On October 24, 2006, a travesty took place in Del Rio, Texas—the kind that makes you want to cry but teaches valuable lessons too.  The Del Rio City Council, in their wisdom, voted to rescind their previous month’s ban on fluoride and return the toxin to the city’s waters. The city of about 36,000 has been fluoridating since 1990.

According to the Del Rio News Herald, on September 12, the Council had unanimously voted to do away with fluoridation following a presentation by John Morony, “a retired college biology professor, who characterized fluoride as a poison and showed the council numerous research references that link fluoride to higher rates of cancer and other health hazards.”  Morony also pointed out that the fluoride added to the water supply is a waste product of the fertilizer industry.  The Council voted, and all was well.  Or so it seemed. 

Thus, I was shocked, while continuing my online research, to come across an only slightly more recent article headlined "Fluoride Returns to the City of Del Rio’s Water System" from Del Rio Live. Written in a style that left no doubt where the reporter, Alejandra Valdez’s sympathies lay, the piece described how five of the seven Councilmembers flip-flopped following a contentious October meeting.  Clearly, a well-organized opposition had leaped out of the woodwork on short notice, blindsiding the Council.  It included Howard “Mister” Hunt, D.D.S., who serves Apache children on Arizona’s White Mountain Reservation out of a mobile dental unit. 

Valdez wrote admiringly of Dr. Hunt’s passion for his work and described how he “broke down” as he showed projected images of two of his young patients, their jaws grotesquely swollen from tooth decay presumably preventable through the miracle of fluoride.

Assuming Hunt’s tearjerker testimony must have been key to the about-face, and curious to see exactly what he had presented, I ordered a video of the proceedings from the Del Rio City Secretary’s office and spent several hours viewing it in appalled fascination.  The boyish dentist is a gifted showman who held a charmed crowd in the palm of his hand, now speaking with a quaver, now tossing off a joke, addressing his listeners as “Guys.”

Without fluoridation, he implied, come tooth decay and infection “leading to pain, pain, pain, Guys, and life-threatening infection in kids and adults.  Root canals, extractions, emergency room visits and operating rooms where I come in.”   He showed slides of a boy and a girl, their faces distorted from abscesses that sent them to the hospital. 

He never mentioned that the White Mountain Reservation water has been fluoridated since the late-1990's.  

Where diet and dental hygiene are poor, all of the above will indeed occur, and they will continue to occur until those underlying problems are addressed.  Hunt himself acknowledged that “Coke, candy and limes” are what cause tooth decay.  Ingested fluoride does nothing to enhance tooth enamel:  even fluoridation’s greatest booster, the federal Centers for Disease Control has admitted that.  http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5014a1.htm 

But the implication was clear.  Could a pediatric dentist so passionate, so humble that he goes by the moniker “Mister” possibly be wrong when he declared:   “What does fluoride do?  It prevents all this from happening, OK?  It does.” 

“I saw the atrocities of decay.  I saw it,” he told his rapt audience. 

As it happens, I’ve seen it too.  Some years ago, I volunteered with an Austin area charity that brings dental care to impoverished children and adults in Honduras.  Setting up in a remote banana and cane-growing area of the country, six volunteer dentists and their helpers created a makeshift clinic in a small pavilion that ordinarily houses the town’s market.

The parade of people—mainly the very young and the elderly—who passed through the clinic with severe dental problems was heartbreaking.  A regional practice of chewing sugarcane, combined with poverty and limited access to dental care had taken their toll.  Most often, the teeth were beyond repair and the only solution was to pull them.  Never will I forget the smiling stoicism of one particular little girl as she sat patiently in the chair waiting her turn.  

                                         

For such people, as for those here at home, the solution to tooth decay is to reverse the circumstances that cause it.  There is no quick fix.

Money also reared its head for the first—but not last—time during Hunt’s talk, with stern warnings of the high costs that we, the taxpayers will bear for the care of those who need emergency dental services—costs that water fluoridation will supposedly spare us, though it hasn’t so far. 

Finally, he rattled off, carnival barker style, a list of "impartial" trade organizations and bureaucracies that support fluoridation:  the American Dental Association, the  American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, the New York State Dental Association, the Florida Dental Association, the American Medical Association, the American Cancer Society, the Surgeon General, the Department of Defense. . .

Department of Defense??

At first this might seem about as relevant as an endorsement from, say, the Piano Movers' Union.  But when we consider that the need to dispose of large amounts of toxic fluoride waste first arose from World War II armament production, it makes perfect sense after all.  Very interesting information.  Thank you, Dr. Hunt.

It was a hard act to follow.  .

Next up to the plate was Dr. Larry Lindenschmidt D.D.S., who assured his audience that the industrial waste used for water fluoridation wasn't really waste, and that there was already natural fluoride in Del Rio's water, just not enough of it.  He got laughs by telling them that a 150-pound man would need to consume 112.6 gallons of “optimally” fluoridated water in an hour to receive a lethal dose.   Had he been inclined to acknowledge the cumulative nature of the toxin, he might also have noted that an active man of that weight, drinking a gallon a day, can easily accumulate well over a “lethal” dose each year.

