Citizens For Safe Water » Article Archive » More Communities Throw Out Fluoridation

More Communities Throw Out Fluoridation

Bulletin #720

December 22, 2006

Dear All,

Just back from yet another trip to Italy on waste matters. While traveling I tried to keep in touch via the internet on fluoride developments. I was thrilled to see that despite strong efforts by the pro-fluoridation lobby, officials in both Juneau, Alaska and Martin County, Florida have stood firm and have decided to halt fluoridation, and not to start it, respectively. I was also pleased to see that Dr. Kathleen Thiessen one of the NRC panelists (she wrote the chapter on endocrine disruption in the 2006 NRC review) has sent a letter to the Governor of Tennessee supporting the efforts of legislator and pediatrician Dr. Joey Hensley to end fluoridation in the state. These and other developments have been succinctly summarized by Carol Kopf in a press release sent out by NYSCOF@aol.com yesterday. I have reprinted this below and you can also get the same item and all the live links to the news stories involved at our home page at http://www.FluorideAction.net.

For those health officials who can read (and obviously there are many who can’t or won’t!) the writing is on the wall for an end to fluoridation.

Hopefully, in 2007, there will be more pediatricians like Dr. Joey Hensley and local jurisdictions like Juneau, Alaska and Martin County, Florida who will have the courage to blow the whistle and call an end to this practice.

FAN stands by to do everything we can to help. We will continue to update the web page with the very latest news; track the latest science; watchdog the CDC, the FDA, and the EPA on all matters pertaining to fluoride; provide interviews to the media; give public presentations in communities when we are asked to do so, and keep you all informed with these bulletins. But we are going to need your continued financial support to do this. We do everything on a shoestring budget but even that shoestring budget needs your generous input.

Our recent appeal has raised just over $1400. Thanks to everyone who has so donated so far. Our mini-goal for the end of the year is $10,000. Remember your donation is tax-deductible and if you want it included for this fiscal year please make your contribution by midnight December 31.

Giving a tax-deductible donation to FAN has never been easier with our secure, online donation system at: https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=5061. Donations can also be sent by mail to: AEHSP-FAN, PO Box 5111, Burlington VT 05402.

Another way you can help FAN financially is to send the DVD compilation prepared by Dr. David Kennedy (this includes three FAN videos -the Bryson, Limeback and Hirzy interviews - and the video he shot in China on endemic fluorosis), to a friend or colleague as a Christmas or New Year’s present. Just send a check made out to AEHSP-VIDEO for $20 to me at 82 Judson Street, Canton, NY 13617, and the name and address of the recipient and we will forward a copy to them. Once your check is in the mail you might wish to let them know it will be on the way!

The online letters to Wal-Mart have slowed down again. We seem to be stuck on 927. Please find a friend or two (maybe some visitors during the holiday season) that can help us get over 1000 by the end of the year. This online petition is very easy, quick and important. Go to http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/walmart/ (if this is not a live URL on your system please copy and paste it in to your internet server).

Thanks again to you all for all the tireless and wonderful work you do on this and other issues. You truly deserve a wonderful holiday season.

Paul Connett
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Media Release from NYSCOF@aol.com

More Communities Throw Out Fluoridation
December 21, 2006

New York – Legislators and officials are responding to newly published evidence of fluoride’s adverse effects and rejecting fluoridation.

This December, Juneau, Alaska and Martin County, Florida voted fluoride out of their drinking water. A Tennessee state legislator urged water companies to stop fluoridation. And the Vermont Department of Health sent a fluoridation warning to all Vermont dentists and pediatricians.

December 19, Martin County, Florida commissioners reversed their 2002 fluoridation mandate. Commissioners said fluoride studies raised health doubts, and they weren’t convinced an oral health problem exists in their county.

December 11, the Juneau, Alaska assembly decided to stop fluoridation. One assemblyman said, “…many medical experts are against providing fluoride to infants… I think I prefer the cautious approach,” reports the Juneau Empire.

Tennessee State legislator Dr. Joey Hensley, also a physician, urged all Tennessee water departments to stop fluoridation, in letters dated December 4. One city announced plans to stop January 2007.

According to Hensley, “information is now coming out showing that the health risks associated with drinking fluoridated water significantly outweigh fluoride’s limited cavity fighting action.”

In March 2006, the National Research Council’s (NRC) long-awaited report revealed that fluoride jeopardizes health - even at low levels. Dental fluorosis is now an adverse health effect; bone fractures are now of concern; arthritis like pain and stiffness in joints is now a result of low levels of fluoride exposure; and tiny amounts of fluoride can cause thyroid depression and brain damage, according to the NRC report.

One NRC fluoride panel member was Tennessee risk assessment expert Kathleen Thiessen, PhD, who wrote to the Governor of Tennessee, “I support Representative Joey Hensley’s recent recommendation that Tennessee water agencies stop adding fluoride to their water, and I encourage you to do so as well.”

Dr. Thiessen works for Senes Oak Ridge, a human health and ecologic risk assessment firm, whose clients include the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Per the American Dental Association’s precedent-setting advice, the Vermont Department of Health notified Vermont dentists and pediatricians, to warn parents against using fluoridated water for infant formula, to avoid tooth-discoloring dental fluorosis.

Acushnet, Massachusetts Board of Health asked New Bedford officials to halt its pending fluoridation of the shared water supply and alert the public of adverse aspects.

“Demand your community halt or decline fluoridation. Fluoridation is ineffective, unnecessary, and harmful,” says lawyer Paul Beeber, President, New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation.

Also, in 2005 and 2006 over 15 communities rejected fluoridation in at least 13 States and British Columbia.