Council Says an Emphatic No to Fluoridation, Looks to Alternatives for Low-Income Kids

fluoride-water

The handwriting was on the wall when Mayor Pro Tem Dan Wolk made a motion to approve staff recommendation number one, in support of fluoridation, and his motion received no second.  Eventually the council would approve a motion by Rochelle Swanson to support staff recommendation number two, which would turn down fluoridation and instead direct staff to engage with folks in the community for access to preventative care.

The 4-1 vote would buck the near-unanimous support of the public health community, the school district and the county.  However, the council had to weigh in politics.  They understood that over the more than 50 speakers who came for public comment, nearly two-thirds were against fluoridation.

They understood the water project itself passed by a narrow 54-46 margin and that, had fluoridation been on the ballot, it would have gone down.  Councilmember Lucas Frerichs feared this would be seen as a bait and switch.

And so in the end, whether the council supported fluoridation in concept, they were mindful of the politics of the community which seems to be tilting heavily against it.

Having heard the voices from both the community and public health organizations, Tuesday night, despite the hour and forty-five minutes of public comment, was really about the voices we had not heard in the community – those of the council itself.

“I think it’s fitting that we’re doing this on the day that the Affordable Care Act is under threat in Washington,” Mayor Pro Tem Wolk started.  He continued, “That is an example of a politically difficult decision and that involves a governmental mandate that requires individuals to buy insurance.  People have been vociferously decrying that as taking away their freedoms – but it was the right decision.”

“It was a politically difficult decision, but it was the right one,” he said.  “Just as I think fluoride is the right decision for a number of the reasons that were raised tonight.  I absolutely stand with the public health community on this issue.”  He would add, “I stand with the folks who were actually providing direct services to low income children.  I stand with public health officers past and present.”

“I really do believe… that we have an obligation as policy makers to those children,” the Mayor Pro Tem stated.  “I would really urge my colleagues to support our children’s dental health.”

Following his remarks, Mr. Wolk made the motion in favor of the staff recommendation favoring fluoridation, that would die for lack of a second.

Councilmember Lucas Ferichs noted, in a positive light, the “inundation of public input on this proposal.”  He remarked that there was “quite a bit of passion on both sides of this debate.”

He would then go into a personal story about his mother’s choice to limit sugar in his diet at a young age and the fact that he would not get a cavity until he was about 12 years old when he lived in Anchorage, Alaska, which has fluoridation.

He said that he sees this issue as largely being about sugar and sees the need from both a dental health perspective and also in terms of obesity and overall health concerns to look into sugar consumption as a root cause of a number of those issues.

He then turned to discuss Measure I, which he called “a very contentious debate in this community” over the course of the last year that he and Brett Lee were thrust right into the middle of.

He noted, looking at the ballot argument in favor of Measure I, that he and Mayor Krovoza drafted the ballot argument in favor of supplying the city with a long-term supply of clean water.  “Nowhere in the ballot argument on Measure I does it mention anything about fluoride or fluoridation of the water,” Mr. Frerichs said.  “I advocated for Measure I and when I was out trying to convince my fellow Davis friends, neighbors, citizens, to support what I believed was a much needed project to provide clear and reliable surface water, nowhere was there a mention or discussion ever of fluoridation of the water supply.”

He noted that, while things change, “it just feels, though, almost like a bait and switch in some ways to come forward now after the success of Measure I.”  Most pointedly he noted, “I think that had it been included in Measure I, it could well have resulted in Measure I’s failure.”

He expressed frustration that this would come up after the fact.  He also argued, “To me, putting a chemical in our water supply to me seems to be an inefficient way to deliver fluoride, particularly when 99-plus percent of it ends up down the drain.”

He concluded that he believes in science, but in this case believes in the benefits of topical fluoride and does not support the proposed delivery method.

Councilmember Rochelle Swanson said, “We live in a representative democracy and don’t want to battle about alphabet soup… but we’re charged with balances of all of the rights within the community and with considering on the whole what we’re supposed to do.”

“This is one issue that I have to say is not 50-50, there are a lot of people here tonight on both sides,” she said.  “In all of the emails, I would say it’s 10-1 of people who are begging us to not put it in the water.  This isn’t a couple of people with hysteria.”

She said, “We do have alternatives and we are a smart community.”

