SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO
Councilors call for voter referendum on fluoridation
Four of the eight members of the Santa Fe City Council say they will call for a voter referendum on whether the city should continue its practice of adding fluoride to the drinking water supply.
While it appeared earlier this summer that the governing body would immediately stop fluoridating water here, elected officials on the Public Utilities Committee held a public hearing Wednesday on a councilor’s proposal to stop fluoridating three years from now.
“Personally, I think the voters of Santa Fe should go to the polls in the next [municipal] election, which is in 18 months,” Councilor Bill Dimas said, “and I think the voters should decide what you want in your water — if you want fluoride or you don’t want fluoride.”
Dimas and councilors Ron Trujillo, Chris Rivera and Carmichael Dominguez said at the committee meeting that they don’t support the latest proposal from Councilor Chris Calvert to wait three years for a change in the practice, but plan to introduce a new bill soon that would put the matter on the next city ballot.
Calvert, the committee chairman, has flip-flopped on his public stance several times this summer. First, he introduced a measure intended to prepare the city for changes in the federal regulations for fluoridation. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reducing its recommended therapeutic dose of fluoride in drinking water from the current range of up to 1.2 parts per million to a set level of 0.7 ppm. Calvert’s original bill would have required the city to comply with all future federal recommendations on the topic.
Then, policymakers started to shift direction. On July 11, councilors voted to stop adding fluoride to the water supply altogether — instead relying on natural levels of between 0.2 and 0.4 ppm. The 6-1 vote came after more than a dozen city residents testified that they believe the practice of fluoridation is a danger to health. The four councilors who say they want a referendum were among those who favored an immediate halt. The city has been adding fluoride to drinking water as recommended by the federal government since the 1950s as a way to decrease tooth decay, and a handful of dentists also testified before lawmakers that night in favor of continuing fluoridation.
Next, councilors rescinded their vote after the city attorney said there were technical problems with the notice for the public hearing. After that, Calvert introduced the bill for a three-year continuation of the practice, a proposal that also calls for a campaign with the Office of Oral Health to better educate parents about how to help prevent tooth decay.
City councilors have already heard hours of public testimony on the topic this year, including from those who came to a council meeting two weeks ago only to discover that a hearing on the issue had been canceled. who largely oppose adding fluoride to the water system, spoke instead during a catch-all agenda item called “matters from the public.”
Continued:
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/090612fluoride
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PORTLAND, Oregon
City’s fluoridation tussle boils over
Portland City Council’s looming decision to fluoridate water from Bull Run Reservoir could prevent a lot of children from getting holes in their teeth.
But the speedy-quick decision is punching holes in Portland’s relations with Gresham and other communities that buy 40 percent of Portland’s Bull Run water supply.
“We really feel like we got blindsided on this issue,” says Mark Knudson, chief engineer for the Tualatin Valley Water District, the second-largest water utility in Oregon.
The Washington County district, and the dozen other suburban water utilities that depend on Bull Run water, met Aug. 8 with officials from the Portland Water Bureau, Knudson says, and “not a word was said about fluoride.”
They found out about it the next day, when The Oregonian published a story about the stealth lobbying campaign by public health groups to press for fluoridation, and support for the idea from City Commissioner Randy Leonard, who oversees the Portland Water Bureau.
Bad vibes among the 13 suburbs and water districts that buy much of Portland’s water may do little to halt what seems like an inevitable City Council vote Sept. 12 to fluoridate Bull Run water, after a cursory public hearing Sept. 6. But if the public concludes that Portland botched the process — such as by making a decision before taking public testimony or consulting with its largest customers and business partners — that could spur residents to sign petitions to overturn the decision at the ballot box.
Gresham officials are so miffed that they’re threatening to deny their share of the reported $5 million construction cost, plus annual operating expenses, to add fluoride to the water.
“We have been left on the sidelines, learning about the issue in the media, without a viable role in the decision-making process,” Gresham Mayor Shane Bemis wrote in an Aug. 24 letter to Portland Mayor Sam Adams. “Especially given the lack of voice given to the wholesale customers on this issue, I trust that we will not be billed for any expenses associated with this change.”
Continued:
THURSDAY, 2:00 PM, SEPTEMBER 6, 2012
1003 TIME CERTAIN: 2:00 PM – Authorize and direct the Portland Water Bureau to fluoridate the City of Portland’s public drinking water supply to the optimal levels beneficial to reduce tooth decay and promote good oral health as recommended by the Oregon Health Authority (Ordinance introduced by Commissioner Leonard) 4 hours requested
Attachment 1 Attachment 2 Attachment 3
City Council meetings can be viewed at anytime, on demand, via the Internet at http://www.portlandoregon.gov/video
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Should Phoenix be adding fluoride to tap water?
