Several Skagit County professionals have signed a statement released last week urging Congress to stop water fluoridation until congressional hearings can determine whether it is safe for all individuals.

The statement is signed by more than 600 doctors, dentists and environmentalists from around the world, including two Mount Vernon doctors, an Anacortes dentist and a retired nurse and chiropractor from Sedro-Woolley.

Water fluoridation was approved by the Skagit County Board of Health in May. Implementation isn’t expected to happen until May 2008, said David Johnson, general manager of Skagit Public Utility District No. 1, the water utility that the Board of Health ordered to fluoridate.

The delay is due to funding procedures and a construction timeline.

Three fluoridation plants would have to be built to comply with the board of health’s ruling that all Skagit PUD No. 1 customers receive fluoridated water.

In addition, the county is still figuring out how it could obtain start-up monies from the organization backing the local proponent for fluoridation, The Washington Dental Service Foundation.

The professionals who signed the letter to Congress cite recent scientific studies that raise questions as to the risks and benefits of adding fluoride to public water supplies.

The letter says appropriate studies have never been done to prove water fluoridation provides enough public benefit to outweigh potential health risks to individuals.

Calcium fluoride is a naturally occurring ion in water, but anti-fluoride groups say the kind typically added to water supplies, fluorosilicic acid, is a hazardous waste byproduct of the phosphate fertilizer industry.

Studies link it to dental fluorosis and more serious conditions. However, other studies link fluoridation to better oral health.

One signer on the statement, Helene R. Newbaker, a retired Sedro-Woolley nurse and chiropractic doctor, said she learned in chiropractic school that fluoride can cause deformities in the bone.

She said she signed the statement to encourage others to question fluoridation’s safety and effectiveness.

“The problem is that there’s a lot of people that are making claims that they really can’t back,” she said.
C. Jess Groesbeck, a Mount Vernon doctor in preventive and alternative medicine, also signed the professionals’ statement.

He said fluoride proponents falsely interpret the results of studies done on fluoridated communities.

Improvements in dental health in fluoridated communities are due to a higher socio-economic status, and therefore better access to dental care, he said.

Groesbeck is a specialist in thyroid disease and said fluoride can exacerbate this disease, he said.

“It interferes with the hormone function at a cellular level and causes negative reactions that are toxic to the body,” he said.
“(Fluoride) can best be used topically by dentists in certain limited situations,” he said, adding that the compound is dangerous for infants and developing toddlers.

It can retard their growth and interfere with numerous developmental processes at that age, Groesbeck said.

Skagit Clean Water is a local political action committee that opposes fluoridation.

The group believes a fluoridation mandate violates individual rights.

“We want our rights that are guaranteed to us under the constitution,” said Don Johnson, the group’s treasurer.

Groups like Skagit Clean Water are organizing all over the globe under the Fluoride Action Network, and are fueled by recent findings by the National Research Council that fluoridated water should not be used in mixing infant formula.

That is why fluoride should only be used on an individual, specifically indicated basis, “but to do it on a mass basis is dangerous, expensive and ill conceived,” Groesbeck said.