You might think its common sense to add fluoride to drinking water to help prevent tooth decay, especially for low-income children who may not have access to adequate dental care. However, upon further examination you will find that adding fluoride to drinking water is a lose-lose situation - for both your health and your wallet. There are proven safer and cheaper ways to address this problem than mass medicating (and possibly overdosing) the public without consent.

On December 7, 2009, legislation (A3709/S2856) that would require mandatory fluoridation of all of New Jersey's public water supplies passed the Senate Health committee 6-0 with three abstentions.

The bill passed despite widespread opposition from the NJ Environmental Federation, parents, scientists, environmental groups, water suppliers, sewer officials, and the NJ Department of Environmental Protection's Clean Water Council (whose membership includes a wide diversity of business, industry, sewer authorities, League of Municipality, labor, environmental and state agency interests).

Luckily, the bill was never posted in the Assembly Appropriations Committee due to its extremely high cost and risk to drinking water and public health. 

Why Say NO to Mandatory Statewide Water Flouridation?

First, the potential cost to the consumer is outrageous. According to the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission, it will cost New Jersey $5 billion to implement the legislation up front and $1 billion dollars a year thereafter! Our state government is already in debt and taxpayers overburdened. We simply can't afford the additional cost.

Secondly, scientific studies have never proven water fluoridation is safe or effective. The 2006 Scientific Review by the National Research Council (NRC) of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's drinking water standards concluded that levels of fluoride between 2 and 4 parts per million (ppm)-higher than New Jersey's currently proposed levels-were not protective of human teeth or bones.

In the same year, the American Dental Association issued advice to its members that infant formula should not be mixed with fluoridated water. If this is the case, why hasn't advice been given to the near 2 million people already being forced to drink fluorosilicic acid-dosed water supplies in New Jersey?

In addition, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control stated in 1999 that to prevent cavities, fluoride is only effective in a topical application, not systemic, which confirms that we do not need to ingest fluoride.

Thirdly, scientific studies have proven that water fluoridation may cause adverse health effects. Artificial fluoridation involves increasing the fluoride level in water supplies to 1 part per million (ppm). Fluoride's toxicity lies somewhere between that of lead and arsenic, and, like lead and arsenic, it's a cumulative poison. Only half of all the fluoride we ingest is excreted. Our bodies retain the other half. It is stored, mainly in bone but also in some soft tissues, such as the pineal gland.

Studies spanning the years have connected fluoride with cancer and other health effects. In 1976, Dr. Dean Burk, Chief Emeritus of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, found that: "Fluoride causes more human cancer death, and causes it faster, than any other chemical...30,000 to 50,000 deaths each year, from various causes, may now be attributable to fluoridation." Most recently, a study done by Perry Cohn of the NJ Department of Health in 1992 found higher incidences of osteosarcoma (cancer) in fluoridated areas of New Jersey.

Finally  - and what bills supporters conveniently don't tell you - water fluoridation adds artificial fluoride (a poison) to your water, not pharmaceutical grade fluoride (the kind used in toothpastes and in your dentist office). 90% of U.S. water fluoridation schemes use artificial fluoride - hydrofluorosilicic acid - a toxic byproduct of the phosphate fertilizer industry which also contains heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, cadmium, barium, and mercury. To date, no safety tests have ever been carried out on fluorosilicic acid.

With so much evidence against artificial fluoridation and none to support it, it is difficult to understand why it continues. In New Jersey, we should not be spending billions of dollars to add toxins to our water - we should be spending money to take them out.

Currently, about 1.7 million people in New Jersey, predominately from Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Somerset and Union counties, live in communities that fluoridate the public water supply. If the fluoride bill (which should be called the hydrofluosilicic acid bill) passes it will affect 6 million New Jersey households. 

What Can You Do?

Please contact your legislator and let them know that you oppose any legislation that would require mandatory fluoridation of NJ's drinking water supplies.  You can find and contact your legislator by visiting this website: http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/districts/municipalities.asp.

For More Information

Visit the Fluoride Action Network's website: http://www.fluoridealert.org/50-reasons.htm.