How AB733 was passed

How Dentists Manipulate Legislators to Win Fluoridation Battles
By Sally Stride / Fluoride Dangers / Friday, December 16, 2005

Ignoring the democratic process and discouraging a healthy dialogue, California fluoridationists worked secretly, quickly and dishonestly to pass a 1995 California fluoridation law that forces most California communities to add fluoride into their water supplies, whether Californians want it or not, according to “The Fluoride Victory,” published in the Journal of the California Dental Association.(1)

California Assemblywoman Jackie Speier, working with the California Dental Association (CDA), sponsored a fluoridation bill, eventually signed into law, forcing all California water companies, with 10,000 service connections, to add nonessential fluoride chemicals into the drinking water to prevent tooth decay, without constituent or local governing body approval, discussion or vote.

“To make the most of the element of surprise, it was decided that Speier would wait until the last possible moment to introduce her fluoridation bill,” writes author Joanne Boyd. “We pretty much knew we’d catch [the anti-fluoridation faction] by surprise because it wasn’t well known outside of the dental community what was going on,’ said Liz Snow, assistant director of CDA’s Government Relations [lobbying] Office.” “But we didn’t want to give the other side any more time to mobilize than absolutely necessary,’” writes Boyd.

William Keese, CDA Director of Government Relations, a lobbyist, received many compliments from other lobbyists on the campaign.
“I wouldn’t say we pulled a rabbit out of a hat, but it was a coup. We worked hard at getting prepared and using the element of surprise to our advantage. We moved fast and did it in one year,” Boyd quotes Keese as saying.

Many of the nation’s most familiar pro-fluoride lobbiests, were involved in the California battle including zealous fluoridationist, dentist Michael Easley brought in from Kentucky, at the time. (By the way, tooth decay doubled in Kentucky after water fluoridation (2)).

To the antifluoridation folks, Easley brags, I’m Public Enemy Number 1. (3) Easley travels world-wide touting one issue, fluoridation. Easley used taxpayer money to create a biased, document about fluoridation containing factual errors. (5)

Intending to insult anti-fluoridationists, Boyd quotes lobbiest Snow as saying, “’When you’re a single-issue person – when that issue pops up, regardless of where it is – that’s where you go,’ Snow said. They remind me of Deadheads. Anywhere the Grateful Dead would go, there would be the same group of followers.” Snow’s criticism more aptly fits Easley or the national lobbiests provided by the country-wide dentists’ union, the American Dental Association (ADA), which could be named the American Fluoridation Association.

Unlike pro-fluoridation special-interest groups, fluoridation opponents use their own time, their own money, usually to protect their own drinking water and have actually studied the issue. There are different opponents in every town… Read the full article.

REFERENCES
(1) “The Fluoride Victory,” by Joanne Boyd, January 1997 cover story in the Journal of the California Dental Association, Vol 25, No. 1
(2) The 2001 Kentucky Childrens Oral Health Survey: findings for children ages 24 to 59 months and their caregivers. Hardison JD, Cecil JC, White JA, Manz M, Mullins MR, Ferretti GA. Pediatric Dentistry 2003 Jul-Aug;25(4):365-72
(3)”Fluoride.” News (2/15/1999). School of Dental Medicine, University at Buffalo.
(4) “The Association of Early Childhood Caries and Race/Ethnicity among California Preschool Children.” by Shiboski, Gansky, Ramos-Gomez, Ngo, Isman, Pollick, Journal of Public Health Dentistry, Winter 2003, 63 (1), pages 38-46. Abstract.
(5) Review of the California Oral Health Needs Assessment 1993-94. Prepared for the City of Escondido (1/31/2000). SENES Oak Ridge Inc. Center for Risk Analysis.