St. Clair County public health gets ‘MAGA’ makeover, from fluoride to vaccines

St. Clair County, nestled between Lake St. Clair and Lake Huron and famous as the boyhood home of Thomas Edison, is amid a contentious scientific debate over accepted notions of government and public health.

The prime mover of the discussion is county medical director Dr. Remington Nevin, whom detractors and admirers liken to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and who has said the state health department is “full of degenerates” with an “evil” agenda.

In the past several months, Nevin sought to prohibit fluoride in the drinking water, made it easier to opt out of children’s vaccines, removed health care services from school clinics and pushed a county ordinance that declared solar farms a possible “threat to public health.”

Local officials have largely agreed with his recommendations. That sparked objections from doctors, dentists and other health professionals, but Nevin says they reflect the values of the 160,000-resident county whose politics have shifted right after voting for Barack Obama in 2008.

“Medical directors are to appropriately advise and direct on all matters of public health policy, ideally in a manner that reflects the values and priorities of the communities that they serve,” Nevin told Bridge Michigan in an email.

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To Kevin Watkins, president of the Port Huron branch of the NAACP, Nevin represents a move away from science-backed research and his actions are tantamount to enacting a local “MAGA agenda.”

He and others worry that the policies are a threat to the county’s wellbeing.

“They’re anti-vaccine,” said Watkins, a former member of the county’s public health advisory board and a trained nurse. “They’re anti-public health.”

To others, Nevin is a breath of fresh air for questioning the status quo and bucking the advice of most doctors and epidemiologists.

In January, resident Andrew Eberly told county commissioners his trust in health departments “eroded” after his child was removed from a neighboring school district because the family refused to participate in the state-mandated education session required to obtain a vaccine waiver.

Eberly called the session “invasive” and thanked Nevin for providing a letter exempting his child from immunizations.

In the past few months, Nevin’s recommendations and the support he’s received from county officials have turned normally staid public hearings into impassioned debates.

Caught in the middle are some of the county’s public health workers. For years, they had operated “behind the scenes,” nurse Rebecca Campau said.

“Nobody knew that we even existed,” the 13-year county employee told the Board of Commissioners last week.

Now, with county officials considering the consolidation of the health department’s leadership in a move that may give Nevin more power, Campau and others are worried about what may happen next.

Fluoride fight

Fluoridation has been one of the biggest points of contention.

Nevin first suggested the prohibition in June 2025, and this month renewed the calls for municipal water systems in St. Clair County to voluntarily discontinue adding the mineral.

The practice began in 1945, when Grand Rapids became the first city to add fluoride to its water to prevent cavities.

Since then, three-quarters of the nation is served by systems that add the mineral — and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has called it one of the greatest medical achievements of the 20th century.

But a 2019 study concluded that excessive amounts could possibly lead to neurodevelopment problems, prompting a federal review of fluoride standards.

The St. Clair County health advisory board in October endorsed Nevin’s stance to adopt local regulations on fluoride.

Public debate about the measure, which has extended for more than eight months, left retired Port Huron dentist Dr. Randa Jundi-Samman dispirited.

“It doesn’t matter what we say, or the volume of people that are educated that are bringing resources are saying,” Jundi-Samman told Bridge Michigan. “There’s always misinformation in the world, no matter where you go and what community you live in.”

The proposal prompted the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics to remind St. Clair County Health Department leaders in an August letter about the prevalence of childhood tooth decay and the effectiveness and safety of community water fluoridation.

Several dentists from metro Detroit drove up to object as well, and noted the controls in place to keep fluoridation within an acceptable range to prevent lasting harm.

Scrutinizing shots

Nevin’s move in February to streamline parents’ ability to skip their children’s routine vaccines drew a crowd to the county board in the days following the decision.

In step with concerns of parents such as Eberly, the medical director has promoted the individualized decision making for immunization championed by Kennedy, the US secretary of health.

In an email to Bridge, Nevin called him a “brilliant attorney and fitting heir to the Kennedy legacy” and said he’s flattered by the comparison.

Some health officials worry that making it easier to opt out of vaccines could worsen sliding childhood vaccination rates.

In 2013, 75% of St. Clair County’s 19-35 month olds had received their recommended shots. By 2025, that rate was 63.7%. A state immunization report card shows the county trailing Michigan averages on nearly every measured vaccine.

