USA - City council gives boot to fluoride

By ROD STETZERrod.stetzer@lee.netWednesday,
February 18, 2009 3:03 PM CST
Plugging holes in the budget concerned the Chippewa Falls City Council more Tuesday night than preventing dental decay.
The council voted 5-2 not to act on the Chippewa County Board of Health’s request to become the third municipality in the county to add fluoride. A potential price tag of over $200,000 was too much for Council Member Susan Zukowski.
“I can’t see adding anything else to the mix,” she said of what have been an additional cost in the budget.
She was joined by council members Jack Covill, Brian Flynn, Greg Dachel and Jason Anderson in voting not to take action. Robert Hoekstra and Council President Dennis Doughty voted against the resolution. Hoekstra is also a member of the county’s board of health.
Adding fluoride was also shot down in 2004, after voters soundly defeated an advisory referendum 70 to 30 percent.
The council’s latest decision pleased Karen Polzin, a Chippewa Falls resident who spoke against adding fluoride.
“Economically, I don’t think it’s feasible. Most of the water used in the city is industrial, so I think it’s a waste,” she said of fluoride.
“I feel that now is not the time to be spending any extra dollars,” she said, adding: “I don’t feel the city should be medicating its citizens.”
Sheryl Shipman, a registered nurse for 30 years, agreed.
“Dental cavities are not the result of a lack of fluoride but due to poor nutrition and a lack of dental hygiene. There is a dietary problem. . . None of us are lacking fluoride.”
But dentist Randy Larue said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control considers adding fluoride in water to have been one of the greatest public health achievements in the 20th Century.
Kent Vandehaar has been a dentist in Chippewa Falls for 28 years and is the president-elect of the Wisconsin Dental Association.
He served on a city committee that looked into the fluoride issue in 2004.
“It’s astounding the amount of dental decay in this town,” Vandehaar said, who added that evidence shows fluoridating the water supply is safe.
“There are 60 years of experience with community water fluoride,” said Jean Durch, the director of the Chippewa County Public Health Department. She said it is safe when guidelines are followed.
“It’s about moderation, just like always, and it’s about control.”
She said a fluoride rinse program offered in the Chippewa Falls School District is once a week, and is not available during the school year.
City Public Works Director Rick Rubenzer said the 2004 city study of the issue estimated it would cost $209,000 to alter a city building to accommodate the fluoride that would be added to the city water supply. The same study estimated it would cost the city $8,800 to buy the chemical additive.
“I am concerned about the additional costs to the water utility payer,” Rubenzer said.
Cornell added fluoride to its water supply in 1966 and Stanley did the same in 1982. Water going to the Northern Wisconsin Center for the Developmentally Disabled in Chippewa Falls also has fluoride.
The Chippewa County villages and cities of Boyd, Cadott, Lake Hallie, New Auburn and Bloomer do not add fluoride.
Correction: A previous version of this story confused the Chippewa Falls Dental Clinic with the Marshfield Clinic's Dental Center. There is a four-month waiting list at the Marshfield Clinic, Chippewa Dental Center.