When you need medical advice, do you call your accountant?
Or your real estate agent?
The owner of your favorite bar or restaurant?
And yet, these people will soon be making an important decision regarding the health of every Waupaca resident.
The Waupaca City Council needs to appoint a health professional who can provide advice to the council, when the council is making decisions like the current fluoridation issue.
No, we don’t need to create a position and pay a salary with benefits; this person would simply be available on the rare occasion that advice is required – free of charge.
On the current question, a health officer would provide this type of advice to the City Council:
1) Fluoridation is considered safe, effective, and cost-saving by the entire medical community.
Fluoridation is recommended by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the American Dental Association, the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry and over 25 other medical or dental organizations.
2) The medical and scientific evidence supporting these recommendations is overwhelming.
In searching the database of medical studies (known to health professionals as “PubMed”), more than 5,500 published articles are produced on the subject of fluoridation effectiveness and safety.
The mountain of scientific articles puts fluoridation in the rare category of “virtually indisputable.”
3) The CDC has published a booklet that is designed to educate and assist community leaders in making decisions about fluoridation.
The Waupaca City Council should read this booklet, and ask questions, as needed.
4) The CDC booklet has a section on “Fluoridation as a Political Issue.”
The section discusses a group of activists it labels as: “Anti-Fluoridationists”.
It explains that anti-fluoridationists have been around since the 1950s, when they first claimed fluoridation was a “communist plot”.
Primarily, their mission is to “neutralize politicians,” and their various methods are described in the booklet.
Before it considers testimony from the public, the City Council should read this section carefully.
5) When taking input from the public, the City Council should “weight” the testimony based on the expertise of the speaker.
For example, the council should consider the testimony of a Doctor of Dental Surgery to be of greater “weight” than the testimony of an individual with lesser (or no) credentials.
Courts do this every day, and for good reason – would you want to be sent to prison, because somebody “who watches CIS Miami every day” processed the crime scene fingerprints?
6) Waupaca should continue fluoridation.
I live in Waupaca, I drink the water, I have no concerns about the fluoride in the water.
If the city ends fluoridation, I will look into which fluoride supplement is best for me – because I know fluoride is important if I want to keep my teeth.
The City Council should find a willing physician (or nurse practitioner), preferably with a Master of Public Health degree, and appoint him/her to an unpaid advisory position.
These decisions are too important.