Wichita is the fourth-largest city in the United States without fluoride in its water. A group of health-minded citizens there, calling themselves “Wichitans for Healthy Teeth,” has collected more than 2,500 signatures supporting fluoridation and continues to work. When they have at least 6,300 signatures they will take their petition to the city council.
Dr. Sara Meng, a Wichita dentist, told an AP reporter that nearly 500 Wichita dentists and health providers and about 50 state and local organizations are backing the effort.
Given the propensity for folks on the fringe to question health science, it is not surprising that two groups, Wichitans for Pure Water and Fluoride Free Kansas, materialized to fight fluoridation there.
The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said that “everyone is entitled to his own opinions — but no one is entitled to his own set of facts.”
The fact is that fluoride in public water supplies reduces cavities in teeth and is particularly effective in reducing the cavity rate in the teeth of growing children. This is not a theory. It is a well-demonstrated fact.
Fluoridation causes no harm to people. Many U.S. communities have fluoridated their water supplies for decades — as Iola has — and their history demonstrates that the rate of tooth decay has declined in those towns and cities without any offsetting health effects. The cost of providing the protection is too small to calculate for the amount of water a typical family consumes daily.
Some arguments exist in which there are not two sides. The value of fluoridation to dental health is one of them. Wichita should join the 21st century and give its citizens — especially its children — the benefit of modern dental science.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
