongdoing of his own government.

The key was whether the $200,000 offered by Mannix had actually been transferred to the president’s foundation. A request was made of Canada’s Department of Justice to provide a definitive answer. At first, Canada ignored the request, and then stonewalled by demanding additional information from Costa Rica; disclosure of which would have breached the country’s privacy laws.

In the absence of cooperation from Canada, Costa Rica’s attorney general recently stated the case against Sánchez would have to be closed for lack of corroborating evidence.

When apparent bribery doesn’t work, Mannix has yet another scheme to jolt the lifeless body of Infinito. It’s called investor rights. The concept was first embedded in NAFTA, soon to be entrenched in the TPP.  Rick Arnold explains the twisted strategy.

“Time to call it quits? Nope. Infinito Gold’s main backer, the unremitting Mannix, decided to up the ante by gambling on an investor–state lawsuit against Costa Rica, to be heard outside the courts by a private, investor-friendly World Bank tribunal. The legal costs would be expensive, but a win could earn the empty shell of a company megabucks in compensation for not building its mine.”

Even if Mannix wins, the shattered hulk of Infinito will crumple. It’s a lose-lose situation. Costa Rica will lose $94 million for rejecting a mine that was never wanted, promoted by a vindictive Canadian, conducted by a tribunal in secret.

Legalize all drugs

Don’t use drugs. If these two statements seem contradictory, it’s understandable. Legalization is approval. And since drug abuse is a problem, why approve drug use?

The flaw in this argument is that drug abuse in not a legal problem, it’s a medical and social problem. It wastes lives and is a burden on our health care system; it destroys families; it consumes the time and resources of law enforcement agencies.

Prohibition is a well-intentioned initiative but it doesn’t work. As we discovered in the case of alcohol prohibition, booze was simply driven into the hands of criminals and organized crime who waged war against rivals.

Warring cartels and gangs in Mexico alone killed 120,000 in the years 2006 to 2013. That’s forty per cent more deaths than all the deaths due to illegal drug use in the U.S. according to data from the Center for Disease Control.

Guns in Canada are a serious problem. In the same period (2006 – 2013) there were approximately 1500 gun homicides in Canada. Not exactly the carnage that Mexico is experiencing  but that’s not the point: just because guns result in death and injury, no sensible person would suggest making them illegal.

What does make sense is the regulation of guns. Gun owners must obtain a Possession and Acquisition Licence and renew it every five years. Education makes sense. As a general rule, applicants must have passed the Canadian Firearms Safety Course.

Tobacco in Canada is a serious problem. In the same period, 259,000 Canadians died due to tobacco-related diseases according to the Canadian Cancer Agency. Education has reduced the number of Canadians who smoke from fifty to less than fifteen per cent.

Politicians have agreed for decades that education is key to harm reduction. As one of the founding members of the Calgary chapter of the Alberta Legalization of Cannabis Committee in 1976, I received letters from all leaders.

In his letter, then leader of the opposition Progressive Conservative party Joe Clark wrote: “In my view, a drug education programme would be far more beneficial and economical in attacking the problem than using law enforcement agencies and the courts.”

NDP leader Ed Broadbent thought that marijuana should be removed from the Criminal Code and placed under the Food and Drug Act and added: “I would agree with your statement that it does not appear to have any worse impact than alcohol.”

Prime Minster Trudeau wrote that his Bill S-19, one that would remove marijuana from the Food and Drug Act, died on the order paper but his government was pursuing the bill. “[My government] is working to make certain the legislation we introduce strikes a proper balance between concerns over the personal and social effects of penal laws aimed at discouraging its use.”

Time has stood still for the last four decades. Regressive Canadian governments have preferred to pander to misconceptions such as the “war on drugs,” or “prohibition works.”

Meanwhile the U.S., a place we think of a bastion of conservative thought, has leapt ahead of Canada. Now some states, such as Washington, have legalized the sale of marijuana. I just returned from Seattle and didn’t notice any reefer madness in the streets.