FAN Bulletin 915

December 26, 2007

Dear Supporter

Today, we continue our series of bulletins summing up the fluoride developments in 2007. Below is part 2, a summary of FAN’s activities during the year. Tomorrow, we will distribute reports from some of FAN’s affiliate groups. If you have a report you would like to share with us from your town, or your state or your country please send it to me at paul@fluoridealert.org some time today. What I have already received makes very interesting - and in some cases - inspiring reading.

Here is the latest on our Fundraising effort for the FAN fighting fund for 2008.
 
Yesterday, we raised another $975, which was just a tad short of the matching challenge grant of $1000. If we include $975 of this matching grant, our daily total was $1,950, bringing our grand total to $27,978 from a total of 142 contributors.

A huge thank you to all of these very generous contributors. Donations range from $5 to $5,000. Both large and small contributions are important to us. When we go to foundations for grants most want to see how many financial supporters we have. Thus, while we are excited to see our grand total grow we are also very keen to see the total number of subscribers grow. In recognition of this we are setting a second goal of 200 donors by midnight News Year Eve.

Thus, to reach our New Year’s Eve goals ($40,000 from 200 contributors) we need another $12,022 from another 58 contributors. We have just three days left to do this. Will you help us? On the one hand, we would dearly love to get another matching grant challenge, and on the other, we would really like to increase our number of subscribers.
 
If you can, please go to http://www.Fluoridealert.org and click on the Donate link at the top of the page. Alternatively, you may simply write out a check to AEHSP and send it to AEHSP, 82 Judson Street, Canton, NY 13617. But let us know that you have done so so that we can keep track of our running total.
 
Remember, if you are a US citizen, your contributions are tax deductible (through our parent body the American Environmental Health Studies Project, AEHSP, which has 501c3 status).
 
Paul Connett
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FAN’s activities in 2007.

A great deal of our time in 2007 was used to bring the attention of the public, the media and decision makers to the major scientific developments which occurred in 2006, namely: the NRC (2006) review; the study by Bassin et al. (2006) on osteosarcoma and the ADA’s recommendation that fluoridated water not be used to make up baby formula.
 
FAN did this in many ways:
 
1) Updating one of the world’s best web sites for scientific information on fluoride’s toxicity and latest news on fluoridation battles around the world. This year, we broke all of our records for website visits (now over 5,000 visitors per day), and our online videos have been watched by over 100,000 people.

2) Organizing the Professionals’ Statement to End Fluoridation worldwide. This Statement has now been signed by over 1,200 professionals (see statement and list of signers at: http://www.fluoridealert.org/statement.august.2007.html ). Signers include: A Nobel prize scientist, 4 Goldman prize winners, 3 members of the prestigious National Research Council (NRC) review of fluoride, some of the world’s leading fluoride researchers, three scientists from the Union which represents EPA professionals in EPA’s DC headquarters, the newly elected President of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment (ISDE), the Executive Board of the American Academy for Environmental Medicine (AAEM), the current President and five former Past Presidents of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT), many prominent environmental leaders and writers (Lois Gibbs, Richard Wiles, Ken Cook, Theo Colborn, Ted Schettler, Pat Costner and Peter Montague) and literally hundreds of doctors, dentists, registered nurses, PhDs, and other highly qualified people.

3) Organizing an ONLINE MESSAGE to the US Congress in support of the Professionals’ statement and calling for Congressional hearings. This has been signed by over 6100 people (see: http://www.FluorideAlert.Org/congress )

4) Conducting an extensive review, and translation, of Chinese-language studies on fluoride and the brain (including 11 studies investigating the relationship between fluoride and IQ, and 4 studies investigating the effect of fluoride on the fetal and infant brain.) FAN is now working to get the best of these studies published in a western scientific journal to help raise awareness among scientists and government regulators on the neurotoxic risks posed by fluoride. (See last bulletin for further details on this work).

5) Hosting the visit to the US by key Chinese researcher Quanyong Xiang, who in 2003 showed that fluoride could reduce IQ in children at levels as low as 1.8 ppm. Xiang spoke at several universities on his trip.

6) Distributing over 250 FAN bulletins to a mailing list now exceeding 1700 subscribers.

7) Responding to a vast number of email and phone enquiries from communities either wishing to stop fluoridation or prevent new programs from going in.

8) Visits to some of these communities by FAN Director Paul Connett, and other FAN members (Michael Connett, Bill Osmunson, Hardy Limeback, and David Kennedy). Communities visited in 2007 by Paul Connett included: Yarmouth, Massachusetts; St. Paul, Minnesota;  Calgary, Alberta; Oakville and Hamilton, Ontario; Brisbane, Lismore, Kempsey, Port Macquarie, Newcastle, Gosford, Balarat, Warrnambool, and Geelong, Australia; Douglass, Isle of Man (twice);  Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv, in Israel, and Manchester, UK.

9) Bill Osmunson and Paul Connett both gave testimony in opposition to the statewide mandatory fluoridation bill in Salem, Oregon.

10) In three visits to Washington, DC, Paul Connett joined Bill Hirzy  (with the help and support of Cynthia Erville) in meeting with many Congressional aides and some Congressional Representatives; representatives of national environmental groups and one professional lobbyist.

