FAN Bulletin Special

Nov 21, 2007

Dear All,

I am sending out this bulletin from the road. I am writing from the Isle of Man, where yesterday I experienced the second most exciting day of my 11 year involvement in fighting this issue (the most exciting day was giving 45 minutes of invited testimony before the National Research Council panel on August 12, 2003).

The Isle of Man is located in the Irish Sea mid-way between Ireland and the England. At night from the small port of Ramsey one can see the lights of the nuclear processing plant in Sellarfield in North West England. To sports fans the Isle of Man is most famous for its annual motor bike race around the island. It has a population of only 80,000 but it proudly boasts the longest continuously running
parliament in the world.

About four years ago citizens discovered that Isle of Man was being earmarked for fluoridation again (a previous attempt was defeated about 20 years ago). The champion for this second attempt was Dr. Paul Emerson who works for the Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS). Other than the fact that this man comes from South Africa, citizens have been not been able to find out much about his background and especially what other jobs he has held. However, they did find out that he is a member of the British Fluoridation Society, hardly an unbiased source on these matters.

In his many appearances on the radio Dr. Emerson has presented the case for fluoridation with absolute certitude. He is both abrupt and dismissive with anyone who has concerns about the practice.

However, Emerson totally underestimated the very astute and well-informed opponents on the island. Led by Kevin Glynn (a supplier of specialized dental products) and Greeba Skinner (a newly qualified naturopath), a small but ever growing anti-fluoridation group has turned out to be quite a match for the pro-fluoridation lobby in the DHSS.  The group has been greatly aided by a steady supply of advice and invaluable information from John Graham of the National Pure Water Association in the UK.

 Last April Kevin was able tweak Emerson’s outward appearance of confidence on this issue and get him to accept the challenge to debate me. However, a few weeks before the chosen date for the debate Emerson decided to use Professor Michael Lennon, the chairman of the British Fluoridation Society, to debate me instead.

So it was that, yesterday, for the first time in 11 years, I was able to debate (not once but twice) one of the world’s leading and most influential proponents of fluoridation.

The Tynwald debate

The first debate was held in the Tynwald, the island’s parliamentary building. It was held at lunchtime before invited members of parliament (MHKs) and was moderated by Mr Malachy Cornwell Kelly –Clerk of Tynwald, who did so in his full regalia. Proponents were given 20 minutes, then I was given 20 minutes and then the remaining 20 minutes was given over to questions from the audience. The meeting was not open to the general public or the media.

After a local health official outlined the dental situation on the island, Professor Lennon used the balance of the time to present the argument for fluoridating the Isle of Man’s water supply.

Lennon made a huge issue about the number of primary teeth being extracted under anesthesia, which was much higher than the UK in both unfluoridated and fluoridated cities (Manchester and Birmingham).

Throughout his presentation he referred only to fluoridation’s supposed benefits to primary teeth. He offered no evidence on secondary teeth.

He stressed how many people worldwide were drinking (”enjoying the benefits of”) fluoridated water (350 million) and how many countries were fluoridating their water (over 30).

As far as health effects were concerned, he acknowledged only dental fluorosis but said it was nothing to worry about. He even said that two of his own children had dental fluorosis, but neither they nor his wife knew they had this condition!

He dismissed other health concerns based upon three reports: 1) The Royal College of Physicians (1976); 2) the York Review (2000) and 3) the MRC research recommendations based upon the York Review (2002). He did not mention the 2006 National Research Council (NRC) review, but later during questions, in response to my statement that both proponents and pro-fluoridation governments were ignoring this report, he said that he had a copy in his briefcase.

In my presentation, I first warned against accepting “endorsements” from so-called “authorities” in place of science-based arguments. I then countered Lennon’s 350 million people drinking fluoridated water in over 30 countries with the facts that, 1) over 98% of European citizens do not drink fluoridated water and 2) only 8 countries in the world had more than 50% of their populations drinking fluoridated water. These are Australia, Columbia, Ireland, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States where the practice began in 1945 and endorsed by the US Public Health Service in 1950 before any trial had been completed and before any comprehensive health study had been published. I then offered arguments and evidence why fluoridation was not ethical, necessary; effective or safe.

I personally felt that I won this debate quite convincingly. Some of the MHKs present confirmed this. We were told that one MHK said “Lennon was good, but Connett was brilliant” another said it was “game, set and match” to Connett and another said “It’s all over”.

Then I set about preparing for the big public meeting. This was to be recorded on professional quality video (a DVD will be available shortly) and also recorded by Manx Radio for later broadcast (45 minutes after editing). The meeting was well advertised by the DHSS, which spent over $2000 on paid advertisements in the local newspapers. Clearly the DHSS had a lot of confidence in Professor Lennon’s capabilities. The meeting also generated a lot of interest in the media, especially three of the radio stations on the island.

