Dear All,

My apologies for this somewhat lengthy bulletin. Those not actively involved in fighting off a fluoridation proposal might wish to skip this one.

But, please don’t forget we are still URGENTLY trying to locate Harvard students and graduates to sign on to a letter to President Bok, on Harvard’s unsubstantiated dismissal of EWG’s charge that Professor Douglass first concealed, then misrepresented, Elise Bassin’s findings of a relationship between fluoridation and an increased risk of osteosarcoma in young boys. Please email me at
or by phone 315-379-9200, if you have any contacts for me.

Now to “The Anatomy of Deception” in NZ.

Certain bureacrats in the Canterbury District Health Board have never forgiven the town of Ashburton for halting fluoridation in 2002. They are doubly frustrated because the council in nearby Canterbury, one of NZ’s largest unfluoridated cities, has made it clear on several occasions that they have no desire to contaminate their public water (some of the cleanest in NZ) with this silly program. So these frustrated bureaucrats (and their overloards at the Ministry of Health) have set up a campaign to refluoridate Ashburton, probably hoping, if they are successful, to set up a band wagon effect to help them restorm Canterbury. Incidentally, there is no convincing evidence that the teeth of children in Canterbury are any worse than the teeth of children in NZ’s fluoridated communties.

Meanwhile, NZ’s Ministry of Health has never commissioned health studies in NZ on any tissue other than teeth. Instead, they have based all their health claims on (often self-serving) “reviews” of the literature. Moreover, when the ISFR held its biannual international conference on fluoride in Dunedin, NZ, in 2002, the Ministry of Health sent no observers to catch up with the latest scientific studies.

The techniques being used in Ashburton by the Canterbuy proponents are sickenly familar to anyone who has followed this issue for any length of time, but quite effective for the innocent citizen who is new to the battle. Here is the anatomy of their deception:

I have a personal interest in this battle, because I have visited both Canterbury and Ashburton and even stayed in the house of the leading opponent, Don Church, who has done an excellent job of educating the community on this issue. While there, Don set up a meeting - in a local fluoridated village - for me to debate anyone in the area who was pro-fluoridation.  As typically happens no one took us up on this offer, and I was left debating the symbolic “rubber chicken.”

With that as background, below I have printed some articles and an editorial from the local paper, The Ashburton Guardian. The editorial prompted me to write a letter-to-the-editor. The newspaper printed my letter but immediately below my letter printed a response from the public health dentist I had challenged. Moreover, surrounding this exchange, the newspaper devoted most of the rest of the two pages to the public presentation by this proponent’s arguments.

An important point to pick up from this discussion is the way that those public health agencies who continue to promote fluoridation, with little or no reference to the dangers involved, and little evidence that they have read any of the primary literature on the same, are dismissing the NRC’s 3-year, 450-page review, using the same rhetoric as the ADA-CDC. Which goes to show that while they remain abysmally (purposely?) ignorant of the dangers of this practice, they remain right on top when it comes to the “rhetoric of denial.”

I hope those confronted with new fluoridation proposals will study this material very carefully, because they might find many echos with these proponents’ tactics and those being used in their own community.

Paul Connett

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 Fluoridation Issue Returns In Ashburton

7:46 am, 16 Aug 2006

Health authorities say tooth decay in Ashburton six-year olds has increased 25-percent since fluoride was removed from the region’s reticulated water supply four years ago.

A public meeting in the Canterbury town last night was aimed at educating people about water fluoridation to have it reinstated.

One opponent, Don Church, says an American study shows fluoride has negative health effects for some people.

But the clinical director of Canterbury’s school and community dental service, Dr Martin Lee, said those claims have no substance and the advantages of fluoridation are compelling.

The district council intends to conduct a survey on the issue next month

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August 16, The Ashburton Guardian.

Fluoride claims described as ‘nonsense’

By Sue Newman

Claims that fluoride in water could increase the incidence of diseases like cancer were dismissed by a panel of health professionals at a public meeting last night.

There was a disappointingly low turn-out at last night’s meeting at the Holyoake Auditorium.

A line-up of health professionals from across Canterbury faced an audience of less than 40, with local body politicians, media and fellow health professionals making up the core of the audience.

The information evening was staged by the Canterbury District Health Board’s community and public health branch in response to an Ashburton District Council decision to revisit the fluoridation of Ashburton’s water supply.

