Anchorage, Alaska’s anti-vaxx, anti-mask Mayor Dave Bronson took it upon himself to shut down the fluoride treatment to the town’s water supply, denied reports he had done so, then ultimately admitted to it after it was turned back on. Local laws require fluoridation.
Bronson is a registered Republican although Anchorage mayoral races are nonpartisan.
“Bronson decided to stop the fluoridation while visiting the Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility Eklutna Water Treatment Plant on Oct. 1, according to the mayor’s spokesperson Corey Allen Young,” Alaska Public Media, an NPR affiliate, reports.
In a statement Young claimed the mayor turned off the fluoride treatment for five hours after workers told him it was harming them. The union that represents the workers says it has received no complaints. The fluoridation treatment was restarted after the mayor learned local ordinances require it.
“Conspiracists have been obsessed with the fluoridation of drinking water since the 1950s, falsely claiming that it’s a public-health risk or some form of population control,” The Daily Beast adds.
Bronson is an anti-vaxxer and anti-masker. He has “made opposing any meaningful health measures—including expansive testing—a key position of his administration,” The Midnight Sun reports.
“His administration drove out most if not all the public health officials who’ve handled the pandemic, replacing them with skeptics of public health measures and has refused to support any public health mandates whatsoever. Since assuming office, he’s refused to wear a mask and refused to be vaccinated despite several outbreaks within his administration. Prior to his election, Bronson testified to the assembly against expanded testing, arguing that it would lead to a rise in cases.”
“I know how to end this epidemic or this pandemic, stop testing, we won’t have any more cases,” he said [in 2020], noting that he didn’t actually advocate such a course.
Here he is before becoming mayor:
In September of this year Bronson recorded a video on his response as mayor to the COVID-19 pandemic. In it he says he’s expanded testing but adds: “the best way to slow the spread of COVID-19 is practicing good hygiene, like washing your hands, staying home if you are sick,” and getting tested. At no time does he mention getting vaccinated, wearing a mask, or practicing social distancing – the three best methods of slowing the spread and minimizing or preventing illness, hospitalization, and death.
In another strange turn of events, “the mayor’s office acknowledged there was a discussion with Anchorage police and other officials about sending officers into a hospital after a state senator contacted the mayor.”
“Multiple sources,” The Alaska Landmine reports, “allege that Mayor Bronson’s office ordered Chief McCoy to have APD officers enter Anchorage medical facilities in order to ‘rescue’ a man sick with COVID and/or compel medical providers to treat the man with Ivermectin. Sources claim that the target of the ‘rescue’ may have been a Wasilla man named Dan O’Barr. On November 18, a person claiming to be O’Barr’s wife wrote on Facebook that O’Barr was extremely sick and in the hospital. Several prominent Alaska political figures, including Senator Mike Shower (R – Wasilla), Senator Lora Reinbold (R – Eagle River), and Must Read Alaska publisher Suzanne Downing, left reactions to the post. The Bronson Administration allegedly instructed McCoy to conduct the ‘rescue.’”