Not compulsory to drink from the community water supply

Tony Wall at Stuff reports:

Anti-fluoride campaigners  were dealt a triple blow at yesterday’s local body elections, losing three referenda on fluoridation of water supplies by large margins.

Voters in Whakatane (60 per cent) and Hastings (63 per cent) voted for fluoride to be retained in their water supplies, and in Hamilton, 70 per cent voted for fluoride to be put back in the water after the city council removed it earlier this year.

Good victories for science.

“This means that 25 per cent of eligible voters are imposing fluoridation on the rest of society and at least 5461 voters and their families are forced to continue to have fluoride who clearly don’t want it.”

But they’re not.

I would vote against a law that said it is illegal to sell water in New Zealand that doesn’t have fluoride in it. Just as I was against compulsory folic acid additions to bread.

But what people voted for is not compulsion, but convenience.

We have community water supplies because it is convenient to do so, compared to each house having a water tank, or buying water from retailers. It is quite legitimate for the majority of a community to decide what they want in their community supply.

Those who don’t want to drink water with fluoride in it, don’t have to.

They can still use the community supply for the vast bulk of their water activities – showers, baths, dishwashers, washing machines, gardening etc.

For their actual drinking water, they can buy bottled water. You can buy that for 70 cents a litre. So that is say $1.40 a day only. Now if you really really think fluoride is a lethal poison, why wouldn’t you spend $1.40 a day on avoiding that?

It would be interesting to know from anti-fluoride people how many of them do refuse to drink from the community water supply?