FAN Bulletin 917
 
December 31, 2007
  
Dear All,

As we look forward to 2008, in my view, there are four things we will need to bring fluoridation to an end: these are  scientific evidence, scientific integrity, courage and creativity. The other side has power and influence but is no match for us if we can mobilize in these four categories. I will discuss the relevance of each of these to our struggle in my commentary below.
 
Meanwhile, yesterday, was another great day in our fundraising effort. We managed to raise another $2,075 to bring our total up to $31,633 from a total of 181 contributors.

To reach our two New Year’s Eve goals ($40,000 from 200 contributors) we need another $8,367 and another 19 contributors in less than 24 hours. Can we do this? It would require us to achieve the best day out of our 17 day campaign. I think we should be able to get 19 more donors, but getting over $8,000 is a very tall order. We’ll just wait and see and hold our fingers tightly crossed.

Whether we achieve these goals, or not, this fundraising effort has given us a huge lift in morale and we wish to thank all of you who have given so generously towards our fighting fund for 2008. Thank you also for those on very tight incomes for letting us know. We know that many of you are helping this battle in many other ways than the pocket-book. For those who were able to donate you can rest assured that every penny will be spent as wisely and effectively as we can in an effort to slay this monster. Of course, our fundraising efforts will not end here but it is the deadline of midnight (EST) December 31, that makes tax deductible donations both urgent and attractive. Remember, if you are a US citizen, your contributions to us are tax deductible (our parent body the American Environmental Health Studies Project, AEHSP, has 501c3 status).
 
If you haven’t contributed yet, and you wish to do so, 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 as the last hours of 2007 tick away..
   
Paul Connett

PS Since yesterday’s bulletin we have received 2007 reports from Quebec and the UK. To view these, and a corrected version of the Northern California report, please re-visit: http://www.fluoridealert.org/2007reports.htm

Scientific evidence, scientific integrity, courage and creativity.
By Paul Connett

Scientific evidence. There is no question that the scientific evidence is available to deliver a crushing defeat to any one who claims that fluoridation is “safe and effective” (see the URL for my power point presentation in the Nov 20 Isle of Man debate at: http://fluoridealert.org/isle.of.man.html). Briefly,

1) The evidence that swallowing fluoride is effective at fighting tooth decay is unconvincing. Since the 1980’s a series of researchers have found little evidence that there is any difference in tooth decay between fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities - especially when examining the permanent teeth (Leverett, 1982; Colquhoun, 1984, ‘86, 87; Diesendorf, 1986; Gray, 1987; Yiamouyiannis, 1990; Brunelle and Carlos; 1990; Spencer, 1996; de Liefde, 1998; Locker, 1999; Spencer and Armfield, 2004 and Pizzo, 2007). Moreover, when one looks at the results of a recent national health survey, the percentage of parents in each state who characterize their children’s teeth as “very good, or excellent” bears no relationship whatsoever with the percentage of the population in each state drinking fluoridated water. There is however a very clear and consistent relationship with such characterizations and the average income level of the families in question. The message is very clear for those who are prepared to see the truth; tooth decay is a function of poverty coupled with the modern western diet, not lack of fluoride. If fluoride has any benefit at all (and for some that is a big “if”) then it works from outside the tooth not from inside the body. At much higher concentrations, as in toothpaste, it acts as a pesticide killing the bacteria in the mouth which convert sugar to enamel dissolving acids. There are safer substances to put in the mouth that can achieve this same result e.g. Xylitol and iodine. However, it is possible that in addition to a general increase in standard of living in the industrialized world over the last 40 years, it may be the universal availability of fluoridated toothpaste which has also contributed to the decline in tooth decay in both fluoridated and non-fluoridated countries ( http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/teeth/caries/who-dmft.html ).

2) The evidence that fluoride can damage health is undeniable. Millions have had their health damaged by exposure to natural fluoride in India and China. The key question in this debate is whether our health (and especially the health of our babies) is compromised by artificial fluoride at 1 ppm in drinking water - a level which is 250 times the level found in mothers’ milk. The National Research Council review (2006) has shown that there is no margin of safety  to protect ALL members of society (which includes the very young, the very old, those with poor kidney function, those with a poor diet, especially those with inadequate or borderline iodine intake) from several serious health end points (e.g. dental fluorosis, arthritic-like symptoms, brittle bones, lowered thyroid function, interference with brain development and possibly life-threatening bone cancer in young boys), when drinking uncontrolled amounts of fluoridated water.

3) Putting arguments one and two together, how can any one pretend any longer that these serious risks to health can possibly be justified by such miserly evidence of benefit? The latter shocked the authors of the York Review (2000) and the former disturbed three members of the NRC (2006) review panel sufficiently to call for an end to water fluoridation and for the chairman, Dr. John Doull, to state in a recent Scientific American article, “Second Thoughts about Fluoride” (January, 2008):

“What the committee found is that we’ve gone with the status quo regarding fluoride for many years—for too long, really—and now we need to take a fresh look,” Doull says. “In the scientific community, people tend to think this is settled. I mean, when the U.S. surgeon general comes out and says this is one of the 10 greatest achievements of the 20th century, that’s a hard hurdle to get over.  But when we looked at the studies that have been done, we found that many of these questions are unsettled and we have much less information than we should, considering how long this [fluoridation] has been going on. I think that’s why fluoridation is still being challenged so many years after it began. In the face of ignorance, controversy is rampant.”

