READ MY LIPS: IF THEY'RE MOVING...
Cole Spelman Morrison Leffingwell Tovo Riley MartinezNow for a few words about some politicians who are NOT lying...
We’ve all heard this old saw:
Q: How can you tell when a politician is lying?
A: His (or her) lips are moving.
The entire current Austin City Council can be considered professional or at least semi-professional politicians whatever their particular backgrounds. They’re ambitious. They like to hold high positions in this and that. As Council members, they act largely out of political expediency, and are minimally responsive to the desires of the average Austinite. On the whole, they prefer to dodge personal one-on-one interactions with their constituents. They enjoy making rules for the masses, which they themselves may or may not follow.
Yet on one point they have been unwaveringly forthright.
Never, in the three-plus years of Fluoride Free Austin’s advocacy, have they tried to pretend that Austin’s water fluoridation policy has anything to do with helping children’s teeth. Poor children’s...rich children's...
children’s in-between...Zip. Zilch, Nada. In fact, to my recollection, the word “children” hasn’t once passed the lips of anybody on the dais in response to our dozens and dozens of citizens communication presentations.
Instead, they’ve focused exclusively on precise adherence to scientifically and medically unsound “best practices” developed long ago by self-serving federal bureaucrats. Their motivation is very simple and direct--to please the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control. And they make no bones about it. Their collective message is: The CDC says it’s OK. The CDC wants us to do it. So we’re doing it. If you don’t like it, take a hike.
No matter that the CDC has no authority to mandate water fluoridation in Austin, or anywhere else, for that matter. Placating the agency, a generous provider of grant monies to the city, comes first, the public’s health a distant second.
Come to think of it, this Council seems relatively uninterested in health issues in general (it devotes three times more funds to water fluoridation than to sickle cell anemia). Unless, that is, they are the CDC's pet health issues.
Then it's a whole different ball game.
Take tobacco. In recent years, the city has reaped the bounty of millions of dollars in anti-smoking money from the CDC: between 2009 and 2011 alone it received $7.5 million* " to decrease tobacco use and exposure to second hand smoke." A goodly chunk of it went up in smoke, figuratively, for flashy public relations campaigns - including over a quarter of a million dollars for a single 30-second TV spot.
Now Austin has a new CDC handout** good for just over $1 million for each of the next five years. This one spotlights childhood obesity, currently made trendy by the endorsement of Michelle Obama and promoted by the Mayor's wife. Not that childhood obesity isn't a serious problem. It is. But while money flows freely for such celebrity-backed causes, others equally worthy are left out in the cold.
A year ago, councilwoman Laura Morrison, a cheerleader for the latter cause, hosted a forum. Morrison, who once famously remarked that she didn't have enough "bandwidth" for fluoride has plenty of bandwidth for suchlike well-underwritten exercises. Clearly in her element, she cracked jokes, "reverse-envisioned" ways to make all the city's children fat, and mentioned food last on a list of breakout topics - after physical activity, "the built environment" and health & cultural literacy.
The entire day's program, including the Channel 6 video, is archived here, Even a quick scan of the proceedings makes it pretty clear why the councilmembers aren't attracted to pedestrian matters like low-income children's dental problems.
There's simply not enough funding around such issues to make them interesting. No money for feel-good seminars to generate grand new projects of soaring complexity: visioning sessions; task forces, partnerships, networking opportunities, ad infinitum. The endless merry-go-round of grant-getting and spending aims to keep a thousand balls in the air at once. Anything less is dismissed as unimportant.
And that is exactly how the present Council treats the question of dental health in Austin's lower-income areas. It's largely invisible to them, which is unfortunate. But we appreciate their honesty in not putting on a charade of concern, or forcing us to contend with a bogus social equity scenario. They've done an excellent job of unmasking themselves. Public, are you paying attention?
*CCPW (Communities Putting Prevention to Work) grant
**Community Transformation Grant (CTG)
Posted by M. Rae Nadler-Olenick at 1/7/2012 9:24 PM 
Categories: health wellness environment politics
Tags: fluoride water fluoridation austin city council public health smoking tobacco cigarette vaccination laura morrison
Categories: health wellness environment politics
Tags: fluoride water fluoridation austin city council public health smoking tobacco cigarette vaccination laura morrison
This is very much spot on.
Sadly thyroid malfunction especially when iodine deficient happens at exceptionally low levels of fluoride intake. The 2006 NRC showed it could happen at .7 mg fluoride intake per day for an adult. Many adults get 2mg dose in non fluoridated cities because of food and beverage contamination and dental products also. In fluoridated areas it is many times that for high water users like diabetics and outside workers besides athletes and some just drink lots of water like many in my family. Myself often 2 gal a day outside working in the heat. Sometimes more but no fluoridated water the last 7 years. It took only 3 months for my disabling joint pain to go away when I got off the city fluoridation. I was shocked happy but very mad also for what they wish to do to us all with no concern because some dentist said to do it. I got resolve when stonewalled when they told me I would go away like the others had that had complained before. Instead they had to ban me from speaking to get me to go away then I just shifted cities to speak even more.
The CDC Oral health is just 30 dentists hired to do PR and not a single toxicologist qualified to determine whole body health risks. They really do not care as it is about protecting policy not people. I really do not think they even care who the harm as long as they are not blamed publicly. Most in the ADA and AMa just roll over on endorsements never doing due diligence. It is the easy rout that gets little flack. And dentists create great amounts of future income from cosmetic damage fluoridation causes. Only a tiny number of dentists actually care for the poor on medicaid anyway so they avoid those they damage the worst. 75% of the cavities happen to 25% of the people(poor and minority usually) Those that the typical dentist rarely sees in his chair. Those poor can get loaded with mercury fillings or kids with steel caps from baby bottle rot from sipppy cuts and bottles in bed or naps or all day. Lack of dental advise or care and poor parenting is the sole cause for this. Poor nutrition is the foundation of poor health and deantal caries which Burt showed in Detroit with kids 100% fluoridated for decades. And near 100% with cavities by age 5 and 83% had untreated caries by 15 still. Fluoridated water soda and chips are the opposite of good health and the typical diet seen in Detroit. A vegetable fruit food desert. Just food rules with fluoride chaser.
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Did a typo in that it only took me 3 weeks not 3 months for most of my joint pain to go away. I had a hard time getting up if kneeling except to pull myself up. My joints cracked an popped and hurt- especially in the morning. I got so much relief so fast- It shocked me. The city just blew me off with meetings and saying nothing in response. Then two months later a cut and paste policy statement that covered none of my specific questions. I asked lots of written questions and rarely got any response. Then often it was no response in writing for the questions.It was all pass the buck to someone else in another agency. Then cut and paste endorsements and CDC top ten policy type quotes. Also deer in the headlights type looks when asked questions or anger at me for asking. What dolts and they even get paid for being useless.
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