Latest Link: Hartland Township Trustees Lampooned Over Ending Water Fluoridation

The Hartland Township Board is the subject of an MLive.com column that satirizes its vote this week to the township's drinking water.

The column by Jeff T. Wattrick writes the trustees "have thwarted a communist plot to sap and impurify the Livingston County community’s precious bodily fluids with their fluoridated water."

This seems to compare board members to Gen. Jack T. Ripper of the 1964 political satire Dr. Strangelove — whose famous YouTube clip on the subject is included (here, too).

Trustee Glenn Harper, who spearheaded efforts to stop adding fluoride, said "he got a real good chuckle out of it."

"Dr. Strangelove is one of my favorite movies," he said, although he added he hadn't thought about the connection during the recent debate because he hadn't seen the film in years.

Even the headline is a takeoff of the film: "Dr. Strangelove or how Hartland Township learned to stop fluoridating water and love cavities". The film's full title is: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

The piece also touches on other fluoride conspiracy theories by saying trustees could face removal to Alaska, citing a belief by the late leader of the right-wing John Birch Society.

"Who is to say the federal government couldn’t reactivate this fluoride prison camp program to oppress these new 'Sons of Liberty' from humble Hartland?"

Harper said the column was just one reaction to the vote. He said some who are anti-fluoride do take liberty with the facts, but that shouldn't mean all arguments against fluoride should be discounted. He said he consulted primary sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and that still led him to support ending fluoridation.

"Our board went out of the way to look at both sides of the issue," he said. "The issue is settled in Hartland. … Hopefully, others will follow suit."