I am not talking about the star that led the three wise men in the bible but the Windsor Star, which did something on Dec 28 that few papers in North America have done. They gave a prominent warning to pregnant women and bottle-feeding parents, via an interview with Christine Till:

(Click on photo for interview)

This warning came on the brink of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, re-fluoridating its water (they stopped in 2013). In the context of what we now know about the dangers of fluoride to the fetal and infant brain it is an extremely irrational and reckless decision to go forward with re-fluoridation in 2021. But local politicians, like many decision-makers in North America who don’t have time to do their scientific homework (and without the issue being aired clearly in the media) it is too easy to be dazzled by the “authority” of local medical officers who simply pass on second hand messages on risks and benefits.  Especially, when these messengers of government “policy” are aided and abetted by slick pro-fluoridation lobbyists who with a straight face (and a friendly smile) assure these innocent men and women that “there is absolutely no evidence that at the level we fluoridate that fluoride can do any harm – absolutely none!” And who would say that if it wasn’t true?

But now comes the Windsor Star with a window into the truth.

Our household’s response was divided on this article, Ellen thought it was terrific, but my joy at seeing Christine Till’s wise words in print, was marred by the quote from a local politician who felt that the evidence for fluoride’s benefits to the teeth outweighed any uncertain damage to the brain. That was a shocker to me and in a letter to the Star I wrote,

“I was horrified to learn that some politicians in Windsor think that protecting children’s teeth is more important than protecting their brains. This is extremely poor judgment in my view…(The quality of Till’s) US government funded studies (Green, 2019 and Till, 2020)…are light years ahead of any studies purporting to demonstrate benefits.”

The Windsor Star has done its job. Hopefully, other newspapers (do we dare hope the NYTimes) will do theirs? But the question for Windsor is will the politicians do the most difficult thing any politician ever has to do and admit that they were duped by propagandists?