Local doctor urges fluoridation at national conference

Haynie described it as “preaching to the choir,” because most of the health professionals present supported fluoride as a water additive in some capacity.

“My fluoridation advocacy began as a small town surgeon and city councilor. I saw too many cases of dental devastation that could have been prevented by proper fluoridation,” said Haynie.

The former surgeon argued that low-income families can’t afford the costs of fluoride supplements, which are required to prevent expensive cavities. He said a molar cavity costs a lifetime cost of about $6,000 to fill, while fluoridated tap water would cost a family less than that amount.

Haynie is a former Hood River city councilor and surgeon. Haynie grew up in Milton-Freewater, attended Whitman College in nearby Walla Walla, then went on to study at University of Oregon Medical School and University of Mississippi at Columbia. He served nine years in the U.S. Navy, plying his surgical craft in Washington, D.C., before moving to Hood River in 1977.

Haynie served as a city councilor from 1999 to 2005. During his last year in office, Haynie introduced the idea of a ballot measure for water fluoridation at the November 2004 election, which asked citizens to vote on the additive.

The Hood River Drinking Water Protection political action committee, made up of Hood River citizens, asked that the city charter be amended to prohibit the addition of industrial waste by-products to city water and that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Maximum Contaminant level goals be applied to the water supply. The committee successfully passed the initiative in March 2005, and the ballot measure was dropped by the city in August 2005.

Haynie said the ballot’s language considered fluoride a contaminant due to its trace amounts of arsenic. However, he argued that canned tuna has thousands of times more arsenic than the standard for fluoridated water, which is 0.7 milligrams per liter according to a new recommendation from the U.S. Health Authority (HHS) released in late April.

The HHS recommended a maximum of 0.7 milligrams per liter nationwide, according to an April news release, which reduced the former nationwide range of 0.7 to 1.2 milligrams per liter to a single target, in order to prevent fluorosis through fluoride overexposure, which can harm and stain children’s developing teeth.

Haynie said there have been a series of “wins” and “losses” for pro-fluoridation advocates in Oregon within the last decade. In the Columbia Gorge, The Dalles water supply remains fluoridated, but Hood River is un-fluoridated. In Western Oregon, voters in some cities have recently adopted the additive including Philomath in 2012 and Sweet Home in 2014. However, according to a May 2013 report by the Oregonian, a ballot measure failed in Portland by a 60-to-40 margin.