Everybody knows the fluoridation is either a communist plot or a devious move by the Trilateral Commission.

Should NJ add fluoride to water?
Legislators will vote on mandate popular in other states

by Adriana Rambay Fern?ndez
Hudson Reporter staff writer
Mar 11, 2012

Heated debate has ensued in the last few weeks about pending legislation to inject fluoride into New Jersey's water. The legislation has passed through both legislative health committees and will soon move to the Assembly floor for a vote.

Sponsors of the bi-partisan legislation have said that adding fluoride to public water will reduce the prevalence of tooth decay, but opponents argue against the measure, citing the cost, potential health risks, and lack of choice in the matter if the state mandates the practice.

Local advocacy groups are attempting to thwart the legislature?s efforts to ?medicate the water supply,? calling fluoride a toxic chemical that can not be regulated once it enters the public water system.

Introduced in the 1940s

New Jersey ranks 49 out of 50 states, second to last to Hawaii, in its percentage of population that drinks fluoridated public water at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?s (CDC) recommended therapeutic level of one part per million, according to the New Jersey American Dental Association.

Michigan was the first state to fluoridate the water supply in 1945 after scientists discovered that people living near water supplies with higher levels of fluoride had less cavities. Fluoride was introduced into the New York City water supply in 1964.

In the 1970s, Jersey City water was fluoridated for a number of years before the practice was stopped due to opposition. As a Jersey City councilman in 2002, current Mayor Jerramiah Healy sought to return fluoridation and introduced a resolution that was never enacted upon.

Only 13 percent of New Jerseyans drink fluoridated water, according to data from the CDC. Several communities in Gloucester, Monmouth, and Somerset counties, among others, currently fluoridate their water.

Link to tooth decay

Almost all water contains fluoride, which is a naturally occurring mineral. But at low levels it is not sufficient enough to prevent tooth decay. Studies have shown that fluoridation of water can reduce tooth decay by about 60 percent. Despite the prevalence of fluoride in a number of products such as toothpaste, mouthwash, and gels, the CDC continues to recommend fluoridating water and listed it as one of the 10 most valuable public health measures of the 20th century.

Senator Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex) said in a statement, ?By fluoridating our public water supplies we can directly improve the dental health of all New Jerseyans in the least expensive and most effective way possible. He is the chairman of the Senate Health Committee and sponsor of the bill.

Fear of risks

There are some downsides of fluoridation, even according to the CDC.

According to the CDC, children under age 8 and younger exposed to excessive amounts of fluoride have an increased chance of developing pits in the tooth enamel. Excessive consumption of fluoride over a lifetime may increase the likelihood of bone fractures, and may lead to pain and tenderness of the bone, a condition called skeletal fluorosis. According to the EPA, it is likely that some children 8 and younger are exposed to too much fluoride, at least occasionally while their teeth are forming, because of their high fluid intake relative to their body weight and/or because of high natural levels of fluoride in their local drinking water.

However, the CDC claims that as long as you follow toothbrush guidelines for your child, it is highly unlikely that they will become overexposed to fluoride. Children under 2 years of age should not brush with fluoride.

Fluoride opponents argue that there is very little control over how much fluoride a person consumes, due to its availability in teas and products made with fluoridated water. They say it shouldn?t be increased for everyone regardless of age and health. They also claim that the benefits of fluoride are topical, and thus provides little benefit if ingested in water.

Costly, or cost-saving?

The New Jersey Dental Association, using CDC estimates, determined that fluoridating New Jersey?s public water supply would net an estimated savings of $108 million annually, or more than $2 million per week, in dental treatment costs.

On the other hand, some Water Utility companies oppose the use of fluoride due to the added cost they estimate in the hundreds of thousands to millions ? a cost that could be passed to costumers.

?Start-up capital expenses would be $1 billion to $2 billion on the drinking water side and $3 billion to $5 billion on the wastewater treatment side,? said Ron Farr of the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission during a Senate hearing last month.

Assemblyman Herb Conaway, a major sponsor of the bill ? who has fought for fluoridation for eight years ? said it saves money in other ways. "Water fluoridation is a safe and effective way to prevent cavities in children and adults and saves money that would otherwise be spent on dental care by families and governments,? he said.

Conaway is a practicing physician and chairman of the Assembly Health Committee.

Proponents like Conaway also claim that fluoridation would benefit low-income families who cannot afford regular dentist check-ups.
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In New Jersey, a Battle Over a Fluoridation Bill, and the Facts

The New York Times
By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: March 2, 2012

For all its renown as an engine of pharmaceutical and biotechnology progress, New Jersey has long lagged in what public health officials call one of the 10 biggest health advances of the last century: fluoridating its water.

While 72 percent of Americans get their water from public systems that add fluoride, just 14 percent of New Jersey residents do, placing the state next to last, ahead of only Hawaii, and far behind nearby New York (72 percent), Pennsylvania (54 percent) and Connecticut (90 percent).

A bill in the Legislature would change that, requiring all public water systems in New Jersey to add fluoride to the supply. But while the proposal has won support from a host of medical groups, it has proved unusually politically charged.

