The water superintendent for Richmond, Vt., resigned this week after admitting that he had been lowering the fluoride levels in the town’s water below state guidelines for more than a decade.In a five-page resignation letter dated Oct. 17, the superintendent, Kendall Chamberlin, said he had lowered the fluoride level to 0.3 parts per million. The state recommends a level of 0.7 parts per million to protect residents’ dental health.Josh Arneson, the town manager, said in an email that he was first made aware of the fluoridation issue when the state’s health department reached out to him in June. The department informed him that the town’s water supply, which services 1,000 people, had not reached optimal fluoridation in more than three years. Mr. Arneson then followed up with the agency in September. Mr. Chamberlin — who was the water superintendent for over 30 years — later confessed in his resignation letter that the town’s water had not met the state’s recommended fluoride level since 2011, by his design.
So there is plenty of opprobrium to be heaped upon Mr. Chamberlin, but what I would like to understand is this - how was he not caught? What are the procedures for adding sodium fluoride or fluorosilicic acid to the town's system - surely someone would have noticed that the town was either both using and buying less fluoridation reagent. How was this not noticed? ("Gee, Ken, we've sure bought a lot less sodium fluoride since last year - why?")
It seems he didn't violate any laws but stopping fluoridation isn't politically popular. Modern science proves that ingested fluoride doesn't reduce tooth decay and is health-harming - making fluoridation moot. Fluoride, like all drugs, has side effects. Lobbied legislators shouldn't be allowed to prescribe any drug, deliver it by increasingly contaminated water supplies and dose it based on thirst and not age, health, weight and need. Then they never ever follow up to see who, if any, are harmed or overdosed.
ReplyDeleteI'm not anonymous. Here's my blog http://FluorideDangers.Blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteCJ, I'd say he was caught--just not very quickly.
ReplyDeleteAs to why it was the state instead of the town... probably nobody was there to catch him. Based on a quick Google search, Richmond has ~4k population of whom ~1k are on municipal water. Google Street View shows a decent size town hall, but that houses the town government, the police department, the post office and the board of education. I would bet some money that the superintendent is the only office employee with direct responsibility for water, and that there's maybe one person in the town finance department, and they're mostly busy just chasing payments and documentation. If you want to not have anyone looking over your shoulder, that would be a good place to do it.