USA - Fluoride benefits questioned at forum

By Ray Lamont Staff Writer

Drawing on local input, a new short film, and live Skype online exchanges from San Diego and Washington, D.C., members of the Cape Ann Fluoride Action Network made their case for Gloucester voters to try to pull the plug on the addition of fluoride to the city's water system when they go to the polls on Tuesday.

Tracey Ritchie, one of the forum organizers, noted from the outset that the event, held at Sawyer Free Library, was not to be "a debate," though the audience of just more than 30 included Gloucester Board of Health Chairman Dr. Richard Sagall and Rockport Board of Health member Dr. Russell Sandfield -- both supporters of continued community fluoridation.

Gloucester voters will be asked in a nonbinding ballot question Tuesday whether they want the city to continue adding fluoride to its water; voters in Rockport opted to stand by adding supplemental fluoride to that town's water last spring.

Many of Thursday night's comments and audience questions centered on potential harmful effects of the process. But Linda Wrinn, who works as a speech language pathologist at Gloucester's Seacoast Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, noted that she and others believe the desire to add fluoride to drinking water should be a matter of choice.

"It's important to remember that we have the right to to choose our medical treatment," she said, citing fluoride and fluoridation as a medical treatment to improve dental health, especially in children.

"CAFAN is not opposed to the personal use of fluoride," she told the audience, which included interim Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken. "If a person chooses to use  fluoride, that's his or her choice.  But when we have it added to our drinking water, we cannot choose that medication. That choice is being taken away from us. This is a case of mass-medicating our citizens."

The discussion came eight days after a forum hosted by the Gloucester Board of Health that promoted a "yes" vote in support of the continued fluoridation of Gloucester's drinking water. At that event, Dr. Myron Allukian Jr., the City of Boston' dental health director for 34 years and now president of the Massachusetts Coalition for Oral Health, dismissed fluoride foes as akin to  “people who would argue the Earth is flat.”

While residents raised questions about fluoride's perceived contribution to diseases, there were no flat Earth conspiracy arguments raised Thursday. Speaking via a Skype link from Washington and San Diego, respectively, Dr. William Hirzy, a former risk assessment scientist with the federal Environmental Protection Agency, and Dr. David Kennedy of the Preventive Dental Health Association cited their own research and that of others regarding fluoridation's negative effects.

They questioned fluoride's benefits as did Wrinn, who cited World Health Organization statistics showing little difference between improved dental health in countries that use fluoride compared to those that don't.............