FAN Bulletin 814

June 20, 2007

Dear All,

Thanks so much for the dozens of you who sent me your good wishes for a safe and speedy recover from my hip replacement (June 11). Your good vibes worked tremendously. The operation was a great success. My stay in Canton-Potsdam hospital was a delight with everyone from the surgeon to the janitorial staff making my 5 day stay both very comfortable and pleasant. In short: I was spoiled rotten! I felt I had been flying business class. Since returning on Friday, when my wife Ellen took over the spoiling routine, I have been able to get around fairly comfortably on two crutches. Today I dropped to one crutch. Two days ago I was able to get back online and today I am ready to send out the first bulletin. And it is nice to do so with some good news items.

Good news 1. Bryson video takes off. Viewings of the Bryson interview have been going along nicely at about 100 a day for several months. Today the total shot up by nearly 6000! Now over 38,000 have watched this video. This take off may have been due to renewed coverage of the “The Fluoride Deception” by Dr. Mercola. He has re-circulated his own excellent interview with Bryson.
Check out the progress of other fluoride videos available on Google video at http://www.FluorideAction.net

Good news 2. Oregon fluoridation campaigners yet again defeat an attempt to introduce mandatory fluoridation into Oregon. See story below. Congratulations to the fabulous team of Brent Foster, Kim Kaminsky, Michael Framson, Dr. Bill Osmunson, Ann Durant, Lynne Campbell and many others, who put together a formidable team of environmental and other statewide groups, to defeat this well-heeled (and last?) effort to force fluoridation on Oregon. This coalition could prove of inestimable value in defeating this practice nationwide. I hope when the team gets its collective breath back it will put some thought into how we can do in the US legislature what they did so brilliantly in the Oregon state legislature. As explained to me, as this bill went from the Senate to the House; and then from a sub-committee to full committee, and then into a different committee – each time never securing the votes needed – it allowed our stalwart band of fighters to keep educating the key legislative players. The result was that the longer the process went on the less likely that promoters would have ever have had of winning a full vote in the House. Thanks team you are great! Please send your congratulations to Brent Foster and I am sure he will circulate them to the rest .

Paul Connett

Effort to fluoridate more water in Oregon ends for this session

Posted by The Oregonian June 19, 2007 14:51PM

A bill backing statewide water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay is stuck in the Joint Ways and Means Committee without the votes to move it to either house before the Legislature adjourns.

That means Oregon will retain, at least until next year, its ranking as the third-least fluoridated state in the nation, behind Hawaii and New Jersey. Only one in five Oregonians uses water with fluoride in it.

House Bill 3099 would have required Oregon cities with at least 10,000 residents to add fluoride to their water supplies to prevent tooth decay unless the city “opted out” for lack of money or other reasons.

Virtually all major public health groups endorse fluoridation as a safe and cost-effective way of reducing cavities, particularly in low-income children who lack regular access to dental care. But some opponents criticized the bill on environmental grounds — calling fluoride a toxic pollutant — while others attacked as an example of “big government” trumping local control.

An amended version of the fluoridation bill was scheduled to come before a Ways and Means subcommittee last Saturday. But sponsors told advocates they lacked the votes to pass the bill and bring it to a floor vote.

“We’re disappointed,” said Brett Hamilton, spokesman for the Oregon Dental Association, one of the bill’s strongest backers. “We don’t expect any more action on it this session.”

At the request of the British Department of Health in 2000, the Evidence-based Practice Center at Oregon Health & Science University reviewed 214 published studies on the safety and effectiveness of fluoride in drinking water. OHSU researchers found clear evidence that fluoride prevents dental decay.

– Don Colburn