Arcata City Council meetings have become heated in recent months, due largely in part to the seemingly polar stance some residents and local health officials have adopted over the issue of water fluoridation.
Fluoride, a substance used to reduce the incidence of dental cavities, has been added to Arcata city water since the early 1960s, when the City Council initiated a movement to add fluoride to the water.
Last May, the issue of water fluoridation was brought to the attention of the Arcata City Council by a group of concerned residents. After several meetings allowing community input, the council decided to allow the city residents to vote on it.
Immediately, a group of residents formed an organization called the Arcata Citizens for Safe Drinking Water, in opposition to fluoridated water within city limits.
“Our goal is to create a safe, more stringent standard for drinking water,” said Noel Hilliard, a local businessman and spokesperson for the group. “Our position is for safer drinking water. We’re not necessarily anti-fluoride.”
The group has spoken out against water fluoridation in Arcata, most notably at City Council meetings, citing health hazards as its main complaint.
“Fifty years ago, four people on the City Council thought (water fluoridation) was good for you,” Hilliard said, adding that during the 1950s, most people did not consider cigarette smoking to be unhealthy.
“It’s time for a fresh look,” he said.
Hilliard and the Arcata Citizens for Safe Drinking Water have proposed an initiative that will be ready for the November 2006 ballot, titled the “Safe Drinking Water Ordinance.”
The ordinance calls for two requirements to be met in order to improve Arcata’s drinking water. For one, if anything is added to the water, it must be approved by the FDA, he said.
According to Hilliard, there are has never been a double-blind study for the benefits of fluoride, which is one of the main reasons he and the ACSDW want FDA approval of water fluoridation.
“Adding fluoride to drinking water is not currently FDA-approved,” he said.
Another requirement is that “if a substance is added to drinking water, it cannot have contamination that exceeds California public-health goals,” said Hilliard.
If these two conditions are met, the ACSDW will be satisfied with the addition of fluoride to Arcata’s water, Hilliard said.
In response to the group’s proposed ordinance, many local dentists as well as doctors working in public health organized to resist the removal of fluoride from Arcata water.
Local periodontist Dr. Steven Schonfeld supports the safety and effectiveness of water fluoridation.
“Since the late 1940s, (fluoride) has been shown to dramatically decrease the incidence of tooth decay,” he said. “The literature on its efficacy is overwhelming.”
As far as the “Safe Drinking Water Ordinance” goes, Schonfeld said that the group that organized it may have good intentions, but the initiative is flawed.
The problem, he said, is that “the FDA regulates certain supplements, but they do not have authority over public drinking-water supplements.”
Schonfeld said the Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for setting standards for water fluoridation, and Arcata’s level of fluoride has always met this standard.
Humboldt County Health Officer Dr. Ann Lindsay agrees with Schonfeld.
“The EPA and the FDA have an agreement,” she said. “The EPA regulates drinking water and the FDA regulates things you can buy.”
Items regulated by the FDA include bottled water, toothpaste and prescription drugs, Lindsay said.
According to Schonfeld, it would take an act of Congress to switch the responsibility of water fluoridation from the EPA to the FDA.
“The whole premise of their initiative is really misleading,” Schonfeld said, adding that residents who don’t know that the EPA is responsible for fluoridation might think the process is unregulated.
Lindsay believes there is more to this issue than just dental health.
“It’s a matter of social justice,” she said. “The alternatives to water fluoridation are expensive and require daily administration of (fluoride) medication from a parent to a child.”
She added that it would involve 144 prescriptions, trips to the pharmacy, money for the medication and more than 4,000 individual doses to each child.
“It costs pennies to put fluoride in drinking water,” Lindsay said. “Fluoride protects everyone, regardless of income and resources for accessing health care.”
Arcata residents will vote on this ordinance in November 2006.
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