Over a decade after Athens began adding fluoride to the city’s drinking water, several local residents petitioned City Council to end the practice at last night’s meeting, saying the chemical does more harm than good.
Five Athens residents offered facts and voiced concerns about the fluoridation of the drinking water in Athens. Worried about the potential negative health effects, each speaker explained why he thought the practice should come to an end.
“The fluoridation of Athens’ water was turned down three times in the 60s and 70s by this council,” said Abe Alassaf, an Ohio University senior. “But it was approved in a lame duck session of council 4 to 3 just over a decade ago.”
Alassaf said science has proven fluoridation causes dental fluorosis, which damages tooth enamel and corrosion to pipelines.
Dr. Bill Elsaesser said that in the 1930s and 40s fluoride was proven to be beneficial to teeth, but, a few years later, other studies disproved those findings.
Since then, CEOs of companies handling the fluoride as waste found it was easiest and cheapest to put it in the water and convinced Americans that it was good for their dental health, Elsaesser said.
The International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology has come out strongly against fluoridation, he added.
Athens resident Dane Waller was also concerned about the fluoride in the water supply.
“It’s hurting everyone. It was a fraud in the beginning, and it’s a fraud now,” Waller said. “It’s mass medication without consent.”
Torin Jacobs said the danger of fluoride is clearly spelled out on every tube of toothpaste.
“I worry about what I’m exposing my body to whenever I brush my teeth or drink water,” Jacobs said. “Toothpaste tubes say to call poison control if you ingest them, so why is the same stuff in our water?”
Dane McCarthy appealed to the often-progressive nature of Council to make a change away from a practice that is almost universal in the United States.
“Be a progressive town,” McCarthy said. “We are known as an enclave of forward thinking people in a sea of mediocrity, so let’s live up to our reputation.”
Mayor Paul Wiehl was unwilling to take a stand on either side of the subject.
“I was in the audience when they voted it in,” Wiehl said. “I thought it was poor procedure after it was knocked down three times to get it passed in a lame duck session. But I’ll need to hear some arguments from the other side as well.”
Before the fluoridation discussion began, councilmembers rang in the new year by welcoming the new members of council. Michelle Papai, Steve Patterson and Jeff Risner joined council after successful elections last year as Bill Bias, Nancy Bain and Sherry Coon departed.
Athens City Council Law Director Patrick Lang conducted the swearing-in ceremony, in which the members in attendance swore an oath for the term beginning Jan. 1, 2012.
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