Canada: Council votes to eliminate fluoride from Calgary water

Richard Cuthbertson
Calgary Herald
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 17:23 UTC

© Stuart Gradon/Calgary Herald

Alderman Druh Farrell listens to comments during city council's debate on the issue of fluoride in city water in Calgary Wednesday, January 26, 2011.

City council has voted to eliminate fluoride from the city's drinking water.

In doing so, aldermen decided not to put the issue to plebiscite or to an expert panel being offered up by the University of Calgary.

Ald. Druh Farrell, who has spearheaded the effort to get the additive out of Calgary's water, said it is a matter of ethics.

She said there are other alternatives to fluoridating water that gives people a choice.

Farrell points to Europe where the additive is not in the water, but the fluoridated salt can be purchased instead.

"It's an issue that has been debated vociferously around the world for 50 years," she said before the vote. "It became an established point of view, but now the wisdom of it is being questioned around the world."

Ald. Ray Jones, who is opposed to fluoride being in the water, pushed to have the issue head to plebiscite.

He said since the late January public hearing on the issue he's received numerous phone calls from people on both sides of the issue who want to vote on it.

"They don't feel that we're the experts either. They feel that it's their decision to make, not our decision to make," Jones said.

But Ald. Jim Stevenson worried that with only 30 or 40 percent of voters actually casting a ballot, a relatively small number would determine the issue for all Calgarians. He also noted votes have been very close.

Ald.Gian-Carlo Carra said a plebiscite was "absolutely unacceptable," and is a "tyranny of the majority." He said if the public wants a plebiscite, they can pull together signatures to get one.

Before fluoride is no longer added to the water, the city will have to apply to Alberta Environment to change the city license for its water treatment plants.

Comment: Fluoridation is ineffective because:

1) Major dental researchers concede that fluoride's benefits are topical not systemic (Fejerskov 1981; Carlos 1983; CDC 1999, 2001; Limeback 1999; Locker 1999; Featherstone 2000).

2) Major dental researchers also concede that fluoride is ineffective at preventing pit and fissure tooth decay, which is 85 percent of the tooth decay experienced by children (JADA 1984; Gray 1987; White 1993; Pinkham 1999).

3) Several studies indicate that dental decay is coming down just as fast, if not faster, in non-fluoridated industrialized countries as fluoridated ones (Diesendorf, 1986; Colquhoun, 1994; World Health Organization, Online).

4) The largest survey conducted in the U.S. showed only a minute difference in tooth decay between children who had lived all their lives in fluoridated compared to non-fluoridated communities. The difference was not clinically significant nor shown to be statistically significant (Brunelle & Carlos, 1990).

5) The worst tooth decay in the U.S. occurs in the poor neighborhoods of our largest cities, the vast majority of which have been fluoridated for decades.

6) When fluoridation has been halted in communities in Finland, former East Germany, Cuba and Canada, tooth decay did not go up but continued to go down (Maupome et al, 2001; Kunzel and Fischer, 1997, 2000; Kunzel et al, 2000 and Seppa et al, 2000).