Without fluoride in water, 4 | Arch Wires Group Co.,Ltd

Cole McWhite, 5, shows off his dental crowns last week. His parents are among a group of parents suing the city for not adequately telling the public about the decision to stop adding fluoride to the water eight years ago.

When Dana McWhite opened The Buffalo News in January and read an article revealing that Buffalo city officials quietly stopped adding fluoride to the city’s drinking water years earlier, it all started to make sense.

McWhite and her husband, Kenneth, rarely let their two children eat processed foods. They steered them away from candy and juice boxes.

“They’ve never had pop a day in their life,” McWhite said. “We take very good care of their teeth.”

Dana McWhite, center, and her children, Myla, on left, and Cole sit for a portrait at their Buffalo home on July 17, 2023.

So the West Side couple was “shocked” after taking Cole, 4, to the dentist last year.

“We took him in and the dentist was like, ‘He has not one, not two, but eight cavities, and they all need crowns,’ ” Dana McWhite said.

The McWhites believe the lack of fluoride in the city’s water is responsible for their son’s dental problems. They are among a group of Buffalo parents who are suing the city in State Supreme Court for not adequately telling the public about the decision to stop adding fluoride to the water eight years ago.

Buffalo stopped adding fluoride to its water in 2015, many parents didn't find out about the change until a Buffalo News story published earlier this year.

Because of gaps in their insurance coverage, the family paid for Cole’s surgery at John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital of Buffalo out of pocket, McWhite said.

Worse, though, was seeing how much pain their son was in after the anesthesia wore off.

“It was really bad,” McWhite said. “He was really scared and he was just like out of it. It was really hard to watch him be so upset, because tooth pain, we know as grown-ups, is pretty hard. He was in quite a bit of pain.”

On a recent morning, Cole was busy playing with Magna-Tiles and other toys when his mom called him over. When he smiled, the chrome in his mouth – from the metal crowns – glistened from across the room. Cole and his sister now use fluoride mouth rinse the family purchases on Amazon.

Cole McWhite, 5, brushes his teeth at home on July 17, 2023. McWhite recently had to have eight crowns put in.

“For seven years we would have been doing that, had we known,” McWhite said. “So it wasn’t a huge lifestyle change, but it did feel very back-handed that we didn’t know. We were very upset about that.”

The Buffalo Water Board stopped adding fluoride to the water in 2015, citing a need for upgrades and “ongoing capital improvements” to its system. The change was mentioned briefly on the last page of a government water quality report, printed in small type.

McWhite said she pays her water bills online and saw no mention of the lack of fluoride on Buffalo Water’s website.

“There was never like, an alert or a yellow banner at the top (saying) this is something that you might want to read,” McWhite said. “I think, for me, that’s the big piece: just not knowing. The fact that they withheld it from us … had we known, we could have been taking fluoride treatments or raising awareness in the community.”

When Rahwa Ghirmatzion found out the city stopped adding fluoride to its water, she took action, “not just for myself but for the countless other children in the community and other families that had been lied to for a very long time.”

Rahwa Ghirmatzion has spent nearly her entire career as a community activist. But even the former executive director for PUSH Buffalo, a housing advocacy group, was unaware the city stopped fluoridating its water.

“When I read the article in the paper, I just had this visceral, emotional reaction to it where you just felt duped,” Ghirmatzion said. “I just had a level of anger (and said), ‘I have to do something, and not just for myself but for the countless other children in the community and other families that had been lied to for a very long time.’ ”

Buffalo’s water system now contains far lower measurements of fluoride – which boosts dental health and guards against tooth decay – than what public health experts recommend. That puts Buffalo in the minority both nationally and in New York State.

While the American Dental Association recommends community water fluoridation as a means of preventing tooth decay, the ADA also states that too much fluoride can cause fluorosis, “which may occur when excess levels of fluoride are ingested during tooth development.”