While the state’s public health executives continue to recommend a childhood vaccine schedule lauded by the nation’s leading physician groups in the face of recent federal changes, residents like David Allison see RFK Jr. and Nevin as needed voices who have “stood up against the establishment” by scrutinizing the increased number of lifesaving shots today’s youth are receiving to fend off deadly infectious diseases.

Allison echoes critics who contend there is a revolving door between the pharmaceutical industry and the public health sector, with personnel cycling between the two.

The retired engineer said that relationship became more apparent during the COVID-19 emergency, giving him added reason to question the doctor-directed vaccination protocol.

“We have this blind faith that the medical establishment – they have our best interest in mind,” Allison told Bridge. “But unfortunately at my age, I realize that money has an impact on people’s decisions.”

Critics say the county’s weakening stance on immunization has made it harder to get vaccinated.

Fred Fuller, a former mayor of Yale and county drain commissioner, noted he recently had difficulty getting his son immunized against COVID-19 at the county health department after officials there requested a doctor’s prescription for the shot.

“That’s what I call discouraging vaccinations,” he said.

Undoing a 40-year history

The county shakeup has reached into its school-based youth clinics.

After one county commissioner raised concerns that her 12-year-old daughter was exposed to concepts of transgender identity, homosexuality and emergency contraception at Port Huron High School’s teen health center, the board moved to sever ties with the clinic at the recommendation of Nevin.

“The purpose was to get a sports physical because I couldn’t get into my primary care physician,” Commissioner Kerry Ange told Bridge of her child’s visit.

Ange found some of the brochures available at the teen center to be “pornographic,” pushing her vote to end the county’s relationship with the site.

Maintaining the school-based clinic, she said, “seems like a waste of money” since the newly renovated county health department is a couple miles away from campus.

The winding down of the Teen Health Clinic at Port Huron High School, which had more than 1,200 visits in the last school year, is occurring as it marks four decades as one of the state’s longest serving school-based clinics.

It’s among the last of its kind in St. Clair County – school-based clinics in Capac, Algonac and Yale were shuttered by the county last year as they transition to new management. Impacted staff were reassigned elsewhere in the county and one nurse was laid off.

State-led educational sessions on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts were listed among Nevin’s reasons why the county should reject funding for the health centers.

In addition, a slide deck titled “developing tools for discussing firearms” presented by the state health department last year, which included questions for patients about secure storage and family access, was cited as a “back door” gun registration effort. Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens in America.

School officials have noted a “ significant gap ” in health care services left by the removal of the clinics. Brenda L. Tenniswood, the superintendent of the St. Clair County regional educational service agency, called the sites a lifeline that drives down absenteeism.

“In communities where transportation barriers, work schedules, and economic constraints prevent families from accessing traditional medical care, the school-based clinics provide immediate, comprehensive healthcare where our children spend most of their day,” Tenniswood wrote ahead of the September closures.

“The current proposal to dismantle the school-based health clinics moves us backward from this collaborative model toward centralization that serves bureaucracy rather than communities.”

For Kate Grantom of Avoca, school-based health centers are a “valuable resource” for her small rural community. She sends her teenage daughter to Yale Public Schools, which only recently introduced a student clinic before closing. Other medical centers, she said, are hard to find nearby.

“These health clinics are not supposed to be in place of your primary care.” Grantom said. “But when we lack so much access to primary care, we need those resources.”

Graduating from Marine City High School, Emrick LaTulip wishes school-based health care support was more available when they were a student. Speaking before the county board on Thursday, the 30-year-old explained how, as a child, they were sexually abused by a family member.

“I personally tried to tell people about my abuse, and my family told me it was normal,” LaTulip told Bridge. “Had we had more intensive education in my younger years, I maybe would have known … this thing that had happened to me was not okay.”

LaTulip said they would prefer not discuss their trauma in a public setting, but felt inclined to speak up to advocate for the children losing access to needed services.

“These people are vulnerable,” LaTulip said. “I’m speaking with my feelings, and that’s all I can do.”

For his part, Nevin believes his actions are in line with what St. Clair County wants, relaying a stance that local public health decisions should be vetted through democratic processes.

“Just as individuals should be able to choose their own trusted doctors, the principle of subsidiarity on which Michigan’s decentralized local public health system is based ideally requires candidates for these positions who are directly accountable to those they serve.”

This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.