The city of Santa Fe will no longer add fluoride to its water supply, something city officials said was due in part to high costs and ongoing research into the health risks and benefits of fluoride.
A naturally occurring mineral that helps strengthen teeth, fluoride is frequently added to the water supply for its dental benefits, but has attracted skepticism from some corners, including U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy.
The Utah Legislature earlier this year passed a law banning fluoride from being added to drinking water statewide. Several other states are considering similar measures.
Santa Fe dentist Madison McQuitty described fluoridated water as “one of the top 10 health achievements of our modern day, along with vaccines.”
An official with the New Mexico Board of Dental Health Care also expressed concerns.
Sponsored by City Councilors Carol Romero-Wirth and Jamie Cassutt, the ordinance the council unanimously approved Oct. 8 ends the requirement for supplemental fluoridation of the water supply and requires the city to continue to monitor naturally occurring fluoride levels.
Interim Public Utilities Director Jesse Roach said the city’s previous ordinance was out of step with federal guidelines on fluoride levels. City code directed the Water Division to fluoridate water to a concentration between 0.8 parts per million and 1.2 ppm, even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended since 2015 a level of 0.7 ppm.
Roach said the city’s water supply has naturally occurring levels of fluoride between 0.3 and 0.6 ppm, and adding a very small amount of fluoride to the water supply to bring it up to the CDC guideline would be a challenge with the infrastructure at the Canyon Road Water Treatment Plant.
“We were estimating potentially needing to invest around half a million dollars to upgrade the equipment at Canyon Road and at the wells so that we could accurately dose to that lower level,” he said.
Additionally, Roach said there is debate on the potential for fluoride, even at the CDC-recommended level, to carry a risk of cognitive impairment in children.
“This remains an area of active public policy and scientific debate, and additional investigation will be necessary to improve understanding of potential cognitive impacts associated with fluoridated water,” the city states in documents about the ordinance.
Considering all those factors, Roach said, “it seemed prudent for us to hold off on actively adding fluoride, to continue to monitor what we see in the system without adding any.”
If more research emerges, he said future Santa Fe decision-makers can revisit the ordinance again using the data the city will continue to collect on fluoride levels.
The city considered a similar effort to cease fluoridation of drinking water in 2012. Members of the public concerned about the potential health effects of the mineral urged the council to halt the practice, while several dentists warned this would lead to higher levels of tooth decay.
Then-Councilor Chris Calvert, who favored the plan to end fluoridation, said during a meeting in July 2012, “What’s happening is you are fluoridating 100% of the water, and anywhere from 95 to 99% of it does not get ingested. So you are basically dumping most of it into the environment one way or the other.”
The council voted 6-1 at the July meeting to stop fluoridation. But the city attorney at the time raised concerns the vote might have violated the state Open Meetings Act. Debate on the issue continued for several months, with Santa Fe County and the Buckman Direct Diversion board also joining the conversation, but the council did not take a new vote on the proposed ordinance.
Water treated at the Buckman Direct Diversion, a facility operated jointly by the city, county and Las Campanas, is not fluoridated.
Roach said the city was prepared to hear from the dental lobby about the change when the ordinance was proposed, but didn’t receive any significant feedback.
However, a statement provided to The New Mexican on Wednesday by Jennifer Thompson, chair of the New Mexico Board of Dental Health Care, expressed concern about the city’s decision.
“This action jeopardizes the oral and overall health of residents and will increase costs for families, insurers, and taxpayers,” she wrote, citing research showing other communities that stopped fluoridating the water supply have seen increases in tooth decay.
McQuitty, with Radiate Dentistry in Santa Fe, said depending on the natural level of fluoride in the city’s water, no longer adding fluoride may not be a problem.
However, she encouraged people not to fear fluoride, which in the right concentration is “extremely beneficial” for preventing the development of cavities.
She said she is aware of some research into high concentrations of fluoride affecting bone development in parts of Asia, but “that’s not anything that we really worry about or deal with here in the United States.”
Along with routine dental visits, McQuitty said regular brushing and flossing is important for dental health, and she recommends using toothpaste with fluoride: “That is one of the easiest things anybody can do to help prevent cavities.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration under the Trump administration is taking steps to remove “concentrated ingestible fluoride prescription drug products for children” from the market, according to an April news release, though that does not include toothpaste.
McQuitty said she would be “skeptical” of messaging from the FDA right now. The same compounds can be beneficial or harmful in different quantities, she added, noting, “The difference between medicine and a poison is the dose.”
She said, “Do your research and don’t be fearful of fluoride, because it has really great properties.”
Original article online at: https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/santa-fe-no-longer-putting-fluoride-into-water-due-to-high-repair-costs-health-risk/article_d6e4a369-0c49-4ba1-b992-a35418b33e24.html