Water Fluoridation

* “Fluoridation Bill Passes First Test in Legislature” (April 19) was very generous with the readily available statistical information on America’s fluoride debate: “$40 per person over a lifetime” vs. “just one filling costs $70”; “only 17% of Californians receive fluoride in their drinking water, compared to 62% nationwide.”

Suspiciously absent from these facts and figures is the amount of profit that the chemical companies (which have already poisoned our environment by the overuse of chlorine) stand to rake in by converting densely populated areas, such as Los Angeles, over to fluoridated drinking water.

G. FRED LOGAN

Laguna Niguel

* I read that the fluoridation of drinking water has passed its first legislative test. The real issue here is not whether fluoridation prevents tooth decay, or has long-term harmful effects, but whether government has the ethical and legal right to mandate a substance into one’s body? Or do individuals still possess the right of freedom of choice to decide what they want to put into their bodies?

DON FEIN

Los Angeles