Like many others, I watched the turmoil unfolding in Eureka Springs over adding the fluoride to the drinking water in that city of 3,000 or so independent minds. Lots of people there and elsewhere clearly don't want to ingest it. But the state says they must and so the chemical was recently added.
Fluoridation has been a dinosaur's bone of contention that intelligent citizens there and in communities across our state have been gnawing to no avail for years.
Frankly, I've never understood the heated argument swirling around the widely administered additive (fluorosilicic acid) intended to help prevent tooth decay primarily in children. Like others, I suppose I've just taken it for granted that the stuff can't be bad for our health, especially if the government insists on forcing it down citizens' throats.
I see you rolling your eyes. Through all the "official" deceptions in recent years, how do any of us any longer know what to believe?
Then I read Eureka Springs Independent reporter Becky Gillette's latest article about the effects of the fluoridation process when some younger children are exposed to too much of it.
Increasingly there are those, including civil-rights leaders such as former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young and pastor Gerald Durley, who've taken positions against water fluoridation, primarily because of the reported harmful effects the chemical appears to be having on young black children, Gillette's story explained.
While the American Dental Association (with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) have insisted water fluoridation is safe and necessary for healthy teeth, particularly in minority communities where dental care is limited and expensive, the latest concerns stem from governmental research that shows dental fluorosis rates nearly doubled between 1980 through 2004, rising from 23 percent to 41 percent. Dental fluorosis mostly affects children as their permanent teeth are forming, and can cause pitting and staining of the teeth.
Gillette also reported studies showing black children suffer from dental fluorosis at a rate of 58 percent compared to 36 percent for white children.
The story says Dan Stockin, a career public-health professional with a background in toxics assessments and hazardous materials management, sent a freedom of information request to the CDC. Stockin works with the Lillie Center Inc., which opposes fluoridation. The agency's response showed its staff had worked closely with the ADA to organize campaigns to minimize the findings that fluoridation has a larger negative impact on black children.
"When civil rights leaders started speaking out in 2011, we see in the FOIA documents how the CDC and dental representatives reacted," Stockin is quoted saying. "They were concerned that the talking points about fluorides helping minorities would be changed."
Stockin said the disproportionate negative effects on black children ingesting fluorides is "strongly supported by science." While Eureka Springs isn't a community with an abundance of minority children, I'm still betting this point adds even more fodder to the dispute in a city where the majority of residents have staunchly opposed fluoridation for what they believe are solid reasons.
Bucks for bridge
Everything comes down to money. It's no different with the analyses planned to determine whether Benton County can afford to refurbish and save the structurally deficient War Eagle Bridge. Everyone from state Game and Fish to historic preservationists and Great River Engineering of Springfield, Mo., will be involved.
That's as it should be when so much charm and history for something as sentimental as the survival of this historic one-lane bridge built in 1908 is at stake. A majority of folks in Northwest Arkansas clearly want to keep the structure, even in a modified state. So Benton County Judge Bob Clinard finds himself knee-deep in the flow between public sentiment and public affordability.
I appreciated what Glenn Jones of the Benton County Historical Preservation Commission said after attending a meeting with Clinard and Great River's engineer. "It was a very good presentation. They've done similar work before," he told reporter Tom Sissom. "Like everything in life, the question is still about the money. If the work can be done and done for a reasonable price, it will be a go."
Hopefully we all will hear good news within the next four months.
Now road vanishes!
Lonnie McAllister of Fayetteville wrote a postscript to my recent column about his family's eerie GodNod experience in 1954. Out of gas, they happened across a one-pump service station along a desolate 12-mile stretch of dirt road outside Antlers, Okla. The worried McAllisters were desperate when the overgrown service station with one man suddenly appeared. They never again found even an indication of that mysterious station despite several attempts. "That 12-mile dirt road is now a railroad track, according to the 2015 edition of Oklahoma Highways map," he wrote after researching last week. "It shows nobody ever used it much, don't you think?"
Yes, I do think, Lonnie.
Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com.
Editorial on 07/19/2015