No that anyone’s paying attention to the growing body of cogent arguments for water fluoridation in Portland, but here’s another.
Slate writer Jake Blumgart’s piece takes a long look at the fight over fluoride here in town. If you’ve spent the last several months debating this issue (or vandalizing your neighbors’ yards for their stand on the issue), not much will come as a surprise. If you’ve been meaning to learn about the fluoride debate but haven’t gotten around to it, first read our story. Then read Slate’s.
Oh, and if you haven’t voted, VOTE! Ballots are due next Tuesday.
From the piece:
America is a fluoride nation. Beginning in 1945, when Grand Rapids, Mich., became the first city in the world to add the stuff to its water supply, the practice has spread across the United States. In most areas it is simply understood that ingesting minuscule levels of fluoride is good for dental health. As of 2010, almost three-quarters of Americans drink fluoridated water from community water systems, and the nation’s 30 most populous cities consume it.
With one weird exception: Portland, Ore., whose water system, sourced from the Bull Run River, serves 900,000 people.
Yeah, us weirdos, along with pretty much all of Europe.
Europe fluoridates their salt.
“It is frequently claimed that European nations have abandoned the practice of fluoridation, which simply isn’t true. (Britain, Ireland, and Spain fluoridate their water, while other nations put fluoride in table salt or get it naturally from drinking water, as in Sweden and Italy.)”
“When we’ve been blessed with such pure water, we should be eternally grateful and keep it that way,” some Portlander said in 1956, and I’ll say it again today.
I filled in the Yes dot for fluoride. As I did I heard deep, sinister, growling laughter from a great distance, the very heart of the earth. The Molemen are coming. Soon, our children’s gleaming white teeth will be used for their hideous subterranean machines. We are doomed.
Of course, The Mercury didn’t tell us about the Molemen…. What are you hiding, Mercury? Did they pay you off with their shiny rocks?
“Clean Water Portland insists that emerging science supports its claims, but most of them consist of data cherry-picked from limited research and studies that actually conclude in favor of fluoridation.”
This is the part that drives me crazy. A lot of people are actually buying it hook, line, and sinker, without questioning the source or context, all the while completely disregarding the solid, accepted data and endorsements from sources like the CDC because they can’t trust anything affiliated with or endorsed by the government. !?! It’s maddening.
“But doubt and fear can trump rationality. Many Portlanders have ‘an enlightened sense of natural [connection],’ says Plunkett. Opponents of fluoridation say it ‘is going to taint that pure relationship, then they produce enough doubt.’ And as we know from things like anti-vaccination efforts and the political debate over climate change, creation of doubt can be enough to win.”
True enough, unfortunately.
Salt is not water. Salt is not a public utility that everybody pays for.
Also, the extreme majority of fluoridated salt isn’t poured right down the drain and spread into the environment like the extreme majority of fluoridated water is. The equivalent would be like taking a pound of salt and covering every surface in your entire kitchen instead of just using the pinch that you need and putting it directly on your food. Both methods work, but one is a little silly and wasteful.
I am not against using fluoride to protect my (or the poor, poor children’s) teeth. What i am against, however, is using a shotgun to kill a gnat. Surely we can figure out a much better (and a waaaay more efficient) way to deal with this problem than to just simply and lazily resort to a blanket-cure thought up in the 40’s.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, i’m going to go bathe in a pool of spot-remover to get this little stain off of my shirt.
“Clean Water Portland insists that emerging science supports its claims, but most of them consist of data cherry-picked from limited research and studies that actually conclude in favor of fluoridation.”
What is Healthy Kids Healthy Portland doing? The same thing. Do a little research, we are not in a crisis, we are no where close to having 40% less experienced dental decay than Seattle, and there is
There is no data behind YOUR claims that you are simply repeating from claims of other groups that also have no data supporting them.
The CDC only collects data from states, it does not do it’s own studies and there is no data available from them on this subject. You will only find scattered results of studies that have little benefit doing comparisons. This is the reason BOTH Clean Water AND Healthy Kids stats are so off base.
