Comments

1
I missed this. Are they debating changing the spelling to "Flouride"?
2
white people.
3
"Collecting anecdotes doesn't make a point. Science makes a point."

Best line of the week.
4
This "debate" is cutting in to my ability to be crazy smug about the ridiculousness that often passes for debatable issues in the midwestern state that I am from.

But am I not entertained?

God bless you Denis for sitting through this.
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The fact that several of the Council members and the Mayor came out in favor of fluoridation *before* the meeting and that the pro-fluoride group was given over an hour of testimony by an "Experts Panel" even though former CEO of the American Cancer Society, Rick North, who opposes fluoridation, requested equal time from Randy Leonard (and got no response) says it all. This was pure one-sided political theater.
Randy Leonard claims that the reason that the timeline for this project was shortened from 5 years to 15 months was because the Water Bureau did not make it clear that the time factor was mainly a permitting issue not a construction issue. Still, an initiative was filled by http://cleanwaterportland.org to get the issue to a vote by the citizens which would be on the ballot primary on May 2014, which would fall two months after the stated timeline in the ordinance.
"Item d.The Water Bureau shall design and implement a fluoridation program so that the City's water is efïectively fluoridated no later than March I, 2014."
It might look as if the timeline was shortened to prevent a vote by the very citizens who voted them into office. But that might seem undemocratic. Right?
6
50+ years of fluoridation in every other major US city, where are the mass protests against it in those cities?
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Give the people who will have to pay for it (get ready for a still bigger water bill!) the right to vote for or against.
Here's a point about "science". It gets old. Remember leaded gas? Asbestos? Saccharine? DDT? All once perfectly safe backed by the best "science" know to man.
I love our water as it is. Drink all the fluoride you want but don't put it in our pure clean water.
8
Haha! I'd rather at flour than Fluoride!
9
It is my human right to control what I ingest especially when it comes to medications. For my city government to attempt to force me and the rest of the unwilling public of portland to take a controversial medication for a condition the vast majority of us don't have at a completely uncontrolled dose is authoritarian and frightening. For the city government to do this while ACTIVELY PREVENTING THE PUBLIC FROM HAVING INPUT is criminal and the people who are doing this will have a hard time living in Portland after this. There will be civil suits and hopefully a criminal investigation of how much money changed hands between Randy Leonard, Sam Adams, Nick Fish, and their partners in this plan to abruptly force an invasive, disgustingly arrogant policy on the public of Portland.
10
I am sure we all have a legal right to physically defend ourselves against mass murderer's and if we acted on mass instantaneously we could stop this nonsense very quickly.
Dr. Dean Burk had no hestiation in calling fluoridation mass murder and today one in three people develop cancer. Never donate to any Cancer Research Institute ... some causes of cancer are very well known ... start preventing cancer by turning off the fluoridation taps and Cancer Research Institutes everywhere should be loud and clear, but most are spineless recalcitrants not worth pissing on even if they were on fire.
11
I watched this on the internet. The City Council invited credentialed people opposed to fluoridation to speak before them at length, over 1 and 1/2 hours, but didn't extend the same courtesy to professionals opposed to fluoridation, who were just lumped in with the over 200 testifiers who were give 3, then 2 than 1 minute to testify

Oregon dentist Bill Osmunson who opposes fluoridation had to talk like an auctioneer and then was scolded because he overran his 60 seconds. Dr. Osmunson was probably the foremost expert on this issue in the room. Clearly this meeting was not intended to gather the facts but to showcase the people who convinced the City Council to fluoridate.

And it was quite a show and revealed that fluoridationists act upon faith. Fluoridation opposition acts on evidence.

No evidence was presented showing Portland children are fluoride deficient. Clearly too many can't afford dental care.

If allowed to speak longer, Dr. Osmunson would have revealed that when you look at bombed out teeth, you are seeing socioeconomic status not lack of fluoride - as many testifiers implied.

The problem: Lots of Portland children have bombed out teeth.

The solution that City Council believes: Fluoridation will stop or alleviate this problem.

