FAN Bulletin 821:

June 27, 2007

Dear All,

As far as the pro-fluoridation fanatics in the Victoria health department who are determined to fluoridate every last remaining village town and city in the state, the city of Geelong is the jewel in the crown of their efforts. However, they have been unable to overcome the very stiff resistance offered by some of Australia’s most well–informed and organized opponents. These include Buzz Robinson, David McRae and Keith Oakley (check out the Australia video of TV news segment – 7 minutes - which includes an interview with Buzz Robinson).

Unable to win the acquiescence of this city by direct means, they are now moving in with a stealth tactic. The Victorian government is working on a scheme which would deliver Melbourne water by pipeline to Geelong. That will please some in Geelong because it will secure their water supply against drought, but it infuriates others because it means that Geelong will get the fluoridated water they have so bitterly opposed. Melbourne is fluoridated.

Below we have printed an open letter from Keith Oakley which he sent today to the Victorian Premier and others. He pulls no punches as he expresses the sense of betrayal this action represents.

Hopefully, Buzz et al. will be able to educate enough people in Melbourne to the dangers of fluoridated water such that this city will stop fluoridation. In that situation everyone would be happy with the pipeline.

David McRae says that the open letter has been sent to the media with the following note:

“Over the coming week the Open Letter will be printed in large number, again and again as necessary, and distributed widely to organizations, businesses, officials and the Geelong public.”

I have visited Geelong on three occasions and each time the fluoridation proponents were challenged to debate me – on each occasion the cowardly bunch declined. I am going again in October of this year.

Paul Connett

Open letter to Victorian Premier & officials who promote
Water Fluoridation
for the Geelong / Barwon region

27th June, 2007
 
Dear Premier Bracks, Chief Health Officer Carnie, Lisa Neville MLA, Jim Cousins of Committee for Geelong,
 
This month each of you publicly promoted water fluoridation for Geelong, or announced a pipeline bringing fluoridated Melbourne water, without consent of we the people. In case you are puzzled why Geelong people feel betrayed by your actions and are mad as hell, following is a brief explanation and some questions.
 
Fluoride safe? Pull the other leg
   
Fluoridated water will be safe, you told us in the Geelong press Dr Carnie (June 7th). But with many scientific studies showing that fluoride can harm people, and you don’t even share this with us, we feel you are taking us for uninformed fools; patronising us. How about telling us the full story?
    
You could start with Dr Elise Bassin’s Harvard study, 2006, that showed young males had 5-7 times greater risk of a lethal form of bone cancer if they used fluoridated water. Sure, Bracks’ previous health chief Robert Hall announced he wouldn’t trust this research, but Hall has now been sacked. To this date Bassin’s finding on bone cancer is the most up-to-date science we have on this risk. Correct?
    
Just for balance, wouldn’t it be fair to explain that a dozen studies have shown increased bone fractures linked to fluoridated water? Fluoride accumulates heavily in bones and damages enzymes. Why should the bone fracture link surprise anybody?
    
Want to hear about thyroid impairment, nervous system effects, kidney problems? You are busy and may not have time to read the science, but I can recommend to you Australian and international experts on fluoride toxicity to give you full briefing.
    
Mr Cousins & Ms Neville, you have heard before that some local people are medically sensitive to fluoride in water and would be made sick. Will you meet these people and hear their grievance; see their medical notes?
 
What happened to medical free choice?

Mr Cousins, you urged us to stop debating and welcome fluoridated water. Did any of us ever ask you to become our doctor and prescribe medicine? Fluoride is put into the water to combat a disease, dental caries. That makes it medicine by intention – never mind that it doesn’t work and has bad side-effects.

Dr Carnie might claim fluoridated water is not medicine, nonsensical as that sounds.  If not medicine it must be food. Since when has contaminated fluoride waste from phosphate factories ever been licensed as a food additive? In fact, as you know it is a registered schedule 6 and 7 poison. You do know that don’t you? Look at the official material data sheets.
    
Isn’t free choice and patient consent, following truthful information, a basic requirement for medicine; for giving a drug? Why does that not apply to the people here?
 
Drinking fluoride – useless for rotten teeth

Mr Bracks, you proclaimed that based on your three children you know fluoridation will help our teeth. Dr Carnie, did you tell him a trial of three people is hardly sufficient evidence for forcing a mass medical treatment on a city? We pay you as chief health officer, please act professionally.

 Don’t you all know that in non-fluoridated Geelong and Ballarat there are thousands of people with excellent teeth, while in fluoridated Melbourne there are many thousands with rotten teeth waiting years for public treatment? The best figures of recent years show very little difference in tooth decay between Geelong and most regions of Melbourne.
    
Dr Carnie, you say scientific studies support fluoridation. Show them to us please, right now. Are you talking about the biggest and best, the British Government sponsored York University fluoridation review of 2000?
    
Isn’t that the report that rejected more than 90 percent of fluoridation-tooth decay studies because they were so flawed they were scientifically worthless? Amongst the few properly conducted surveys some found no differences in tooth decay, some showed fluoride helped a little, and some found fluoride increased tooth decay! Convincing?
    
Isn’t this the York University review that has been so misrepresented by fluoridation officials that the respected scientific authors have twice issued public statements rejecting the claims of health officials who say the review found fluoridation highly effective?
   
 Dr Carnie, isn’t tooth decay most closely related to low income levels, sugary food and drink, and poor tooth cleaning? Isn’t THAT what we pay you to tackle?
 
Natural does not equal safe
       
Dr Carnie, your fluoride promotional booklet announces “Fluoride occurs naturally in water ..” So what? Most good water supplies naturally have very little fluoride in them, ten times less than the artificial fluoridation you wish to force upon Geelong.
    
Will people really believe natural = good? Is that science? Arsenic occurs naturally in some water supplies across Asia and consumers sicken and die from it. When funding is available they remove the arsenic.
    
Mr Bracks, have your advisors misled you into thinking that the fluoride added to water supplies is natural and harmless? Come on a tour of the phosphate fertilizer plant in Geelong where the crushed phosphate rock is treated with chemicals and the fluoride (fluorosilicic acid) extracted out and trapped in “pollution scrubber” tanks to prevent it being discharged out the smoke-stacks. It is then trucked around Victoria as raw waste, to tip into water supplies. Now you will feed this waste back to us via Melbourne fluoridated water, when by EPA regulation it cannot be discharged from the factory into the environment? Natural? Reasonable?
    
Mr Cousins, have you seen an analysis of this fluorosilicic acid – seen that it contains some lead, arsenic and other toxics? Has Carnie explained this to you? Shouldn’t our water goal be zero for these poisons?
    
Mr Bracks, can you understand it looks like extreme government incompetence to force fluoride addition to our water when it

(1) can damage the health of many
(2) is unlikely to help many
(3) wipes out our basic freedom, and
(4) uses contaminated industry waste?
 
We await your replies, and details of what sort of referendum you will give us.
 
Sincerely
 
(signed)
 
Keith Oakley, Geelong
    (& representing many hundreds who have    
      spoken with me on this matter)