Fluoride: Been there . . .

One step forward. Two back?

A group of Salt Lake County residents wants to renege on an earlier measure approved by voters to add fluoride to the county's water supply.

Opponents claim the public was not adequately educated on the potential risks of water fluoridation. They say it costs too much to fluoridate all water sources, including city wells used on a seasonal basis. Some people assert that water fluoridation constitutes "forced medication" of the public.

It's up to the Salt Lake County Council to decide whether there should be another vote on the issue. Unlike Davis County, where the measure passed by a razor-thin margin, 58 percent of Salt Lake County voters favored fluoridation in the 2000 election. The council should respect their wishes and give this important public health measure an opportunity to prove itself.

Even though the measure passed in November 2000, fluoride was not added to most of Salt Lake County's water until this fall. That's an insufficient amount of time to assess its efficacy or its cost effectiveness.

The council should hear Salt Lake County residents on this issue and determine if there is some means to assist small communities struggling with the cost of implementing fluoridation. But it is premature to vote to halt county wide water fluoridation. Salt Lake County residents waited nearly three years for the 2000 measure to be realized. Putting the issue before voters again in 2004 would be foolish.

Again, legitimate arguments can be made about the cost of implementing this public health measure. It is, unquestionably, a more costly undertaking for smaller communities or smaller water districts than for their larger cousins. The county council should carefully study these concerns.

Our wish is that fluoride would continue to flow. In time, from the public's point of view, fluoridation would pay for itself in terms of substantial reductions in dental decay and the costs of associated dental treatment.

But if the county council decides to reopen this issue, the debate needs to based on documented medical and dental research and economics, which we contend is far more productive than the unbridled emotion that often overwhelms dialogue on this issue.