Despite being outspent by more than a 3 to 1 margin, fluoridation opponents defeated the measure with the current vote count at 60.5 to 39.4%. The latest polling showed especially strong opposition from Portland’s Latinos and African Americans. A majority of Democrats, Republicans and Independents also opposed the measure.  The diverse and bipartisan coalition opposing the fluoridation measure ranged from the Sierra Club’s Columbia Group and the Portland NAACP to a group of over 200 Portland medical professionals and the conservative Cascade Policy Institute. The vote came just weeks after data from a state study showed Oregon’s child cavity rates had dropped over 19% in recent years without any increased fluoridation and that cavity rates in unfluoridated Portland were actually lower than rates in Oregon’s fluoridated cities.

The loss for fluoridation promoters follows the November vote rejecting fluoridation in Wichita, Kansas, the second largest unfluoridated U.S. city. Both votes come after recent studies by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), Harvard scientists and other top researchers linking even low levels of fluoride in drinking water with human health risks ranging from decreased thyroid function and depressed childhood IQ to elevated bone cancer risks in boys. Other recent studies have tied fluoridation chemicals to health risks related to arsenic, a common contaminant found in the fluoridation chemical fluorosilicic acid, and lead, which fluoridation chemicals have shown to leach from plumbing.

Relying on the NAS report findings that infants and children were getting too much fluoride, the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services called for a 40% reduction in maximum fluoridation levels in 2011. The Centers for Disease Control and the American Dental Association, while still claiming fluoridation is safe for infants, also issued warnings that regular use of fluoridated water to mix infant formula put infants at risk of excessive fluoride intake and damage to teeth known as “fluorosis.” (Visit the Media Page at cleanwaterportland.org for an overview of recent scientific studies related to fluoridation risks relevant to the Portland campaign and related media coverage.)

Fluoridation promoters attempt to dismiss the recent studies and rely on the intentional campaign tactic of framing fluoridation opponents as being “anti-science.” A number of prominent scientists, however, including two members of the National Academy of Sciences Committee that published the over 500-page “Fluoride in Drinking Water” report, say the science about fluoridation risks has changed, and that the public has clearly noticed.

Scientist Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, PhD, who served on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Fluoride stated, “The scientific evidence available today highlights a number of reasons to be concerned about the continued practice of water fluoridation. When people become aware of the actual risks, it is not surprising they decide against fluoridation.”

“All current research shows that a lifetime of fluoridation might save one filling. It’s not clinically relevant and certainly not cost effective,” says Dr. Hardy Limeback, DDS who was also a member of National Academy of Sciences Committee on Fluoride and previously was the head of Preventive Dentistry at the University of Toronto. Limeback also addressed the risks of fluoridation, explaining that they included “impaired brain and endocrine function as well as an increased risk for certain cancers, that have convinced me we should never have allowed fluoridation to continue as long as it has.”

“This vote reflects that people are becoming more aware that there are real risks to adding fluoridation chemicals to our drinking water, and just because its something many cities have done for decades doesn’t mean its a good idea,” adds Dr. William Hirzy, PhD, the former vice president of the U.S. EPA Headquarters Union of Scientists. Hirzy teaches at American University and recently published a study on the risks of arsenic contained in the fluoridation chemical fluorosilicic acid.

Those involved in the Portland campaign agree. “It was amazing to see people who had been pro-fluoride switch their positions when they saw there were very real and credible scientific reasons to be concerned, and that claims of unquestionable fluoridation safety was more myth than fact,” says Portland physical therapist and mother of two Kellie Barnes, who gave over 30 presentations on the recent fluoridation science to groups around Portland as a volunteer with Clean Water Portland, the group that lead the fluoridation opposition.

“We are very pleased to see the fluoridation measure defeated so we can start to focus on solutions that do not involve the risks of fluoridation chemicals and that actually work, such as increasing access to dental care,” says Clifford Walker who is a board member of the Portland NAACP.

Portland dentist Dr. Jay Levy, DDS, who was active in opposing the Portland fluoridation measure, agreed. “Many dentists I know have the best intentions when it comes to fluoridation, but they just are not aware that the science regarding fluoridation risks has changed so significantly in recent years. For many, the belief that fluoridation is safe is akin to a knee-jerk reflex based on what they learned in dental school, and that’s a real problem when you’re dealing with public health.”