Fluoride was withdrawn from the community supply in 2002 after a petition signed by just 827 signatories.

In presenting the case for fluoridation, medical officer of health Dr Daniel Williams said there was a wealth of evidence that proved fluoride made teeth harder and more resistant to decay and that this process continued throughout the life of a tooth.

“Water is the best way to get fluoride to teeth - a little and often. The fluoridation of community water supplies is the best way to do this as it reaches everyone,” he said.

Fluoride occurred naturally and was in everything people ate and drank, Dr Williams said.

“The problem is our natural fluoride is relatively low, only one eighth of what we need to protect teeth against decay.”

At a cost of around $1 per person per year, it was a very cheap form of dental insurance, he said.

“Every dollar spent on fluoride means many dollars saved in dental costs.”

The facts were very clear when it came to the impact of withdrawing fluoride from Ashburton’s water supply, said Dr Martin Lee, school and community dental health officer.

“It’s simple. Since 2000 there has been a 25 per cent increase in tooth decay in six-year-olds.

“The issue of potential harm from fluoridated water in terms of increased bone fractures or cancer should not be dismissed lightly,” Dr Lee said.

However, there was no clear association between fluoride and any other health issues, he said.

Around 5 per cent of New Zealand’s total health spend went on tooth decay, Dr Lee said.

Dental therapist Brenda Fechney is one of three therapists working in the Ashburton District.

She cares for the teeth of 1700 children, 400 of them pre-schoolers.

It was not uncommon now to see very young children with severe dental decay, she said.

“We can do nothing to help and can only refer them on.”

Those referrals generally meant sending a small child to Christchurch for either sedation or a full anaesthetic.

Mrs Fechney treats children in both Methven, where water is fluoridated, and in the wider Ashburton area.

Methven children’s teeth were much healthier overall than their counterparts in non-fluoridated Ashburton, she said.

Fluoride was not only of benefit to children’s teeth, it also had a big impact on the dental decay rates of adults, said dentist Justin Wall.

“An enormous number of people, other than children, are at enormous risk of decay and this is where fluoride comes in as it continuously bathes your teeth, through your saliva,” he said.

He dismissed as nonsense claims that fluoride could increase cancer rates. The low cost of fluoridating water supplies meant it was ludicrous to suggest any government would support a project that could actually increase the incidence of something like cancer that absorbed a huge amount of its health spending each year.

Like most parts of New Zealand, Ashburton had a shortage of dentists, Mr Wall said.

Compliance costs were $30,000 a year per dentist, it would cost him up to $60,000 to equip an extra surgery, a dental assistant would have to be employed and the new dentist paid a salary.

“Why would we spend that amount of money to bring someone to this town to help you with a problem when it is of your own making?”

People could help themselves through taking fluoride tablets and by practising good oral care, but fluoride in water was the best way to improve dental health as it reached everyone, Mr Wall said.

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August 16, The Ashburton Guardian.

http://www.ashburtonguardian.co.nz/index.asp?articleid=7742

Survey shows good support for fluoride

A random telephone survey commissioned by the Canterbury District Health Board was conducted in April to gauge the attitude towards fluoride among Ashburton people.

This covered 200 households, 70 per cent were on the urban community water supply and the survey was given a margin of error of plus or minus 6.9 per cent.

Three questions were asked of those surveyed:

Are you in favour of water fluoridation in your area? Fifty-six per cent answered yes, 24 per cent said no and the remainder didn’t know.

Do you think there are any dental benefits from adding fluoride to the water in your area? Seventy per cent said yes, 11 per cent no and the remainder didn’t know.

Do you think there are any health risks from adding fluoride to the water? Nineteen per cent said yes, 56 per cent no and the remainder didn’t know.

From the survey, Dr Williams said, it was apparent there was a good amount of support for the fluoridation of water across the Ashburton District.

The Ashburton District Council has also commissioned an independent survey of more than 400 residents who draw their water from the town’s community supply.

This will begin on September 15 and run until September 23.

A postal survey of people on rural community water supplies will be run in tandem with the urban survey. This should hit rural mailboxes after September 14, with responses due back by September 29.

Results from both surveys will be collated, a report prepared and the fluoride issue will be discussed at the council’s October 26 meeting.