Two more fluoridation promoters—Dr. John Brown, another dentist and Tom Napier, fluoride engineer with the Texas Department of State Health Services—followed, introduced by Katie Gonzalez, a leader of The Border Organization.  It was impossible not to feel sorry for Ms. Gonzalez as she stoutly called for the return of the toxin to Del Rio's water, believing it in the best interest of her people.  “The Border Organization has had many conversations in our neighborhoods, in our churches and in our colonias concerning fluoride,” she said.

Her posture illustrated, better than anything, just what we’re up against.   So cleverly and so long has water fluoridation been marketed as a social justice measure—“something for poor children,"—“ that the mere mention of withdrawing it often elicits knee-jerk opposition from exactly those most likely to be harmed by it:   the less-affluent; the less healthy; the less-educated:  in short, the historically less-privileged. 

Dr. Sandra Guerra-Cantu, director of Region 8, Texas Department of State Health Services in San Antonio, rounded out the corporate-side performance.  In tones of soothing condescension, as if addressing small children, she invoked her own authority repeatedly (“State law says that I am”) and waxed cute at the plight of Del Rio’s’ aged and chronically ill. (“…When our health isn’t so good, that’s when those bacteria on our teeth throw a party.”)  “So the more ill people we have in the community, the better it is to have fluoride protecting them,” she concluded brightly, pouncing on a perceived silver lining to the cloud of poor health that hangs over southern Texas.  "...If there was true evidence demonstrating harm, you would have heard about it by now, not by one person saying it. . .but all over the media.” 

In short, trust the bureaucrats.  Trust the trade organizations.  Trust the mainstream media.  Trust everybody and everything except your own common sense.   

Opponents of water fluoridation took the podium next.  But their plainspoken arguments, though well-supported, were overwhelmed by the superior resources and slick delivery of the other side.  In the end, sober, science-backed assessment of the hazards, ineffectiveness and lack of ethics implicit in the fluoridationists' mass-medication scheme fell beneath an avalanche of academic credentials and “official” authority.   The 300 anti-fluoridation signatures collected by Rosalinda Sanchez, a concerned mother of two, counted for little, as did the plight of diabetes/kidney patient Bob Dinor (one of many millions nationally), who counts himself lucky to be able to afford bottled drinking water. Ronald Burton’s laboriously compiled 100-page packet of information went to waste too. 

But first came discussion:  a surreal forum where slippery questions of cause and effect were deftly deflected or magically disposed of by the “experts.”   Reality and fantasy collided, bringing unexpected issues to the surface.  

Councilwoman Pat Cole, a professional with 20 years’ experience taking medical and dental histories and interviewing patients, voiced her alarm at the soaring incidence of dental fluorosis she sees today. Fluorosis is an early sign of systemic fluoride poisoning.   

Guerra-Cantu denied that the characteristic white tooth mottling had anything to do with the water.  It came from “other products,” she opined.  Besides, “Lots of people pay lots of money to have their teeth whitened.  Most people don’t think it’s so bad to have some white on their teeth.”

Her response to Cole’s concern over fluoride’s known carcinogenic properties amounted to Trust Us.  Guerra-Cantu felt no need to quantify the benefits of fluoride in the water. “This is not a panacea.  It is part of a holistic plan to insure the health of people,”  she declared.   

Nonetheless, she continued to sell it like a panacea:  "You need to put it back in if you want the people of Del Rio to be viewed as as as healthy as anywhere else in the country and in Texas."

Councilwoman Lisa Cadena-Craig chimed in to speak her piece.  Absent from the previous meeting and miffed that an important vote had been taken without her, Cadena-Craig was raring to go.  She quickly made clear that nothing but scientific studies conducted on Del Rio soil would ever convince her that water fluoridation was unnecessary.

The Councilwoman was rightly concerned about the poor dental health of her constituents, particularly children, and complained that mobile dental trucks visiting low-income youngsters in her district were serving 30 to 40 patients a day because so few dentists accept Medicaid.  She brushed aside a spectator's observation that those children were already drinking fluoridated water with, “They’ve only been on fluoride for a certain portion of time.” (all their lives, if natives of Del Rio, which has been fluoridated for 18 years). Or, she speculated, maybe they came from someplace else.

Clinging sturdily to her faith, she demanded the return of the elixir.  “For general health and well-being, they have to have it back.  It’s as simple as putting it back in the water."

“You haven’t shown me any studies that have originated here," she concluded, pounding the dias.  And until you can show me studies that originated here, I’m not going to deny the poor kids that I’ve got.  Who’s speaking for them?”

Who, indeed?

