In Our View: Debate over fluoride should be based on facts

In 1945, Grand Rapids, Mich., became the first U.S. city to add fluoride to its drinking water. The purpose was to help prevent tooth decay; the commensurate result was an unending debate about the effectiveness and the supposed drawbacks of fluoride.

So, in these particularly contentious times, it is not surprising that fluoridation has resurfaced as a political football, with the Camas City Council moving toward halting the city’s 60-year practice of adding fluoride to its public drinking water. The council has voted 4-2 to instruct the city’s attorney to draft an ordinance to end the practice.

City Councilor Tim Hein said: “I don’t believe the general population should be exposed to fluoride if they don’t want to. I do believe fluoride works. I believe it should be up to those who want it to get it.”

That is a reasonable opinion. With almost all commercially sold toothpastes containing fluoride, and with fluoride supplements readily available, the public has access to a mineral that has been proven to protect tooth enamel and reduce the occurrence of dental cavities.

Camas Public Works Director Steve Wall said: “It is a community choice and always has been. We’re not required to add fluoride in our water system, but, if we do, we have requirements from the Department of Health and EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), including sampling, monitoring and notifications.”

In other words, if the elected leaders of Camas choose to stop fluoridating their city’s drinking water — a practice that costs $40,000 a year — that is their right. But the hope is that any decision is based on sound science and the public good rather than absurd theories that long have surrounded the issue.

For decades, as more cities added fluoride to their water, it was common for conspiracy theorists to insist that fluoridation was a Cold War scheme or an effort for the government to control minds. In the satirical 1964 movie “Dr. Strangelove,” one character says, “Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?”

The conspiracy theories have evolved over the past half-century. Now, the United States has a new secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who describes fluoride as “an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.” That is an absurd characterization, but it resonates with a segment of the population.

The Fluoride Action Network, which advocates for the removal of fluoride from drinking water, told Newsweek: “The U.S. is an extreme outlier when it comes to the use of fluoridation chemicals. More people drink artificially fluoridated water in the U.S. than the rest of the world combined.”

Meanwhile, a government report last year concluded that fluoride in drinking water at twice the recommended limit is linked with lower IQ in children. The recommended fluoridation level in the United States is much lower than the World Health Organization limit, rendering the study somewhat misleading for American purposes. But it can be informative for regions that have high fluoride levels that occur naturally in their water supplies.

Camas likely is only the beginning of the debate in Clark County. The city of Vancouver has added fluoride to drinking water since 1962, but Clark Public Utilities does not add the substance.

Debates about the practice are warranted, but those discussions should be based on facts rather than hyperbole.