Bulletin #752

January 21, 2006

Dear All,

I think we all would agree that an editorial writer – like everyone else - has the right to his or her opinions. But we also have the right to expect that an editor of a major paper like the Oregonian, before he or she writes a very venomous editorial, would do a moderate amount of basic research to ascertain that their “venom” was on target. In the case of the ridiculous editorial which appeared in today’s Oregonian there is no indication that the associate editor did any serious research on the matter or even sat down and listened carefully to the scientific, practical and ethical arguments offered by serious opponents of this practice. Had she done so she would not have issued such an insulting and ill-informed commentary.

Of course, as the evidence against fluoridation becomes more and more damning we perhaps should expect the die-hards get get more and more shrill with their hysterical promotion.

Be that as it may, being conscious of the fact that reading this editorial will ruin many Sunday lunches, I have printed below my email to Susan Nielsen and a stripped down 150 word version (that was hard!) to the newspaper. I urge you to add your own 2c worth, but please keep them as polite as you can. Please stick to the 150 word limit for the letters to the editor letters@news.oregonian.com> . If you choose to write to Susan Nielsen susannielsen@news.oregonian.com> you might save a lot of time by saying: “I have seen a copy of the email Dr. Paul Connett wrote to you. I agree with what he has written and I would add the following…” or words to that effect.

Now brace yourselves!

Paul Connett
————————–
More than just a pretty smile
Only the rich or uninformed could love Oregon’s record of ignoring fluoride and let teeth rot where they may
Sunday, January 21, 2007

The Oregonian

Nielsen: One dollar spent on fluoride saves $38 in treatment

Rich people with beautiful teeth may have no idea what I’m talking about. Their teeth are private treasures, to be whitened like fine cotton and tended like box hedges. Their smiles aren’t a matter of public health, but of personal pride.

They can be forgiven for shrugging off Oregon’s high tooth-decay rate and the endless fringe campaign to keep fluoride out of drinking water. They’ve never blanched at an unaffordable dental bill. They’ve never spent weeks steering cold drinks to one side of their mouth, waiting to see the dentist.

They’ve certainly never sent their kids to a free clinic. They bought fluoride supplements for their lovely children, and they can’t imagine a dental problem too big to prevent or pay for.

The toothsome rich can be forgiven for their ignorance.

No one else can.

Not the activists who try to protect us from fluoride, and definitely not state lawmakers, who’ve helped maintain Oregon’s status as a fluoridation backwater with the cavities to prove it.

“Oregon has been very slow,” says Gordon Empey, the state’s chief dental officer. “There must be a reason, but I’d hate to guess what it is.”

Fluoride, for those of you who napped through chemistry, is the ionic version of the element fluorine, and it exists naturally in the earth’s crust and oceans. Some communities have natural concentrations of fluoride in their drinking water, while others have none.

More than 60 years ago, scientists noticed that people who drank water with fluoride in it were far less likely to get rotten teeth. This sparked a national fluoridation movement that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention named one of the top 10 public-health achievements of the 20th century, along with the polio vaccine.

Oddly, Oregon didn’t bite.

Close to 80 percent of Oregon’s 3.7 million residents still lack fluoridated water, a worse track record than every state except Hawaii and Utah. While people in Coos Bay, Corvallis, Sublimity, Beaverton and a few dozen other towns enjoy the benefits of fluoridation, the vast majority of Oregonians aren’t so lucky — including residents of Portland, Hillsboro, Gresham and Eugene.

In cities that are part of regional water systems, it’s hard to make a local decision to fluoridate. Activists on the far left and right crush any attempts at progress statewide.

Both ways, ordinary Oregonians pay the price.

They pay for extra dental work and extra prevention. They pay higher taxes to cover the dental work of poor people. They pay in hours wasted in the dental chair, loathing those inspirational posters with kittens and sailboats.

It would be so much cheaper to fluoridate the water. Every dollar spent on fluoridation saves $38 in dental treatment, according to the American Dental Association.

It would be more socially equitable, too. While fluoridation helps everyone, it offers the greatest benefit to those with the least access to dental care — including low-income children, elderly and disabled people, working-poor families and those living in rural areas.

Little of this may matter to those who can afford to pamper their teeth. And none of it arouses the sympathies of the activists circling Salem and preparing to destroy the latest fluoridation bill.

They’ll say fluoridation is bad for salmon. (Well, yes, if you force-feed the fish a toxic dose.) They’ll say some studies suggest links between fluoride and scary diseases. (True. If you spend enough time on Google, you can find a “study” to feed any fear.)

Worse, some opponents will mix truth with well-meaning snobbery: Children, they’ll say, should eat less sugar and corn syrup, and adults should improve their lifestyles. Then we wouldn’t need fluoridation, see?

Again, so true.

If poor people snacked on $5 pints of organic strawberries and swore off 59-cent bags of gas-station candy, they’d have less decay. If rural people moved to cities with more dentists, they’d have more frequent checkups. If old people rose from their chairs and got better dentistry, they’d have movie-star teeth, too.

