Editorial: For some, fluoridation still hard to swallow

“Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face.”

– General Jack D. Ripper

in “Dr. Strangelove”

Fluoridation opponents hate this movie.

Not necessarily because they don’t find it funny, or disagree with its anti-nukes stance--but because it mocks the anti-fluoridation movement as a haven for John Birch Society wingnuts which, at the time of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classic, some say it was. In the film, General Jack D. Ripper, played by former North Bay resident Sterling Hayden, has gone mad and ordered a seemingly irreversible nuclear strike on the Soviet Union-because, he alleges, the Commies are plotting to fluoridate worldwide water systems as a method of thought control. It’s probably bad enough that Hollywood’s most famous fluoridation-skeptic is a lunatic conspiracy theorist, but – and this might even be worse – he makes some of the same arguments as today’s more reasonable-sounding water-additive watchdogs. For instance, Ripper alleges that “studies are underway” to fluoridate salt, milk and a variety of other grocery products (all likely true, circa 1964) and decries the idea that “a foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual” - also a pretty good point still being made today about fluoridation (although fluoride is not a foreign substance; it exists in small amounts naturally in all sorts of places – from bodies of water to bodies of people).

On Wednesday, Feb. 18, the Sonoma City Council will consider a “draft letter of opposition” to take a formal stand against the percolating County of Sonoma plan to begin adding trace amounts of fluoride to county water – toward the goal of preventing tooth decay – at at less than 1 part per million of fluoride, similar to that used in many counties across the state who have been fluoridating for years.

Debate over this is not surprising, however, the science is pretty clear: Adding fluoride to water lowers rates of tooth decay, probably somewhere between 20 and 30 percent, depending upon whom one asks in the scientific and medical establishments, where fluoridation is just about universally endorsed. (I’ve seen stats that put it at about 13 percent, but that’s the low end of the spectrum.)

Still, there are perfectly legitimate questions about adding anything to a water supply – even in trace amounts – and it seems like our council is grappling with those questions, and rightly so.

Like too much of anything, an over-abundance of fluoride could have harmful health consequences; the mainstream scientific consensus, however, is that fluoride in a dose of one part per million is benign to everything but our teeth - where it strengthens the enamel and fends off acids caused by sugar. Fluoridation proponents say this is most beneficial to lower-income communities, where kids have higher rates of tooth decay and far-less access to dental care.

State water fluoridation has been taking place since 1945, when a program was launched in Grand Rapids, Michigan – and study after study to monitor the results has been conducted since, by such institutions as the National Academy of Sciences, which has found one primary adverse effect – fluorosis, or cosmetic staining of the teeth, after a lifetime of fluoridation. Coffee drinkers should empathize, and can possibly recommend a good whitener.

While the city council weighs whether to take a formal stand against the County fluoridation proposal, one hopes councilmembers will give proper consideration to the seven decades of research on fluoridation and make its decision based not on appeals to fear, but on a thoughtful appreciation of the scientific arguments, whether for or against.

Because, as Gen. Jack D. Ripper said in one of his more cogent moments, “I want to impress upon you the need for extreme watchfulness.”

And that’s no Commie plot.