Both sides are guilty of in sighting fear.The PRO side is far more guilty on this end, especially due to it being their obligation to show why we should do this. Instead of being honest, bringing good studies to the table and detailing expected results they are only pandering and generating false crisis.
This whole debate is completely backward in that way. Nobody should be asking why we shouldn’t do this. We already don’t. We are already NOT doing it. Get it? The only thing anyone should focus on is why the pro side believes we MUST DO THIS NOW. Because they want to do it, NOW. Instead of that we are just getting scolded like children about how our the arguments for not doing it are not reason enough not to do it. This makes no sense.
Unscientific poll! What does the antifluoride set think of vaccinations? Genuinely curious (if a little cautious).
To all you fluoride haters out there, see my profile picture for my response to your argument.
@ Spaceman:
I’m fine with vaccines. If i ever have kids, they will be vaccinated. What else? Homeopathy is bullshit. Bush wasn’t in on 9/11. Tsunamis are not the result of a wrathful god. I use fluoride toothpaste (though i don’t swallow it, as that would do me no good — it works topically). Obama isn’t a Nigerian-born Muslim. Astrology is rubbish. I don’t mind the fact that our water is treated with scary-sounding chemicals in order to make it safe to drink. I don’t think gay people are pretending. I wasn’t surprised when the world didn’t end last year. I don’t believe the Red Coats are coming.
I also don’t think that, should we end up going ahead with the fluoridation of our water, any real harm will come to anyone because of it. And i don’t think there will be an imminent and immediate environmental catastrophe, with salmon and plants suddenly dying off in huge numbers. But that doesn’t make this a good idea. And it doesn’t mean that we can just force it on people who don’t want or need it. It’s not the cure-all that it’s hyped to be. Not even close. Unfortunately, things just aren’t that simple. Your teeth (and especially your children’s) will still rot if you don’t brush them and choose to drink soda all day, which are the main reasons behind poor dental health — not a lack of fluoride. You can get all the flu shots you want, but if you go around licking door handles and sticking your filthy fingers in your nose and spending tons of time with infected people, you’re still going to get the flu.
What else should we add to the water supply? I mean, if we’re going to force medication on people whether they need it or not (and spend millions of dollars doing so), how about we at least focus on things that kill them in greater numbers than does tooth decay? How about throwing in some drugs to fight type-2 diabetes for the segment of the population that can’t muster up the willpower to exercise and eat a better diet? What about throwing in something that reduces nicotine cravings for those of us who smoke?
OR, maybe we could all just have a little more imagination, put a little more thought into things, accept fewer lunches from lobbyists, and figure out a way to deliver these medications directly (i.e., efficiently) to those who actually need them. For fuck’s sake — we have fucking robots rolling around on Mars! I’m pretty sure we’re capable of figuring out a better way to blow out a candle than to cover the entire room with fire extinguisher foam.
@Human: Thanks for that. This has to be the first actually sane argument against that I’ve seen so far.
human in training, your argument against fluoridation is fine, but you are wrong in thinking that no real harm will come to anyone because of it. I have skeletal fluorosis, and suffer symptoms of fluoride sensitivity, from fluoridated water. I was very slow to reach that conclusion, but eventually the evidence for it became overwhelming. If you research the subject in depth, it should come as no surprise to you that there are people who have been affected in the way that I have.
Dan, yeah right. Sure. From fluoridated water. Uh-huh.
Riiiight.
Dirk: I think you may have some explaining to do about your article on OHA’s internal emails re: the Smile Survey. You know, the one where you said the emails showed that there were no politics at play? http://tinyurl.com/b8l6w5c
How do you square your, um, whitewash, with this: http://tinyurl.com/as95s2d
I love it how pro-fluoride people, with their claims of being interested in “data” and “science,” are so quick to say things that are so utterly false. Take, for example, the Europe statement. The Slate article, and virtually every one of HKHP’s little minions, claims that Europe doesn’t fluoridate its water because Europe fluoridates its salt. This is absurd. If you gave two shits and actually looked at the data you’d find that only 5 western European countries have any fluoridated salt at all, and in total, less than 20% of the western European population uses it. That leaves over 80% of the population using not one fucking speck of fluoridated salt.