“Across the country, we are seeing people who once supported fluoridation switch their position after spending some time reading the recent studies for themselves and realizing that a practice they long assumed to be safe is far riskier than they thought,” says Michael Connett, a researcher with the Fluoride Action Network, the nation’s leading organization on fluoridation issues.

“Portland voters chose to protect children from risky fluoridation chemicals. As a community, we stand on the side of science, which clearly shows growing cause for concern about health risks associated with fluorosilicic acid. Anyone can spend an hour on the internet and read for themselves what the National Academy of Science report has to say about fluoride’s risks,” says Antonia Giedwoyn with the Sierra Club’s Columbia Group, which has opposed the Portland fluoridation measure.

Organic Consumers Association Recommends
Voting NO on Water Fluoridation

Water fluoridation will put Portland’s children at risk and will not address the actual problems that cause cavities.

Organic Consumers Association is a grassroots and online non-profit organization representing a network of more than one million organic consumers, farmers and retailers. Our mission is to promote health, justice and sustainability. We place a special importance on protecting children’s health. Fluoridation would add hydrofluorosilicic acid (HFSA), a toxic chemical byproduct of phosphate fertilizer manufacturing to Portland’s water

The claim that fluoridation would add a “natural mineral” to the drinking water is grossly misleading. The Portland Water Bureau has admitted that fluoridation would mean adding 1.1 million pounds a year of the chemical HFSA to Portland’s water.

Before voting to add this chemical to your water, through fluoridation, you should know that HSFA:

• Is a toxic industrial byproduct from phosphate fertilizer manufacturing;
• Contains lead, arsenic, copper and other toxic byproducts of fertilizer production that would be added along with fluoride compounds

Before believing that fluoride chemicals are safe to swallow read the back of your toothpaste tube. For years, scientists have warned about the risks of consuming fluoride. Their studies are why you toothpaste tube says “do not swallow.”

We now know, however, that fluoride works topically, not by being swallowed, so there is not even a meaningful benefit from drinking fluoridated water. Recent scientific evidence points to even greater harm from consuming fluoride than previously thought. In fact, in 2011 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services called for a 40% reduction in maximum fluoridation concentrations based on the recent evidence of fluoridation risks.

Instead of increasing water rates to pay for fluoridation chemicals and a costly new fluoridation plant, OCAsupports solutions that address the root causes of dentalhealth problems, such as poor diets and poor access topreventative dental care.

Vote No to adding risky chemicals to our water.

In 1997 the EPA HQ scientists’ union voted to oppose water fluoridation.

My name is William Hirzy. I have a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Missouri. I’ve been involved in environmental and human health risk assessment for 35 years, in the chemical industry, then at EPA HQ as senior risk assessment scientist.

Since 1986, at EPA as a union officer, I’ve studied and followed the developing science on fluoride toxicity. I currently teach at American University.

Human breast milk contains 100 to 200 times less fluoride than fluoridated water.

By far, the best study ever undertaken of the efficacy of fluoridation as a dental cavities preventative was done by the U.S. National Institute of Dental Research. That study, published in 1990, failed to show a statistically significant reduction in cavity rates among 39,000 U.S. teenagers between those having fluoridated water and those not having it. The authors claimed an 18% reduction in cavities due to fluoridation, but were unable to show statistical significance – the hallmark of a conclusive epidemiology study.

The CDC now admits that fluoride’s effect on dental health is primarily after permanent teeth are in and exposed to fluoride on their surfaces. There is no need to swallow fluoride to experience this effect.

A recent peer reviewed study from Harvard shows that the higher exposure to fluoride that children get, the lower are their IQ’s. Even if drinking fluoride were to have a tiny, statistically insignificant effect on cavity formation, how many of your children’s IQ points are you willing to sacrifice for that slight hope?

Another recent peer reviewed study, using EPA risk and cost data, shows that the fluoridation chemical, hydrofluorosilicic acid, contains enough arsenic to be causing U.S. society to spend at least $1 billion per year treating lung and bladder cancer caused by the resulting added arsenic in fluoridated drinking water.

J. William Hirzy, Ph.D.
Chemist-In-Residence
American University

Letter from Dr. Hardy Limeback

Hardy Limeback, DDS, PhD

I’m the former head of preventative dentistry at the University of Toronto. In addition to being a dentist, I’m a scientist who has spent decades studying the effects of fluoride on teeth and bones.

Based on my work, I was one of 12 scientists in North America chosen to serve on the National Academy of Science’s committee that produced the 2006 report Fluoride in Drinking Water. Taking three years to complete, it’s considered the most comprehensive work ever done on the toxicity of fluoride.