As readers of these bulletins know such debates between leading spokespersons on both sides of this issue are very rare. Proponents usually decline to debate the matter. So persuading Professor. Lennon to debate me was a major event in this long running controversy. The National Pure Water Association challenged Michael Lennon to debate me in Oxford in 1996 but he declined. I am intrigued as to why he chose to accept this time round, and why he chose the Isle of Man for the battleground.

Not surprisingly therefore the debate attracted a number of distinguished visitors form the UK, which included Dr. Jennifer Luke, a prominent fluoride researcher who first demonstrated the accumulation of fluoride in the human pineal gland, Walter Graham who led the fight to keep fluoridation out of Northern Ireland, Liz Vaughan the chairman of UK Councils Against Fluoridation and Doug Cross an independent researcher who has served on the UK Committee on Toxicology, and has spent several years investigating the “legality” of fluoridation.

In turn, the proponents had in attendance Dr. Kishore, Director of Public Health, Dr. Paul Emerson, other members of the DHSS and the Minister of Health.

The Public Debate

The debate was moderated extremely fairly by Miss Norma Cowell, a retired Headteacher, who was recommended to the organizers by the Minister of the Methodist Church where the event was held. The organizers had invited all the MHKs, all the Commissioners, all the Parish Captains, all the doctors, all the dentists and all the hygienists on the island to attend. The front 5 rows were reserved for these people and most seats were taken.

Each side was given up to 45 minutes to present their case and any unused time would be given over the audience for Q and A.

Speaking first was Dr. Kishore (who hails from the state of Kerala in India) who argued that one has to be careful about extrapolating from the ill-effects caused by fluoride in India to effects which might be experienced in western countries. He said that the levels in India can be very high - up to 25 ppm – and several issues might compound these effects: poor diet, the hot climate, and other contaminants in the bore well water.

Then the microphone was passed to Professor Lennon. To my utter amazement he gave almost exactly the same presentation he had given at lunchtime, even though he had twice the time to deliver his comments. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t try to address any of the damning evidence I had presented in my lunchtime presentation. I was surprised he didn’t address the health concerns in the NRC (2006) review which he said he had in his briefcase. Did he really believe that he had won the lunchtime debate?

I took full advantage of the allotted 45 minutes and expanded on my lunchtime address giving far more details on the evidence indicating ineffectiveness ( this included a power point slide prepared by John Graham showing that the expenditures on dental interventions in Wolverhampton in the UK had doubled in the 5 years following the introduction of fluoridation there in 1997, thus raising questions about whether the reductions in tooth decay were caused by fluoridation or these interventions) and the evidence of harm as presented in the National Research Council review of 2006.

Because Professor Lennon had used the York Review several times to buttress his case I showed a slide of and read out the letter Dr. Trevor Sheldon (chairman of the advisory council to the York Review) had sent to the House of Lords complaining about the misleading claims being made by the BFS and others on the content of York Review, as well as re-iterating what the Review found and did not find. (Note: A refined critique of these distortions, as well those by the British government was published recently by Cheng et al. in an October issue of the British Medical Journal.)

Then we had questions from the audience. This included a brilliant and hilarious account by Walter Graham on how fluoridation was kept out of Northern Ireland. Doug Cross also gave a summary of his research showing that fluoridation is illegal under European law. (In private Doug indicated to me that he had 2 barristers confirm his analysis and his legal warnings to water companies are working their way up their legal chain. He will keep us posted.)

Then shortly after 9 pm, Professor Lennon announced, much to the dismay of both the moderator and the audience, that he had had enough (he said that it had been a long day, that he was up at 8 am and was looking forward to eating some sea food) and that he was leaving. As he was leaving someone asked the audience how many people were in favour of fluoridating the Isle of Man. Only the retreating proponents (which included the DHSS entourage and the Health Minister) raised their hands.

We counted three hands raised. We were not sure whether the Minister was raising his or just waving it in farewell. Earlier the Minister had announced that fluoridation was not a done deal. When the audience was asked how many opposed fluoridation the remaining 100 plus hands shot up, which included at least 5 doctors and several dentists and many of the elected officials.

Just how many people came with their minds already made up no one knows, but the organizers think it is highly likely that many were persuaded by the arguments I, and others, gave against the practice.

What was very satisfying about this meeting was that everything was done fairly. Both sides were offered equal time. The moderation was scrupulous. There was no shouting and no mudslinging. We won on the arguments. Our science was simply better then their science. For once we were able to show this in public and the media was there and every word was videotaped and recorded.

Shortly, we hope that you will get a chance to see for yourselves how we did when you watch the DVD of the meeting. I hope you will agree that we clearly won this debate and that this video will be a powerful new tool in fighting this practice worldwide. I will simply end by saying, that I think I slept more soundly last night than either Professor Lennon or Dr. Emerson.

Paul Connett