Well, the big day NOT—December 15—has come and gone, with the City Council  predictably following through on its plan to continue fluoridating Austin’s water, and to provide some misleading information about infant formula now posted on the city’s website to a larger audience.  All this with the blessing of Dr. Philip Huang, Austin’s Public Health & Human Services Department medical officer and conduit-in-chief to millions of dollars in CDC grant money, behind whose flimsy skirts the Council continues to hide. 

Because the outcome was such a foregone conclusion, we made the difficult call not to widely promote this occasion beyond our website, blog and Facebook.  Indeed, we feared a strong showing might inspire the Council to postpone the item until late at night, or even to table it.  We didn’t want a large cohort of our supporters waiting around, possibly all day, possibly in vain, for the inevitable during this season of cheer. 

Things went well enough, however  By pre-arrangement, three Fluoride Free Austin members (including Laura Pressley, a strong contender for City Council) signed over their speaking slots to me, allowing me time, for once, to make a decent presentation and to get some of Public Health’s most egregious misrepresentations onto the public record.  Because I had ample speaking time, I was able to wing it rather than read from my usual prepared script, which also gave me a rare chance to observe the council members’ expressions.  They were not pleased as I exposed the dishonesties and incompetencies of their bureaucratic lords, but were determined to bow down to them anyway.  (Dr. Huang, who didn’t speak himself, brought two local dentists with him to make the Atlanta-based CDC’s point).  By the time the Council voted - without any discussion - you could have heard a pin drop.  Only Mayor Leffingwell’s voice could be heard assuring us that Council member Mike Martinez had made a motion, Laura Morrison had seconded it and the vote in favor was unanimous.  It was as though the issue was so toxic, so scary, that council members shrank from any part of it—even approving their own recommendation. Martinez - who recently had his arm twisted by Libby Doggett, an officer of the Pew Charitable Trusts, which pushes fluoride as well as wife of a powerful Austin-based Congressman - must have felt a shade uncomfortable, though assured in the long run that his vote to continue fluoridating made it all right.

The situation did have its puzzling side.  Is a toothless warning (the Council repudiated the actual word “warning”) that bundles false information with a modicum of fact better than no warning at all?  Worse?   The same?  My initial impulse, when signing up at the computer kiosk, was to list myself as against Item #11.  But a subsequent conversation with Dr. Pressley—in which she expressed the opinion that even a “warning” that figuratively turns on itself is better than nothing because it will alert people to the fluoride issue—changed my  mind. Perhaps it will do some good anyway.  Perhaps not.  Only time will tell.  At the podium, I declared myself neutral.  Neutral about fluoride—definitely a first for me! 
 
Mayor Leffingwell was on his best behavior, presumably relieved to have it all done with, if that’s what he thinks.  In a sense, last Thursday’s vote was a non-event.  It settled nothing.  Water fluoridation will continue for now (no surprise), an unsatisfactory warning will be issued with consequences yet to be seen, and Fluoride Free Austin will redouble our efforts in the coming year.