Since Fluoride Dropped by Lesli Bales-Sherrod
The Daily Times - Maryville, Tennessee
April 4, 2005
Janet Lail's husband calls her a ``water
junkie.''
Of course, she is married to the district manager of the South
Blount Utility District.
"My water cup is my constant companion,'' she laughed,
hoisting the yellow jug into the air. "The first thing I do in
the morning is fix my water. I drink water all day.''
Drinking water is especially important to Janet Lail because
she suffers from chronic pylonephritis, a kidney disease she
was diagnosed with in 1978 and that has put her in the
hospital every month for the past four years. That is, until
last June.
Since then, her hospital visits have been fewer and further
between. First she went 10 weeks without a hospital visit,
then 14, then seven.
"I thought it was a fluke or something,'' she acknowledged.
"When you've been sick like that for so many years, you don't
want to analyze why (you're doing better). I didn't want to
talk about it; I was afraid it might go away.''
But her husband, Isom Lail, and her doctors were wondering
what was going on. They looked at her medications, her fluids
... but nothing had changed.
Nothing, that is, except the water.
The South Blount Utility District, of which the Lails are
customers, opened its new plant in June 2004 and started
providing unfluoridated water. Isom Lail pointed out the
change to his wife late last year, but she was reluctant to
talk about it until now.
"I told Isom I am willing to show my medical records because I
knew people would say I'm just saying that because I'm his
wife,'' she said Thursday.
After all, it was Isom Lail and Plant Manager Henry Durant who
recommended the South Blount Utility District Board not
fluoridate the water. Lail insists his wife's health was not
part of the equation, though, and she confirms that neither of
them made the connection between the unfluoridated water and
her improvement until many months after the decision was made.
"There's no regulation requiring (fluoride), and one of our
promises to our customers was to produce the cleanest, safest
water with the least chemicals required,'' Isom Lail
explained.
Community and operator safety also was a factor, he added.
"As we did this, we looked at the pros and cons,'' he said.
``Just because everybody else does it this way doesn't mean
we're going to. We're going to investigate it first.''
Janet Lail, who described herself as a "massive reader,''
helped her husband with the research in early 2004. She read a
book called "The Fluoride Deception'' and decided to read a
book in support of fluoride as well.
She couldn't find one, she said, and thought, "That doesn't
make sense.''
"Who knew?'' she asked. `"Fluoride) was just something we'd
always had.''
No benefit for adults
South Blount Utility District has come under fire for not
fluoridating the water, but Isom Lail stands behind his
recommendation to leave fluoride out. He noted that, according
to the American Dental Association, fluoride is beneficial to
teeth only for those between the ages of 4 and 14. After that,
he said, it has no benefit, but has been linked to diseases
such as cancer and osteoporosis.
"We're not doctors; we're water providers,'' he said. "By not
putting it in, we may not be doing any good to the kids, but
we are definitely not doing any harm to any of our
customers.''
Besides, Janet Lail added, "If it's so good and necessary, why
is it not one of the things you have to put in the water?''
Despite her own feelings, she said she expected "a raging
debate'' over fluoridation and has been surprised at how
little controversy it has generated. In March, the South
Blount Utility District received five phone calls from
customers wanting fluoride and 13 from customers wanting the
water to be left the way it is, Isom Lail said.
"Probably less than 1 percent of our customers have been
involved,'' he said. "The majority really don't care.''
Counting the weeks
As South Blount Utility District awaits the results of a
fluoride literature review being conducted by McGill
Associates, the district manager's wife continues counting the
weeks until she has to go back to the hospital. Right now,
she's up to 10.
"Not having fluoride in the water has not reversed my
condition,'' she stressed. ``I'm not going to get well, but I
have stabilized.''
Isom Lail noted that at least one other kidney patient has
reported an improvement in his health to the South Blount
Utility District.
"We did not solicit this information; it was volunteered to
us,'' he added. "How many more out there are reaping the
benefits?''
Cautious of getting people's hopes up, Janet Lail said she
considered going back to drinking fluoridated water to
determine if that is really what has made the difference in
her health, but her husband and her doctors told her not to.
Instead, she said, her doctors will "have to look at that''
the next time she is hospitalized.
In the meantime, she is enjoying getting up, getting dressed
and generally "having a life.'' But most of all, she is
enjoying a reprieve from the pain she likens to rubbing a
Brillo pad over scorched skin.
"It was the last thing I thought of before I went to sleep,
and it woke me up every day for years,'' Janet Lail
remembered. "Everyday when I wake up, I ask, 'Whose body is
this that I'm living in right now?'''
Provided by
New York State Coalition Opposed to
Fluoridation
www.orgsites.com/ny/nyscof
