"I have no tolerance for folks who use deceit and fear to get what they want."

You must mean like the people saying we are in a dental "crisis"? The ones claiming that Seattle has 40% better teeth, and that ( even though it's not true ) is because of fluoride in their water? Yes, you must mean the ones calling anyone who questions putting something in the water crazy, conspiracy theorists. You mean those people, right?

This quote really sums how confused the pro-fluoride people are. Particularly the part about "getting what they want"

What do they want? It's my understanding that this is all about something the other side WANTS. They want fluoride in everyone's water. The anti-fluoride people are just saying no to that, no to what THEY want. And THEY are throwing a hissy fit. Instead of providing sound data, digestible graphs, legitimate comparisons of cities, they are just screaming and yelling, "THE CDC", "DENTISTS", "THE CHILDREN", "SCIENCE", over and over and over again. Nothing to back it up. Just show us some side by side comparisons of tooth decay in cities that have been fluoridated for a long time and ones that haven't. That will never happen, because those studies do not exist, or at least no one has put in the time to get the data together. Because they don't really care, they just want US let THEM do it.

I think this misunderstanding of reality that really hits it home for me that I must vote NO. Not because fluoride is unsafe ( at low concentrations ), it is for the most part. Not because it has some, although relatively small among an already fluoride filled population, benefits. Not because I believe in any conspiracies or because of economics or any of those reasons.

I have to vote NO because the pro side is causing such a ruckus over something so very simple. YOU want something. YOU are obligated to provide the proper information/data/science about this, not refer to some other organization that says something "this works" but also doesn't actually have the data. YOU must convince the population why we need it, not using fabrications of a "crisis". YOU must do the legwork. YOU have not. The data is not there, the questions concerns go unanswered, shrugged off as unimportant, and joked about, all questioners called loonies.

If you've got science, if you've got data, if you've got answers, give them. Calm down, stop thinking about all those suffering children you've been seeing in your dreams, and just hand over the information. Because you assert, with no shiver of a doubt, that it's out there, somewhere. Big money's behind you. Big government's behind you. Just ask. It must be that easy to get, right? We've been using it for 60 years. It must be there? Right? Right?

*Crickets*

THEY'RE ALL CONSPIRACY LOONATICS. SCIENCE! SCIENCE! SCIENCE! THE CHILDREN!!! ( old people, too? i guess, why not? )

Yummy yummy fluoridation

http://cof-cof.ca/hydrofluorosilicic-acid-…

RE: Yummy Yummy

Links like that are precisely the reason many people are voting YES. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to be against this, this is not one of them and the presentation IS terrible. You might as well be working for Healthy Kids Healthy Portland if you're posting crap like that.

Maybe you are...?

Yo, screennametaken - the science is out there pal. Clearly you must not have looked too damn hard at all. Or looked only at what you wanted to.
Early polling suggests fluoridation is going down hard. Too bad, it is one of the few tax increases I ever voted for, even though it will be of no benefit to me whatsoever. And it goes along way with my thinking of health care as a basic right.
This to me represents the fact that the politics of fear still work, especially here in supposedly 'progressive' Portland. Fear, and Fear of Change.
You and Jenny McCarthy can enjoy your victory.

Dear Mercury - I know you are crying a river right now because you don't get to have fluoride in the water. Don't worry I won't kick you when you're down. Just don't worry about the Little Children. They are going to be okay. Did you know all Portland Public School students get fluoride everyday for free if they chose. I know this because I am a PPS teacher. :) Funny how you overlooked this little fact in your editorial supporting fluoride in the public water systeml. So, once you dry those little tears of yours and blow your nose, if you wouldn't mind, could you please bust those corporations who peddle colored sugar water laced with acid to our Little Children. Their products do terrible things - tooth decay, obesity, health problem, etc. Somehow you let them off the hook before.

Peter