USA - Machias to consider removing fluoride from water

MACHIAS, Maine — After one man complained about the possible dangers of fluoride, selectmen here have decided to let residents choose at the annual town meeting in June whether to continue fluoridating the water supply.

If residents vote to remove fluoride from the drinking water, Machias will be one of only four municipalities in Maine to discontinue using the additive, which is designed to improve dental health.

Carlton Gardner, compliance enforcement team manager for the Maine Drinking Water Program, said he knows of only three Maine municipalities whose residents have voted to stop fluoridating water. The communities of Jackman, Seal Harbor and Northeast Harbor all voted to discontinue adding fluoride in 2007, he said.

“Every once in awhile it comes up … but it doesn’t happen often,” Gardner said.

The Machias selectmen decided to put the question to townspeople in the form of a warrant article at the annual town meeting after resident Vince Roberts urged them to stop fluoridating.

“I feel that … fluoride in the water is highly dangerous,” Roberts said at the Jan. 13 selectmen’s meeting. “It’s stronger than chlorine. It makes chlorine look like candy. People just don’t realize it.”

Roberts handed out copies of “Fluorine Facts” from the About.com website and underlined a passage that says, “The presence of sodium fluoride in drinking water at the level of 2 ppm [parts per million] may cause mottled enamel in teeth, skeletal fluorisis and may be associated with cancer and other diseases.”

According to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Environmental Health website, the level of fluoride used in water in Maine is 0.7 ppm...........