In Our View: Debate over fluoride should be based on facts

Camas Public Works Director Steve Wall said: “It is a community choice and always has been. We’re not required to add fluoride in our water system, but, if we do, we have requirements from the Department of Health and EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), including sampling, monitoring and notifications.”

In other words, if the elected leaders of Camas choose to stop fluoridating their city’s drinking water — a practice that costs $40,000 a year — that is their right. But the hope is that any decision is based on sound science and the public good rather than absurd theories that long have surrounded the issue.

For decades, as more cities added fluoride to their water, it was common for conspiracy theorists to insist that fluoridation was a Cold War scheme or an effort for the government to control minds. In the satirical 1964 movie “Dr. Strangelove,” one character says, “Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?”

The conspiracy theories have evolved over the past half-century. Now, the United States has a new secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who describes fluoride as “an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.” That is an absurd characterization, but it resonates with a segment of the population.