Opinion: ‘We won’t stand for it.’ Removing fluoride would set State College back decades
Table salt. Sodium chloride. It’s amazing what just a little bit does for the taste of food — Bam! — kicks it up a notch. Just the right amount and the food is perfect.
Fluoride. Another natural mineral that does a body good. Just the right amount and it stops 25% of cavities for adults and children. The natural levels of fluoride in our water in the State College Borough have been adjusted for 66 years. The State College Borough Water Authority (SCBWA) is considering stopping it. They’ll discuss it on Thursday at 4 p.m.
Cavities are the most common chronic disease of children, many times more common than asthma, obesity and diabetes. It’s infectious and transmissible, and it’s preventable. So why would anyone want to set our community back seven decades and take us back to more cavities, more fillings, extractions and root canals? The ad hoc committee reported in May that they’d evaluated the science and found that fluoride in water is no longer needed and can actually cause physical/mental harm. They ignored the research by the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Dental Association, CDC, Mayo Clinic, Pennsylvania Academy of Pediatric Dentistry and the World Health Organization, who’ve reviewed the studies on fluoride’s benefits and all agree that it is effective in reducing cavities for everybody and safe — doesn’t cause a single health issue for anyone.
Why is the SCBWA ad hoc committee going to recommend that SCBWA stop it? Simple. They don’t want it. The science doesn’t support their decision. Nearly all credibly recognized scientific and health organizations endorse it. Not a single one opposes it. Close to 7,000 peer-reviewed scientific research and publications show overwhelmingly that it is effective and safe at the levels present in community water fluoridation (CWF). Your dentists and physicians can all tell you whether you had it growing up or not by simply looking at your teeth. But here, the ad hoc committee says it has reviewed the peer-reviewed scientific evidence and found that it doesn’t work and can be bad for you.
Our community dentists and doctors are infuriated at this move and are going to show up in force to oppose this blatant attempt by those who are trying to stop it for you. Can too much table salt or plain water be harmful for you? Of course it can. But at the right amounts, they help us live healthier and happier lives. The Mayo Clinic calls oral health “A window to our overall health.” You can’t have a healthy body without a healthy mouth.
Ask your dentist or doctor what they think. We want to alert you to this impending step back into the 1950s that’s being proposed. As dentists, we see the ravages of cavities on our children and young adults every day. Thousands of them have to be taken to the operating room to perform full mouth rehabilitation every year for a nearly completely avoidable disease. That is horrific. And now this ad hoc committee wants to take us back into the dark ages by exponentially amplifying that? We won’t stand for it and neither should you.
One local dentist said it best: “We need to be able to utilize every tool in our tool chest to help decrease the rising prevalence of dental cavities, especially in our pediatric and adolescent patient populations where juice, sports drinks, and soda predominate daily diets. Why at this time would we as a community eliminate this tool in our tool chest?” Toothpaste with fluoride is great, but it takes toothpaste plus CWF to give maximum cavity reductions. Just like when airbags came out. We didn’t stop wearing seat belts. Their benefits are additive and one does not replace the other.
Please help us stop this bad decision now. Join the meeting by Zoom at 4 p.m. Thursday. Let SCBWA know that you will not allow your families to suffer from this preventable disease.
Thank you for your help. We need you now!