If everyone carried a silver toothbrush in their mouth, we wouldn’t need public health at all. It’s hard to believe that 60 years of ignorance about fluoride could hold so much water.

Associate Editor Susan Nielsen: 503-221-8153; susannielsen@news.oregonian.com

http://www.oregonlive.com/commentary/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1169259936244330.xml&coll=7&thispage=2
 
letters@news.oregonian.com via electronic mail. They may also be faxed to (503)294-4193.

Please limit letters to 150 words

Paul Connett’s letter to Susan Nielsen

Dear Susan,

It amazes me that someone who has risen to the rank of an associate editor could write such a dangerously misleading editorial with little evidence that you have done any research on the matter or even sat down and seriously listened to a scientist opposed to this practice. Clearly your anger at what you perceive as a social injustice perpetuated by the wealthy at the expense of the poor, has got the better of your need to pursue this issue in a professional manner.

Yes it is true that fluoride occurs naturally in water – so does arsenic - but the natural level which gives us the best idea of what a new born baby needs is the level nature put into mothers milk. This level is only 0.004 ppm. Thus, poor mothers who bottle feed their baby using fluoridated tap water give them 250 times the level that nature intended. At the very least that will increase the chance that the child’s permanent teeth will have its enamel permanently discolored. But it is more serious than that. Please read the National Research Council’s 500 page report to see what other tissues may be impacted (NRC, 2006). This panel recommended that the US EPA lower its safe drinking water standard from the current 4 ppm. Such a lowering leaves no margin of safety to protect the most vulnerable members of society from water fluoridated at 1 ppm  – ask any reputable toxicologist. There will be a lot of bluster and face saving measures from the pro-fluoridation zealots but this report spells the end of any “scientific” support for fluoridation. The rest is politics. The paperback version of this critically important 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)

On Nov 9 of last year the ADA recommended that parents not make up formula with fluoridated tap water. How on earth are local authorities going to make sure that this important message gets to all parents with infants? Currently, very few local, state or federal agencies are attempting this vital piece of education. Nor is any body suggesting ways whereby low-income families can obtain alternative sources of water. These folks are trapped by this misguided policy.

If you are really concerned about equity in dental care, then your rant should be directed towards the 80% of dentists in the US who do not treat children on Medicaid. If you look at the figures objectively you will have to admit there is a far greater relationship between tooth decay and level of income, than you will ever find with lack of fluoride. For example, in 2006, a study by the Department of Health in New York State, which looked at tooth decay for third graders by county, showed that there was absolutely no relationship between tooth decay and the percentage of the county fluoridated. There was however a dramatic  inverse relationship with the average level of income by county. The same is true for the whole of the US. The largest survey ever conducted in America found very little difference in tooth decay between kids who had lived all their lives in fluoridated versus non-fluoridated communities (Brunelle and Carlos, 1990).

What you promote so passionately in Oregon as the “norm” is only the “norm” in the US because this practice has been endorsed and blindly promoted for over 50 years by the US Public Health Service and agencies and associations that they fund and influence, which of course, includes the Chief Dental officer of each state. Fluoridation is not the norm in the rest of the world. Over half the people drinking fluoridated water live in North America; over 3/4 live in English speaking countries and less than 10 countries have more than 50% of their population drinking fluoridated water. The  vast majority of European countries do not fluoridate their water (some fluoridate their salt). Yet the World health Organization figures for 12 year olds clearly demonstrate that unfluoridated industrialized countries have just as good teeth, if not better, than fluoridated countries. That’s because they offer far better dental services to the poor than we do. We offer them poison, and give them no way to avoid it and you call this equity! To make matters even worse, it is precisely the poor who are more vulnerable to fluoride’s toxic effects (especially on the all important thyroid gland) because of poor nutrition.

Please behave like a professional journalist and do some homework before you write more on this matter. Hopefully, you have the integrity to correct the damage you have done with today’s editorial.

Dr. Paul Connett,
Professor Emeritus of Chemistry,
St. Lawrence University,
Canton, NY 13617.
315-379-9200

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

Paul Connett’s  150 word letter to the Oregonian.

I was dismayed by Susan Nielsen’s editorial promoting fluoridation. Clearly her anger has overcome her need to pursue this issue professionally.

It is true that fluoride occurs naturally in water but the natural level in mothers milk is only 0.004 ppm. Thus, mothers who bottle feed using fluoridated tap water give their babies 250 times the level that nature intended. This will increase the child’s chance of having discolored enamel and worse still, the 2006 National Research Council’s review indicates that other tissues may be impacted. This panel recommended that US EPA lower its safe drinking water standard from the current 4 ppm. This would leave no margin of safety to protect the most vulnerable members of society from water fluoridated at 1 ppm. There will be a lot of bluster from the pro-fluoridation zealots but this report spells the end of any “scientific” support for fluoridation. The rest is politics.

Dr. Paul Connett,
Professor Emeritus of Chemistry,
St. Lawrence University,
Canton, NY 13617.
315-379-9200

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