Similar bills have failed in the state since 2005, under pressure from the public utilities lobby and municipalities that argue that fluoridation costs too much, environmentalists who say it pollutes the water supply, and antifluoride activists who argue that it causes cancer, lowers I.Q. and amounts to government-forced medicine.

Public health officials argue that the evidence does not support any of those arguments ? and to the contrary, that fluoridating the water is the single best weapon in fighting tooth decay, the most prevalent disease among children.

But they also say they are fighting a proliferation of misleading information. While conspiracy theories about fluoride in public water supplies have circulated since the early days of the John Birch Society, they now thrive online, where anyone, with a little help from Google, can suddenly become a medical authority.

?In the age of the Internet, it?s very easy to spread many of these rumors,? said Barbara F. Gooch, the associate director for science in the Oral Health Division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ?People go looking for information about why this is bad, and they find it pretty easily.?

So while William Bailey, the acting director of the Oral Health Division and the chief dental officer of the United States Public Health Service, calls it ?the ideal public health measure,? opponents online argue the unproven allegation that the Nazis used fluoride to sedate concentration camp victims.

Jennifer DiOrio, a high school teacher who lives in Bedminster, said she began reading about fluoride online recently after a neighbor mentioned concerns, and now she tells colleagues and others the dangers of the legislation. ?They are medicating us without our consent, and it?s unethical and illegal,? she said.

Grand Rapids, Mich., became the first community in the United States to fluoridate its water, in 1945. The practice spread after a study showed that children there had 50 percent to 70 percent less tooth decay over the next 15 years than children in communities without fluoridated water.

Since then, many other studies have shown that adding fluoride to water decreases tooth decay by an additional 25 percent, on top of the benefit from twice-a-day brushing, for children and adults. Water providers would typically pass on the cost to customers, but the C.D.C. says that every dollar spent on fluoridating water saves $38 in dental costs.

The federal government?s Healthy People 2020 initiative aims to have 80 percent of Americans receiving fluoridated water within the next eight years. Twelve states have laws providing for statewide fluoridation, the C.D.C. said.

In New Jersey, water providers typically serve several towns, meaning that all must agree to fluoridate their water ? and typically they do not.

Opponents and supporters of the fluoride legislation believe it has a higher chance of passing this year, in part because it has bipartisan sponsorship. Gov. Chris Christie has not said whether he would sign the bill if it passed.

The state?s League of Municipalities has opposed the bill, concerned about the cost of what it calls an unfunded mandate. The New Jersey Utilities Association testified against it, arguing that it ?is known to have adverse health effects in certain quantities? and that it would cost water companies anywhere from $400,000 to $64 million.

?We think the cost benefit is not there,? said Karen Alexander, the president of the association.

Many opponents say their information has come online, from national groups like the Fluoride Action Network and Citizens for Safe Drinking Water, which argue that fluoridation would cost $5 billion statewide. On their Web sites, the groups argue that fluoridation would lead to fluorosis, a rare staining of the teeth. They say fluoride has many adverse health effects, including bone cancer, and no proven benefit.

But public health officials say that the National Academy of Sciences examined the studies linking fluoride to lowered I.Q. and could not substantiate them. Similarly, two large and recent studies, one from Harvard and the National Cancer Institute, the other in California, found no link between fluoride and bone cancer. Fluorosis in the United States, they say, tends to be barely visible.

?The opposition can point to one or two studies that say this or that,? said Dr. Bailey, of the C.D.C. ?We look at the overall weight of the evidence and what expert panels have said.?

There are several ways to fluoridate water, depending on the water system, said Kip Duchon, the national fluoride engineer for the C.D.C. But they are not cost-prohibitive, and most are simple, he said.

Jared Martin, 27, who started a No Fluoride New Jersey page on Facebook after reading about the bill and fluoride online, acknowledged that there was evidence to support fluoridation.

?That?s the thing,? he said. ?When you?re searching the Internet, it depends where you?re looking.? But he was made suspicious, as were many opponents, when the federal Department of Health and Human Services revised the recommended level of fluoride in water to avoid the possibility that children would receive too much. The recommended level had been 0.7 to 1.2 milligrams per liter; the department last year advised that it not exceed the lower end of that range.

In the last four years, about 200 municipalities nationwide have stopped fluoridating the water. Antifluoride groups cite this as evidence that more people are acknowledging the dangers.

But many of those places ceased for financial, not health, reasons. And nationwide, the trend has been toward more people receiving fluoridated water. San Diego, long the largest city not to fluoridate, began doing so last year. Atlantic City also did so, citing the health benefits.

Some opponents argue that the state could less expensively fight tooth disease by promoting good toothbrushing or fluoride treatments in schools.

But Senator Joe Vitale, a sponsor of the legislation in New Jersey, said, ?That?s not going to happen in cities like Newark or Camden or Paterson, where they can barely keep the lights on.?

Cavan Brunsden, a pediatric dentist in Old Bridge and a supporter of the bill, noted that many states went further ? New York, for instance, has begun requiring dental visits as a condition of attending school.

Not fluoridating the water, he said, is ?an egregious example of the state not fulfilling the health care needs of its citizens.?

?It reduces decay whether you live in Newark or Short Hills,? he said. ?Science has proven it. It?s unfortunate that science isn?t part of the debate.?
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