Sen. Bryan King [R-Green Forest] plans to amend proposed Act 299 that would have allowed local control of decisions regarding water fluoridation to allow districts that have not begun fluoridation to opt out. The Senate City County Local Committee in Little Rock voted 4-2 March 14 against allowing local control regarding fluoridation of drinking water supplies, despite hearing testimony from Ozark Mountain Regional Public Water Authority (OMRPWA) and the Madison County Water District that have refused to add fluoride to the water. Both are being sued by the state.
“My understanding is that Ozark Mountain and the Madison County Water District are the only two that have not fluoridated,” King said. “This would allow those districts to have a vote. Hopefully, their statement would speak volumes and be important in changing the mandate in the future.”
The Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) testified against Act 299 stating the fluoridation is safe and helps protect the teeth of children. Delta Dental also testified against the bill stating that they had invested $7 million in helping local district purchase fluoridation equipment. Districts are required to pay back that grant money if they end fluoridation within ten years.
The two holdouts on fluoridation have opposed it because of concerns that fluoridation chemicals contain harmful byproducts such as lead and aluminum, and that fluoridation chemicals are so corrosive they can reduce the life of the water delivery system by 40 percent.
Missouri allows local control of fluoridation. Eleven communities in Missouri have opted out of fluoridation citing problems with the chemicals corroding their water pipes.
OMRPWA serves parts of Boone, Newton, Searcy and Marion counties. It was formed in part to help rural water districts in the area with dangerously high levels of fluoride in groundwater. Andy Anderson, chair of the authority, said to these districts it makes no sense to add fluoride when they were previously mandated by the health department to reduce toxic levels of fluoride.
The amended act, if successful, would be of no help to opponents of water fluoridation who are customers of the Carroll Boone Water District or other water districts in the state such as Hot Springs where there has been strong public opposition to fluoridation. But King said while he couldn’t get the original bill passed out of the Senate City County Local Committee, the amended bill could provide relief for the districts that feel so strongly about the negative impacts of fluoridation that they have faced state sanctions and lawsuits for refusing to fluoridate.
It will be two years before the issue could be brought up in the legislature again as the state has regular legislative sessions every other year.
At the March 14 hearing, Dr. Sandra Young argued against fluoridation stating that fluoride does not normally occur in our bodies.
“It is harmful,” Young said. “It is the most active of all elements, never occurring alone, but always combined with another element. It causes diseases that use up most of our health care dollars.”
Young said research causes shows fluoride could cause osteoarthritis, degenerative disc/joint disease (a significant complaint of opioid patients), spinal stenosis, and calcific tendonitis.
“It lowers IQ,” she said. “Fluoride increases the rate of cancer. In point of fact, fluorine causes more human cancer death, and causes it faster than any other chemical,” said Dean Burk, Ph.D., former head of the National Cancer Institute’s cytochemistry section, chief chemist emeritus at the U.S. National Institute.
Young said that fluoride combines with toxic lead, aluminum and beryllium, facilitating their uptake into the body.
“Fluorosilicic acid leaches lead from water or lead pipes and studies have suggested that it increases the uptake of lead up to three-fold,” she said. “Fluoride has also been shown to increase arterial calcification in rats drinking fluoridated water. Fluoride has been epidemiologically associated with both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
“The fluoride used to fluoridate our drinking water is not pharmaceutical grade. Only about 10 percent used nationwide is pharmaceutical grade. Instead, it comes from toxic gases that are waste products from the phosphate fertilizer industry. Much of that comes from Florida, but more and more is coming from China.”
Young, testifying on behalf of Secure Arkansas, said while Arkansas is currently measuring fluoride levels when it leaves the water treatment plant, is not testing the fluoridating chemical to see what other contaminants might be in the mixture. A law to require testing failed in the legislative session two years ago.
“Why?” Young asked. “Should the ADH not vouch for the safety of the products they are requiring us to use? There have been reports of chemicals from China having an unidentified sludge.”
Young said if the phosphate fertilizer industry could not convert the fluoride waste into a saleable product, they would have to pay to send it to hazardous waste treatment facilities. “Instead, in 2011, they were able to sell it for water fluoridation for about $275 million,” she said.