Subverting democratic consultation on the fluoride issue

Credit: Making Sense of Fluoirde

Denver Water, which as Colorado’s largest water provider, has been reviewing its water fluoridation policy. It will announce its decision in the next few days but I found its description of the consultation process interesting.

[Update: Denver Water has now voted unanimously to continue community water fluoridation (see Good News – Denver Water Votes to Continue Community Water Fluoridation!). A complete failure for the anti-fluoride campaigners who worked hard to defeat fluoridation in Denver.]

A spokeswoman for the board, Stacey Chesman said Denver Water had received nearly 1,200 comments, from as far away as New Zealand, with 1,078 opposed to fluoridation, and 663 of those submitting their comments on postcards created by We Are Change Colorado. Every public health agency in Denver Water’s service area urged it to continue fluoridating water (See Water systems sink teeth into debate over drinking it).

Pretty impressive, eh? Twelve hundred submissions and about 90% oppose community water fluoridation (CWF). But look again – over 60% of the opposing submissions were on postcards provided by the anti-fluoride propagandist group “We are Change Colorado.”

Manipulating council consultations

That reminds me of the Hamilton City Council’s fluoride considerations two and a half years ago. That Council’s  summary of submissions reported:

“Of the 1,557 submissions received 1,385 (89%) seek Council to stop the practise of adding fluoride to the Hamilton water supply. 170 (10.9%) seek Council to continue the practise of adding fluoride and 2 (0.1%) submitters did not indicate a stance.”

The Hamilton numbers are so similar to those in Denver that one might wonder if the same people or organisations organised many of the submissions. And, I suspect, the Denver number of 90% opposed is just as unrepresentative of the public’s view as the Hamilton 90% – as shown by the subsequent Hamilton referendum where 70% of voters supported CWF! (See When politicians and bureaucrats decide the science).

The postcard tactic used in Denver is also much the same as the New Zealand Fluoride Free organisation providing submission templates  (templates A, B, C, D, were used in Hamilton) and submission guides. And the comment that Denver water received submissions “from as far away as New Zealand” also rings a bell – many of the submissions received by the Hamilton City Council were from as far away as the USA. And, in fact, video links were used to enable oral submissions by anti-fluoride propagandists from the USA!

What we have seen in these two cases – and many others in New Zealand, the USA, Canada and Australia – is a highly efficient organised campaign from “out-of-towners” intent on subverting the consultation process and the democratic rights of local citizens. A process which one might think mature and sensible civil leaders could easily recognise and discount. However, some of these leaders are easily fooled. In Hamilton, the local council gave the high numbers of anti-fluoride submissions they got as one of the main reasons for deciding to stop CWF. This seemed to them more important than the real referenda results!

A fluoride referendum in Thames

In New Zealand, the small town of Thames will hold a referendum on fluoridation of their water supply in November (see Thames fluoride referendum set for 5 November). Campaigning will start soon and no doubt we will see the same circus of whirlwind visits from out-of-towners, propaganda from overseas anti-fluoride propagandists (who promote themselves as “world experts” on the subject), and billboard, newspaper and radio advertising – probably paid for by the “natural”/alternative health industry.

I hope the people of Thames will be rightly suspicious of these “out-of-towners,” and ideologically and commercially motived propagandists, and instead listen to the advice of their own social health and dental experts.

Similar articles