Longmeadow votes for fluoride The November 30 Longmeadow Town Meeting yielded rather interesting results and conclusions. All meeting articles that involved additional expenditures were approved at the meeting. The non-binding and binding articles that proposed referendums on termination of fluoridation and could save Longmeadow significant funds, were voted down by 115 residents present at the meeting between 10 and 11:30 p.m. Since there are about 11,000 eligible voters in Longmeadow, 115 residents represent about 1% of all eligible voters in Longmeadow. Because there is evidence that the dental effect of fluoride is topical rather than systemic ( see www.fluoridealert.org ), ingestion of fluoridated water does not contribute much to dental health. The above observations suggest the following conclusions: Longmeadow acts as if there are more than sufficient funds for the non-essential as well as essential needs of all residents. The opinions of the remaining 99% of Longmeadow residents do not have to be considered even if they never had an opportunity to vote on the fluoridation issue. Longmeadow residents who are convinced that fluoridation of water does more harm than good, have to accept the political reality that the Longmeadow Board of Health (LBH) makes the final decision on the fluoridation issue. The LBH is based on the premise that the industrial grade sodium fluoride that is delivered in a paper bag labeled "poison" and is administered systemically has only positive dental effects and no negative medical effects on any body organ. LBH also assumes that the quality of teeth in Longmeadow is significantly better that the quality of teeth in non-fluoridated Agawam, East Longmeadow, Hampten. and Wilberham and that this hypothetical difference in the quality of teeth can be attributed only to fluoridation and not to diet and dental hygiene. Furthermore, LBH also assumes that the non-fluoridated communities have the same percent incidence of chronic diseases such as Alzheimer's, arthritis, and hypothyroidism. On the positive side, I am convinced that fluoridation of the Longmeadow water will be terminated one day, just as it was in essentially all countries of Europe and in many communities in the US. When this happens, even the people who are now supporting fluoridation will be asking why did we ever start the fluoridation and why we did not terminate it sooner. George J. Krol Longmeadow