The LA fluoridation mandate bill may now go into the hands of a Conference Committee after the Senate rejected the House's amendments.

The Louisiana Senate yesterday (6/17) extensively debated whether there was sufficient evidence to ban hand-held cell phones while driving because there wasn't enough evidence that it causes accidents.

However, there is NO evidence that any Louisiana child or adult is fluoride-deficient, yet the Senators didn't utter a peep about the issue. I assume it's because they don't really understand it and don't want to look foolish asking a question they don't already know the answer to. Or maybe they don't care to hear the truth.

The truth is that since fluoride is neither a nutrient nor essential for healthy teeth, there is no fluoride-deficiency illness.

When fluoridation mandate bills are presented to legislators, I believe all they hear is blah, blah, blah; but what they see is dollars signs - representatives of organizations with loads of PAC money, potential $peaking engagements, photo ops, etc.

So passing this bill without constituent knowledge helps the dentists as well as the legislators.

The reality is that dentists need to be mandated to actually treat low-income people or allow other groups to do so because Americans are dying from untreated tooth decay.

However, there's no special interest group approaching our legislators to require that.