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Editorial comment August 16

By Grant Shimmin

Last night may have been an opportunity lost for some who are unsure about the merits or otherwise of fluoridation of our community water supplies.

A range of public and dental health experts were on the stage, available for questioning, after making a combined presentation on the subject, but the number of people who were there to question them, or took the opportunity to do so, was disappointingly low.

Which could mean a number of things. Perhaps most people in the community have made up their minds how they’ll respond if they happen to be surveyed next month on the question of reintroducing it. Maybe they feel they know all they need to, from reading about the subject on the internet, or in books, or perhaps there’s a level of suspicion out there about the motivation behind the exercise.

Perhaps the level of community concern is not nearly as high as it may have been perceived, based on the number of letters received by the Guardian opposed to fluoridation. A vocal minority and a silent, supportive majority?

That would seem to be borne out to some extent by a telephone survey already conducted here which indicated most people supported fluoride’s reintroduction to our water supply.

Most likely last night’s disappointing attendance at a public meeting was a combination of those and other factors, but the meeting would nonetheless have been a valuable exercise for a number of people, not least the high number of district councillors who attended and whose role it will ultimately be to make the call on what they believe the community wants.

The presentation made last night was well put together and even those who oppose fluoride’s return would have had to acknowledge the sincerity of those on stage trying to get their message across. All are professional people with their professional integrity and credibility at stake to some extent over this issue. It’s very hard to believe they would all be prepared to put that on the line if they didn’t believe sincerely in what they were presenting.

What impact their presentation had on the community at large, however, remains to be seen.

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Paul Connett’s letter to The Ashburton Guardian ((August 19)

letters-to-the-editor.

Dear Editor,

In your editorial (August 16) you said about the fluoridation meeting held in Ashburton,  “even those who oppose fluoride’s return would have had to acknowledge the sincerity of those on stage trying to get their message across.”

Having researched this issue for 10 years, and having visited your area in 2002 (where proponents once again refused to debate me on this issue), I have no doubt about their sincerity, but I do doubt their competence and their ability to exercise due diligence on this matter.

For example, here is a quote from a local TV program on the same meeting,

“One opponent, Don Church, says an American study shows fluoride has negative health effects for some people.
 
But the clinical director of Canterbury’s school and community dental service, Dr Martin Lee said those claims have no substance and the advantages of fluoridation are compelling.”

I happen to know Don Church, and I even stayed in his house when I was in Ashburton in 2002, and I know how much extensive research of the literature he has done on this subject. The American study he was referring to was the National Research Council’s review of the safe drinking water standard for fluoride, published on March 22, 2006. I gave invited testimony to this panel. Their review lasted 3 years and the 12-membered panel unanimously agreed that the safe drinking water standard of 4 ppm was unprotective of health and needed to be lowered. The panel advised the US EPA , which commissioned their review, to do a health risk assessment to determine a new standard (or to be more precise the maximum contaminant level goal or MLCG). Readers can find out more about the report at http://wwwFluorideAction.net

Claims by proponents that this review bore no relevance to water fluoridation because 1 ppm is so much lower than 4 ppm, are silly when you remember that by controlling the fluoride added to water you do not control the dose that people get because people drink different amounts of water and get fluoride from a multitude of other sources. The key isssue is the margin of safety needed to protect everyone in society, including the very young, the very old, the infirm, and those with poor kidney function. With damage occuring at 4 ppm (and probably lower) there simply isn’t an adequate margin of safety at 1 ppm.

The review was 450 pages long and had an important exposure analysis in chapter 2 as well as chapters on fluoride’s damage to the brain, the endocrine system and the bone as well as other tissues. If the EPA takes this exposure analysis and uses the information in the report honestly and uses standard regulatory procedures, the new MCLG will be less than 1 ppm and this will end water fluoridation overnight.

But what does Dr. Martin Lee say about this 450-page review? He says it has “no substance.” Has he actually read this study? Has he followed up on the 63 PAGES of references?

Again I do not doubt his sincerity, but does he have the competence to declare that the practice of fluoridation is safe?  Is he really exercising due dilgence in this matter or is he just following ithe instructions of the Ministry of Health who promote this practice with little attention to its safety.

