The city of Albany is a step closer to adding fluoride to its drinking water.
Former Albany County Health Commissioner Dr. Elizabeth Whalen has been advocating for fluoridation for the past 20 years. Appearing before the Albany Common Council Thursday night, she said local physicians, dentists and other professionals believe the city will benefit from fluoridation.
"The city of Albany is currently an unfortunate outlier in the Capital Region," said Whalen. "Our surrounding cities including Troy and Schenectady have the benefit of fluoride in the water supply. And we know that the dental health of children on Medicaid is better in these cities than that of our children on Medicaid. Albany is the only major New York state city which does not have community water fluoridation."
Twelve Common Councilors voted unanimously to fluoridate the city water supply. Councilor Tom Hoey of the 15th Ward, who chairs the public safety committee, says Albany has been behind the curve for decades. For more than two years he has led the charge to add flouride to drinking water. Not everyone has been on board.
"I was kind of thrown off," Hoey said. "There was, by a council member, a move to table it, because a lot of the people who were opposed to it thought we should delay because there is going to be a lawsuit against EPA's decision sometime in March. And what I did say last night is that even if this passes, it's going to take over a year to implement and if the lawsuit does pass, by the way, there was 108 previous lawsuits that were all knocked out. So if this 109th one, you know, finds that fluoride is not good for the water, of course, myself and the rest of the council will withdraw the legislation to put fluoride in the water."
Hoey referring there to a nearly 10-year legal battle between the Fluoride Action Network and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over fluoride’s toxicity. Hoey says the 5th ward's Jahmel Robinson did not attend the meeting; Joyce Love of the 3rd ward abstained from voting and 7th ward councilor Sergio Adams had to leave before the vote was taken.
Adams, now a candidate for state Assembly, says his main objection to Local Law K is that people should have the right to choose.
"I'm not a doctor, I'm not a dentist. So I don't want to speak against the science," said Adams. "But when it comes to human beings, and having the right to choose what they put into their bodies, I do believe that this is something that they should have input on. And so for that reason, I'm opposed to it, because, when you have communities who are unaware of this, but decisions are being made, but no attempt to engage these communities is being made. That does not help forge that trust, that people are concerned about. 'How can I trust that fluoride is going to be beneficial to my child or myself, if I'm not being shown any information, the studies, the relevant data that should focus here locally for us to be able to make this decision.' But those studies haven't been done. And the data locally, has not been clear enough for people to trust it."
City Hall says Democratic Mayor Kathy Sheehan "looks forward to quickly signing this into law and working with the Albany Water Board and our local and state health agencies to implement fluoridation into our water supply."