I was trained in traditional dentistry, and for many years accepted the prevailing opinion of the establishment in Canada and the U.S. that water fluoridation is effective and safe.

I was mistaken.

As I intensively studied the literature and performed my own research, the evidence clearly demonstrated that fluoridation is more harmful than beneficial. In 1999, I publicly changed my position. In doing so, I joined the governments and experts throughout the world that DO NOT support fluoridation.

 Why do so many dentists and others in the U.S. and Canada support it? I can’t speak for any individual, but I believe most haven’t reviewed the literature, especially on health risks. And if you speak out against fluoridation, you risk being criticized and shunned by your peers. I know many dentists and physicians who oppose it but won’t take a public stance.

In Canada, citizens all over the country, reviewing much of the same science I did, are opposing it. In just the last five years, the percent of Canadians drinking fluoridated water has dropped from 45% to 32%. Small towns and large cities, including Quebec City, QE, Windsor, ON and Calgary, AL, have voted to ban fluoridation.

For the sake of your health and your children’s health, I urge all citizens of Portland to vote no on Measure 26-151.

Hardy Limeback, DDS, PhD

Dr. Kathleen Thiessen

Fluoridation of drinking water is strongly encouraged by public health agencies and dental organizations to prevent dental caries. However, several important concerns have not been adequately addressed:

Available data show no benefit of fluoridation in improving dental health.

Most studies showing benefits of fluoridation are neither random nor blind. The reported benefits are small, and alternative explanations (fluoride-induced delay in tooth eruption, socioeconomic effects) have not been explored.

Caries rates have declined in all developed countries, fluoridated or not. The CDC indicates that fluoride’s predominant effect on teeth is topical, not from ingestion.

The only U.S. study to examine caries experience in relation to individual fluoride intakes found no association. The most recent (1986-1987) national data set in the U.S. shows no significant difference in caries rates with different water fluoride levels.

Various adverse health effects are associated with fluoride exposures.

Well-known adverse health effects from fluoride exposure include dental fluorosis, skeletal fluorosis, and increased risk of bone fracture. Additional adverse effects include carcinogenicity, genotoxicity, reduced thyroid function, other endocrine effects, neurotoxicity, hypersensitivity, and increased blood lead levels in children. Dental fluorosis is associated with increased risks of thyroid disease, lowered IQ, and bone fracture. “Safe” levels of fluoride exposure are well below the levels experienced with fluoridation, especially for formula-fed infants and people with high water consumption or kidney disease. Minority and low-income populations may have increased risks of adverse effects.

By fluoridation of drinking water, governments and water suppliers are indiscriminately administering a drug to the population, without individual evaluation of need, correct dose, effectiveness, or side effects.

Fluoride tablets require a prescription. Fluoride in toothpaste is a nonprescription drug. Many people consume more fluoride from drinking water than from nonprescription or prescription sources.

Portland voters can best promote their population’s health by voting against water fluoridation.

Kathleen Thiessen, Ph.D.
Coauthor of the National Academy of Science’s 2006 report, Fluoride in Drinking Water

Ralph Nader

As a consumer advocate I am opposed to mandatory fluoridation of public water supplies. Its ostensible purpose is to reduce dental cavities, which can be accomplished in other preventive manners without exposing whole populations to risks, costs, unknown consequences and precedents. Decades ago, it became clear that the U.S. Public Health Service did not scientifically “keep its options open for revision,” to use the words of Alfred North Whitehead’s definition of the scientific process. (The Case Against Fluoride 2010)

Mandatory fluoridation became a hardened dogma, enforced against any questioners by slander, retaliation and ostracism.

The Public Health Service’s closed mind became a door closer to sponsoring or encouraging any continuing research into mandatory fluoridation’s effects, especially regarding total fluoride intakes in a community, dose control, dental fluorosis, effect on infants, people on kidney dialysis and combinational effects with other organisms in water supplies.

It took decisive findings by the National Research Council to recommend that infants not ingest fluoridated water, including use in baby formula, and its Canadian counterpart to recommend years earlier prohibition of such water for dialysis patients. This further reveals just how rigidly autocratic were the promoters of mandatory fluoridation.

More questions are being sensibly raised in recent years. Yet the U.S. Public Health Service, ignoring other Western nations that have banned mandatory fluoridation, continues to use taxpayer dollars to bring communities to their knees on this issue, often without allowing them even to vote. I urge Portland voters to vote NO on Measure 26-151.