11) Both Michael Connett and Chris Neurath have maintained an active interest in current research on fluoride’s health effects, monitoring the latest studies and sharing them with researchers working in the relevant fields. (Michael is currently preparing a report on the “Top 10 Scientific Developments of 2007.”)

12) Throughout the year FAN has maintained its close working relationship with Eleanor Krinsky, Paul Beeber and Carol Kopf of the New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation (NYSCOF). In fact, we have even pinched Carol Kopf to be FAN’s media officer.

13) Likewise, FAN has also kept in close contact with Dan Stockin of the Lillie Center, a private health education training company. In August, the Lillie center filed an ethics complaint against the CDC for its failure to warn subsets of population to the dangers exposed in the NRC (2006) review. See: http://www.fluorideaction.org/ethics.release.aug.13.2007.html . The center has also been involved in legal warnings to the Kidney Foundation. See: http://fluoridealert.org/press/nkf.htm

14) In addition, FAN has worked closely with the three members of the NRC (2006) review panel who attended the FAN conference in Canton, NY in the summer of 2006. Kathleen Thiesen, Hardy Limeback and Bob Isaacson have all made it clear that despite cavalier dismissals of the NRC report by the ADA and the CDC,  the NRC’s findings were very relevant to water fluoridation. All have now publicly rejected this practice and are working in a variety of ways to bring this practice to an end. For example, Hardy Limeback traveled to Juneau Alaska at the invitation of citizens opposing the re-introduction of fluoridation there and Dr. Kathleen Thiessen traveled to Los Angeles and gave testimony in opposition of the MWD’s plan to fluoridate the drinking water of another 18 million people.

15) FAN has also firmed up its relationship with the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT). This organization was formed largely by dentists rejecting the use of mercury amalgams. There has been a growing convergence between those fighting fluoridation and those fighting mercury amalgams. The current President and six former Presidents of the IAOMT, along with leading mercury researchers Dr Murray Vimy and Dr. Boyd Haley, signed the Professionals’ Statement calling for an end to fluoridation.

16) Most importantly FAN has formed a stronger and stronger relationship with the Environmental Working Group (EWG). This group is working with us and Beyond Pesticides in our ongoing fight against the EPA’s outrageous approval of the use by Dow Agrosciences of sulfuryl fluoride as a fumigant on food in warehouses and processing plants. EWG helped greatly 1) to expose Harvard Professor Chester Douglass’s attempt to conceal the work of his graduate student on fluoride/osteosarcoma; 2) organize the campaign to stop Wal-Mart using fluoridated nursery water and 3) its San Francisco office has recently been involved in fighting the MWD decision to fluoridate another 18 million people in Southern California. In addition, both Ken Cook and Richard Wiles have signed the Professionals’ Statement.

17) Speaking of Southern California, FAN is also in contact with activists in Malibu who have already secured the public help of Martin Sheen and his wife (see their letter on our home page) and Suzanne Somers to fight fluoridation in Southern California.

18) Fan’s team of experts continue to challenge fluoridation proponents to debate. Proponents very rarely accept these challenges, however in November Professor Michael Lennon accepted the challenge and on Nov 20 he debated Paul Connett on the Isle of Man. See:  http://fluoridealert.org/isle.of.man.html

19) FAN has also worked very closely with another angel in this movement, Maureen Jones from San Jose, California. One couldn’t begin to list all the hundreds of things that Maureen has done for many years, and continues to do, to help end this nightmare, but perhaps her most visible action this year has been organizing and paying for the printing of  thousands of bumper stickers. These bumper stickers simply read www.FluorideALERT.org and are available free to community groups fighting fluoridation (contact Maureen at maureenj@pacbell.net ). I was thrilled to see some of these on sale in the town of Port Macquarie in NSW, on my October visit to Australia.

20) Both Paul Connett and Michael Connett have had papers published in the journal Fluoride in 2007, and Paul Connett also presented a paper to the 27th conference of the International Society for fluoride Research (ISFR) held in Beijing, China in October. At this conference Paul was able to get over 20 fluoride researchers from China, Estonia, India, Mexico and Poland to sign the Professionals’ Statement.

21) Many of these activities have led to interviews in the media (see the last bulletin for an extensive listing). The most gratifying being the 8-page article, “Second Thoughts about Fluoride” in the January, 2008 issue of Scientific American where author Dan Fagin ended with this paragraph:

        “Opponents of fluoridation, meanwhile, have been emboldened by the NRC report. ‘What the committee did was very, very important, because it’s the first time a truly balanced panel has looked at this and raised important questions,’ says Paul Connett, a chemistry professor at St. Lawrence University and the executive director of the Fluoride Action Network, one of the most active antifluoridation groups world-wide. ‘I absolutely believe it’s a scientific turning point because now everything’s on the table.  Fluoride is the most consumed drug in the U.S., and it’s time we talked about it.’”

22) FAN members continue to write letters to the editor in response to articles in the media and scientific journals. These frequently get published. One such letter was Paul Connett’s recent rebuttal to the Armfield article in the online journal Australian and New Zealand Public Health. This rebuttal can be accessed at:
http://www.anzhealthpolicy.com/content/4/1/25/comments

23) FAN has remained in active contact with fluoridation opponents in Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Korea, and the UK.

Reports from 1) Ellen Connett on FAN’s activities with respect to sulfuryl fluoride; 2) FAN’s representatives in several states and provinces in Canada, and 3) NYSCOF will be circulated in an upcoming bulletin.

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