Canada - Drayton Valley ends the practice of adding fluoride to drinking water

Town turns the tap
Editorial
Posted 3 hours ago
Last week Drayton Valley joined a growing list of communities around the world to end the practice of adding fluoride to drinking water. It would have been better if they’d waited a little longer.

Fluoridation, which helps prevent tooth decay, has been hailed as one of the 10 greatest public health initiatives of the last 100 years. But, for all that, there have been growing rumblings of public discontent over the practice. That’s partly due to concerns — mostly unproven— about the overall safety of fluoridation. And it’s partly because, in these environmentally sensitive times, it just feels like there’s something wrong with the idea of adding a chemical to something as pure and natural as drinking water.

Regardless, however, of concerns among the public, the vast majority of opinion in the medical community stands as squarely behind fluoridation today as it did when the practice was first introduced.

There is, as Coun. Keith Ebbs noted last week, a vast amount of misinformation and conflicting information available on fluoridation. Wading through all the conflicting arguments requires a great deal of time, and a corresponding level of scientific knowledge. Since the practice of fluoridation has been suspended in Drayton Valley for several months it’s hard to see what harm it would have done for council to wait a little longer before making a final decision.