- Illustration by alex despain
In the minutes after this year’s water fluoridation push went down in flames, both sides—even the victorious forces of Clean Water Portland—were gingerly extending olive branches in a bid to move the city past a sometimes ugly political debate pitting kinfolk against kinfolk, neighbor against neighbor.
Surely, the entreaties went, we can all agree on our shared passion for dental health, for the health of our children (always the children), that both sides had the best interests of their city at heart.
“There are good people who believe perfectly the opposite of what we did,” volunteer KC Hanson said to some fanfare at the Clean Water Portland party. “As a community, as Portland, we need to come together. I know you guys will.”
Today, Portland City Club has announced it’s taking the first step toward turning those salving sentiments into some kind of direct action.
Backers of the well-funded fluoridation push will work with the opposition movement’s biggest local funder, Daniel Deutsch (a notable qualifier, given the out-of-state money that fueled the campaign) on a task force devoted to finding other solutions to our kids’ lackluster dental health.
From City Club’s statement:
“What excited us most about the campaign was the enthusiasm on all sides of the issue for a solution to Portland’s dental health problems,” said Nichole Maher, President Northwest Health Foundation. “After the election it was clear there were many areas in which the anti-side was actually an ally. It just made sense to reach out and combine forces.”
The task force will study the most workable solutions for improving dental health outcomes for children in Multnomah County. It will examine proven community-based strategies that have improved dental health in other cities. Following the findings of the report, the task force will develop a set of recommendations.
“I truly appreciate the willingness to come together, and find a common purpose, in spite of our being on opposite sides of the debate,” said Deutsch. “In the end, we are working toward the same goal, a healthier Portland. I’m thankful for the opportunity to be part of this collaboration.”
Fluoridation foes made much of data, released late in the campaign, that showed modest improvement in Multnomah County cavity rates in the past few years—improvements that came without fluoridation. But all the same, cavity rates here are worse than the national average and also worse among lower-income children and people of color.
City Club has information on its task force here, and is accepting applications from interested potential members until next Wednesday, October 16.
I remember that, when a bunch of well-intentioned conspiracy theorists got hoodwinked by the Kansas Taxpayers Network.
FLUORIDE NO FLUORIDE AHHHHH
Steve Not Jobs, you mad, bro?
Environmentalists got outspent three to one from essentially an unlimited swath of difficult to trace corporate cash and passthrough donations and they still get criticized for a relatively small amount of “out of state money” that “fueled the campaign”. Good one Denis. The amount of volunteer effort on the CWP campaign was the real fuel and the vast amount of paid “fuel” was local. You should honestly issue a retraction for such misleading propaganda. The largest donor of CWP wasn’t able to dwarf the campaign coffers unlike what happened with HKHP, but you act as if it did. Terribly misleading.
Chill, Seth. Mercola and others dumped in like 40 percent of all contributions and were the biggest whales. If the post said “helped fuel,” two words, you’d have nothing but old war wounds to clutch. Do not forget we also won. I clicked that link and the mercury story did talk all about the volunteers. Even though it was a bit too sour grapes.
I guess I mean don’t resort to propaganda of your own. I’m ready to look at the water district and that will be a bigger fight. Enviros can run that thing by stealing the businesses ball.
Fluoridation failed under water’s control by the City, so maybe the new agency would be free of political constraints and be able to unilaterally poison the water with fluoride at will.
Portland Mercury still getting the facts wrong with statements such as “cavity rates here are worse than the national average”. If you actually read the Smile Survey you see that it’s worse in OREGON, but *here* in Multnomah County the dental health stats are *better* than the national average. Please stop making false and/or extremely misleading claims about fluoridation!
Poverty is the leading cause of caries in children. And Oregon, outside of Multnomah County, is a very poor state. Evidence of this is the fact that Oregon is in the top three nationwide for percentage of adults receiving food stamp assistance. A lack of access to dental health care is the leading cause of caries in children in Oregon. And families too poor to even buy toothpaste. Privatization, while guaranteeing the poisoning of our water, will not lower caries in children in Multnomah County. It will raise your water bill by a significant percentage, however. Will we be drinking a blend of Willamette River toxic sludge and Bull Run? Who knows. It’s privately owned! It’s amazing (not) that the Mercury continues to insult the intelligence of its readers by skewering statistics, all the while forgetting that the measure failed by a landslide. Furthermore, the winning side was outspent three to one, in addition to having the three idiot sons—The Merc, Willy Week (sic), and the Big O, all lined up (with cash in their greedy hands) spilling toxic lies about this issue and shouting YES! to fluoridation.
Talk about stupid. Dumb. You lost. You’re wrong. And the fluorosilicate acid to be laced into our drinking water is (fact!) a toxic byproduct of the aluminum and phosphate industries and not the benign sodium fluoride found in toothpaste, or that the dentist puts on your teeth. Which is still, (read the label) carrying the warning to call poison control if swallowed? And that’s the good kind of fluoride which is a salt, not the horrific sludge being dumped into municipal water supplies. There are literally hundreds of scientists, doctors, dentists, even statements by Fed employees at the FDA who have all come out vehemently against municipal water fluoridation. The State of Oregon itself moved to issue a warning in municipalities that fluoridate, included on the water bill, not to be used for infant formula. Why is that? Because it’s benign and harmless?
You and your fellows are gifted at drinking at cheap bars and eating off of food carts. Stick to writing about what you know. Leave the heavy thinking for the adults. You’re a dinosaur, anyway.