USA - Healdsburg fluoride opponents to try again for ballot measure

Undaunted by a resounding defeat at the ballot box in 2014, opponents of fluoridation are mounting another try to convince Healdsburg voters to stop adding the substance to the city’s water supply.

Fluoride opponents are gathering voter signatures to place the issue on the November ballot, hoping the outcome will be different from last time, when 64 percent of voters said “yes” to keeping fluoride in the water and 34 percent said “no.”

This time around, they have shifted their approach to seeking a moratorium on the additive — which is widely used to combat tooth decay — until the city and fluoride suppliers provide detailed chemical reports and a written statement verifying its safety for ingestion.

Opponents also have opened up a new front in Marin County, pursuing a near-identical ballot measure to stop fluoridation in the Marin Municipal Water District, where the practice has been in place since the 1970s.

Their ultimate goal is to stop adding fluoride to the water entirely, despite scores of medical and scientific organizations that endorse the practice as a way to cut down on cavities, safely strengthen teeth and benefit families that don’t regularly visit the dentist.

But critics view the chemical compound as an unsafe form of mass medication and say it may not work in reducing tooth decay. They claim recent studies show it may cause lower IQs in children, hypothyroidism and some cancers.

“We are asking them to turn it off until they prove it is safe,” said Dawna Gallagher-Stroeh, the executive director of Clean Water Sonoma-Marin. The group is seeking to end fluoridation in Marin, as well as Healdsburg, the only community in Sonoma County that has it.

“They have to shut it off until they can provide verifiable safety studies for ingestion by all consumers,” she said...................