Anti-fluoride ballot initiatives get support from Anchorage legislators

[TexasTowelie]

An Anchorage ballot initiative effort aimed at removing fluoride from city water has two rather unusual political bedfellows supporting it: the Democratic incoming majority leader of the Alaska House and a conservative perennial local candidate who has never held public office.

Rep. Chris Tuck is listed as a co-sponsor of the initiative, which is gathering signatures to be placed on the April city ballot. The primary sponsor is Dustin Darden, a carpenter who, in runs for mayor and legislator, has used homemade wooden signs usually bearing anti-fluoride messages.

Newly elected independent Rep. Jason Grenn also signed the petition. But Grenn said he only signed it because he believes in direct democracy. He said he doesn't actually support removing fluoride from city water and trusts government assurances that it isn't harmful.

In Anchorage, bitter fights over fluoride have cropped up occasionally since the city started fluoridating its water in 1953. Before the possible battle shaping up for 2017, the most recent fight was in 2013, when the Anchorage Assembly re-authorized fluoridation. A ballot initiative has never made it past the signature-gathering phase.

Read more: https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2016/12/24/anti-fluoride-ballot-initiatives-get-support-from-anchorage-legislators/

[marybourg]

1. That, again? nt.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

2. Good grief. When I first saw "Dr. Strangelove" years ago...

I had no idea it was a conspiracy idea that real people believed!

[HassleCat]

3. Still going on

I lived for a while in Stevens Point WI, generally considered the most famous battlefield in the flourish wars. They fought it for thirty years, and are still fighting, for all I know. The Birchers and the Randroids make common cause on this one.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. Sigh.

Just talk to the dentists. They are wildly in favor of fluoride in the water because of how amazingly it reduces cavities.

Unfortunately, most people are far too young to get this. I'm 68, and in my childhood it was simpy assumed that you'd get lots of cavities in youth. And maybe need dentures by age 40.

But fluoride cut the incidence of cavities dramatically. But idiots who don't understand science oppose the fluoride.

[TexasTowelie]

5. I got the worst of both deals.

There was no fluoride in the water in the small town where I was raised and the 1970s and 1980s were when HFCS were substituted over sugar in many sodas. It didn't help that my mother baked a pie or cake every few days either.

[delisen]

6. Case Against Adding Fluoride to Water Supply is Strong

There has been a decrease in tooth decay in the US after fluoride was added to water supplies. However the same decrease has occurred in other advanced countries which do not artificially fluoridate their water supplies.

One explanation is that the advances in hygiene are responsible for the decrease.
We in the US may be assuming cause and effect relationship where there is just association.

Some people think that what benefit there is to teeth from fluoride is from topical application, not ingestion.

There is now so much fluoride added to products that children may be getting amounts that are high and potentially damaging. Read the warning label on fluoridated toothpaste and accidental poisoning. Many children are using to much toothpaste and swallowing to much of it.

Within the last few years governmental agencies began to recommend that parents not use fluoridated water to mix with formula.

Many countries that previously fluoridated water have stopped. Some cite human rights issue of involuntary mass medication, freedom of choice; alternatives available-such as topics applications, and the relatively small benefit to teeth from adding to water supplies.

Another issue is fluorosis-which is damage to teeth caused by fluoride. Some recent studies have concluded that up to 40 percent of teenagers have some fluorosis. While this often been dismissed by proponents of artificial fluoridation of water as merely cosmetic-it is damage.

Governmental agencies have recently lowered the recommended amounts of fluoride in water-due to possible problems.

We do not know whether water fluoridation may be damaging to bones over time. Not much research being done. there have been some studies that suggest adding fluoride to water may not
be good for people with thyroid conditions.

The CDC promotes certain practices. Marketing statements they have used -such as water fluoridation being the ten wonders of the world-are clearly not scientific statements. People may think there is a lot of hard science behind the marketing statements but I don't think this is accurate.

Most dentists are not scientists, and they accept the American Dental Associations statements without question and repeat them to patients.

The ADA is strongly pro-water fluoridation. Unfortunately it is used as an excuse for not providing dental services for poor children.
Many children in poor neighborhoods of cities such as Atlanta have many cavities and little access to dental services. Dentists prefer to locate in wealthier neighborhoods.

The fluoride added to water supplies is often or usually a form of fluoride obtained from industrial waste products-often from China.

These are just a few of the issues regarding fluoride. The lobby for continuing to fluoridate is strong, there are entrenched interests, and unfortunately profit motives. Often people raising question about fluoridation are verbally abused and ridiculed.

I drink spring water that is unfluoridated as much as possible.

[bowens43]

7. wow this sounds like an argument against climate change..

some think, may be, I don't think, we do not know, studies suggest etc etc

LOL