Portland, Oregon, Says No To Fluoridation

Wednesday, May 22, 2013 - 17:20 in Health & Medicine

Pro and Con Images from Clean Water Portland (left) and Healthy Kids Healthy Portland (right) So when is Portlandia going to do a skit about this? Residents of Portland, Oregon, voted down, yet again, an effort to add fluoride to their tap water. With 80 percent of the expected ballots counted, Mayor Charlie Hales "conceded defeat," the Associated Press reported. Portland is the largest U.S. city not to have added fluoride in the water, nor any plans to add it, the Associated Press reported. Portlanders in the past have defeated three other attempts to fluoridate their water since the 1950s, Livescience reported. In the U.S., 196 million people have tap water that's fluoridated to the optimal level to prevent cavities, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Everyone else has either unfluoridated water or water that naturally or artificially contains fluoride at higher levels than recommended. Portland's water has...

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