San Jose sails against the tide of fluoridation

On Feb. 1 – the start of National Children’s Dental Health Month – San Jose solidified its place atop a list notorious among those battling sugary treats and cavities: it became the largest city in the country that doesn’t add fluoride to its drinking water.

That day, San Diego began pumping the compound into its water supply, 46 years after New York’s system went online, 12 years after Los Angeles and almost 60 years after San Francisco.

To many health professionals, the situation is an affront in a place hailed as the cradle of high-tech innovation.

“Fluoridation has been done across the country since the 1940s,” said Fred Ferrer, chief executive of the Health Trust, a nonprofit public health foundation that serves Santa Clara and San Benito counties. “We’re really behind the times – and that’s really unlike Santa Clara County.”

Next month, Ferrer and other fluoridation advocates plan to take the issue to Santa Clara Valley Water District, a water wholesaler whose retail customers serve about 1.8 million people. In a 2010 letter to the water district, county supervisor Liz Kniss said recent polls showed that two-thirds of county residents support fluoridation, with only 13 percent opposed.

“The scientific evidence is overwhelming,” Kniss wrote. “The need is great. It’s time for Silicon Valley to join Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and virtually every other major metropolitan area in the United States as a community that fluoridates its water.”

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/18/BAF11HPE8A.DTL#ixzz1EuEiiu8C