I was quite distressed to read some of the information supporting Boulder’s Ballot Question 2B on drinking water standards. This proposed ordinance is a thinly disguised attack on fluoridation rather than an ordinance to protect the quality of our water.
Of particular concern is Clean Water Advocates’ claim that arsenic from fluoridation additives can reach 1.66 ppb, enough to produce an additional 100 cancers in a city the size of Boulder. This statement is both misleading and technically indefensible. The arsenic concentration appears to be taken from NSF-International data summarized in an April 2000 NSF-International letter to the state of Florida. (see online).
NSF-International says that, in the more than 100 tests they’ve run, the average concentration of arsenic found in fluoridated water samples (including samples without detectable arsenic) is less than 0.1 ug/l (ppb). The 1.66 ppb concentration used by CWA was the maximum NSF-International value, and its use in estimating the likely number of cancers caused by arsenic ingestion is clearly an overestimate of the actual risk.
The estimates used by CWA appear to have come from the NRC Arsenic in Drinking Water 2001 update (see online). However, using more up-to-date toxicity information from EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System 2006 data and the average arsenic concentration, the risk level is calculated at fewer than 0.005 cancers per 1,000 people, 200 times lower than the CWA’s claim.
This translates to fewer than 1 cancer in a city the size of Boulder rather than the 100 such incidences claimed. This minuscule increase in cancer is far outweighed by the weight of evidence from the American Cancer Society, American Medical Association, American Dental Society and the World Health Organization, which all agree that the method of fluoridation used by Boulder is safe and effective for reducing tooth decay.
The author is from Boulder.
The preceding was originally published as a letter to the editor of the Boulder Daily Camera on September 27, 2006.
This message is from the Vote No on 2B Committee,
supported by the many very concerned health professionals serving the people of Boulder.
