Group says it has needed signatures to put fluoride to a vote

When my parents moved from NYC 55 years ago they both had stomach problems, but after living in the Portland area for one year the stomach problems stopped. NYC has florid water and many elderly people have severe stomach problems some say from the fluoride in the water, if this fluoride helps fight tooth decay then leave it to the parents to make sure their children brush their teeth with a fluorite toothpaste, not in our drinking water,  I wonder how much $$$$$ someone will get paid under the table to have this poison in  Portland's drinking water.

The anti-fluoride crowd is just as bad as the anti-global warming crowd. My wife, a "liberal" nurse practitioner, has seen the first hand effects of children not getting proper fluoride- It rots your children's teeth if they don't get enough fluoride from a young age.

 

If you believe in global warming, as you should, it is because the majority of climate scientist agree that it is REAL. Well, the vast majority of "teeth scientists" (aka dentists and other primary care providers) who see teeth for a living agree that public fluoride is a REAL benefit to the public.

 

I don't live in Portland, so I don't have a dog in this fight, but fluoride is more beneficial than detrimental to our nation's public health. We all pay for poor dental health in one way or another; therefore, it is important for all of us to find sensible, fact-based, solutions to help ourselves and our children.

 

The facts are clear! Vaccinate all children, give them all fluoride, decrease their carbon footprint and the nation as a whole will benefit in the long run.

"City leaders say the science is clear..." Oh, so they are scientists now?!  I doubt they're qualified to assess the science. They're just bending to lobbyists' pressure. Like the parking meter fiasco, we will find out years later who got paid.  Just put it to a vote and everyone comes away smelling fresh as a daisy. Why jam flouridation through?

 

Hope it does make it to the ballot.

Portland's #1 mayoral candidate Tre Arrow would NEVER be for the poisoning of the water.

Everyone does realise that if it is shot down by the voters they will just impliment it anyway. They will say it's for the Health of the children so we know better then the Voters. I have seen this before.

Thank you safewateroregon.com for getting enough signatures and letting us vote. This has been rejected by the voters 3 times before & it will be rejected again. We have the cleanest water in the nation lets keep it that way. Me and the rest of the heard like organic beer. If this passes all the companies that make organic beer will either have to MOOOOVE or spend a lot of money to reMOOOve the fluoride. 

That has to sting. Portland City Council is so used to doing whatever they want, whenever they want, that the fact that Portlanders rushed to sign petitions calling for a public vote on an issue that the Council unanimously approved has to gall their inflated egos. The fact of the matter is that a lot of folks don't much cotton to the idea ofgovernment-mandated involuntary medication, and they're getting tired of so-called representatives taking the stance that they know what's best for the little people.

This is just another expensive non-issue that the politicians have decided to champion; it's not as though fluoride isn't widely available in most dental products - indeed, one must actively search to find non-fluoridated toothpaste. And while fluoride is effective in helping to prevent dental caries and other issues when applied topically, as via toothbrush/rinse, ingestion is another matter: most people spit after brushing/rinsing, and in fact, dental products carry warnings against ingestion.

The addition to the water supply is both expensive, at an estimated $5 million (which is just about enough to pay for one of the streetcars that Sammy and Ricky love so much) and, as noted above, unnecessary. Although it would be amusing to see the Portland City Council delivered a well-deserved smackdown, the reality is that even if that occurrs, it won't matter: Portland politicians have an established history of ignoring the expressed wishes of the voters whom they purport to represent.

We voted to build Portland/Gresham light rail, and when we saw what we got, we voted down westside and northside light rail proposals. No matter; they built them anyway, and we've never been permitted to vote since.

Ditto for the Oregon Convention Center: we voted to allow Metro to build it, and it was a loser. Metro insisted that if we doubled its size, it'd become a money machine. We declined. They expanded it anyway. It still loses over $10 million per year.

So it doesn't matter what voters decide; Portland is going to add fluoride to the water supply. Amusingly, as they rail against bottled water for its lack of "greenness and sustainability", that's exactly what they'll push opponents into purchasing for consumption.

 

I am not going to preach about the safety concerns of fluoride.  I am going to focus on the cost.  I think the original article reported that fluoridating the water would cost $5 million.  What about the cost to maintain the fluoridated water supply?  The water would have to be tested on a regular basis to ensure the fluoride content does not exceed the "safe" levels.  How much would that cost?  Why not use all the money that would be used in fluoridating the water to give vouchers to low-income families/individuals so they can get fluoride pills, toothpaste, etc., and leave the water alone?

Salem has fluoride in its water and My sons pediatrician says its actually good for him I dont see why certain people in portland are so afraid of it. Let it happen 

You may have the number of signatures to qualify to put it on a ballot, but you still need to win that election.  With the general population actually favoring adding it to the water the chances of that are small.  Congratulations on getting that many signatures.  How many of those will actually be validated is still to be seen.

This is ridiculous, fluoride has no negative effects in the miniscule doses it is found in fluoridated water.  Natural water in some areas has much higher doses of fluoride than the amount they want to put in our water!  Portland is the largest city in the country that doesn't have fluoridated water and you don't see people having major complications in the rest of the country from it.  The rest of the world has been fluoridating their water for decades!  People keep saying that we should give children fluoride tablets instead so they have a choice about whether or not to get fluoride, but I as a dental professional I have seen FAR more damage in the Portland area as a result of fluoride tablets, because it's too high of a dose all at once, whereas fluoridated water is very little gradually over years.

YEs everyone floride is a toxin, that is why 90% of the US population since the early 60's has died off because their drinking water has been laced with floride from the local governments. shame on the local governments for killing off over 90% of the population  of this country. this is why we need to import illegal workers to fill  the jobs that there are no Americans left to fill those jobs. Seems to me there should be a law banning floride in drinking water and everything else consumed by humans. On a side note all those people who have been killed by this poison did have better teeth when they were killed off.

Does anyone know if this poison is in the water in Beaverton.Does the water come from the same source?

Stand by for the conspiracy theory nut job comments in 5...4...3...2...1...

Personally, I'd rather forego the cost of water fluoridation as I believe the benefits (and dangers) are exaggerated. However, I have little love for the fascist anti-fluoridation crowd who resort to personal attacks and shout down anyone who disagrees with them.  I'll make my own informed decisions, thank you very much.  Most of them probably need to take a chemistry class, and then they might learn that there are many different fluoride compounds, and not all of them are poisonous.

>'If found to qualify for the ballot, the earliest Portlanders would be able to vote on the issue would be in May of 2014, which is two months after fluoridation is scheduled to begin, unless a special election is called.'

 

I would assume that either A) there would be a special election (thanks Portland City Council for the additional expense!)  or, B) It would be pretty simple to get a court injunction postponing the action until after the vote. 

 

...of course, that's assuming that King Sam wouldn't just appeal the injunction and go ahead with his plans irrelevent of the courts position. Don't you minions realize that he only wants whats good for you? 

If you want to drink fluoride water, they sell it at walgreens, walmart, and rite-aid...there is a whole shelf of it because no one wants the stuff!

 

In this year's harvard study, they linked fluoride ingestion to lowered IQ's.  Did you also know that the majority of the studies on the effects of fluoride were done in the 1950's and 1960's here in the US...back when we had a primitive science?  Check out the studies done in the rest of the world in the last dozen or so years!

 

http://www.fluoridealert.org/

 

Why on earth do we allow this very toxic substance in our drinking water?  This toxic waste product of the aluminum (and other)industries!  Sodium fluoride has been banned from drinking water by the more enlightened countries as Sweden, Holland, Finland, France, Germany and Japan; even Britain has suspended it's use.