I SUPPOSE it was generous of the Portland City Council to hold a lengthy public hearing less than a week before it was scheduled to vote on something that (sorry, inbox!) makes sense and is entirely overdue: the fluoridation of Portland’s water supply.
But that hearing last Thursday, September 6—all six-plus hours of it—was an awful waste.
The three council members who favor fluoridation—Mayor Sam Adams and Commissioners Randy Leonard and Nick Fish—had all announced their support long ago. And it was clear no one’s mind was going to change, even after the parade of anti-fluoride advocates—some paranoid, others smart and well-intentioned—had their say.
Worse, the pro forma hearing (three votes, after all, constitutes a council majority) might actually have hurt the city’s cause, because it managed to reinforce the one very legitimate gripe raised by fluoridation foes: that the public process behind fluoride has been lamentably bad.
For instance, before the hearing we’d already learned that city officials had devised an end-run around a likely 2014 anti-fluoride referendum—speeding up the fluoridation timetable so it happens before voters can step in and cancel it. Further, we also learned that many of the suburban customers who buy Portland’s water had received scant notice that things were about to change.
And then came a lengthy, circus-like council meeting that had extra security, spat-out accusations of “white guilt,” and city commissioners leaving for (and sometimes returning from) other prior commitments. Stirring up further resentment, the council invited something like a dozen pro-fluoride experts to speak—but declined the courtesy of allowing equal time for fluoride foes.
If opponents ever do raise the nearly 30,000 signatures they’ll need to force a vote, that seeming subjugation of democratic expression will probably loom even larger for voters than any and all of the misinterpreted studies usually thrown around by anti-fluoride activists.
It’s true that Adams, since declaring his support early, has attempted some atonement. Twice he’s posted detailed, well-crafted explanations of his pro-fluoride stance. (The second post came after he publicly agreed to watch anti-fluoride documentary An Inconvenient Tooth before making anything official.)
But Dan Saltzman and Amanda Fritz deserve even more credit for their conduct. Out of deference to the public, both waited for the council’s official vote (as of press time on Tuesday, September 11) to reveal their decisions.
It creates the impression, at least, that some of our leaders will listen before they leap. Even if what they’re hearing amounts to a lot of noise.
Commissioners Saltzman and Fritz would deserve credit only if they had offered an amendment requiring further outreach to the public, similar to the meetings used to get public input for the Portland Plan, or even better, requiring a public referendum before implementation.
They didn’t do that, and so failed to stand apart from the City Hall oligarchy. I mean, two lame ducks plus three lame incumbents — is this any way to run a city?
The commissioners talked themselves blue in the face on the subject of dental hygiene. But they said barely a word about the biggest issue: Democracy.
We elect the Mayor and Commisioners to make these decisions and cast these votes, and even though it took a long time, this is local government at its’ best.
Finally.
Apparently there are smart and well intentioned fluoridation foes who aren’t paranoid? Maybe I’ve been too hard on them…
“misinterpreted studies” studies huh?
National Research Council: http://www.actionpa.org/fluoride/nrc/NRC-2…
–“Children in high fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low fluoride areas,”
–“The results suggest that fluoride may be a developmental neurotoxicant that affects brain development at exposures much below those that can cause toxicity in adults.”
Reading is hard. Looking information that isn’t spoon fed to you by the lobbying organization behind the Everyone Deserves Healthy Teeth campaign is hard.
One thing I haven’t misinterpreted is the giant banner for the fluoride lobby that’s been hanging over your blog for weeks$$$
Wow Denis. I guess you and the Portland Mercury now think the hipster thing to do is go the way of the Oregonian & Willamette Week and have an obvious bias when ‘reporting the news.’ Next time we see each other, and I know we will, I’ll look forward to you telling me to my face that my saying ‘white guilt’ was circus-like. Sometimes the truth is tough to face but the excuse of ‘feeling bad’ for low income and children of color was used as an excuce over and over at the fluoridation hearing by Leonard, Fish, and Adams. That bad feeling the council has ignores the source of dental disparities and throws at these vulnerable children the cheapest form of a band-aid that comes from phosphate processing. It’s an insult to minority and low in-income residents to supposedly ‘help’ kids by giving them, and all of Portland, Tigard, Tualitin, and Gresham, a diluted industrial by-product.
I’m not angry at you Denis, but I am disappointed that you chose sarcasm and trying to sound cool, over journalistic integrity. I hope in the future you will find ways to report to your readers rather than pander to certain audiences.
http://lulac.org/advocacy/resolutions/2011…
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ci…
Well said VC. Dennis is my favorite writer for the Merc. However, his commentary in this article was uncharacteristically bias for him.
And one thing that also stuck out for me was the mention of extra security. I’ve attended public hearings at CH before, and never noticed security at all – other than a guy in a nice jacket directing people where to go. So much security now, security everywhere. Why do i not feel secure???
You would do yourself and your readers a greater service by doing your homework. You might want to start with medical writer Joel Griffiths and then check out Christopher Bryson. You will discover, as other investigative journalists have, that the fluoride issue is a huge cover-up that goes all the way back to workers on the Manhattan Project and involves players like Robert A. Kehoe, director of Kettering Labs. Dr. Kehoe was the leading defender in the US of the “safety” of leaded gasoline. He also defended fluoride on behalf of DuPont, Alcoa and U.S. Steel, companies who have all faced lawsuits for industrial fluoride pollution. The attorneys for these corporations, which included Reynolds Metals and Monsanto, formed the Fluorine Lawyers Committee. Those corporations funded the fluoride research at Kettering which included human experiments on African American lab workers in the years following World War II. A brilliant Harvard toxicologist, Phillis Mullenix, finally published her fluoride research in 1994. After testing and re-testing over 500 rats at fluoride intake levels equivalent to those of high water drinkers such as athletes and dialysis patients, she discovered that fluoride is a neurotoxin. Pregnant rats who drank the fluoridated water gave birth to hyperactive babies and those offspring gave birth to babies exhibiting mental retardation. She was promptly fired from her position at Forsyth Labs and her research which represented a major breakthrough was immediately defunded.