Belated Bid to Fluoridate L.A. Water Gives Health Experts Reason to Smile : But City Council plan to add cavity-fighting compound may resurrect old debates.

It isn’t in the water. And that came as a surprise to Manoj M. Amin, who has practiced dentistry in Los Angeles for 14 years.

“It should be there,” the Silver Lake dentist said.

Victoria Silva, whose 4-year-old daughter has four cavities that Amin discovered Thursday on the girl’s first dental visit, also was surprised.

Many Angelenos were open-mouthed at the news that the Los Angeles City Council this week instructed the water board to find out how much it would cost and how much trouble it would be to add cavity-preventing fluoride to the Los Angeles water supply.

Didn’t that battle get played out decades ago? Wasn’t that the moldy debate in which the John Birch Society warned that putting fluoride in the water was really another step toward secret government control of American life? Don’t we have fluoride in our water?

Well, no. Los Angeles is among the few major U.S. cities without it.

The City Council voted against fluoridation in 1966 after six years of debate. In 1975, residents rejected the cavity-fighting compound.

The issue spawned a rancorous debate, with an unlikely coalition of arch-conservatives and natural-foodies fighting the doctors, dentists and government officials. The conservatives said fluoridating water was a Communist plot to poison Americans. The herbal contingent saw fluoride as a chemical food additive; if it wasn’t natural, it couldn’t be good.

For 20 years, the city stayed out of the jaws of that particular battle.

But this week Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who used to write a health newsletter, took the fluoride bit between her teeth and made the motion to re-examine the issue.

She was encouraged to do so, she said, by a state bill mandating fluoridation in most California water systems. The bill cleared a key Senate committee Wednesday.

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Still, the issue promises to bring out some old foes.

Although the fall of the Iron Curtain apparently squashed the Communist plot theory, some groups continue to dispute scientific data suggesting that fluoridation poses no health hazards and helps prevent cavities.

Anti-fluoridation activists claim that the substance may cause cancer, brittle bones, mental disorders and a variety of other ailments. Among some, there is also a lingering unease about adding anything to the city’s water supply.

Proponents argue that fluoridation is a cost-effective and safe way to keep Los Angeles smiling.

“Anyone with teeth will benefit,” said Dr. Caswell Evans, assistant director of health services for the county Health Department. Both the medical and dental establishments have praised fluoridation, citing recent studies that credit it with reducing tooth decay nationwide about 25%.

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Los Angeles is not the only large California city to lag behind the national trend of fluoridation that began 50 years ago. Sacramento, San Jose and San Diego also do not add fluoride to their reservoirs.

The motion approved Wednesday by the City Council ordered the Board of Water and Power Commissioners to find out what it would take to put fluoride in city water and ordered the Department of Water and Power to find the money to make it possible.

Galanter said fluoridation is a sound way to protect children’s teeth, especially those from modest backgrounds who visit the dentist less regularly.

Victoria Silva said she figures fluoridated water might have saved her the money she spent on fluoride tablets for her two eldest children. And it might have saved her 4-year-old, who never took the tablets, some uncomfortable future visits to the dentist.

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The Fluoridation Fight

A bill to mandate the fluoridation of water in California cities with more than 25,000 residents passed the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday. But adding fluoride to public drinking water supplies has long been a topic of heated debate. Here is a summary of the issue:

The Process

Involves adjusting the amount of fluoride already present in water to an “optimal” level of 0.7 parts per million. Scientist say that fluoridated water most helps those who drink it from birth and that the protection holds throughout life for people who continue to live in fluoridated communities.

What Supporters Say:

* Repeatedly endorsed by medical and dental establishments, the process has been credited with reducing tooth decay nationwide by about 25%.

* The bill’s sponsor says California taxpayers would save more than $385 million in annual dental care costs.

* Fluoridation provides cavity- fighting benefits to people of all income levels.

What Critics Say:

* Some studies have linked fluoride to cancer, an increase in hip fractures and osteoporosis, mottled teeth, brittle bones, kidney disorders, mental disorders and a variety of other ailments. (Proponents cite studies that contradict these hazards.)

* Critics cite a violation of individual liberty, saying that people can choose to intake fluoride voluntarily via fluoridated toothpastes or tablets rather than being forced to ingest it in public drinking water.

* Voicing concerns over home rule, some oppose the measure on the basis that residents and city governments have voted down numerous similar efforts to add fluoride at the local level.

Sources: California Dental Assn.; Safe Water Coalition, Citizens for Health; Times files.