Scientific integrity. While proponents of fluoridation have claimed for over 50 years that the issue is “beyond debate”, a true scientist never puts an issue beyond debate. An ugly fact can always destroy a beautiful theory. With fluoridation there are so many ugly facts. But seeing this requires that the evidence be viewed with an open mind and that takes scientific integrity. The blinders of the “prevailing paradigm” have to be lifted before the evidence can be understood and acted upon. For many this is not easy, which brings us to our third category: courage.

Courage. In the opening lines of a poem entitled “Courage” D. H. Lawrence wrote: “What makes people unsatisfied
is that they accept lies.”

Once people have found out that what they once believed was true, is not, it takes a lot of courage to make this known publicly. Will they risk ridicule from their peers, who do not question authority? Will they risk penalties from their employers, whose “protected” policy they are bucking? Neither is easy. A few outstanding dentists and others have exercised courage and have changed the dynamics of this debate. Inspiring examples include, John Colquhoun (NZ); David Kennedy and Bill Osmunsen (US); Richard Foulkes and Hardy Limeback (Canada); Peter Mansfield and Tony Lees (UK); Tohru Murakami (Japan) and Andrew Harms (Australia). Many more dentists are now speaking up, as well as doctors, PhDs, nurses, lawyers, environmental activists and workers in Water departments. Over 1200 have now signed the Professionals’ Statement calling for end to fluoridation worldwide. For their important statement and a listing of all the signers go to: http://fluoridealert.org/professionals.statement.html

A recent example of some one working their way through these first three categories came in the form of the following email exchange:

Mr. Connett,

My name is Al Carrelli. I am currently employed as a supervisor at an Ion Exchange Water Treatment Plant in Ohio. We have approximately 12,000  customers.

At the beginning of 2006 we fell under “unofficial EPA violation”  (note the Ohio EPA is not part of the US EPA, PC) for failing to meet the minimum required fluoride level of 0.80 mg/l (ppm) in our drinking water. Our wells have a naturally  occurring fluoride level of 0.51 - 0.85  mg/l.

Wanting to be the person that could answer all of our customers’ questions, I started investigating Fluorosilicic Acid. This led to my going back to college, at 50 years of age, for chemistry. Education in turn, led to you.

I would like to start by saying Thank You. For the past year the information you have supplied has given me a  starting point with which I’m better able to educate my co-workers, and the public. Your information has also helped me ask the right questions of the EPA, the CDC and the Department of Health. Mind you, the answers I get manage to sidestep the questions.

My point behind this e-mail is Arsenic.

In the process of investigating fluoride, I received a Quality Certificate from a potential supplier. That piece of paper told us that we were also going be applying arsenic to the water. It turns out that every 55 gallon drum of Fluorosilicic acid contains approximately 40.00 ppm arsenic.

So now I find I’m feeding people arsenic as well.

I have to get back to work now. Thanks for the education. You’ve given me something that, unlike the Jack Daniels, I  can take to the grave. Smile.

Alfred D. Carrelli
Water System  Supervisor
Southwest Licking  Community
Water & Sewer  District

Dear Alfred,

Thank you so much for your wonderful letter. Can I request that I be allowed to distribute this publicly? If you fear reprisals I could circulate it anonymously (i.e. With your name and your town’s name removed).

Also would you (and your colleagues) consider signing the Professionals’ Statement calling for an end to fluoridation worldwide (see fourth item down on our home page www.FluorideALERT.org). Already over 1200 have done so and that includes over 20 people like yourself working for water departments.

Paul Connett

       Mr. Connett,

My name was added to the Professionals’ Statement a couple of months ago, and yes you may distribute this publicly. We’ll see what happens. I do not want to be in the group of people I’ve met that won’t speak up for fear of losing their job. Again, Thanks for the education.

Alfred D. Carrelli

Creativity. But even with scientific evidence, scientific inegrity and courage in place, our key challenge remains: How do we get this information to the general public , the media and the decision maker?  In this battle we are hugely outspent and out-lobbied by the ADA, and out-influenced by the CDC, so we have to find other ways to get our message out. This is where creativity comes in.

I have been excited to discover that we have some very creative people working for this campaign. There are others out there we have yet to meet. If these creative resources are mobilized effectively we are capable of getting our message to more and more people. We have cartoonists (see Eddy and Flo at http://ccpurewater.org/); we have graphic designers (e.g. Emily Kalweit in Washington state); we have people designing short videos and placing them on YouTube (e.g. Mark McLean in Fort Worth, Texas) and we have a professional videographer  (Kevin Hurley, Polaris Media Works) who is currently producing a series of vignettes featuring several of the professionals who have signed the Professionals’ Statement. We recently flew him to Oregon where he interviewed both Bill Osmunson and Brent Foster of the Columbia Riverkeepers alliance and a key player in defeating the mandatory fluoridation bill in Oregon this year.

We know that once these vignettes start circulating on web sites and people’s personal email lists, the number of people watching them can reach very high numbers. For example, well over 100,000 people have already accessed the fluoride videos made available on Google and YouTUBE.

The Bill Osmunson vignette will be available shortly.

So while we try to raise the funds to have a decent budget to help us end fluoridation worldwide, we should never forget that there is this resource out there called “creativity” which can buttress all our other advances.

While I was writing this I realized that I had missed out a very important category - sheer hard work. None of our progress would have been possible if so many of you, and some of those who are no longer with us, had not given up so much of your time and other resources fighting this seemingly endless battle. You get little recognition, no money and no fame. Frequently, you get the opposite - a lot of ridicule from those who won’t even spend the time to read one article and you have to dig deep into your own pockets. Even though you are too many to name, your efforts are gratefully recognized here. Please keep up the fight. Have fun and be gentle with yourselves. A very happy and successful new year to you all.