Sincerely,

Dr. Paul Connett,
Professor Emeritus of Chemistry,
St. Lawrence University,
Canton, NY 13617
315-379-9200
and Director of the Fluoride Action Network,
http://www.FluorideAction.net

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Hi Paul

Your letter was published in full in today’s (Saturday’s) Ashburton Guardian. However the Editor and chief reporter have sold their soul to the Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) and MoH. They obviously sent your letter to Martin Lee for response before publishing it so that they could publish his rebuttal immediately following your letter. I have attached herewith Martin Lee’s published response to your letter.

 It gets worse. The Guardian surrounded your letter with two full facing pages of word for word text and graphs from Martin Lee’s presentation to the Ashburton District Council. The main point of the graphs was to show that (in a poll of 200 Ashburton residents conducted by CDHB/MoH) 70% are in favour of water fluoridation; 70% believe that there are health benefits from fluoridation and 52% believe that there are no negative health effects.

You may recall that a similar result was obtained in Greymouth by a CDHB/MoH poll. But when Greymouth went to referendum an overwhelming number of Greymouth residents said “No” to fluoridation.

I have spoken with someone who used to work for the NRB poll-takers and she will explain to the newspaper just how such polls can be skewed.

Regards

Don Church

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Dr. Martin Lee’s response to Paul Connett’s letter (August 19, The Ashburton Guardian)

Dr Martin Lee, Public Health Dentist, Canterbury District Health Board, responds:

Dr Connett suggests that I have not exercised “due diligence” in assessing whether water fluoridation is safe, am not competent to do so, and that I am “just following the instructions of the Ministry of Health”. This is an old anti-fluoridationist tactic, aimed squarely at spreading uncertainty and doubt.

I am well aware of the NRC report and its important findings regarding the effects of exposure to high levels of fluoride. However despite the hype given to it by Dr Connett and Mr Church, this report is not particularly relevant to the debate being held in your community. This is because the NRC only addressed the safety of naturally occurring high levels of fluoride in water, and did not question the use of lower levels of fluoride found in community water fluoridation schemes. In our advice to your Council, and your community, my colleagues and I have relied on systematic reviews, carried out by expert panels, that have specifically addressed the safety and effectiveness of community water fluoridation.

Readers should be aware that Dr Connett has repeatedly claimed that fluoridation is unsafe, and quotes reams of ‘evidence’ to justify his stance. His claims have been subjected to review and found to contain “numerous limitations and inadequacies”. A critical appraisal of Dr Connett’s “50 reasons to oppose fluoridation” is available from the Irish government at: www.dohc.ie/issues/dental_research/

Over the 60-year history of water fluoridation, the public has been treated to this spectacle of ‘duelling experts’ and has often found it very difficult to know who to believe. As was pointed out in an editorial in The Guardian this week, my colleagues and I have put our reputations on the line - you can be sure that we have thought long and hard about our advice, and have used the most recent and best quality evidence available. You might also be reassured that it’s not just our Ministry of Health that supports water fluoridation, but also their counterparts in many other countries, and the World Health Organisation.

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Note for FAN readers:

1) I asked Dr. Lee if he had read the NRC report and he replied that he was “aware of the NRC report”. Not quite the same!

2) He completely ignores my explanation (the difference between dose and concentration) of why it is silly to dismiss health concerns at 1 ppm, when health effects have been observed at 4 ppm (or lower) and merely repeats ADA-CDC spin.

3) It is interesting that he speaks about “dueling experts” when in fact the proponents do their level best to avoid ever getting on the same platform as a scientist opposed to fluoridation. Two examples: their public meeting only had proponents speaking from the platform and their refusal to debate me when I was in NZ.

4) By citing the paltry Irish response to my “50 Reasons to Oppose Fluoridation”, Dr. Lee clearly demonstrates his lack of knowledge of the details of the long running argument I have had with proponents of fluoridation in Ireland.  Those interested can access the 50 reasons here: http://www.FluorideAction.net/50reasons.htm and my blow-by-blow 87-page response to the Irish criticism of these arguments can be accessed at http://www.fluoridealert.org/50reasons.ireland.pdf

5) When Dr. Lee reassures readers that  “it’s not just our Ministry of Health that supports water fluoridation, but also their counterparts in many other countries” he fails to acknowledge that very few countries in the world which have fallen for this largely Anglo-American hyped practice. The vast majority of Euroepan countries do not fluoridate their water (some fluoridate their salt) and their teeth are just as good as those that do