Bulletin #741

January 10, 2006
Before we get the news, if you would like to hear the hour long interview I had on a public radio station in California yesterday you can do so by going to . This might only be available for a few days.

Well we said that 2007 was going to be a big year for us, but I didn’t expect things to start so quickly. News today of two more towns (St. Lucie, Florida and Laconia, New Hampshire) questioning the wisdom of fluoridation. One has already voted to stop fluoridation, the other is investigating the matter. Needless to say, both towns will be invaded by the “white coat brigade” who will continue their mantra that fluoridation is “safe and effective”, but their defense of this practice is wearing very thin. Other than listing all their, largely outdated, endorsements and insulting the intelligence of their opponents, they have little to offer in response to recent key developments:

1) The NRC(2006) review which found that the EPA’s “safe drinking water standard” of 4 ppm is too high and should be lowered. Even now, the gap between 1 ppm and 4 ppm leaves an inadequate margin of safety, and when it is lowered it will be even less adequate.  This report  “Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA’s Standards”- is now available from the National Academy of Sciences in paperback (it can be ordered online at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11571.html , with shipping it cost $55). This report now represents the standard textbook on the toxicology of fluoride. The paper back version is 507 pages in length and the references (over 1000) alone take up 56 pages (pp. 354 –406). From a scientific perspective – with this report in print - it is impossible to say that fluoridation poses NO health risks, which is what promoters have claimed for 60 years. Moreover, with so many recommendations for more important research to fill the health data gaps, it should also be abundantly clear that there are still unanswered questions – which makes fluoridation an ongoing experiment on human populations. Note on page 36 and table 2-6 on page 40, the authors confirm that the average level of fluoride in mothers breast milk in non-fluoridated communities is 0.004 ppm, which means that babies bottle fed with formula made up with tap water are getting 250 times more fluoride than nature intended.  In my view, this fact alone should kill fluoridation stone dead.

2) In addition, to the alpha and omega arguments against fluoridation (it violates the individual’s right to informed consent to medication, and violates the Precautionary Principle, i.e. as all the health issues have not been resolved, there is doubt, and if in doubt, leave it out!), we have the following arguments in between:

3) Data collected by the WHO (which on fluoridation has been captured by pro-fluoridation zealots like Dr. Michael Lennon, President of the British Fluoridation Society) indicates that tooth decay in 12 year olds has been coming down as fast in non-fluoridated countries as fluoridated ones.

4) The largest survey ever conducted in the US, and conducted by the NIDR – a promoter of fluoridation – found little difference in tooth decay between kids who had lived in fluoridated communities all their lives and those who had lived in non-fluoridated communities all their lives (Brunelle and Carlos, 1990, Table 6)

5) A recent survey of tooth decay in third graders in NY counties - conducted by the NYS Department of Health – a promoter of fluoridation – shows absolutely no correlation in tooth decay with the the percentage of the county water supply fluoridated, but a very strong correlation with the average incomes levels by county.

6) The CDC (1999, 2001) - a promoter of fluoridation - admits that fluoride works topically not systemically (i.e. There is no need to swallow it).

7) The CDC (2005) - a promoter of fluoridation – admits that 32% of kids in the USA have dental fluorosis which indicates that they are being over-exposed to fluoride, from all the multiple sources they receive today.

8) The ADA (Nov 9, 2006) - a promoter of fluoridation – quietly and reluctantly admits that fluoridated water should not be given to babies.

Hopefully, as the dominoes begin to fall, officials will no longer be bullied by these “white coats” (which on some health issues are as ominous as “black uniforms”) but instead insist on cogent explanations to these findings – most of which, as I have made clear above, have come from the pro-fluoridation camps themselves.

Before we get to the latest dominoes, three updates.

1. The Online petition to Wal-Mart – numbers continue to grow.

We added another 304 names yesterday and our current total (at 2 pm today) stood at 2,214  http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/walmart/  

2. Subscribers to the FAN bulletins (including the B-list) now stands at 1570. Mini-goal of 2000 by the end of January. If your friends wish to subscribe (its FREE) please ask them to send me an email  at
with the word subscribe in the subject line. If they want the monthly summary put subscribe B.

3. FAN Mobilization Team. Recently we have added representatives from Connecticut; Georgia; Kentucky and West Virginia. We now have mobilizers in 32 states (AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, HI, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MD, MI, MN, NB, NH, NJ, NY, NC, OR, PA, TN, TX, UT, VT, WA, WI, WV). Is your state in this list? If not, do you want to be a FAN “mobilizer” and help some more dominoes to fall? If you have an email list of over 20 people and you are interested please email me at
.

Paul Connett
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1.  St. Lucie West Services fluoride shut-off prompts review
 http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/local_news/article/0,2545,TCP_16736_5267374,00.html

By CHRIS YOUNG
chris.young@scripps.com
January 10, 2007

PORT ST. LUCIE — In a quick series of votes at its Tuesday board meeting, the St. Lucie West Services District decided to shut off the fluoride treatment to its water supply.

