James Beck, MD, PhD, is one of the leaders of the clean water movement in Canada, and co-author of the recently released The Case Against Fluoride.

This is meant as a report to interested parties and to those who have advised me on the community-issues meeting of the City Council of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.

The session of February 28 was devoted to the single issue of fluoridation. Lethbridge fluoridates its tap water but concern has risen among residents lately. One individual has got city council to invite opponents and proponents and Lethbridge residents to testify. The session lasted from 1:00pm to about 6:00pm. The first hour was given to three opponents of fluoridation (Neil Alho, Robert Dickson M.D. and me). The second part was given to proponents Peter Cooney, dental officer of health of Health Canada; Luke Shwart, dental officer of health of Alberta Health Services; and a public health official of AHS. Other individuals were given time to speak after that. There were, I estimate, 80 to 100 people present. (Lethbridge has a population of 85,000 and a city council consisting of the mayor and eight aldermen.)

Bob Dickson and I gave copies of The Case Against Fluoride to members of council. Neil Alho spoke of his motivations in opposing fluoridation. Bob Dickson gave his reasons as a family physician for opposing fluoridation. I divided the problem into considerations of efficacy, toxicity and ethicality and spoke of the recent Calgary experience, using that as a means to criticize the arguments of AHS and caution council to demand of all of us to give them the evidence by which we have come to our respective conclusions.

The presentations of the proponents were standard-issue except that the public health official, in his support of fluoridation, admitted that the imposition of fluoridation was “trampling on individual rights” or something to that effect.

More of the testimony of individual Lethbridge citizens was against than was for fluoridation. Many of them thanked us, the three designated opponents, for our efforts. We were interviewed by several institutions of radio, television and press.

The council members asked some good questions and seemed to challenge us, particularly Cooney and the public health official, to back up what we said. I came away with the impression that there are already five aldermen opposed to fluoridation and others open-minded and thinking about it.

Significantly, even though these community-issues meetings are not intended for decision-making by council, a motion to commit council to consider the issue in April was passed by a show of hands of councilors which looked unanimous to me. The maker of this motion said his purpose was to assure that—and assure the citizens that—this session was not the end of it, that council will deal with the issue in a short time. And the other councilors seemed to concur with that aim.

Jim Beck

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