Fluoridating Water Persuasive Essay

In the last century, fluoridation of cities’ water supplies has been a popular and well-debated issue. Portland, Oregon is one of the few large American cities that have refrained from fluoridating their water, and they are wise to do so. Fluoride certainly has its appeal, but the supposed risks are plenty to turn the majority of Portlanders away from it. The point of fluoridating water is to provide a cost-effective way for people who cannot afford dental care to have protection against cavities. That seems simple enough, and in theory it is beneficial. However, there are a few issues with the theory that make the benefits unrealistic.
Water that is ingested accounts for less than three percent of water used solely for household purposes, not including industrial or agricultural use. The average Portlander uses over 60 gallons per day, and for the estimated 600,000 people that makes 360 dollars per day in fluoride. Since over 97% of water will not be ingested, over 350 of those dollars will be wasted every day, and tens of thousands in just a few years. It is therefore extremely wasteful to add fluoride to the entire water supply, not to mention the cost of the fluoridation facility which would cost an initial five million dollars and almost 600,000 dollars per year.
Furthermore,
studies have shown that fluoride doesn’t have to be ingested to be effective; it only has to come in contact with the teeth. The idea of water fluoridation was originally approved on the assumption that the fluoride had to be ingested, but now it is widely known that ingesting it has no effect. This makes the fluoride in water even less effective, because the water we drink is usually in our mouths for a few seconds at the most, lowering that percentage of benefit even further.
Fluoride treats tooth decay, but a lack of fluoride does not cause tooth decay. The only people who would be helped by the fluoridation of the water supply would be those who already have tooth decay and cannot afford dental treatment. That is, if fluoridation has much of an effect at all. Recent large-scale studies in the united states have found very little practical in tooth decay rates between areas with fluoridated water and areas without fluoridated water, and studies done by the World Health Organization show that tooth decay rates have declined just as rapidly in western countries that fluoridate their water and western countries that do not fluoridate their water.
Some people with certain diseases and medical conditions (such as kidney disease, nutrient deficits, and any condition that causes excessive thirst) can be harmed severely by fluoride, as well as infants. It is not fair to fill the whole city’s water supply with a substance that is toxic to some of its citizens (especially babies), even if it benefits others.
It is not pharmaceutical-grade fluoride that will be used to fluoridate the drinking water, instead it is chemicals known as “silicofluorides,” hydrofluorosilic acid and sodium fluorocilicate. These are unprocessed, industrial byproducts of the phosphate fertilizer industry. This is not to say that they could not be beneficial to teeth heath, but they contain elevated levels of arsenic, and can increase susceptibility to lead poisoning. One of the most common arguments for fluoridation is that other chemicals are added to the water that are toxic in high doses (chlorine and ammonia) but are still considered beneficial and are not considered harmful. The main problem with this argument is that these chemicals are added to make the water itself safe to drink, and fluoride is added solely to treat the people who consume the water. You cannot expect those chemicals to work the same way if you drink untreated, potentially hazardous water, but take chlorine and ammonia supplements to compensate. Not so with fluoride, it makes no difference how this chemical gets to your teeth. You can’t suffer any ill effects from drinking a glass of non-fluorinated water. It is not a treatment on the water, it is a form of mass-medication, which is a primary reason that many have for standing against water fluoridation. Some advocates of water fluoridation claim that it is “fluoride deficiency” that causes tooth decay.
They compare adding fluoride to water and adding iodine to salt, saying that even though it is toxic in large amounts, it is essential and therefore beneficial. There are several things wrong with this claim, the first being that if one tried to consume enough salt to get iodine poisoning, he would first poison himself with an extreme excess of salt. Another issue is that iodine is an essential nutrient, and iodine deficiency can cause severe brain damage, but fluoride is not an essential nutrient, and it is entirely possible to have healthy teeth without ever touching
fluoride. Fluoridation of water has also been compared to putting airbags in cars. There are rare cases where airbags have killed people, but in most cases they save lives. This too is a faulty comparison, in that airbags save lives daily, and fluoride is simply a very mild dental treatment, that is occasionally very harmful. Also, when air bag use is harmful, it is because of an accident or more likely misuse of the product. Fluoride is harmful when the intake exceeds a certain amount. This wouldn’t be a problem if we could control the amount of fluoride we consume, but if it is in our water, to regulate the amount of fluoride we consume would be to also regulate the amount of water we drink. Fluoride is historically known to be toxic. It has been used for years alongside arsenic in pesticides and rodenticides, and because of its toxicity the Food and Drug Administration requires that all fluoridated toothpaste have a poison warning that instructs the users to call the poison control center if more than the amount used for brushing is swallowed. Effects include skeletal fluorosis, an extremely painful bone disease, and dental fluorosis, a discoloration and disfigurement of the teeth. Excessive fluoride intake is also linked to the onset of other chronic ailments, the most common being arthritis, bone fragility, diabetes, gastrointestinal distress, and thyroid disease, and has also been linked to certain types of cancer. As this debate has been going on for 57 years in Portland alone, it is obvious that there are strong opinions for and against the fluoridation of water supplies. Both sides of the argument are complicated and both certainly have their benefits, but the anti-fluoridation side focuses on the general wellbeing of a city’s residents, rather than the wellbeing of a certain group of people’s teeth.