“One of the decisions I made when I first had my child is that I’m not going to get him fluoridated toothpaste, because I use tap water,” Ghirmatzion said. “As a parent, I was making a conscious decision about the health of my child and my family.”

She attributes cavities her son had at a recent dentist appointment to the lack of fluoride in the water.

Fluoride rinse sits on the counter of the McWhite household bathroom on July 17, 2023. The McWhite family purchased the rinse after learning that Buffalo was not adding fluoride to the city water.

The issue is also one of health equity, Ghirmatzion said, especially in a poor city like Buffalo.

“The most vulnerable people tend to be Black women, Black families, Black children,” she said.

Her lawsuit cites data from the National Institutes of Health showing that “for the ages of 6 to 8 years, Black and Mexican American children and those living in families with low incomes were twice as likely to have untreated decay than White children and children living in families with high incomes.”

Buffalo has gone without the recommended amount of fluoride in its water for several years. Read the full story here.

Buffalo Water Board Chairman Oluwole McFoy, who through a city spokesperson declined to comment for this article, previously told The News the city was in the process of upgrading an outdated “dry” fluoride system when the lead water crisis in Flint, Mich., caused the water board to pause in 2016 and study whether the planned new type of “wet” fluoride system would have a corrosive effect on Buffalo’s many lead pipes.

“I don’t have a problem with that,” Ghirmatzion said. “I’m going to trust that you’re the experts and you’re going to do the right thing. But once the decision was made that we have stopped putting fluoride in the water, why did you not tell the rest of the community so we as a parent could also make an informed decision and pivot to what I needed to do as a parent?”

Ghirmatzion said the fluoride flap has left her with a deep skepticism of city officials.

“My faith in our government officials being able to actually take care of the citizens, which was their responsibility, no longer exists,” she said. “This was the last straw for me.”’

Robert Galbraith fills a cup of water from the kitchen sink inside his Buffalo home on July 14, 2023.

As a senior research analyst at the nonprofit Public Accountability Initiative, Rob Galbraith has been critical of government agencies before.

But the fluoride issue hit home in a more personal way, the East Side resident said, because his 5-year-old son “has lived his entire life now without fluoridated public water.”

“This is one of the most basic things a government needs to do,” Galbraith said. “This is why we have a government. So when I read your story in January, it hit me in the chest in a way that other stories of government mess-ups did not.”

Members of Buffalo’s Common Council were also caught off guard, which was also concerning, said Galbraith, whose child did not have cavities or require surgery.

“The fact that nobody seemed to know what was happening with our water supply in Buffalo, it was really shocking to me,” he said. “It really blew me away. That’s what took it to the level of, we need to do something.”

Robert Galbraith sits for a portrait at his Buffalo home on July 14, 2023.

In late January, Mayor Byron W. Brown said, “The buck ultimately stops with me. Like others, I was not immediately notified, but I should have been, and we should have put the information out to the community. No excuse for it.”

But since then, the Brown administration has not said exactly when fluoride will be returned to the water supply. Dentists have told The News they stand ready to participate in a public health campaign, but since meetings months ago with a Brown aide, they say they have heard nothing from the Mayor’s Office.

Last week, mayoral spokesperson Michael DeGeorge released a statement from Water Board Chairman McFoy stating that construction plans and a cost estimate for the project would be submitted in two weeks, followed by construction and testing.

Through DeGeorge, the mayor did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

DeGeorge on Friday released a statement saying that Buffalo Water “will submit a permit application, including plans, to the Erie County Department of Health within two weeks. Following a Health Department Review, Buffalo Water expects to begin construction and testing within six weeks. Essential items, such as flow metering equipment, has already been ordered to help ensure timely construction.”

That doesn’t satisfy Galbraith.

“We don’t seem any more closer to getting fluoride back in the water or understanding what happened or why it has taken so long,” Galbraith said. “We get these very vague statements about studies and possibilities. It honestly seems like nobody with any authority to act on this cares.”

News Political Reporter