Over the last few days we have started something which should provide great ammunition to both local efforts and the effort to bring more pressure on DC. We have started to collect names on a "professionals' statement calling for end to to fluoridation."
This summarizes 7 major developments since 2000 which makes the end of fluoridation critical (see below for the statement and a list of those who have already signed).
It is aimed to puncture once and for all the false claim that the only people who are opposed to fluoridation are crazy people practicing junk science. We need to get as many professionals (medical, dental, scientific and environmental as well as water
department officials) to sign this as we possibly can. This list will grow and grow over the coming months. I am confident that as the list grows it will make it easier and easier for those opposed to it (quietly, off the record) to come out and state their opposition in public.
This is how you can help.
Please check the list of people who have helped in your campaign. Does this include any doctor, dentist, nurse, hygienist, academic, water department person, anyone holding an executive position in an environmental group? If so please ask them to sign the statement and send it back to me at paul @ fluoridealert.org.
Please check out the list of people who have already signed. You notice that we already have two members of the NRC (2006) signed, as well as many doctors and dentists, and some very distinguished people from the environmental movement: Ken Cook (EWG), Peter Montague, Pat Costner, Craig Williams, Dan Knapp, Jeffrey Morris, Ralph Ryder (UK) and Mageswari Sangaralingam (Malaysia) as well as a great international representation.
The importance of the "environmental" names is twofold:
1) they bring a more objective perspective to this debate than those who have been trapped by their medical/dental school training/brainwashing and
2) as our support grows among the environmental movement it will generate far more numbers to put pressure on DC.
Where does this fit in to our larger efforts?
Our ultimate goal - to get a congressional hearing and have those who promote fluoridation to testify and be cross-examined under oath.
* First we mobilize as many professionals to support the call for an end to fluoridation as outlined above.
* Then we organize a new online petition which supports these professionals call for an end to fluoridation and calls for among other things, a congressional hearing. As we have already discussed we will be using a system which will automatically send each
signature to their reps in DC. This flow of emails to DC will be our bread and butter background effort for the next few years. It will ebb and flow as other fluoride events take place ? but it will always be there as a backdrop.
* We will further increase efforts on DC with individual lobbying efforts by myself (Chris Gupta), Bill Hirzy, Bill Osmunson and others.
* On the horizon is also the possibility of a lobby day, where we will have a coordinated effort to get more people to DC to lobby as a group as well as those (who cannot make it to DC) lobbying their reps at their local offices.
Please let me know if you think you can get 1, 2 or more professionals in your town or state to sign onto this statement.
Thanks again for your patience and for everything else you are trying to do to end this silly practice.
Paul Connett
Signers of Professionals' statement "End Water Fluoridation Now":
Robert Anderson, PhD, New Zealand
Ernesto Burgio, Pediatrician, Vice President, Scientific Committee
ISDE (International Society of Doctors for Environment), Palermo, Italy
Albert W. Burgstahler, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. Co-author with George L. Waldbott, MD, and H. Lewis McKinney, PhD, of "Fluoridation: The Great Dilemma" (Coronado Press, 1978) and editor since 1998 of the international quarterly journal Fluoride, published by the International Society for Fluoride Research (www.fluorideresearch.org).
Noel Campbell, BDSc, LDS, FACNEM, FASID, Visiting Professor, Hope Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia
Neil J. Carman, PhD, Clean air program director, Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter, Austin, TX
Robert J. Carton, PhD, former Chief of Environmental Compliance, U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, Fort Detrick, MD and former president of EPA professionals' union.
Paul Connett, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY and Executive Director of the Fluoride Action Network.
Ken Cook, Environmental Working Group, Washington, DC
Pat Costner, Science Advisor, GAIA, Science Advisor, IPEN, retired Senior Scientist, Greenpeace International
Mark Diesendorf, PhD, Director, Sustainability Centre, Sydney, Australia
Lynn Howard Ehrle, MEd, Chair, International Science Oversight Board (a project of the Organic Consumers Association), Plymouth, MI
Michael F. Dolan, PhD, Adjunct Professor, Department of Geosciences, UMASS, Amherst, MA USA
Mike Godfrey, MBBS, Tauranga, New Zealand
Dorothy Goldin-Rosenberg, MES, PhD, Toronto, Canada
Robert L. Isaacson, Distinguished Professor, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY. Member of the 2006 National Research Council panel which reviewed the toxicology of fluoride.
Antone G. Jacobson, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
David Kennedy, DDS, Past President of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, San Diego, CA
Pam Killeen, co-author of the NY Times bestselling book, The Great Bird Flu Hoax.
Dan Knapp, PhD, (Sociology) CEO of Urban Ore, Incorporated, a reuse and recycling business in Berkeley, CA
Stephen M. Koral, DMD, Vice President International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, Boulder, CO
Hardy Limeback, PhD, DDS, Assoc. Professor and Head of Preventive Dentistry, University of Toronto, past president of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, and Member of the 2006 National Research Council panel which reviewed the toxicology of fluoride.
