A fluoridation fuss appears unlikely in Lethbridge following a decision by Health Canada to reduce the allowable level of fluoride in drinking water.

Among the recommendations from an expert panel Health Canada commissioned to study the effects of fluoride exposure is one that suggests the federal agency cut the maximum amount of fluoride in drinking water from 0.8 parts per million to 0.7 ppm.
“The levels that Health Canada is recommending have been our practice for five years,” says Doug Kaupp, general manager of water and wastewater for the City of Lethbridge.
The panel’s recommendations are aimed at better protecting children from risks associated with the chemical. For decades, fluoride has been added to toothpaste and municipal water supplies to help fight cavities, and traces can also be found in infant formula.
But contested research has linked high fluoride exposures in children to a condition known as fluorosis, which causes white patches or brown stains on teeth. The condition affects the appearance of teeth but not their function. Critics of water fluoridation also cite potential adverse effects to the brain as well as bone strength.

The city’s policy regarding fluoridation levels, Kaupp says, is to follow guidelines set out by Alberta Environment. In 2003, the fluoridation level in Lethbridge drinking water was reduced from 0.8 ppm to 0.7 ppm.. Prior to 1999, city water was fluoridated at a level of 1.0 ppm.
“Fluoride is added to the drinking water to prevent dental problems and this benefit needs to be weighed against the toxic effects of fluoride,” says Hans Peterson, executive director of the Safe Drinking Water Foundation, an independent scientific group dedicated to ensuring safe surface and ground water for humans in rural areas around the world.

“To correctly pin down the perfect balance between these two opposing outcomes requires extraordinary and unbiased scientific expertise, which I hope Health Canada has access to,” he says.
The expert panel is worried children might be getting too much of the chemical. So in addition to recommending the government cut the amount of fluoride in drinking water to 0.7 parts per million from the current guideline allowing a range of 0.8 ppm to one ppm, it’s also suggesting that the government encourage the use of low-fluoride toothpaste by children and have makers of infant formula reduce levels in their products.
Health Canada has indicated it will accept the panel’s recommendation to cut the fluoride level in drinking water.

Flouridation of water was a contentious issue in southern Alberta for two decades before being implemented following a plebiscite on the issue in October 1974 with a slim majority of 50.6 per cent in favour. It was the city’s fifth plebiscite on fluoridation in 17 years.
According to city hall records, similar plebiscites were held in 1957, 1961, 1965 and 1967.
The panel’s summary doesn’t specify an optimum fluoride concentration for children’s toothpaste, but one panel member says it would be good to have toothpaste available for children up to age four that contains about half the fluoride of regular toothpaste.
There are currently no industry or regulatory standards for fluoride in baby formula.
The proposals were made in a report submitted to the federal government in January of 2007, but made public last month with little fanfare when Health Canada posted a summary on its website.
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