Lack of fluoridation puts ABQ at bottom again

AS A practicing dentist who lives and works in our community, I would like to clear up some of the misinformation surrounding supplemental water fluoridation.

Fluoride is not a medicine. It is a naturally occurring mineral that, here in Albuquerque, is already in our drinking water. It occurs naturally in our water at the level of approximately 0.3-1.0 ppm. The optimum level for dental health is 0.7-0.8 ppm. This would mean a slight increase in some of the city, and actually some of the city that would not need any addition. Adding a tiny bit of this naturally occurring mineral to increase levels is not “medication without consent.” The foods we eat including grapes, spinach and root vegetables like asparagus, potatoes, and carrots, are responsible for regular amounts of fluoride that we consume often. Now, everyone absolutely has the right to decide for themselves what is right for body and their diet; however, individuals who prefer to not consume fluoride already have to filter their water through reverse osmosis or drink strictly filtered, bottled water as well as avoid many types of food, not limited to those aforementioned. So fluoridation will not bear an effect on them.

The citizens of Albuquerque publicly voted in favor of supplemental fluoridation. That vote withstood two court challenges and remained a best practice for nearly 40 years. In 2011 employees of the water authority unilaterally decided to stop supplemental fluoridation without a vote. That action made Albuquerque the second-largest city in the nation without optimum fluoridation. New Mexico is unfortunately at the bottom of most every quality-of-life metric, but in this case, we have a choice not to be. Continuing supplemental fluoridation ends that embarrassing distinction, and we can rejoin the other 90 percent of the nation’s largest urban areas that currently have optimum fluoridation.

The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority recently voted to put supplemental fluoridation in the operations budget, and I ask that we support them in this measure so that we return to this common-sense practice to safeguard the oral health of our citizens.

JOE GHERARDI

Albuquerque