ICYMI this week ...

A round-up of the stories featured on the Daily News podcast

Jan 18, 2025

This past week, I had a feature on fluoride in Canada published at Truthout. They had approached me to write it and I went from being ambivalent to the issue to being mad that anyone wants to remove it from drinking water. It’s a very useful mineral! (In small doses, of course).

You can read the article here. While I started it in December, I had a hell of a time getting people to talk to me. Half my inquiries were ignored and half netted a “sorry, no comment.” I couldn’t tell if it was the time of year or the subject: no doubt people were irritated with having to defend fluoride in the face of yet another angry, anti-science mob.

The parallels with vaccination are obvious: fluoride is such a positive advancement that it’s impact has been rendered invisible, somewhat, making it easy for folks to oppose it. Not invisible of course to the oral health people, who are firmly united behind universal access to fluoride. But in the US, where three-quarters of Americans have access to fluoride, in Canada, it’s less than half. Our coverage is brutal. And municipalities hide behind the argument that it’s too expensive to maintain while conceding to a vocal yet tiny majority; a majority that is conspicuously absent of any oral health experts.

Anyway, it was a delight to write and even more delightful was coming back to that kind of jouralism. I didn’t write too many articles or features in 2024. I was tired by my work in 2023 (and one feature that brought me into 2024) and opportunities dried up in the aftermath of Oct. 7 2023. Plus, I had a book to write and so I focused on that. Today, my next book awaits the installation of a new government, and I’m glad to fill my time with articles about things like fluoride. Except I’ll be happy to never have to try to spell it correctly ever again.

Here are the headlines from this past week’s Daily News podcast episodes …

Quebec

Palestinian student assaulted in the Hall building

Le Hilton de Québec passe aux mains de quatre nations autochtones

ER staff should have helped, says Quebec man stranded outside hospital with sudden paralysis

British Columbia

Several Vancouver police officers under ‘neglect of duty’ investigation for Chelsea Poorman case

Alberta

Injunction stalls Red Deer overdose prevention site rollback

‘Not asking for a lot’: School support workers off the job in Edmonton, nearby area

Ontario

Trial stayed against 98-year-old nun accused of historic sex crimes at residential and day schools