USA - Phoenix set to reassess fluoridation
Phoenix set to reassess fluoridation
by Lynh Bui - Jun. 10, 2012 10:55 PM
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Reversing course
In the last 20 years, more than 300 communities in the United States and Canada stopped adding fluoride to public water supplies or rejected the practice completely, according to the Fluoride Action Network.
In 2001, Flagstaff voters rejected for the third time attempts by the city to fluoridate water, with 58 percent voting no.
The issue was so heated, turnout was 12 percentage points above what it was in the City Council election the year before, according to the Arizona Daily Sun.
Nationally, smaller cities and towns such as Pottstown, Pa., or Lawrenceburg, Tenn., have stopped fluoridation.
Now, larger municipalities are thinking twice. Last year, Pinellas County, Fla., stopped fluoridating water for nearly 1 million residents by a 4-3 vote of county commissioners. And in New York City, Councilman Peter Vallone has pushed for legislation since 2010 to get rid of fluoride in water serving 8.2 million residents.
Gary O. Jones, a Mesa family dentist and Arizona Dental Association president, said the EPA's latest change shows there is regular scientific review of water fluoridation standards to ensure that it's safe.
The major public-health benefit of fluoridating water comes for lower-income families who can't afford dental care, Jones said. Preventing cavities before they form is the key.
"The concerns are comparable to me as people looking at not immunizing children anymore," said Jones, who was part of the movement to fluoridate water in Mesa in the 1990s. "We have 65 years of research that backs up the fact that it doesn't cause any health problems."
California dentist Bill Osmunson, one of the most vocal anti-fluoridation activists in the country, said someday the practice will be considered "one of the 20th century's greatest public-health blunders."
Osmunson, a spokesman for the Fluoride Action Network and a dentist for 35 years, said he promoted fluoridation for the first 25 years of his career but changed his tune after patients begged him to research the issue. What he found was like a "knee in the gut."
He said people drink different amounts of water daily, which means some people drinking tap water are consuming far more fluoride than others. "How can you give a drug to everybody in a dosage that's not regulated?" Osmunson asked.
by Lynh Bui - Jun. 10, 2012 10:55 PM
................
Reversing course
In the last 20 years, more than 300 communities in the United States and Canada stopped adding fluoride to public water supplies or rejected the practice completely, according to the Fluoride Action Network.
In 2001, Flagstaff voters rejected for the third time attempts by the city to fluoridate water, with 58 percent voting no.
The issue was so heated, turnout was 12 percentage points above what it was in the City Council election the year before, according to the Arizona Daily Sun.
Nationally, smaller cities and towns such as Pottstown, Pa., or Lawrenceburg, Tenn., have stopped fluoridation.
Now, larger municipalities are thinking twice. Last year, Pinellas County, Fla., stopped fluoridating water for nearly 1 million residents by a 4-3 vote of county commissioners. And in New York City, Councilman Peter Vallone has pushed for legislation since 2010 to get rid of fluoride in water serving 8.2 million residents.
Gary O. Jones, a Mesa family dentist and Arizona Dental Association president, said the EPA's latest change shows there is regular scientific review of water fluoridation standards to ensure that it's safe.
The major public-health benefit of fluoridating water comes for lower-income families who can't afford dental care, Jones said. Preventing cavities before they form is the key.
"The concerns are comparable to me as people looking at not immunizing children anymore," said Jones, who was part of the movement to fluoridate water in Mesa in the 1990s. "We have 65 years of research that backs up the fact that it doesn't cause any health problems."
California dentist Bill Osmunson, one of the most vocal anti-fluoridation activists in the country, said someday the practice will be considered "one of the 20th century's greatest public-health blunders."
Osmunson, a spokesman for the Fluoride Action Network and a dentist for 35 years, said he promoted fluoridation for the first 25 years of his career but changed his tune after patients begged him to research the issue. What he found was like a "knee in the gut."
He said people drink different amounts of water daily, which means some people drinking tap water are consuming far more fluoride than others. "How can you give a drug to everybody in a dosage that's not regulated?" Osmunson asked.
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