FAN Bulletin #542

March 29, 2006

Dear Ediitor,

I wish to congratulate your staff writer Ralph Vartabedian for his excellent piece exposing Pentagon pressures on the US EPA to curtail efforts to get meaningful protection against pollutants like TCE and perchlorate (LA Times, March 29).

However, I wish to correct one statement. You say: “TCE is the most widespread water contaminant in the nation.” It is not. The most widespread water contaminant in the US is fluoride: a toxic susbtance that we obtain from the wet scrubbing systems of the super-phospate fertilizer industry and we add  daily to the drinking water of 162 million people, including Los Angeles.

It is unfortunate that your paper which has been so good at exposing other toxic scandals and compromised integrity in government agencies has been so slow to spot this one. Readers who wish to play catch up on this should first read “The Fluoride Deception” by Chris Bryson (Seven Stories Press, 2004) for the politics and then the report by the National Research Council, which was published last week (March 22), for the science.

Dr. Paul Connett
Professor of Chemistry
St. Lawrence University
Canton, NY 13617
315-229-5853
pconnett@stlawu.edu

and

Executive Director,
Fluoride Action Network,
http://www.fluorideaction.net