Another TV Report
http://www.kpho.com/story/19467636/fluoride-debate-takes-center-stage-in-phoenix
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Fluoridation does more harm than good
Published on Wednesday, September 05, 2012 | Written by Rick North ||
Readers’ Letters
Like most of you, I’m not a doctor or scientist. And like all of you, I don’t have time to research every subject I need to make a decision about. We typically look to the opinions of individuals and organizations we know and trust and act accordingly.
I’m the former chief executive officer of the Oregon American Cancer Society and, until I retired last year, the founder and director for the Campaign for Safe Food, a program of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility.
I once supported water fluoridation. The federal government had approved it, and many organizations whose members I worked with, such as the American Medical Association and American Dental Association, had endorsed it.
But then a few people I respected, knowing I’ve worked on health issues most of my life, asked me five years ago to research fluoridation. When I did, I was amazed and chagrined.
First, it was abundantly clear that there is no consensus fluoridation is safe for human health. On the contrary, there are hundreds of recent, peer-reviewed human and animal studies that raise red flags.
Many of them were reviewed in the landmark 2006 report Fluoride in Drinking Water by the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science, considered the gold standard of scientific inquiry. This 507-page volume is chock full of scientific data expressing concern over fluoride’s harmful effects, including fluorosis in teeth, bone fractures, possible bone cancer, kidney and thyroid disease and neurotoxic effects, including the lowering of intelligence.
Lower IQ? Whoa, indeed.
Most countries in the world have either not started fluoridation or stopped it. Only 27 of 196 nations have fluoridated water, and only 11 have more than 50 percent of their population drinking it.
Most nations in Europe won’t fluoridate. A French official stated that fluoridation wasn’t allowed “due to ethical as well as medical considerations.”
To me, the National Academies of Science report’s most disturbing section showed high-fluoride areas in China lowering the IQ scores of kids by seven to 10 points.
Fluoride levels were higher than in the United States and each study had weaknesses, but the National Academies of Science nevertheless concluded “the consistency of the collective results warrants additional research on the effects of fluoride on intelligence.”
Then, just weeks ago, a Harvard meta- analysis funded by the National Institutes of Health examined 27 studies, 25 of which also showed children in high-fluoride areas having lower IQ scores, further confirming the National Academies of Science’s findings. The institute reported that the effects of fluoride lowering intelligence should be a “high research priority.”
Look at just a partial list of substances once declared safe, only to be found harmful upon further research — lead, asbestos, tobacco, DES, DDT, thalidomide. The prevailing science is going down the very same road for water fluoridation.
Please urge all City Council members to vote against a practice that we, our children and grandchildren may pay dearly for.
Our mothers’ words never rang so true: “Better safe than sorry.”
Rick North
Durham
http://portlandtribune.com/pt-rss/10-opinion/114650-fluoridation-does-more-harm-than-good
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NW Health Foundation’s new executive talks health care, fluoride and
streetroots.wordpress.com/…/nw-health-foundations-new-exec…
17 hours ago – By Amanda Waldroupe, Staff Writer As the new executive director of the Northwest Health Foundation, Nichole Maher is both a fresh face and an old soul
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Fluoridation is state-mandated in Kentucky
Full Study http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6831-12-38.pdf
Results
Untreated caries was reported in 33% of children. Bivariate and logistic regression analyses
found that the most significant risk factors for having untreated caries were living in the
metropolitan [fluoridated] Louisville, Kentucky area, not having had a dental visit in the previous 3 years
and not having any form of dental insurance.
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PHOENIX DEBATE
This was posted in Dental Town (an online community for dental professionals)
Wow! Just attended this debate on fluoride held at Phoenix College with Howard Farran speaking the pro-fluoride and Dr. Paul Connett the anti-fluoride. Reminded me of a political argument where neither person could change the other person’s viewpoint, but they argue none-the-less….There were antifluoride zealots in the audience who would cheer and clap every time Dr. Connett would speak. Essentially Connett stated that there were no good studies done in the US in relation to fluoride and said the CDC and ADA were not respectable organizations. And that you should not believe any studies that they publish, since the oral division of the CDC is staffed by dental personnel, so are biased. And that the ADA is a trade organization, only. Read his book to get the true picture, he said.
The comment most out in left field that he said, was that the only reputable studies on the harmful effects of fluoride came out of China, India and a few other countries, and if we discounted the information in these studies,it was due to racism. Huh? Howard pointed out that to say the ill effects of these studies came from fluoride when the studies were not controlled as far as air quality, water pollution and many other factors would be difficult to say the least! (We’re talking China and India here!!) The vote on water fluoridation comes on September 11th in Phoenix.
Elizabeth J. Fleming, DDS
20950 N. Tatum Blvd. Ste. 280
Phoenix, AZ 85050
www.DesertRidgeSmiles.com
www.Facebook.com/ElizabethJFlemingDDS
www.Twitter.com/DesertDentist
www.DesertRidgeSmiles.com/blog/
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Wow…. so his arguments boil down to:
- Buy my book.
- Fluoride advocates are racists.
MMMmmmmm-KAY!
Michael I. Barr, DDS
ck
New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc (NYSCOF)
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