A healthy dose of debate

From the center of the Blount County, Tenn., fluoridation debate.

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.

-- Maryville Daily Times

Janet Lail's husband, Isom, is the district manager of the South Blount Utility Distict and recommended that the water plant, which opened in June 2004, not use fluoride.

The Lails believe what changed about Janet's health was the water.