Councilman Mike Wrob made a conscientious effort to understand the complex issues involved.  He came prepared with questions but wasn’t equipped to deal with Pro-Fluoride’s glib responses.  In one instance, when he cited a classic 1986-87 National Institute of Dental Research study of schoolchildren http://www.icnr.com/NIDRStudy.html revealing virtually no differences in tooth decay between children in fluoridated and non-fluoridated areas, dentist John Brown, professor and chairman of community dentistry at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, simply claimed not to have heard of it.

Later, Brown would dismiss a monumental 2006 report of the National Research Council detailing the injurious effects of ingested fluoride on the body’s many systems.  The report “is not a study of water fluoridation,” said the professor scornfully.  No matter that the findings were emminently applicable to the subject at hand.

So it went.  Reason was not at home in chambers that night.  Illogic and denial floated over the proceedings like a mist.  

The grand finale came with the revelations of a local dentist I’ll call Dr. X.  A battle-scarred veteran of the Medicaid wars, he dragged into the arena with him the carcass of a broken system whose failures—I discovered, to my amazement—are being used to justify mass fluoridation. 

Dr. X, a sympathetic figure, is a dentist who gave up taking Medicaid patients after ten difficult years.  He began with the entreaty, “Let’s make this about the Medicaid system and not fluoridation,” (a resolve he would proceed to break), then launched into an impassioned  tirade against the iniquities of the program.  He spoke of unreliable patients and money lost, of endless red tape and the bureaucracy’s callous disregard.   Clearly troubled over having walked away from a population in need, he appeared  near tears of frustration as he narrated the story of his attempts to secure a small clinic from which he and other like-minded dentists could serve Medicaid patients.  .

“I said, ‘Here, you build a clinic and I’ll volunteer a day out of my time to go over there. . .you worry about the books. . .and whether they show up. . .about providing the materials. . .and I’ll provide my time.’   

“Did they do that?” he asked rhetorically, recounting his long-ago conversation with a bureaucrat in Del Rio’s Medicaid office.  “He laughed at me. . .he looked at me and said, ‘I’ll get back to you.’" 
"[I said] 'We can't afford to stay in business and do this 100% of our time. . .Help us.  Build us a clinic.'  But would he meet us halfway, even throw us a bone?  Hell, no.  He wouldn't even talk to us." 

Then, in a jaw-dropping non-sequitur, he announced, to applause:   

"This fluoride issue is the least thing that we could do for those kids."

Launching into a riff that would seem to belie his own advice, he likened mass medication via fluoride to an individual's taking an aspirin a day to prevent heart attack:  "Well, hell, if you're over here eating barbecue every day and you're 380 pounds, an aspirin a day won't solve the problem." 

Well, hell, isn't the basic cause of cavites "Coke, candy and limes" as Dr. Hunt earlier conceded?  And isn't low-income children's poorer showing directly related to poorer diet and to poorer oral hygiene habits as he himself was about to admit? 

"At least it's something.  If you exercise and take care of yourself and take an aspirin, I say it might save your life." 

If you exercise and take care of yourself, you might not need the aspirin at all.  

"I saw the kids every day,  I would go over to the schools and screen them every day," continued Dr. X, who quit Medicaid about three years into Del Rio's implementation of fluoride.  "I saw the rapid decay problems."  

Incredibly, he went on to blame them on what he called "dental IQ." 

Dental IQ??
 
"It's a problem [with] dental IQ; it's a problem with people teaching their kids how to do things. . .but it's also, we have to give them something.  Are we going to sit back and say, 'Look, we can't do squat for you?'  Or are we going to say, 'At least we're going to try to do this for you and the rest is up to your parents and everybody else and your teachers to help."  

There, in a nutshell, is the fluoridationists' thinking:  these people have a low dental IQ.  They are not in command of their dental destiny.  Let's throw something in the water.  That'll fix it.  Even if that something is a dangerous toxin.  Why go to the bother and expense of fixing Medicaid or finding other real solutions when for much less cost you can just dump fluoride into the water?  It is, after all, "something."  The grand gesture carries the day.

It carried the day in Del Rio on October 24, 2006.  Following Dr. X's emotional appeal, some platitudes from Mayor Efraim Valdez (“We both listened to both sides and I’m glad of that”) and Mike Wrob’s wistful confession that he had decided to leave it to the professionals "who know a whole lot more about this than I do,"   Lisa Cadena-Craig triumphantly moved to restore the fluoride to the water system.  The Council caved, voting 5 to 1 in favor of the motion.  Only Councilwoman Cole held firm to her prior stance. 

As the meeting broke for recess, the Mayor remarked humorously, "May I request everybody not hear the word ‘fluoride’ for a while?” and the room exploded with laughter. 

But they need to keep on hearing it.  The Council voted to put their trust in "experts"—the same experts who have failed us, the public, repeatedly.  We shouldn't be putting our trust in them.  Not any more. 

Out of the ashes of this painful defeat springs a wealth of lessons for the future.  I'll talk about them in Part II.