In 2010, amid a budget crisis, the city of Sacramento, Cal., instructed all departments to review programs and services. The city had been fluoridating for just over 10 years. The director of the Department of Utilities wrote in a memo to the City Council that the actual cost of operating and maintaining the fluoridation system had proven to be considerably more than the initial estimate and that fluoridation infrastructure was already overdue for replacement.
Seven years after fluoridation began in 2001, Riverton, Utah spent nearly $1.2 million for two new buildings to “get fluoride out of the electrical pump area.”
An Alberta, Canada, plant manager complained that fumes from the acid etched the glass, paint and computer screens of the water treatment plant.
In Eureka Springs, Arkansas, a water district member reported that “there are millions of dollars spent yearly on infrastructure damage caused by fluoride in our industry.”
Fluoride is known to be extremely corrosive and has been reported to deteriorate pipes and electrical components and to degrade concrete.
In 2015, Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, senior scientist at Oak Ridge Inc. Center for Risk Analysis and panelist for the 2006 National Council Fluoride Review, wrote a “Critique of Recent Economic Evaluations of Community Water Fluoridation,” published in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health (Int J Occup Health, 2015 March:21(2): 91-120).
Dr. Thiessen examines the U.S. government central argument for the cost effectiveness of community water fluoridation (CWF) which stated that every $1 spent on CWF saves $38 in dental treatment costs.
In her review Dr. Thiessen concludes that minimal corrections of defective estimates of both costs and benefits reduced the savings to $3 per person per year for a best case scenario, but that this savings was eliminated by the estimated cost of treating dental fluorosis.
Dental fluorosis is an enamel defect in permanent teeth due to childhood overexposure to fluoride. CWF was expected to result in a prevalence of mild to very mild dental fluorosis in about 10% of the population and almost no cases of moderate or severe dental fluorosis (National Research Council, 1993, “Health effects of ingested fluoride”).
In reality, the last NHANES (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) of 2015-2016 showed a 65% prevalence of fluorosis in surveyed American children with 30.4% moderate to severe cases.
Loveland experienced a period of non-fluoridation from 2010 to 2013 while fluoridation equipment was being repaired or replaced. If the Sacramento, Riverton and other communities’ experiences are any indication, Loveland should be due for more spending on fluoridation equipment and repairs.
Considering that many in Loveland have felt the city to be in a budget crisis due to the recent elimination of the food tax, it appears worthwhile and prudent to do a thorough evaluation of the costs of CWF for our community.
This is especially true when CWF has been called no longer justifiable as a public health benefit, with risks significantly outweighing the benefits and the economic cost of which were called not reasonable or justified (William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, 2014).
A good budget is supposed to give you the biggest bang for your buck.
Since the mission of the Department of Water and Power does not include medicating the public, since the CDC has long stated that fluoride’s actions are primarily topical, since ingestion of fluoride causes many unwanted health effects and since about 98% of fluoride in CWF never even comes close to your teeth but is known to result in wide dispersion of a regulated pollutant into the environment, and since the promise of greater equity never produced better oral health in disadvantaged groups, it would seem prudent to have a closer look at continuing the practice of CWF and look for a more successful alternative.
Before we throw more money down the drain, literally, community water fluoridation deserves serious scrutiny in our budget process.
Traudl Renner is a retired RN, a Loveland citizen and taxpayer. Much of the wording in this opinion is a direct citation of parts of Dr. Thiessen’s Critique and her references.
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