A group of Calgarians supported by dentists are asking their city councillors to once again add fluoride to the public water supply in order to prevent tooth decay.
The group, calling itself Calgarians for Kidsâ Health, includes parents like Carmen Davison, who told reporters at a news conference Monday that she blames lack of fluoride for cavities so severe that her daughter required surgery.
âIt was very traumatizing for my husband and I to take a child into a surgery,â she said.
Decades of research has shown that fluoride added to drinking water hardens tooth enamel, thereby reducing cavities. Many Canadian communities have been adding it to their supplies since the 1940s. Calgary began in 1989, but removed it in 2011 citing costs and health concerns.
At least one city councillor who voted to remove fluoride now says sheâll reconsider. âWe have done harm, actually, by removing it,â said Diane Colley-Urquhart. Several others told CTV Calgary they would still vote against fluoride.
Albertaâs provincial health authority and concluded in January that water fluoridation âoffers significant benefit with very low risk.â
Health Canada also took a close look at the issue in 2010 and said fluoride in drinking water up to twice the recommended amount was âunlikely to cause any adverse health effects including cancer, bone fracture, immunotoxicity, reproductive/developmental toxicity, genotoxicity, and/or neurotoxicity.â
However, renewed concerns by connecting fluoride to lower IQ. Investigators at the University of Toronto, McGill University and the Harvard School of Public Health studied 287 pairs of mothers and children in Mexico City and found a correlation between fluoride levels in motherâs urine during pregnancy and lower intelligence in their children.
The researchers adjusted their analysis for other possible factors that might have impacted the childrenâs neurodevelopment, such as the mothersâ smoking history, IQ and lead exposure, but couldnât find another explanation.
That said, one of the researchers told CTVNews.ca that fluoride may be âa proxy of some other real actor thatâs playing a roleâ in the neurodevelopment, and that more research is needed to confirm the link.
Calgary dentist June Dabbagh said she believes other factors that werenât tested for could explain the correlation.
According to Dabbagh, the science is clear and fluoride is safe. âThere is no debate,â she said. âWe just need to make sure that the public gets it.â
With a report from CTV Calgaryâs Brad MacLeod