The city of Albany is on the path to adding fluoride to its drinking water.
Common Councilor Tom Hoey of the 15th Ward, who chairs the public safety committee, says Albany has been behind the curve for decades. He's introducing legislation to fluoridate the city water supply at tonight's Common Council meeting.
“In the old days, people thought it was some kind of communist plot to affect our water supply. But there's many cities throughout the country that use fluoridated water, and it's proven to be very useful,” said Hoey.
Municipalities first added fluoride to their water supplies after World War II. Hoey grew up in New York City, which has fluoridated its water since the 1960s. He has been busy drumming up support for the legislation, saying a majority of council members have already committed to backing the proposal.
"I brought my son Max to the dentist when he was like 4 years old," Hoey said. "We went up to Latham, the dentist looked and he said to me, 'you're from Albany, aren't you?' And I said, 'yes. How do you know?' It was his teeth. He had baby teeth, and he almost had permanent damage to his adult teeth underneath. So this is going to be an important moment. It happened back in the 90s. And we had a lot of outsiders, not from Albany or Albany County, but from different parts of the country, come in and scare the heck out of the people where Mayor Jennings pulled the option because it looked like it was going to pass, that we were going to get fluoride put into our water."
Hoey claims there are inequities where some residents can afford fluoride treatments for their growing children while people in low-income neighborhoods cannot.
Dr. Katie Rothas is a dentist on staff at the Whitney M. Young, Jr. Health Center in Albany. "When I sit down to do an exam on a kid, I can always identify which ones are from Albany and which ones are not, just based on the appearance of the teeth, based on the number of cavities oftentimes appearing in the teeth. There's a lot of things that go into causing tooth decay, one's diet, things that people drink are our kids being given, you know, a bottle of milk to go to bed with, these are all other factors that will impact one's prevalence of cavities in the mouth. But that fluoride, getting it exposed to early on, you know, because once those teeth start to develop, we do encourage kids to be drinking water and not so much as drinking the milk. That water gets absorbed into the gums of the teeth, and also supports the health and reinforces the growth of the adult teeth. By drinking fluoridated water, you're not just impacting the baby teeth, you're also impacting the long-term health of the adult teeth," Rothas said.
Albany County Health Commissioner Dr. Elizabeth Whalen has been advocating for fluoridation for the past 20 years. She recently addressed the council.
"So we know that tooth decay is an incredibly common public health problem. It is in fact the most common chronic condition in children. It is more common than asthma, it is more common than diabetes, it is more common than obesity. It is the greatest unmet health need because there is a lot that goes into dental health. Really allowing the teeth to get exposure to fluoride is the best thing that we can do to protect, prevent against dental decay. When children are affected by dental decay, it affects eating, speaking, learning and school performance. And the scope of this is much larger than you would anticipate. There are millions of hours of productivity in school lost by dental problems. And children who experienced pain due to dental problems are often receiving lower grades and not able to concentrate as well in school," said Whalen.
Whalen points out that fluoridation saves a significant amount of money over a lifetime by reducing the need for dental treatments.
Proponents are hopeful that opposition may be less likely this time around. One, the Fluoride Action Network, did not respond to a request for comment. The organization cites various studies claiming to link fluoride with lowered IQ in children.
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan supports fluoridation. Her Chief of Staff David Galin tells WAMC Sheehan “believes it is due time for us to join the overwhelming majority of municipalities across the U.S. and provide our residents with this natural mineral proven to prevent tooth decay."
