The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor Another northern Manitoba community will stop adding fluoride to its water supply. Following a town council decision, Churchill will end the controversial practice on Sept. 15, the Winnipeg Free Press reports. 'This is awesome,' Mark Brackley, spokesman for a Churchill group that spearheaded the stop-fluoridation movement, told the newspaper. An official with the Town of Churchill told the Free Press that a fluoride rinse program will be offered at the local school in September, and anyone wishing treatment can obtain it there. Fluoridation has become increasingly controversial in Canada and beyond in recent years, even as the respected U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention finds no scientific basis for allegations that fluoride is a health risk. The Manitoba government, while it does not mandate fluoridation, supports the measure as a means of fighting cavities, particularly among vulnerable populations. When Flin Flon City Council voted to end fluoridation in July 2011, they rejected the suggestion that the matter should go to a referendum, as was done in Churchill. Medicating Leading the anti-fluoridation charge was Coun. Bill Hanson, who said fluoridation is tantamount to 'medicating people without their informed consent.' Ed Yauck, a retired dentist and former mayor, said at the time that council will see a petition to have a fluoride referendum coincide with the 2014 civic election. Flin Flon had begun fluoridating in 1989 following that fall's referendum. By a margin of 50 votes, out of 1,334 cast, fluoridation supporters won what was a divisive battle. But now the only major northern Manitoba community still fluoridating is The Pas, and opponents there have been making their voices heard. On the other side of the border, neither Creighton nor Denare Beach add the cavity-fighting compound to the water supply.
