USA - $1.5 million for fluoridation
Dental foundation offers $1.5 million for fluoridation
Posted: Saturday, Feb 10th, 2007
AMANDA SCHOENBERG
Five years after its first attempt, the California Dental Association Foundation is renewing efforts to fluoridate Watsonville water with a new funding offer of $1,563,038.
In a letter Wednesday to City Manager Carlos Palacios, the foundation announced it would offer $1,242,700 for construction of water fluoridation facilities in Watsonville. Funding also includes $320,338 for maintenance and operation for the first two years, according to Jon Roth, executive director of the CDA Foundation, which acts as the charitable arm of the CDA.
The new grant follows years of legal wrangling and heated debate over adding fluoride to city water since the City Council first accepted a $946,000 offer to fund fluoridation facility construction and first-year operation costs in 2002. In response, fluoride foes led the drive for voter-approved Measure S, which banned adding substances not approved by the Food and Drug Administration to city water.
After the city rejected a revised award from the CDA, the state Department of Health ordered the city to comply with the offer. Watsonville then pursued the case in Santa Cruz Superior Court, where a judge ruled in 2004 that state law trumped the local ordinance against adding fluoride to water. The Sixth Appellate Court upheld the decision.
Debate ground to a halt on Feb. 8, 2006, when the California Supreme Court declined to hear the city’s case against adding fluoride.
Since that ruling, Roth said the city had sent revised cost estimates to the CDA Foundation. A working group also needed time to advise the foundation, which is responsible for distributing money for fluoridation from the California Endowment, a private philanthropic group, Roth said.
Watsonville has long been considered an ideal fluoridation site because of its significant oral health needs, Roth said. The CDA Foundation hopes the new facilities can be constructed within 18 months, he said.
Santa Cruz County groups, including Salud Para La Gente, Santa Cruz Medical Society and the Monterey Bay Dental Society, that tout fluoridation as the most effective way to prevent tooth decay are now turning their attention to the City Council, which must decide whether to accept the grant.
Laura Marcus, executive director of Dientes Community Dental Care in Santa Cruz, cheered the offer, adding that her organization has called for water fluoridation since 1994. According to the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency, California has the second highest rate of tooth decay in the country, next to Arkansas.
“Tooth decay can be easily prevented,” Marcus said. “Fluoridation is a social justice issue. Watsonville kids deserve the same chance as other children.”
Easily prevented? Yes for intelligent educated people with intelligent caring families not by wholesale medication of contaminated fluoride
Posted: Saturday, Feb 10th, 2007
AMANDA SCHOENBERG
Five years after its first attempt, the California Dental Association Foundation is renewing efforts to fluoridate Watsonville water with a new funding offer of $1,563,038.
In a letter Wednesday to City Manager Carlos Palacios, the foundation announced it would offer $1,242,700 for construction of water fluoridation facilities in Watsonville. Funding also includes $320,338 for maintenance and operation for the first two years, according to Jon Roth, executive director of the CDA Foundation, which acts as the charitable arm of the CDA.
The new grant follows years of legal wrangling and heated debate over adding fluoride to city water since the City Council first accepted a $946,000 offer to fund fluoridation facility construction and first-year operation costs in 2002. In response, fluoride foes led the drive for voter-approved Measure S, which banned adding substances not approved by the Food and Drug Administration to city water.
After the city rejected a revised award from the CDA, the state Department of Health ordered the city to comply with the offer. Watsonville then pursued the case in Santa Cruz Superior Court, where a judge ruled in 2004 that state law trumped the local ordinance against adding fluoride to water. The Sixth Appellate Court upheld the decision.
Debate ground to a halt on Feb. 8, 2006, when the California Supreme Court declined to hear the city’s case against adding fluoride.
Since that ruling, Roth said the city had sent revised cost estimates to the CDA Foundation. A working group also needed time to advise the foundation, which is responsible for distributing money for fluoridation from the California Endowment, a private philanthropic group, Roth said.
Watsonville has long been considered an ideal fluoridation site because of its significant oral health needs, Roth said. The CDA Foundation hopes the new facilities can be constructed within 18 months, he said.
Santa Cruz County groups, including Salud Para La Gente, Santa Cruz Medical Society and the Monterey Bay Dental Society, that tout fluoridation as the most effective way to prevent tooth decay are now turning their attention to the City Council, which must decide whether to accept the grant.
Laura Marcus, executive director of Dientes Community Dental Care in Santa Cruz, cheered the offer, adding that her organization has called for water fluoridation since 1994. According to the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency, California has the second highest rate of tooth decay in the country, next to Arkansas.
“Tooth decay can be easily prevented,” Marcus said. “Fluoridation is a social justice issue. Watsonville kids deserve the same chance as other children.”
Easily prevented? Yes for intelligent educated people with intelligent caring families not by wholesale medication of contaminated fluoride
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