USA - You Can’t Handle the Tooth

You Can’t Handle the Tooth

Why the far right and left have come together to defeat flouride.

ILLUSTRATION: Hawk Krall

It’s an April evening at Dishman Community Center in Northeast Portland, and people are pissed.

The occasion is a public debate between Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland, the local campaign that’s backing the Portland ballot measure to fluoridate our water, and its fluoride-hating counterpart, Clean Water Portland.

Local public-policy debates aren’t usually hot tickets, but this one is so packed that organizers had to call the fire marshal for permission to admit a beyond-capacity crowd. Every seat is taken, and people are sitting on the gym floor.

Sentiment in the room is running heavily against fluoride. While debate organizers warn against audience outbursts (“you won’t be asked to leave, you will be removed”), on several occasions dentist and fluoride backer Mike Plunkett is hissed like a silent-movie villain.

At the end of Clean Water Portland’s closing statement, an overwhelming majority of those assembled erupt in applause (no such luck for Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland’s final speech), and a ragged chant of “No fluoride!” bubbles up from the back of the hall. 

Fluoride supporters may have the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the vast majority of the medical profession on their side, but—tonight at least—the advantage in naked passion lies with the opposition. 

As the crowd files out, it’s hard not to be struck by the variety of the opponents—gutter punks, yoga moms, septuagenarian military veterans. The mix reflects Clean Water Portland’s diverse support base: The political action committee’s roster includes the Pacific Green Party, the Oregon Progressive Party, the Organic Consumers Association, the Oregon Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, and libertarian groups like Cascade Policy Institute. 

It’s as if an Occupy protest, a talk on artisanal cheesemaking, and a Tea Party rally were all accidentally booked at the same hotel ballroom. It’s hard to imagine such a diverse group all voting the same way on anything. But fluoridation has always seemed to grab people in a way unlike any other issue.

FIGHTING CHEMICALS: Anti-fluoridation protestors at the east end of the Burnside Bridge.

IMAGE: Kurt Armstrong