Ralph Nader, Consumer Advocate

Food & Water Watch Warns Against Water Fluoridation: Recommends a NO Vote on 26-151

Food & Water Watch is a non-profit organization that advocates for common sense policies that protect access to safe, clean and affordable drinking water and food. We believe everyone has the right to clean and safe water. We oppose adding fluoridation chemicals to Portland’s drinking water and recommend a “No Vote” on fluoridation to protect the incredible Bull Run, which plays an important role in protecting Portlander’s health.

Our “Take Back the Tap” campaign has helped educate consumers in Oregon and throughout the country about the benefits of drinking local tap water instead of expensive and resource intensive bottled water. One of the reasons a growing numbers of Portlanders are saying no to bottled water is because Portlanders are proud of our water that citizens have fought for decades to protect.

Food & Water Watch is speaking out against the fluoridation of Portland’s drinking water because:

• Fluoridation ignores consent.

We respect every person’s right to decide whether or not they consume fluoride. Since fluoridation chemicals cannot be affordably filtered from drinking water, fluoridation would take away the ability of a large number of Portlanders to drink fluoride-free water and could increase local consumption of bottled water.

• Fluoridation works topically not from being swallowed.

Fluoridation was started in the 1940s around the idea that people had to swallow fluoride for it to work, but we now know that fluoride works topically. It’s time to focus on strategies that more effectively help children and others at risk of cavities.

• There are risks from fluoridation chemicals.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommendation that families consider using bottled water to mix infant formula highlights that fluoridation would add risk and uncertainty to our water.

Join Food & Water Watch in voting “No” on fluoridation.

During my freshman year (1944) attending pharmacy school I was taught that fluorine was the most reactive of all the elements and it would dissolve anything. By 1950 as a pharmacist I was dispensing infant and children’s vitamins containing fluoride (a fluorine salt) and dosing my first born with it. I had been taken-in completely by the propaganda about this “wonder drug” and its ability to prevent cavities. It never occurred to me to ask for copies of the studies that proved fluoride was safe.

By 1978 I began to realize that there was a lot the public does not know about its exposure to low levels of toxic chemicals in the environment, and I decided to go back to college. This eventually led to my ending up in Washington, DC where I spent 17 years focusing on the insidious health impairment in wildlife and humans caused by chemicals at what the government considers safe.

It was not until I was given the privilege in 2004 to write the Foreward for The Fluoride Deception by Christopher Bryson that I discovered no adequate studies were done to test the efficacy of ingesting fluoride in humans. In his book Bryson provided scientific evidence that coating teeth with a fluoride can reduce cavities but that swallowing it does not.

Over the past two decades, going well beyond traditional toxicological testing, new testing protocols for detecting adverse health effects at parts per trillion or less have been developed. Government decision-makers must now demand

research on how ambient concentrations of ingested fluoride can affect the most sensitive system in our bodies: the endocrine system, which is the body’s signaling system that governs long-term health and chronic disease and how we develop, reproduce, function.

Clear evidence must be made public that fluorides used to treat municipal water supplies are not endocrine disruptors.

Please vote NO on Measure 26-151.

Theo Colborn, PhD

I’ve read much of the science behind water fluoridation. I oppose it because I believe it’s unnecessary and not proven safe or effective.

Fluoridation promoters use endorsements from the federal government and numerous health organizations as a marketing tool. They understand that most people don’t have time to examine fluoridation in depth and so will trust the experts they promote.

Unfortunately, the federal government approved fluoridation of public drinking water way back in 1950. It was a dubious  decision and it allowed the fluoridation industry to garner endorsements from many other agencies and organizations to promote dumping fluoride into drinking water.

The vast majority of governments and health organizations in other countries do NOT support fluoridation – over 94% of the world’s population drinks unfluoridated water. In Europe, 43 out of 48 nations don’t fluoridate, covering 97% of the population. Most never started and six that did, including Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands and Finland, have stopped.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult for government officials, agencies and professional associations that have publicly supported fluoridation to admit that the most current science contradicts their positions.

I serve on the advisory board of the Fluoride Action Network (www.fluoridealert.org), the major science-based organization opposing fluoridation. FAN is challenging the obsolete ideas used to promote this practice. I hope you will study the facts, not myths, and vote NO on Measure 26-151.