But district staff is researching whether the decision is legal.

The board unanimously voted to have District Manager Charles Sweat shut off the chemical to the district’s 7,500 residential and business customers by the end of the week if doing so doesn’t violate a county ordinance that addresses fluoride in municipal water supplies.

Services District Chairman Charles Altwein led the board’s discussion, saying he was “very disappointed” the district was fluoridating the water in St. Lucie West and the Reserve, part of PGA Village.

“People got up in arms (over abnormally high lead levels in St. Lucie West before) and here we’re deliberately adding a poison to our system,” Altwein said.

Supervisor Ron Nickel suggested turning off the fluoride while Sweat researched the pros and cons of fluoridation.

“In the interest of public health, it’s good to turn it off now, do research, and we can turn it back on later,” he said.

Anti-fluoride activist Pat Arena, who started campaigns throughout the Treasure Coast, asked the board to remove the chemical, which he said could cause dental problems in children.

In Stuart, fluoride advocates and opponents are gearing up for a much longer fight after the City Commission voted Monday to hold a referendum on the issue.

The Martin County Commission reviewed its own fluoridation program and decided in a 3-2 vote on Dec. 19 to abandon fluoridation.

Proponents have said that fluoridating the water supply promotes dental health in residents. But no one took up any pro-fluoride arguments at Tuesday’s board meeting.

Susan Morin, a Kings Isle resident, said after the vote that she preferred fluoride-free water but wanted the board to hear the other side of the argument “to give the correct look” to the issue.

Services District Attorney Dan Harrell, who left the meeting before the fluoride issue came up, said Tuesday afternoon he might have suggested “some caution and review” before the board took action.

Regardless, he said staff would research whether the board followed all necessary procedures before calling for the vote — including whether a public hearing was needed — and the county ordinance about fluoridation.

A 1990 county ordinance requires that water agencies with a design capacity over 1 million gallons, without a natural fluoride level of 0.8 milligrams per liter, shall apply fluoride in compliance with state regulations.

The district dispenses 1.3 million gallons per day, Sweat said.

Staff writer Jeremy Ashton contributed to this report.

 
2. Laconia, New Hampshire
 
http://www.citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070110/CITIZEN_01/101100164/-1/CITIZEN
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Value and safety of fluoridation questioned

By JOHN KOZIOL
jkoziolcitizen.com

City Councilor Armand Bolduc wants to know what’s in the city’s water supply. Specifically, he wants to know about fluoride, the additive alternatively hailed as one of the 10 best public health initiatives of the past century but also criticized as ineffective and potentially harmful.

The Ward 6 city councilor on Monday asked that the council get more information about fluoride’s benefits and disadvantages after having been contacted by a resident who was concerned about its presence in the city’s water.

The resident provided Bolduc with a two-page letter about how communities around the U.S. were rethinking fluoridation.

“It seems to me if something is happening throughout the rest of the country then maybe we should look into it also,” Bolduc said on Tuesday.
What the Laconia Water Department in its 2006 water quality report calls both a “water additive which promotes strong teeth” and “discharge from fertilizer and aluminum factories” was first added into Laconia’s water in December 1989, according to Water Department Superintendent Rodger “Mike” Matthewman.

That action, said Matthewman, came after a vote to do so about a decade earlier.

The topic of fluoride will be broached during Thursday’s meeting of the Laconia Water Commission whose members include Ward 1 City Councilor Brad Fitzgerald.

“We have not had any complaints” about fluoride in the water, said Matthewman.

He acknowledged, however, that “the jury’s been out forever on it. The file is as thick against it as for it and the people in Laconia made that decision years ago, so we’re abiding by their request.”

Annual testing, which is required by the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, found that, in 2005, Laconia measured fluoride levels at a low of .79 part per million, a high of 1.26 ppm and an average of 1.03 ppm, well below the safety limits of 4 ppm set by the Environmental Protection Agency and implemented locally by the N.H. Department of Environmental Resources.

A quick search on the Internet produces multiple hits about fluoridation. Among the sites that question the value of fluoridation, www.nofluoride.com contends, “Any purported benefits of fluoridation are in scientific controversy.”

Fluoridation is unnecessary, the website says, because Americans are receiving three times the American Dental Association’s recommended daily amount in their diets. Also, the fluoridation process entails use of the byproducts of aluminum and fertilizer manufacturing which contain the carcinogens arsenic, lead and chromium.

Some reports have linked consumption of fluoridated water to certain bone cancers, increased incidences of bone fractures and arthritis but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strongly supports “community water fluoridation as a safe and effective public health measure to prevent and control tooth decay and to improve overall health.”
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