Utah Dentists Grit Teeth Over Fluoridation Foes

Dr. Michael Fitzgerald came to Utah 20 years ago to save the state’s teeth.

“That’s when the other dentists told me you’d get the Nobel Prize if you can get fluoridation in Utah,” said Fitzgerald, dental director for the state Department of Health.

Two decades into his job, Fitzgerald is in no danger of earning that Nobel.

In an age when more than half the nation’s drinking water is fluoridated, only about 3% of Utah residents drink water treated with the cavity-resisting mineral. Only Nevada, at 2%, is less fluoridated.

For decades, proponents have hailed fluoridation as a safe first step to dental health. But in conservative Utah, where children have a high rate of tooth decay, fluoridation is seen by a small but vocal minority as an unwanted government intrusion that may pose health risks.

Although the Utah Legislature passed a law this year aimed at making it easier to place fluoridation on local election ballots, November’s ballot is bare of any such proposal--testament to the politically charged nature of the issue.

“It appears that no one has the political courage to put it on the ballot,” Fitzgerald said.

Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral found in food and water. It has been added to America’s water supplies for 50 years at between 0.7 and 1.2 parts per millions as a safe and cheap method of preventing tooth decay in children and adults.

About 145 million people, or 62% of Americans, drink fluoride-treated water, according to a 1995 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fitzgerald said fluoride-treated water cuts childhood tooth decay by half.

But in the independent-minded West, fluoridation has had a relatively rough ride. In addition to Nevada and Utah, California, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Hawaii rank among the bottom 11 states for percentage of water supplies treated with fluoride.

Oddly, a majority in Utah would prefer to drink fluoridated water. A Deseret News survey this spring found 65% of those polled favored fluoridation and only 20% were opposed.

But that minority has long been a fiercely vocal one. From the 1950s through the 1970s, for example, antifluoride rhetoric was often tied to the Cold War, with opponents labeling it a communist plot to turn Americans into “walking zombies.”

Today, the issue is more often framed as one of personal freedom versus government intrusion.

“These are just common folks who believe in liberty, freedom and the right to choose,” said Gayle Ruzika, president of the ultraconservative and influential Utah Eagle Forum. “We don’t use the water supply for medication.”

“It’s the freedom, the loss of freedom, and that they think we’re dumbbells that just take what they give us,” said Norma Sommer, an anti-fluoride crusader for more than 20 years who doesn’t “give a hoot” that anyone might think her views radical.

Sommer contends she has research proving fluoride--which she calls “rat poison”--causes brain and chromosomal damage as well as miscarriages. She thinks it may even be behind the spread of AIDS, pointing out that San Francisco’s water supply is heavily fluoridated.

“I go with the feeling first, the feeling that something’s not right here. I don’t listen to scientists; I listen to reason,” Sommer said.

Many dentists find such talk frustrating. Dr. Tony Tidwell, a Salt Lake dentist, said antifluoride groups spout half-truths and feed on people’s fears.

“It’s a very conservative state,” he said. “People see a conspiracy in everything. They don’t want to be told what to do, even if it’s good for them. If it was as bad as they say, people would be dropping like flies.”

The American Dental Assn. says there has never been a “single valid, peer-reviewed laboratory, clinical or epidemiological study that showed drinking water with fluoride at optimal levels caused cancer, heart disease, or any of the other multitude of diseases proclaimed by very small groups of antifluoridationists to be caused by fluoridation.”

Tidwell said the lack of fluoride-treated water is evident with just one peek inside a patient’s mouth. “I can tell the difference between the person who grew up in Utah and those who grew up someplace else,” he said.

Fluoride was added to two Utah towns, Helper and Brigham City, decades ago. And military installations, such as Dugway Proving Ground and Hill Air Force Base, are required by law to add fluoride to their water supplies.

But they are the exceptions.

Last winter, the Utah Legislature passed a law making it possible for local elected officials overseeing public water supplies to put fluoridation on the ballot without a petition.

Although officials in Salt Lake and Davis counties considered adding fluoride to their ballots in November, they ultimately backed off, much to the surprise of Lewis Garrett, director of family health services for the Salt Lake City-County Health Department.

“It shocked me, actually. They were just being asked to let the people vote on it,” Garrett said.

For now, those for and against adding fluoride to drinking water say they will concentrate their efforts on educating the public, a refrain that has echoed down the decades.

As for Fitzgerald, his tempered optimism for widespread passage of fluoride ballot measures is decidedly long-term.

“Yes, I think it will [happen],” he said. “But maybe not in my lifetime.”