Background on Stephen Dean
Since the 1960s, the chiropractor Stephen Dean has been one of the leading activists in Massachusetts opposing fluoridation of the water supply. Based in Springfield, he has been an effective organizer in antifluoridation campaigns in communities around the state, arguing against fluoridation both as a medical hazard and a violation of individual choice.
As President of Massachusetts Communities for Pure Water and of the Save Our Water Committee, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Fluoride Action Network, Dean was well connected to the national antifluoridation movement. Freedom of choice, he argued, stood high in his philosophy. "We believe fluoridation violates health freedom, the freedom to choose what chemicals go into our body," he was quoted as saying during debate over fluoridation of the water supply in Woburn in 2002. "I believe in the freedom of people to choose against fluoridation."[1] Later he added: "I don't base my resistance to fluoride on science. I base it on common sense. Even if it has no ill effects -- which it does -- I would not force anybody to take a chemical through the water supply for the rest of their life."[2]
In 2005, Dean led the successful effort to strike down a state mandate to fluoridate all civic water supplies.