Even more pathetic is the claim by Slate that Sweden doesn’t fluoridate water because it has “naturally fluoridated” water. Um, yeah. Look at the fucking data you fucking arrogant, over-confident assholes. Less than 8% of Sweden has naturally F’ed water. Oh, and the Parliament voted against a measure in the 1970s that would have fluoridated the water.
It’d be one thing if pro-fluoride advocates actually acted in a scientific manner: in that case, their ridicule of the anti-fluoride side would at least be more understandable. But when pro-fluoride advocates pore on the ridicule and then turn around and act like fucking mindless imbeciles themselves, it does get a bit too rich.
reader – the anti-fluoride folks pretty much earned their ridicule. In spades.
Can you just please let this fucking die until the voting is over? Thank you
Fluoridation chemicals, or drugs, or whatever one wants to call them are in non-compliance. Not with the FDA or even the EPA but with the National Sanitation Foundation International. The NSF was handed the hot potato years ago to approve water treatment chemicals and wrote the rules. Here’s the kicker, they require 20+ toxicological studies that must be provided by the manufacturers just to apply for certification. The NSF does NOT have ANY of them and neither do the repackagers or the manufactures.
1. Ask for the ANSI/NSF Standard 60 Health Effects document.
2. Locate the all the toxicological studies, in that document, that are required for certification of the product to be in compliance with said document.
3. Demand a list of the original studies and all the data collected. Provide copies of the original, dated documents used to obtain and maintain NSF/ANSI Standard 60 certification
4. Present them. Publish them or provide a source where everyone can see for themselves if their chemicals, medicine, or drugs are “safe and Effective”.
Provide copies of the original, dated documents used to obtain and maintain NSF/ANSI Standard 60 certification
obtain, for each quantity of fluoride acquired to fluoridate public drinking water supplies, a batch-specific certificate of analysis that represents the complete composition of the formulation of the undiluted raw fluoride substance, in percent or parts by weight, for each chemical and contaminant in the batch.
The head toxicologist of the EPA is an “Enemy of the State”. Why? Because he called for more research on fluoride.
http://www.fluoridegate.org/the-film/
FLUORIDEGATE An American Tragedy:
How did the EPA respond?
They committed FORGERY – fabricated timecards
They committed DESTRUCTION OF EVEIDENCE – shredding documents
They committed OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE –
They conspired to cover-up the call for more research by terminating the senior toxicologist of the EPA
He took the EPA to court and won on all counts – except one, that he used the wrong pronoun. He used the word “we’d” when referring to EPA’s activities instead of “EPA”
The senior toxicologist then had to sue the EPA for HARRASSMENT – and won the case.
Ron here is the perfect example of why anti-fluoride zealots are ridiculed.
A child lays on an exam table. There are doctors and loved ones all around. It is a scene of chaos. The child on the table violently convulses.
‘Quick, get me a glass of water!’ Says the doctor.
Someone runs to tap and fills a glass of water and hands it to the doctor. The doctor violently slaps the glass out of the persons hand.
‘Goddamit! Not tap water! The fluoridated water!’
Person runs to a bottle of fluoridated water and fumbles trying to pry the cap off.
‘Hurry!!!’
‘I’m trying!’
The cap explodes off releasing a vapor. Fills glass and runs to give it to the doctor. Doctor administers fluoride water into dying child’s mouth. The child convulses into seizure. You’d think there’d be blood but there’s not. Suddenly everything goes silent…….
‘He’s….dead. It’s too late. Too late. I’m so sorry’, declares the doctor.
Everyone in the room turns solemn. Much grieving. Much crying. Much coulda, woulda, shoulda. Slowly, people begin to leave the room. It’s so sad. A tragedy, the media would say. Then….
‘*cough cough*’ goes the young 8 1/2 yr old on the exam table.
‘Wait!’ cries the doctor! I think it’s working! This child will live!’…..