“I’m just not comfortable to do something when so many people have asked us to actually give them a choice,” Ms. Swanson continued.  “That vote (referring to Measure I) was forty percent of our community – 54.1 to 45.9 – I do think a lot of people did not expect fluoride.  I would hate for the unintended consequence to be that people would try to stop the surface water project and then fluoride become moot.”

Councilmember Brett Lee said, “Having made a proposal for alternatives to fluoridating the water, some sort of mobile dental clinics or early childhood preventative care programs, I am cautioned by the fact that when proponents of fluoridation and the majority of those who are proponents of fluoridation are involved with health care delivery, when we discussed the possible alternatives to this, that they did not seem very enthusiastic about it.”

Councilmember Lee said he found that fairly interesting.  He said that he thought his idea might have been one to bring both sides together and was surprised when it did not.  “I must admit when they showed a fair degree of hesitancy to embrace those ideas, gives me pause because they are the ones who are most knowledgeable about this aspect of community care.”

That said, he noted he shared his colleagues concerns about voting to fluoridate the water.

Councilmember Lee was concerned about what happened in Portland, where the city council voted to fluoridate the water, the voters objected and put a measure on the ballot, the community was deeply divided and ultimately the council decision was overturned.

“About $2 million was spent by both sides,” he said.  “It was a very contentious election.  A lot of time, energy, and money was spent on the election which I think could have been better spent on preventative healthcare.  At the end of the day, the proponents of fluoride were not successful and the community does not have fluoridated water, and all of that time and energy spent on the election is pretty much lost forever.”

He said he was not comfortable with a straight vote against fluoridation and would want a situation where people could donate to helping to provide preventative dental care programs to lower income people.

Mayor Joe Krovoza went last and echoed many of the concerns mentioned by his colleagues.  He noted that there is a cost to community for the water project, at the same time the council has worked hard to bring down the overall costs.

“This will add a cost,” he said.  “Quite frankly it will add what is a pretty small cost, but it will be asking people who are not interested in having fluoride in their water to pay for those who do want water to be fluoridated in the community.”

He called this a cross-subsidy, where one group is asked to pay for something that another group wants.  When the government is deciding to regulate what people put in their bodies, they have to be extremely cautious to ensure that what they doing is for the public good.

“The comments about choice, I think, are spot on,” he said.  “People who choose to have fluoride get to choose, but if we were to put fluoride in the water, those who don’t want fluoride don’t have the right to choose.”

Like his colleagues, the mayor was concerned about the surface water project and Measure I.

“This project was approved 54-46,” he said and stated, “There is no question in my mind that if we had let the public know that fluoride would be put in the water, the project would not pass and the great good that’s being done for this community by moving forward with this water project would not be happening.”

Woodland would not be saving money with us, and the city would be struggling along with groundwater.

“I’ll also point out that the project is not done,” the mayor added.  “We don’t have a contract to build it yet.  We don’t have the financing in place to move forward with it.  And the water rates that this community approved are under legal challenge.  So we have a ways to go.”

Right before the vote, Mayor Pro Tem Dan Wolk made a final comment in support of fluoridation.

“I sincerely hope that we can revisit this issue of fluoridation in the future,” Mr. Wolk stated.  He urged his colleagues to talk to health care professions about “what is the best way to help address these dental problems with children.”

“I’m going to vote no on this motion.  Again I’m disappointed that we’re missing out what is clearly the most cost-effective way to improve our community health,” he said.

The council voted 4-1, with Mayor Pro Tem Dan Wolk dissenting, to look at alternatives to fluoridation.

—David M. Greenwald reporting

Author

  • David Greenwald

    Greenwald is the founder, editor, and executive director of the Davis Vanguard. He founded the Vanguard in 2006. David Greenwald moved to Davis in 1996 to attend Graduate School at UC Davis in Political Science. He lives in South Davis with his wife Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald and three children.

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6 comments

  1. One of main points of those opposed to Fluoridation is that it does not treat the root causes of dental decay in our society. Among those causes that was brought up numerous times in public testimony and at least one council member was the prevalence of processed sugar in our diet, and specifically sugared sodas.

    The argument here is that instead of treating the result of the American addiction to the corporate sugary-salty food supply, by fluoridating the water, it makes more sense to attack the root problem of what people put in their bodies. It makes little sense to spend all that money treating a societal health problem of what too many ingest and give to their children with an expensive, marginally-effective, “cure”.

