A ‘maybe’ vs. established science: Leave fluoride alone
It was free and it was fun. You got out of class and you got free toothpaste and toothbrushes. We didn’t know why, but it didn’t matter. We got out of math for a while. And got fewer cavities.
They gave us a white tube with a number on it. We used it every day at school and at home. We walked down the hall to a converted room to a long metal sink with water spraying from a metal pipe. Like the army. Later a dentist would come to see if we had any new cavities.
This was sixth grade in the 1950s in Philadelphia.
I learned years later they were testing fluoride in toothpaste. It was to be called Crest (some called it a Communist). It became the first toothpaste approved by the American Dental Association.
The point of all this? Winter Haven will no longer add fluoride to the city’s water.
Why? Because fluoride may lower IQ and cause brittle bones in children. Note the word ”may.” However, it does prevent cavities. Lots of them. No “may” there.
My hope is the city, along with 75% of America’s others, leave the big F alone. Before they come for my Crest.
Norman Small, Winter Haven
Trump’s first-term tariff was a disaster for farmers
Well done, juxtaposing Bruce Anderson’s column (Tariffs on our largest trading partners is a terrible idea) and the turkey cartoon, $36 trillion debt next to one another [Dec. 1, 2024].
I do have one disagreement with Professor Anderson: A blanket tariff against a nation is not simply silly, it’s downright stupid. President-elect Trump pulled a similar stunt in his first term of office, which resulted in the bankrupting of thousands of American farmers, requiring Trump to raid the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation for more than $70 billion to bail them out. Congress never approved that action.
The turkey cartoon, showing a federal debt of $36 trillion, is apt but could have been better had it shown America’s 806 billionaires eating that turkey since they’re the ones who piled that debt onto ordinary Americans by paying little or no tax on that accumulated wealth.
Yes, the average American has created this debacle by voting for politicians that give these massive tax breaks to the wealthy and the large corporations. Will they learn in time to avoid catastrophe in their old age? Probably not. America’s Middle Class is now only a few thousand. Soon there’ll be more billionaires than middle class citizens.
Richard Sutherland, Lakeland
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