Pages

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Portland's Fluoride Debate: What Do You Think?


Here in Portland, Oregon, we are about to vote on a critical topic that affects our drinking water. 

Last year, the city council passed a bill to begin fluoridating our city's water. Many residents halted the process and the city council agreed to give our residents the right to vote on the topic.

Measure 26-151 was born and what has ensued, has been a hot debate. 

Fortunately, we live in a democratic society. When we vote on such topics we need to consider how this will affect the majority of our citizens, including our pets.

There are two very passionate sides to the issue:



What do you think? Will you be voting in May?

Feel free to comment below. Please, use respectful dialogue, all perspectives are welcome.




4 comments:

  1. I will be voting for clean water. Aside from my own dentist cautioning me against ingesting fluoride, the healthiest option for kids teeth are getting rid of soda and processed food in our diets that are filled with refined sugar which rots their teeth.

    Our primitive ancestors did NOT have cavities. Look at the research. Look up Dr. Weston Price's findings: http://www.westonaprice.org/nutrition-greats/weston-price.

    They did not have fluoride in their water. They had whole foods and not foods of commerce. It's the FOOD people. Change the way we eat and include drinking clean water. In four generations, if we are lucky, we may be able to reverse the ill health we have passed down to our children and their children.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You make an excellent point, kserenity8. Fluoride in our drinking water to prevent cavities is a band-aid approach to a much larger issue. Fluoride can contribute and may lead to other health issues which would need another band-aid. Sounds like a vicious cycle!

      Thanks for your comments!

      Delete
  2. Fluoride is neither a nutrient nor essential for healthy teeth. Like all drugs, fluoride has side effects and shouldn't be administered based on thirst and not health, weight, age or need.

    there is no evidence that any low income Portlander is fluoride deficient and virtually all foods and beverages contain fluoride. But there's lots of evidence they are dentist-deficient.

    The remedy isn't more fluoride it's to allow Dental Therapists to work in Oregon as they have in other first world countries for decades. The first US DTs are working in rural Alaska where residents were pulling out their own teeth because no dentist would work or live there. Minnesota just passed a law allowing them and other states are trying to.

    The problem is that organized dentistry, with its deep pockets filled with corporate cash, lobby state legislators against allowing DTs because they infringe upon dentists' lucrative monopoly. Yet 80% of dentists refuse Medicaid patients.

    So it's hard to believe dentists have poor people in mind when they force fluoridation on communities.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nys Cof,

      I just read an article about how much money the pro-fluoride campaign has been slinging to various organizations. So dirty.

      Thank you for your thoughtful comments.

      Delete