Mariann Lloyd-Smith, PhD, (Law) Senior Advisor, National Toxics Network Inc., East Ballina, NSW Australia
Don Mac Auley, BDS, Dental Surgeon and Chairman of Irish Dentists Opposing Fluoridation, Ireland
Peter Montague, PhD, Environmental Research Foundation, New Brunswick, N.J.
Jeffrey Morris, PhD (Economics), Sound Resource Management, Olympia, WA
Alan Muller, Executive Director, Green Delaware, Port Penn, DE
Tohru Murakami DDS, PhD, former President of Japanese Society for Fluoride Research, former Vice President of Gunma prefectural Dental Association, Japan.
Bill Osmunson, DDS, MPH,
Robert Pocock, fluoride spokesperson for VOICE for the Irish Environment, Dublin, Ireland.
Paul G. Rubin, DDS, MIAOMT, Seattle, WA
Ralph Anthony Ryder, Director, Communities Against Toxics UK, Editor; TOXCAT, Ellesmere Port, UK
Mageswari Sangaralingam (Masters in Environmental Management), Research Officer, Consumers Association of Penang, Malaysia.
Bruce Spittle MB ChB DPM FRANZCP, Assistant Editor of the international quarterly journal Fluoride, published by the International Society for Fluoride Research, New Zealand
Daniel G. Stockin, MPH, Senior Operations Officer, The Lillie Center, Inc.
Craig E. Williams, Director: Kentucky Environmental Foundation, Director: Chemical Weapons Working Group, Recipient: 2006 Goldman Environmental Prize, KY
Mae W. Woo, DDS, Billings, MT
Mag. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn. Rudolf Ziegelbecker, Graz, Austria
Quotes:
Noel Campbell: "The risk/benefit ratio based on peer reviewed research is now too high to allow fluoridation of water." Bob Isaacson: "The Health of the entire country is at risk as long as fluoridation of the drinking water remains uncurbed." Mageswari Sangaralingam: "Fluoridation is mass medication with an uncontrolled dose, and violates the individual's right to informed consent. We need to end the harmful practice of water fluoridation in the US and all other countries which still add fluoride in public drinking water."
Health, Scientific and Environmental Professionals call for an End to Water Fluoridation
Introduction:
Water fluoridation involves adding various fluoride chemicals to the public water supply at a concentration of 1 ppm (1 part per million or 1 milligram per liter), ostensibly to fight tooth decay. 1 ppm may seem small, but it is actually 250 times greater than the level of fluoride in mother's milk, 0.004 ppm.
Once fluoride is put into the public water supply, the dose cannot be controlled and it goes to "patients" without their consent, thus violating both medical ethics and the individual's human rights. It also goes to subsets of the population that we now know are particularly vulnerable to fluoride's toxic effects - including the very young, the very old, the infirm, people with poor kidney function and others with poor nutrition.
While strongly supported by the US public health establishment, most countries have rejected this practice, including the vast majority of European nations. They are not willing to force medication on those who do not want it, and they feel that many health concerns have not been resolved (see a list of official statements from various countries on this is here). According to WHO data available online, dental health for 12 year olds in non-fluoridated countries is as good, if not better, than those countries which fluoridate.
These observations in countries are duplicated in studies comparing communities within a country. Since the 1980s there has been an ever growing number of research articles and reviews which indicate that there is little difference in tooth decay between communities which are fluoridated and those which are not (Leverett, 1982; Colquhoun,
1984; 1985 and 1987; Diesendorf, 1986; Gray, 1987; Brunelle and Carlos, 1990; Spencer et al. 1996; deLiefde, 1998; Locker, 1999; Armfield and Spencer, 2004 and Prizzo et al., 2007). Any minor difference due to fluoride status is usually dwarfed by the
difference in income levels. Poverty is the major factor related to tooth decay, not lack of fluoride.
Government officials endlessly promote fluoridation while steadfastly refusing to publicly debate the issue, or provide the scientific evidence to support their claims.
Professionals' statement:
We the undersigned call for an end to water fluoridation.
SEVEN recent events make action to end this practice urgent.
1. The publication in 2006 of a 500 page review of all relevant health effects and exposure information on fluoride by a distinguished panel appointed by the National Research Council. EPA requested this review to determine if a new drinking water standard is required. Contrary to almost all media reports, the NRC report went far beyond concluding that the current EPA standard (4 ppm) is unsafe and should be lowered. The report identified numerous systemic health effects which may be occurring as a result of adding fluoride chemicals to drinking water, including decreased thyroid function, impaired glucose tolerance (pre-diabetes), brain cell damage, kidney damage, arthritis (joint inflammation), Alzheimer's disease and cancer.
