Imagine a substance that could increase your chances of bone cancer by 600 percent, a substance that if consumed over a period of time could lower your IQ by five to 10 points.  Imagine a substance that is slightly more toxic than lead and slightly less toxic than arsenic. Now consider the possibility of this substance being consumed by over 70 percent of the U.S. population in immeasurable quantities through the nation’s water supply.  Yep, this is all real.  It is called water fluoridation. I grew up like any other child in Louisiana, learning the basics of life as taught by my family and friends. Wash your hands before you eat, wipe your shoes off on the doormat, and brush your teeth morning and night were the cornerstones of my childhood lessons in life, and somewhere along the way I learned about the “magic” of fluoride.  First of all, fluoride is a pretty cool-sounding word.  That matters a lot when you’re a kid.  Secondly, I remember being very impressed by my hometown’s dental health ad campaign on TV.  I think it involved a big smiling hippo with sunglasses that drove around in a racecar and kept saying stuff like, “I don’t drink beer often, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis,” or actually maybe that wasn’t it.  I can’t remember.  All I know is that the big smiling hippo convinced me at a very young age that fluoride was obviously a good thing, even if I knew hardly anything about it. Flash-forward to present day — my opinion of fluoridation could not be more different.  My mind changed when I discovered a new state law, Act 761, which will cost us over $15 million to expand water fluoridation across Louisiana.  I could go on and on about why we should avoid fluoridation but I would prefer you not take my word on it. I challenge all who read this to simply do a Google search on “the effects of fluoridation,” and I promise within two minutes of reading you will find enough information to cause alarm. I will end with a quote by Dr. Dean Burke, co-founder of the National Cancer Institute.  “More people have died in the last 30 years from cancer connected with fluoridation than all the military deaths in the entire history of the United States.” Help to reverse this law by going to www.safewaterlouisiana.org.Jason Meauxpetroleum engineering junior—————Contact The Daily Reveille’s opinion staff at [email protected]