To fluoridate or desist rises to the fore again

A movement fueled by dentists and dental health researchers in the 1930s and ‘40s led the Michigan city of Grand Rapids to begin fluoridating its water in 1945.

By 1960, 50 million Americans were drinking fluoridated water, touted as a safe and cost-effective means of prevented tooth decay, particularly in children. And residents of McMinnville voted that year to join them, starting in 1961.

Over the ensuring years, fluoridation has become ubiquitous not just nationally, but also internationally. It has spread to more than 50 countries, several of which boast rates exceeding our own 73%, encompassing more than 200 million residents.

McMinnville notwithstanding, Oregon is something of an outlier.

Despite several legislative efforts in the late 1990s and early 2000s to make fluoridation mandatory in cities of 10,000 or more, the state level continues to run only about 20%. Portland, proud of its natural spring water, is the state’s largest holdout and one of the nation’s largest.

So what prompted us to bring the issue up at this juncture? It was a trio of recent local and national developments.

- On Sept. 24, a federal district court in Northern California found the federal drinking water limit of .7 milligrams of fluoride per liter “poses an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children.” The finding is certain to be appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court, and potentially on from there to the U.S. Supreme Court. But it has served to reignite long-running opposition, particularly on the political right.

- On Nov. 14, President-elect Donald Trump nominated outspoken vaccination, fluoridation and food additive foe Robert Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services. That suggests a shift toward opposition by the Republican Party, now in effective control of all three branches of government.

- On Nov. 18, the Sheridan City Council struck a local note, voting unanimously to cease fluoridation of the supply in its West Valley community. Councilor Ian Houston said a Texas city had responded to the California ruling by immediately removing fluoride. “It is something city councils are doing,” he said.

The issue has a contentious history in McMinnville.

The city voted for fluoridation in May 1956, reversed course in November 1956, approved fluoridation via initiative petition in 1960 and overwhelmingly opposed a subsequent referendum measure to overturn. The federal limit was initially established at 4 milligrams per liter, but local fluoridation never exceeded the much lower .8 to .9 range.

Libertarian Jo McIntyre led a spirited effort to cease local fluoridation again in 2010, petitioning McMinnville Water & Light and the city to end what she termed an infringement on individual liberty. She managed to generate a lot of attention and deliberation, but did not succeed in getting what she most wanted — a new referendum at the polls.

The News-Register opposed her campaign editorially, saying the opposition appeared to be fueled, at least in part, on “scare tactics and general lack of understanding of the facts.”

The issue also arose in Willamina in 2001, when the council voted 3-2 against a move to introduce fluoridation.

We aren’t impressed with the California ruling, which seems woefully weak on scientific grounding. We are thus not thrilled to see this issue raising its head again, feeling government at all levels has matters of greater urgency, clarity and importance deserving attention.

But agenda-setting, be it local, state or federal, lies well above our pay grade. So we are, reluctantly, bracing for some renewed infighting — maybe even a few years of it, as the California case winds its way up the legal hierarchy.