HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — Most municipalities don’t do it, but a few of the largest ones of all do.
But that local choice — a principle espoused in other realms by Republicans — would come to an end under a proposal by Sen. Dawn Keefer (R-York), known as the “Fluoride Choice Act,” to ban the addition, by municipal water systems, of fluoride in drinking water.
Keefer didn’t make herself available for comment about the legislation but said in a memo seeking support of other state senators the bill “promotes individual choice by supporting access to fluoride through supplements or topical applications, backed by state-led education” and is modeled after similar legislation in Utah, the nation’s first state to ban fluorinated water this year; Florida followed shortly after.
In other words, in Keefer’s view, the choice should be even more local than on a municipality-by-municipality level. It should be family by family.
Keefer, a founding chair of Pennsylvania’s conservative Freedom Caucus cited research she called the “latest science” linking “higher fluoride exposure to lower IQ scores in children” and a federal court ruling in California requiring the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to strengthen its regulation of fluoride in drinking water.
On one point, most doctors agree with Keefer: There is such a thing as too much fluoride in drinking water.
But “there’s such a thing as too much water and too much milk, too,” said Dr. Eve Kimball, a Reading-area doctor speaking on behalf of the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“The studies that were done that talk about fluoride being a problem were done in China, India, in the Rift Valley of Africa,” Kimball said, where levels of fluoride (which occurs naturally — in low levels in most places but high levels in a few) are about a hundred times higher than they are in the minority of Pennsylvania cities like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and Lancaster that add fluoride to their water.
Most suburban and rural municipalities in central Pennsylvania don’t fluoridate their water.
Kimball said American children — especially those from low-income families with limited access to dental care — are far more at risk of getting too little fluoride than too much.
“We’ve seen a probably about a 25% reduction in cavities when fluoride’s in the water,” said Dr. Gary Klein, a Harrisburg-area dentist and owner of Klein Family Dentistry.
In Canada, the city of Calgary has reversed course after removing fluoride in 2011. Calgary is reintroducing fluoride to its drinking water after studies showed dental disease increased compared to in its province Alberta’s other major city, Edmonton, which maintained fluoridation in water, with none of the offsetting health problems feared by fluoridation foes.
If Keefer’s bill advances and then passes the GOP-controlled Senate, it would move to the Democrat-controlled House, where it would not have the support of Rep. Jacklyn Rusnock (D-Reading), for one. Rusnock is also a dental hygenist who practiced for decades and taught for years.
“Dental decay is one of the top preventable chronic diseases for our younger population, especially children below the poverty level” who are less likely than others to receive regular dental care, Rusnock said. And fluoride, she said, “is an easy way to at least have them get some good exposure to preventing a disease that is very preventable.”
Rusnock said she heard from constituents concerned about fluoride — and looked into the same studies cities by fluoridation opponents — and came to the came conclusion as pediatricians like Kimball (that there’s such a thing as too much fluoride in water but probably not anywhere in America).
“And I’d like to talk to my colleagues across the aisle a little bit more about this because I like to hear from every side, get their idea of why they’re having an issue with it and share the information that I have with them,” Rusnock said.
Original article online at: https://www.abc27.com/pennsylvania-politics/two-states-now-ban-fluorinated-drinking-water-could-pennsylvania-become-the-third/