What’s the Matter With Portland?

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/05/portland_fluoride_vote_will_medical_science_trump_fear_and_doubt.html

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.
 

A fluoridation proposal was put up for a popular vote in 1956, when many major metropolitan areas were adopting the practice, but it failed by a sizeable margin: 105,191 to 75,354. A similar attempt in 1962 failed, too. The late 1970s saw a flurry of activity, long after the issue had faded from the national political discourse. Oregon voters killed a statewide ballot initiative that would have banned fluoride (1976); Portlanders voted to add fluoride to the water (1978); and then they reversed course and voted to keep it out of the water supply (1980).

The fluoridation debate remained dormant until last summer, when someone leaked to the Oregonian that a coalition was quietly pushing the City Council to simply approve fluoridation without relying on a ballot measure. Less than a month later, the council unanimously did just that by enacting Ordinance 185612, which required the Water Bureau to add fluoride at 0.7 parts per million beginning in March, 2014. Atlantic Cities’ Nate Berg wrote approvingly at the time, “resistance from one of the country's biggest cities may be coming to an end.”

Clean Water Portland’s anti-fluoridation supporters include the Pacific Green Party, Nutritional Therapy Association, Organic Consumers Association, Oregon Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, and the Cascade Club, a local libertarian think tank. The Portland chapter of the NAACP is the only local organization representing people of color that has come out against fluoride, but according to most political observers it is tiny and has very little influence. (United Latin American Citizens is also listed as a supporter because their national organization has opposed the policy generally, but according to Barnes their Portland chapter has not officially endorsed CWP.) Out-of-state supporters include the Fluoride Action Group and Kansas Taxpayers Network, which is a far-right group that recently merged with Americans for Prosperity. Anti-fluoride funding also comes from a variety of groups bearing the name of Joseph Mercola, a doctor the FDA censured multiple times for making untrue health claims. His website includes articles opposing fluoridation, vaccinations, and mammograms. Mercola.com also features an extensive interview with a man who denies that HIV causes AIDS.