California Dental Association Withdraws Funding for Watsonville Water Fluoridation

It seems that the drinking water in the Watsonville area will not contain fluoride.

The California Dental Association has made an announcement according to which it is not willing to pay for the installation of a fluoridation system for the city.

This is so mainly because the work costs have proved to be much more expensive than the initial plan showed.

Councilman Daniel Dodge states that this action will eradicate for good the efforts of forcing the city of Watsonville to fluoridate its tap water. According to state law however, jurisdictions where there are more than 10,000 water hookups existent must fluoridate water if there are organizations that will offer funding for that.

The foundation leaders have sent an email on Thursday to the city, expressing their regrets that funding could not be raised. Even like this, officials say they will make everything in their power to identify the proper sources for funding, so that the project could be started.

There are many opponents of water fluoridation in Watsonville, and now they are extremely satisfied with the results. They consider that putting chemicals in drinking water is similar to poisoning, and since funding is now not available, they are more than contempt with the outcome of the situation.

The Pajahero Valley Community Health trust is one of the proponents of fluoridation for the area. Kathleen King, who is the executive director of the trust, said she hoped that fluoridation will help improving dental health for the citizens of the community.

Fluoridation would have a particularly benefic effect on the health of young children and the poorest of the community who cannot afford regular dental checkups and treatments.

Dientes Community Dental Care has run dental screenings on more than 10,000 kids from the community. According to the report, around 75% of the children were found to struggle with untreated tooth decay.

This study was run in 2001; about 9 years later Salud Para La Gente which is a nonprofit organization has found only around 10% of children in kindergartens that had healthy teeth.

According to the proponents of the fluoridation cause, the situation of so many kids struggling with bad oral health is extremely disappointing. However, they firmly believe that the situation is not dead, but it has only been delayed a little.