2. The publication in 2004 of the book "The Fluoride Deception" by award-winning investigative reporter Christopher Bryson. This meticulously researched book documents that industrial interests, concerned about liabilities from fluoride pollution and fluoride's heath effects on workers, played a significant role in the early promotion of fluoridation in the 1950?s. Bryson also details the brutal suppression of scientists who have challenged the establishment on the safety of this practice. A videotaped interview with Bryson can be accessed on Google video here.
3. The evidence provided by the CDC
in 2005 that 32% of American children have a condition called dental fluorosis - a discoloration and mottling of the enamel - caused by fluoride exposure. Clearly, our children are now being overdosed with fluoride - from water, swallowed toothpaste and many other sources. Fluoridated water is the easiest source to eliminate.
4. The American Dental Association's distribution, on November 9, 2006, of an Advisory to its membership recommending that fluoridated water not be used in the preparation of infant formula due to the elevated risk of dental fluorosis. This admission by the ADA that fluoridated water is not appropriate for infants is reason alone for fluoridation to be immediately halted (see previous post in this blog).
5. The concession by the CDC in 1999, and again in 2001, that the predominant benefit of fluoride in reducing tooth decay is TOPICAL and not SYSTEMIC. In other words, to the extent fluoride works to reduce or prevent tooth decay, it works from the outside of the tooth, not from inside the body. Thus, it doesn't make sense to drink it and expose the rest of the body to the long term risks of fluoride ingestion when fluoridated toothpaste is so readily available.
6. The publication in May 2006 of a peer-reviewed, case-controlled study from Harvard University which showed a 5-7 fold increase in osteosarcoma (a frequently fatal bone cancer) in young men associated with exposure to fluoridated water during their 6th, 7th and 8th years (Bassin et al., Cancer Causes and Control, 2006). This study was surrounded by scandal as Elise Bassin?s PhD thesis adviser, Professor Chester Douglass, was accused by the watchdog Environmental Working Group of attempting to suppress these findings for several years. See video at http://FluorideAction.net
7. The admission by federal agencies, in response to questions from a Congressional subcommittee in 1999-2000, that the industrial grade waste products used to fluoridate over 90% of America's drinking water supplies (fluorosilicate compounds) have never been subjected to toxicological testing or FDA approved for human ingestion. See:
http://keepersofthewell.org/
To bring an end to fluoridation:
We call upon Members of Congress to sponsor and/or support a new Congressional Hearing on Water Fluoridation so that those in government agencies who continue to support the procedure, particularly the Oral Health Division of the
CDC, will be compelled to provide the scientific basis for their ongoing, aggressive promotion of fluoridation with millions of taxpayer dollars. They must be cross-examined under oath if the public is ever to fully learn the truth about this unnecessary and harmful practice.
We call upon local elected officials in fluoridated communities to exercise due diligence in this matter and read the basic scientific literature themselves. It is not enough to blindly accept assurances from biased agencies whose reputations depend on maintaining the status quo and whose employees are required to promote fluoridation.
If you are not confident about claims that fluoridation is safe and effective, you should not be forcing this practice on those who don't want it and may be harmed by it.
We call upon members of the media to do a professional job investigating this issue. Do not assume that the opposition's arguments are invalid because of the reams of endorsements that promoters use to put your intelligence on hold. It is irresponsible
to just quote the Dr. Strangelove film and a few sentences from each side. If author Christopher Bryson can spend 10 years researching this issue, surely other investigative journalists can spend more than 10 minutes sorting out fact from fiction in this matter.
We call upon State health agencies, at the very least, to use their health networks to thoroughly publicize, at all levels, the ADA recommendation that fluoridated water not be used in the preparation of infant formula.
We call upon medical and dental professionals to get up-to-date on this issue. Professionals should use their own high level education to look beyond the outdated blanket endorsements from promoting agencies. Specifically, we call upon them to review the NRC (2006) report and the other literature cited in the introduction.
(An alphabetical listing of the full citations can be found here).
We call upon members of environmental and other activist groups to get involved. In addition to health concerns, fluoridation is "pollution by dilution" of the ecosystems with tons of industrial waste products each year. This problem is one that's easy to end -- once we have the political will -- by just turning off the taps. Getting that political will can be greatly accelerated by your organization educating its membership as to the newer developments identified above and by joining in the growing movement to end fluoridation.
Despite 60 years of fluoridation, tooth decay remains rampant in many long-fluoridated areas of the US. The untold millions of dollars that are now spent on equipment, chemicals, monitoring, and promotion of fluoridation could be much better invested on nutrition education and targeted dental care for children from low income families who are known to suffer the greatest amount of tooth decay. The vast majority of other countries have done this. It is time for the US to recognize that the fluoridation program has failed to deliver its promise, poses unnecessary risks, and violates medical ethics and freedom of choice. Fluoridation should be ended now.
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