The truth: It won't

No evidence was supplied that proved otherwise. We saw pictures of children with rotted teeth but no one told us how much fluoride these poor children ingested from foods, beverages, dental products, pharmaceuticals or how much fluoride they inhaled from air pollution or ocean mist. Tea and ocean fish have loads of natural fluoride. Did these kids drink too much cheap powdered ice tea? We don't know because such data has not been collected. Adding more fluoride into these poor malnourished bodies will probably do more harm. Whose fixing their teeth?

Those for and against fluoridation agree that too much fluoride can actually weaken teeth and make them more brittle and more apt to decay. Maybe those children with bombed out teeth are actually victims of fluoride overdose

Cavity crises are occurring in every city - even fluoridated cities - not because of a fluoride-deficiency, which doesn't exist in the human body, but because of dentist-deficiency.

Most dentists won't treat poor children. That's the real problem Portland faces. Why isn't the City Council addressing the real problem. And why did most of the fluoridation-endorsing organizations lobby against an Oregon health care plan that would have given healthcare to all residents. If they really care about poor children, this would have passed into law.

12
I just love how all the sudden everyone is a fiscal conservative when it coincides with their paranoia.
13
We have all been hoodwinked, fluoridation has been the greatest Fraud perpetrated on so many unsuspecting people All the latest information of peer reviewed world scientific research has not been allowed to be heard on an equal footing to the pro lobby which has been supported and bank rolled by corporate resources. A fundamental right is to have an informed choice as to what we all drink and it is unethical what governments are forcing on citizens, amounting to forced mass medication on a massive scale. We will all have the right as individual stake holders of our community water supplies and then hold shareholders of the companies producing the poisonous waste going into these water supplies accountable after ignoring the concerns and advice of the risks to our health have been shown I can claim the right to become a damage and loss claimant
14
Jesus, you anti-fluoride people are bananas. Why can't you put all this crazy energy toward something actually worthwhile/supported by an overwhelming majority of responsible science?

SUGGESTION: GET THE AMERICAN LEAGUE TO DROP THE DESIGNATED HITTER, PAVING THE WAY FOR A MERGER OF THE LEAGUES UNDER PURE RULES. If there was ever a giveaway to profit-minded interests at the expense of purity, it's the DH. After that, you can tackle the 2-Minute Warning in pro football, which is SIMILARLY OBJECTIONABLE, BUT LESS FUNDAMENTALLY INTRUSIVE UPON PURITY.

15
@Chuck: And I just love how smug people get when they think they know what's best for everyone else. I work with liberal, well-educated people, and I have yet to talk to one who's in favor of fluoridating the water supply. But don't worry about our opinion, we're obviously just a bunch of paranoiacs.
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@Todd, CONDESCENSION ALERT: this is why we elect representatives who sift the available evidence and weigh policy options for us, because just being well-educated and well-meaning aren't actually substitutes for true professional expertise. When 95% of the people with true expertise weigh this issue, they conclude again and again that fluoridation is a no-brainer* from public health and policy perspectives.

When you have the overwhelming weight of science on your side against the hysterical purveyors of irrational paranoia and pseudoscience, smugness is warranted. Anti-fluoridationists are as discredited as climate change-deniers and the vaccination-causes-autism crowd. Obsessiveness and vociferousness of protest should not be mistaken for weightiness of evidence.

* That's a free pun for you people who think fluoridation lowers IQs!
17
Thanks for this coverage of the city council meeting - fun to read.
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@Todd: what Colin said. Either you believe in science or you don't. The notion that you have to respect ideas with little to no basis in fact is bullshit.
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Hey Portlanders: Welcome to activism, and dealing with city hall.

They're a bunch of crooks and liars. It's the same shenanigans every time: declare a policy, hold a sacrosanct "public meeting" about the issue, deny the opportunity to those opposed to the new policy fairness at the "public meeting", and then go forward unapologetically with the new policy as if there was uniform support all along.

