U.S. Water News Online
LITTLE ROCK -- A plan from Rep. Tommy Roebuck that would mandate all of Arkansas' public water supplies to be supplemented with fluoride could draw debate in the coming legislative session.
Roebuck, an Arkadelphia Democrat, has said he could introduce the bill, but he would face opponents who believe that fluoride in water is dangerous.
About 62 percent of Arkansans on public water systems currently receive fluoridated water. Many public water systems around the country have been fluoridating their supply for more than half a century because it helps fight tooth decay. Fluoride is the active ingredient in toothpaste.
But while the Arkansas Health Department points to studies that show fluoride reducing decay by up to 60 percent in baby teeth and up to 35 percent in adult teeth, opponents say the difference is too slight to risk possible adverse effects of fluoride.
"Our take on it is if you want fluoride, go to the dentist and get fluoride," said Sherry Johnson of Waldron, president of the Arkansas Health Freedom Coalition.
J. William Hirzy, senior vice president of the union representing professionals at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, testified before a legislative committee in Little Rock this month that fluoride has been linked to weakened bones, cancer, brain structure damage, kidney damage, hyperactivity and thyroid problems.
But Dr. Lynn Mouden, director of the Health Department's Office of Oral Health, said that's a selective reading of the studies on fluoride. It comes from the naturally occurring element fluorine and is harmless to humans, Mouden said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls fluoridated drinking water one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century, but now, in the 21st century, fear of fluoride persists.
"My children's teeth, they can all fall out. I would rather them have dentures than have the possibility of something going wrong," said Crystal Harvey, a Hot Springs cosmetologist who has fought for the last 15 years to keep fluoride out of the local water supply.
The debate over fluoride was similar in the mid-20th century and opponents of fluoride were satirized in the 1965 Peter Sellers movie "Dr. Strangelove." In the film, a crazy general who tries to unleash nuclear bombs on the Soviet Union theorizes that fluoride in the water is a Communist plot.
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