“There’s a libertarian component to Oregon politics … a kind of opposition to what the establishment might want,” said Bill Lunch, a political science professor at Oregon State University. “Those who have more money, despite the kind of popular presumptions in this regard, don’t always win elections.”

The lesser-known of two issues on the Portland ballot passed easily. Voters approved a third renewal of the city’s Children’s Levy with more than 70 percent in favor. The levy directs more than $9 million a year to programs that support about 14,000 children annually in areas such as child abuse prevention, after-school activities and foster care.

The campaign to renew the levy, however, took a back seat to the fight over fluoride, which intensified in the weeks leading to Election Day.

In Portland, where a largely Democratic electorate often finds liberal candidates struggling to differentiate themselves, the fluoride debate created stark, and heated, divisions.

Both campaigns accused the other of stealing yard signs. A thinly veiled anti-fluoride push poll went out to voters. Opponents were described as insensitive to equity issues, while proponents were accused of wanting to willingly pollute the city’s famously pure water.

The issue also wound up politicizing a statewide health report that showed falling cavity and tooth decay rates in the state over the past five years. One of the report’s authors said she felt pressured by Upstream Health, the group spearheading fluoridation, to present the findings in a certain way.

More than $1 million was spent on the campaign, a considerable total for a Portland-only election. But Portland finds itself back where it has historically been, as the only city among the nation’s 30 most populous to not approve fluoridation.

Clean Water Portland, the group leading the opposition, was hesitant to claim victory, but it was clear an hour after the 8 p.m. ballot deadline that the measure didn’t have enough support.

Still, said Kelly Barnes, a spokeswoman for the group, “when you really get down to it, clean water is a universal issue.

“When citizens took a look at the information, they decided for themselves that the risk wasn’t worth it.”

Barnes wouldn’t discuss possible next steps, although the group has said it would like a ban on fluoride written into the city charter.

“I think we’re going to take a little rest and reevaluate where we are.”

The pro-fluoride group Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland conceded defeat early. “Disappointed” was the word of the night.

“The results are certainly disappointing, but I think they’re mostly disappointing because, at the end of the day, we were not able to provide this preventative measure” to people who need it, said Alejandro Queral, co-chair of the group’s steering committee. “The issue doesn’t go away at the end of the election.”

Dana Haynes, Mayor Charlie Hales’ spokesman, said Hales had no plans to come back at the issue but shared supporters’ frustration.

“The measure lost even with my own ‘yes’ vote,” the mayor said in a statement. “Disappointing, but I accept the will of the voters.”

Portland has been at odds with fluoridation for more than half a century.

In the 1950s, residents considered the question of fluoridation about the same time many of the nation’s other large metro areas were adopting the practice as a way of fighting tooth decay. Portland voters bucked the trend and rejected the proposal. They said no again in 1962.

It seemed Portlanders had come around to the idea in 1978 when they approved a fluoridation plan. But two years later, they reversed course and voted to scrap it.

Since then, fluoridation has remained a constant political issue, on par with mandatory gas station attendants, occasionally coming up at the Legislature but never finding any traction.

That changed in September when, after a year of pro-fluoride lobbying, the Portland City Council quickly approved a plan to add fluoride at 0.7 parts per million beginning in March 2014.

The decision affected not just Portland, but 19 other cities, including Gresham, Tigard and Tualatin, that contract with the city to buy water from the Bull Run Reservoir. All told, the fluoridated water would have reached 900,000 people.

Early estimates put the project at $5 million for startup costs and $575,000 annually after that.

Opponents, however, quickly moved to get fluoride on the ballot.

In the months leading to the election, Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland focused on making the issue about equity. The group pulled together support among communities of color and raised more than $800,000 in cash and in-kind contributions. The group sold fluoridation as a scientifically sound method for fighting what they called the state’s dental crisis, continuously noting that nearly three-fourths of Americans drink fluoridated water.

Despite its financial disadvantage, however, Clean Water Portland proved better at mobilizing an electorate wary of adding a chemical to one of the nation’s cleanest sources of drinking water. Signs calling for residents to reject “fluoridation chemicals” popped up on lawns across the city even as stories in the national media popped up, poking fun at the city’s resistance to a common practice.

“The simplicity of their message was certainly an advantage,” said Queral from Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland. “I think the opponents did a very good job of casting doubt on the science. I think they homed in on their message and they hammered away on it.”

– Brad Schmidt contributed reporting to this story.

View the photos

To learn more about Portland voters’ overwhelming opposition to fluoridation, click here.