It was the same recipe at the JTTF meetings. From what I understand, it's been this way for decades.
20
Good lord, people. Take a breath.
21
I don't believe everything that's said against fluoridation. But I really don't like a couple of lame-duck politicians pushing through something that affects everyone and has been voted down three times before, rushing the schedule to beat out an initiative against it, and telling us that this is democracy in action.

So does anyone know where Smith and Hales stand on this issue? Or do they pucker and run when it's mentioned?
22
Let's keep Portland weird not by joining the rest of the world in adding fluoride, but instead by offering free dental care to poor and minority children. I'd be willing to bet the same $$ spend would have a greater positive effect.

Even better, let's make a meaningful attempt to address the fact that poor and minority people have terrible diets compared to us better-off white bastards.

Or are we just hoping to fatten the industrial chemical company's wallet?
23
"But I really don't like a couple of lame-duck politicians pushing through something that affects everyone and has been voted down three times before, rushing the schedule to beat out an initiative against it, and telling us that this is democracy in action."

This is the same exact argument conservatives make regarding gay marriage.
24
Did City Hall have dealings with pro-fluoride lobbyists? Is one of the mayor's political advisers part of this lobby? We still don't know after last night's hearing, but not from lack of asking.

Video (about 1.5 mins): http://ustre.am/_1HSxG:1dFz
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"This is the same exact argument conservatives make regarding gay marriage."

Only if it's also the same exact argument liberals make regarding laws banning gay marriage.
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@ chuck:

gay marriage doesn't 'affect everyone' (or certainly not directly).....but water does.

27
I always love how people start stretching their degrees:

According to Scott Fernandez's own website: "Scott went on to earn a degree in biology and graduate degree in drinking water microbiology."

Not a chemist.

Signed, a chemist (Ph.D. in chemistry, working as a chemist.)
28
mayor adams belittling and ignoring a man to his face when asked if he has met with fluoride lobbyists or if his campaign manager Mark Wiener previously worked in the fluoride industry (he did):

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/25234104/highlight/290877
29
@ human in training: I completely agree with you. However, a lot of Christians (and Muslims, fwiw) can and do argue it would somehow drastically change their world, just like anti-fluoridation advocates argue, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The point I was making is that the "I can't beleive the gov'ment isn't putting this to a vote!" complaint is often made when elected officials take steps to do the right thing (such as legalizing gay marriage, halting all executions or putting fluoride into water) without putting it up for a vote.
30
Turns out fluoridation was pushed on the American public in much the same way as marijuana prohibition: by a small group of powerful industrialists who bought the opinions of the most respected medical and scientific establishments of the time and funded a massive pro-fluoridation media campaign. The Original suggestion to promote fluoride as a dental agent came not from a medical professional, but from a powerful man in the aluminum industry (an industry that produces massive amounts of hexafluoroscilic acid that would have to be disposed of as toxic waste if it were not simply dumped in the water supply all over the US). In addition, the initial promoter of fluoridation in the scientific and medical community was the Mellon Institute, the same organization that was promoting the safety of tobacco use, asbestos, and the addition of lead to gasoline.

It's worth watching this short, very clearly explained history of water fluoridation, by Christopher Bryson, an award winning journalist and former BBC producer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReJhMxTJVyo
31
In the city-council meeting council tried telling us dental fluorosis wasn't a health issue. LOL!!!

http://www.intellipissies.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Fluoride-is-Poison.jpg

The holes where teeth rotted out in the photo council showed were caused from children eating sugar, high fructose corn syrup, white rice and flour. So lay off the junk food and keep our water safe! fluoride is NOT safe. Hello??? It's the very same chemical HITLER put in drinking water to sedate and exterminate.

((((((((((((( TOXIC - FLUORIDE - IS - NOT - SAFE )))))))))))))


FACT: Native Americans had mostly perfect teeth without ingesting toxic fluorides.
32
"Science" (when there's MONEY to be made) is often WRONG (intentionally!) People speaking the truth, because of those who lie, are typically not believed; such as scientists without a financial motive.

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