USA - Activists want ban on fluoride in drinking water
BOSTON — Activists are pressuring the state to ban the practice of adding
fluoride compounds to public drinking water, saying it amounts to
mass-medicating without public consent. A proposal that went before a
legislative panel on Monday would outlaw the practice. Filed by Sen. Barbara
L'Italien, D-Andover, on behalf of a constituent, it would end a decades-old
public health campaign aimed at preventing tooth decay.
"Medical mandates like this are politics pretending to be science," said
Karen Spencer, a Gloucester activist who is involved with anti-fluoridation
campaigns. "No government has the right to put something into our water supplies
that harms people's health. It's immoral."
Spencer, one of several people who supported the ban during the hearing on
Monday, said studies are increasingly linking negative health impacts — such as
gastrointestinal ailments, thyroid disorders, kidney diseases and even autism —
to fluoride added to the water.
But Dr. John Fisher, a Salem dentist and a trustee of the Massachusetts
Dental Society, said the health benefits are indisputable. "Drinking fluoridated
water keeps teeth strong and reduces cavities by about 25 percent in children
and adults," he told the Joint Committee on Public Health. "Community water
fluoridation has not only proven to reduce dental decay but also lowered dental
costs, leading to outcomes that have important impact on overall health."
Fisher, chairman of the Better Oral Health for Massachusetts Coalition,
said research has shown that fluoridated water protects teeth without posing
health risks. The American Dental Association, American Medical Association and
National Cancer Institute endorse the practice. Fisher said the internet is
awash with misinformation about water fluoridation. "There's a lot of
distortions out there," he said. "I think these are generally good people who
believe what they say, but if they actually read the studies they might be more
inclined to accept the evidence in support of community water fluoridation as
safe, efficient and effective."
Who has fluoride in water.
At least 140 public water systems in the state — serving more than 4
million people — add fluoride compounds, according to the Department of Public
Health. Most have done so since the 1950s. The Massachusetts Water Resources
Authority — which serves more than 2.5 million people across 61 communities
including Marblehead, Peabody, Swampscott and Lynn — has fluoridated the water
for more than 30 years.
Water in Essex has been fluoridated since 1970, Gloucester since 1981 and
Manchester since 1983. Half the fluoride in Rockport's water occurs naturally,
according to the state Department of Health; the other half has been added since
1984.
Concerns about the health effects have kept several towns on the North
Shore and Merrimack Valley — including Georgetown, Merrimac and Rowley — from
doing so.
Other communities, such as Rockport and Gloucester, have voted to keep
using it.
The practice dates to the 1940s, when scientists discovered that people
whose water supplies had higher concentrations of the naturally occurring
chemical experienced less tooth decay.
After World War II, health officials embarked on a public campaign to add
fluoride to the public water supply, despite fierce resistance. At one point in
the '50s, some considered such programs part of a communist plot. Many fluoride treatments these days come from industrial byproducts
produced by aluminum companies, which sell fluoride compounds in liquid or
powder form wholesale for about $1.10 per pound. It's approved for human
consumption by the Food and Drug Administration.
"This stuff isn't being manufactured in a pharmaceutical lab and dispensed
by a doctor," said Chris Martel, an anti-fluoridation activist from Amesbury.
"It's an industrial byproduct scrubbed out of factory smokestacks in China and
indiscriminately dumped into our water supplies."
Amesbury stopped adding fluoride in 2009 due to concerns about its quality.
Two years later, residents voted to end the practice entirely. "If you want a fluoride treatment, get it from your dentist," Martel said.
"Introducing this into the municipal water supply makes no sense."
Limits for fluoride have fallen
Concerns about the detrimental effects of over-fluoridation prompted the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2011 to lower the recommended
level for fluoride in water supplies to 0.7 milligrams per liter.
It lowered the recommended level again four years later.
The changes were prompted, in part, by a federal study suggesting that too
much fluoride was streaking children's teeth and a recognition that many
Americans get fluoride from sources other than drinking water.
The MWRA and other communities lowered their fluoride levels.
In 2006, the National Academy of Sciences recommended the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency reduce its maximum fluoride level in drinking
water to below 4 milligrams. It warned that a lifetime of drinking water with
fluoride at that concentration could raise the risk of broken bones.
At present, 70 percent of Americans get water from systems that add
fluoride, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The CDC has called the fluoridation of water supplies to reduce cavities
"one of the leading public health achievements of the last century." But 200
municipalities nationwide have stopped the practice in the past decade.
Most of the country's major cities still use fluoride, but at least one,
Portland, Oregon, voted in 2013 to discontinue its use. Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston
Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhi.com
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