    In a way, this parallels the recent study that found that many people who start to go to the gym end up gaining weight. The reason, the researchers found, is that many people end up treating themselves for working out by eating even more, or go to the gym so that they can eat more. I ponder to what degree fluoridation of a water supply is a co-dependent relationship where government fluoridation allows the citizens to eat sugary foods in large quantity, believing that fluoridation will save their teeth.

    In an incredible twist of irony, it was pointed out to me after that meeting that Dan Wolk, the only council member to advocate for fluoridation, was sitting at the council bench drinking a can of straight up Coca Cola.

  2. [quote]In an incredible twist of irony, it was pointed out to me after that meeting that Dan Wolk, the only council member to advocate for fluoridation, was sitting at the council bench drinking a can of straight up Coca Cola. [/quote]

    Oh no, say it’s not so. How could he? That will probably cost Wolk the election.

  3. Alan Miller wrote:

    > In an incredible twist of irony, it was pointed out to me
    > after that meeting that Dan Wolk, the only council member
    > to advocate for fluoridation, was sitting at the council
    > bench drinking a can of straight up Coca Cola.

    If you ride your bike to the train station every morning (like Dan does) and stay active with your (former professional triathlete) wife and kids there is nothing wrong with having a can of “straight up” Coca Cola now and then (despite what Mayor Bloomberg and so many others want you to believe)…

  4. I just went to Safeway and bought four 12 packs of Coca-Cola. As I was loading it in my car a cop rolled up and asked me what I was doing with all that Coke. I said I was taking it home to drink. He said he was sorry for bothering me and just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to resell it at the local school.

  5. [quote]”I must admit when they showed a fair degree of hesitancy to embrace those ideas, gives me pause because they are the ones who are most knowledgeable about this aspect of community care.”[/quote]

    I think that Brett raises an interesting point here. The suggestions that were put forth by the community and by Brett himself were made as though these were new suggestions. Many people suggested educating people about better diets and avoiding sodas and sweets as those were not things that we do every day in our clinics and offices. When you go to events such as Celebrate Davis or any of the other large community events, the nutrition and healthy living booths are staffed by your local health providers. Who are notably absent from these booths are the opponents of fluoridation. I spend every working day counseling my patients about the health risks of poor diet, lack of exercise, and other unhealthy practices. So you must forgive me if it is a little irritating to hear that we are not using that strategy.

    Others suggested limiting the amount of soda and sweets available. Interesting. I would love to do this. However, how fast can one say the word “ban”. Do you think for a moment that if I suggested this I would not immediately be branded as an elitist trying to take away peoples inherent and inalienable right to drink whatever they wanted ?

    When opponents of fluoridation criticize the health care professionals for not favoring other options, perhaps it might be a good idea to check in with those folks to find out what has been tried before and whether or not it has worked and how and why rather than assuming it is because they are stubborn or elitist. Julie Gallelo was very forthcoming about the lack of cost effectiveness of dental out reach vans. This has also been tried with “Pap mobiles” which have not proven cost effective. To people who have not tried these strategies, they doubtless look like very good options. To those who have advocated for them only to have seen them fail, not so much so.

    One of the recurring themes of the opponents was: we are bright people, we can find other solutions.
    As I stated, it is the health care community that takes on the obligation to find preventive health solutions for individuals and our communities. What I actually heard being said, with a couple of notable exceptions such as Alan Pryon and Jeff Boone with his offer of $10,000 dollars from his company, was we want a different solution, but we want you to make it happen. I would love to believe I am wrong and that many of the opponents, and the 4 council members who voted “no ” will step up and take an active role in addressing the issue of community dental health.

    I do not speak for anyone else. I was not a member of the fluoridation committee. As I have stated many times,
    I favored fluoridation as only one of a number of potentially effective strategies. I am willing to work with anyone who comes forward to find a mutually acceptable solution. So Alan, Jeff Boone and anyone else from either camp, I am willing to sit down and work towards any demonstrated effective, reasonable, sustainable, preventive measure. What I am not interested in doing is to rehash something that has already been shown to be untenable, or to pawn off the responsibility on to the existing providers of dental care to the underserved who have already made it clear that they are having a hard time meeting the needs of their current clients.

    I am ready to work on this and can be contacted at tia.will52@gmail.com.

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