Maryland water district decides to end fluoridation

Lail notes that fluoridated water could be beneficial to children between the ages of 4 and 14, but that it has been linked to diseases like osteoporosis and cancer. Lail says most water district customers have not expressed any opinion on the subject. He notes that his wife's kidney condition has been somewhat less severe after the change in their drinking water.

• ``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.
• 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.
• 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 ...
• 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.
• 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.
• South Blount Utility District has come under fire for not fluoridating the water, but Isom Lail stands behind his recommendation to leave fluoride out.
• 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.