By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
A Del Rio man has asked city council members to reconsider adding fluoride to the city’s drinking water.
Rick Martinez spoke to the council during the Citizen Comments portion of its agenda Tuesday.
Martinez told the council, “I’ve heard a couple of times that folks were discussing the fluoridation of the municipal water supply, and I found it kind of interesting. I really found it interesting that we hadn’t caught on to what the vast majority of larger municipalities are doing right now and removing fluoride from their water.
“And it’s not simply because there’s a question of elevated aluminum and folks having a propensity to end up with Alzheimer’s and neurological degenerative diseases,” Martinez added, saying he would provide council members with a packet of information on the subject.
Martinez continued, saying he believed it would be a good idea for the city to take the information into consideration.
He said, “There’s a real good argument that a lot of folks say, ‘Well, this is the fluoridation that kids get.’ Well, I have a lot of studies that will show you that these are 70-year-old studies that they did for fluoridation, where they put it into the water supply, and they’re flawed, because now we’re figuring out that it (fluoridation) doesn’t do what they’re saying that it does.
“It’s probably a good thing to really look into it, and I’m going to bring you guys a package, and you can see what I’ve looked into, because I really think that it’s probably a good thing to follow what the other municipalities are doing, the larger municipalities that aren’t in Texas, and some in Texas as well, that are removing fluoridation from the water,” Martinez said.
He continued, “If there’s a question that the fluoridation is for children, so they can actually take care of their teeth, well, that’s a facile argument because how many soda pops and how many bottled waters do we sell at H-E-B? And who is that geared towards? I can see that there’s cartoons on those soda pop bottles, aren’t there?
“So they’re not for us, they’re not for adults. The people that we’re affecting is the very population that’s susceptible to Alzheimer’s and neurological degenerative diseases. These older people, the aging population, is the one that actually drinks the water supply, not the children.
“The kids can’t drink that. How many water fountains do we have at the high school? So there is no possible way the kids can be drinking that. How many water fountains do we have throughout the school district? We have a few, but we all know the kids drink bottled treats.
“So I just think it warrants review. We really need to consider this, and I don’t think just a small amount of folks should be making that decision. I think that we really need to take this into account. The larger municipalities have said, ‘Hey, you know what? We can’t afford it.’ That’s the first thing to go is fluoridation.
“There’s no reason to have it if all of the science is flawed. If we know that it’s causing issues with kids, if we know that it’s causing issues with adults, and we have it documented, then why even question it? Why even have it? I don’t understand the reason behind it,” Martinez finished, repeating his intent to bring council members a packet with additional information about the issue.
Council members made no comments following Martinez’s presentation, as they typically do not have a dialogue with persons speaking during the Citizen Comments portion of the agenda.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com.
