Dear All,

In haste, in approximately 30 minutes I leave for a trip to Europe (UK and Italy). I will be giving a talk on fluoridation in Southampton on Wednesday May 24 and in Brighton (my home town) on Thursday May 25. For details on these meetings please contact John Graham at .

In Italy I will be helping citizens fight off trash incineration proposals and encouraging decision makers to endorse a “zero waste” strategy. I will be back home on June 22. I will be reading my emails (intermittently) on the road but please keep traffic only to essential questions if possible.

Meanwhile, I hope as many of you as possible will be able to attend the “Second Citizens’ Conference on Fluoride’s Toxicity: The NRC Report and More”. Speakers will include three members of the NRC panel: Dr. Robert Isaacson; Dr. Kathleen Thiessen and Dr. Hardy Limeback, as well as Henry Lickers; Dr. Bill Hirzey and Dr. Albert Burgstahler along with the whole of the FAN research team (Chris neurath, Mike, Ellen and Paul Connett).

The conference will take place on the campus of St. Lawrence University and begin on Friday evening July 28. The bulk of presentations will take place Saturday and Sunday. Some will leave on Sunday evening but for those who can spare the time Monday is being put aside for some more relaxing activities like visiting Upper Canada Village a village frozen in time in the late nineteenth century. On Monday evening we will have more unwinding and strategizing and the conference will end on Tuesday morning, August 2. Hopefully, some people will be able to incorporate this trip into their annual holidays - this is a beautiful area located between the Thousands Islands on the St. Lawrence River and the Adirondacks. Our nearest city (90 minutes by car) is Ottawa, the beautiful captial of Canada.

We recommend that people look into flights to Syracuse, NY. Among many airlines this is served by Jetblue and you may be able to get a very reasonable flight. I will attempt to get people to car pool rented cars from the airport which is 2 hours and fifteen minutes from Canton. We will be using University accomodations and food services to keep other costs to a minimum. Full details will be posted on the FAN homepage within the next week.

Once again we will be looking for financial contributions from those who cannot come but feel it is important to bring fluoridation fighters together (some of whom will need financial help with air fare to get here) a) to meet; b) to strategize; c) to re-charge their batteries and d) to hear the very best scientific information from the very best people. We will work you hard but we are all going to have fun doing it!

Anyway please check your callendars to see if you can make this conference. Those who came to the first one were full of praise for the shot in the arm it gave to their efforts in their home states.

With the NRC report on the table and the Bassin article now published this conference could not come at a better time. We all need to master as much of the science as we can but as recent votes have indicated science is not enough to win this issue - we have to organize and strategize to get this science to the people in Washington who can make things happen.

Paul Connett