FAN Bulletin 954:
  
May 9, 2008

Dear Supporter,

I am just back from my 34th visit to Italy, in which I spoke to the largest audience of my life - 60,000 people in San Carlos Square in Turin. The event was Beppe Grillo’s second V-Day (March 25). The Zero Waste movement goes from strength to strength in Italy, with over 2,000 communities now getting over 50% diversion from landfills using “porta a porta” (door to door) collection systems. Meanwhile, major cities in California, including Oakland, San Jose, San Francisco and even Los Angeles (population 4 million) have declared a zero waste strategy. In the last few days the mayor of San Francisco proudly declared that his city had reached 70% diversion. In the April 14th issue of Newsweek, devoted to the environment, the authors listed Zero Waste as the number one step to tackle the planet’s environmental woes. For those who would like to explore this issue more please go to the web site of FAN’s parent body (American Environmental Health Studies Project) at http://www.AmericanHealthStudies.org . There you will find several videos we have produced on this issue as well as a chapter I have written for a book to be published shortly in Italy: “Zero Waste and Sustainability”

When I took on the fluoridation issue 12 years ago I had little idea it would take up so much of my (and my family’s) time, and eventually compete so heavily with our efforts on the waste front, which has occupied us for 23 years. Furthermore, I had little idea how despicably the handful of governments that continue to promote this practice would treat rational argument and scientific information. Even my battles with the chemical and incinerator industries on the dangers posed by dioxin, did little to prepare me for the abuse of science as practiced by our government’s health bodies. It is my disgust with that treatment that drives me on, despite the fact that we have to fight the power of the US Public Health Service and the very deep pockets of the American Dental Association.

Slowly and surely the number of people and professionals who have seen through the governments’ lies and distortions on this matter is growing. Over 53,000 people have now watched the short video featuring Dr. Bill Osmunson; 1,700 professionals (including 240 PhD’s, 223 Dentists, 212 Medical doctors, 207 Chiropractors and 202 nurses) have now signed the statement calling for an end to fluoridation worldwide and over 11,000 people have signed the Online message to the US Congress calling for hearings on this matter (see http://www.FluorideAlert.org ).

Another Big Victory

It is true that the promoters of this practice can still work very effectively behind closed doors with people of closed minds, including the Nebraska State legislature, the Metropolitan Water District in Southern California and the Queensland government. However, when the issue is put to the test in public, and people take the trouble to inform themselves and they get fair coverage of both sides of the debate from the media, the rational arguments against fluoridation usually prevail. The more people find out on this subject and the more angry they get with the mindless way this practice is being pushed upon them, the more likely we are to win the vote. We saw this recently in Juniper, Alaska, in Quebec City and in Dryden, Ontario. To this list we must now add a big victory in Yarmouth, Massachusetts on May 6. Once again our side was hugely outspent, but the people overwhelmingly rejected this practice at the polls: 4,891 to 1,599.

Here is a very nice email I received from one of the organizers:

Hello Dr. Connett-
 
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! I know your visit to the Board of Health meeting made a huge difference. Not for the Town flunkies but for the citizens who saw through the fluoride “bargain”. We have been playing your presentation to the Yarmouth BOH on the local cable station for about 7 weeks. The last two weeks before the vote saw huge newspaper ads from proponents (who pays for these???), letters to the editor signed by docs and dentists (who by now must have the credibility of used car salesmen), and a gazillion radio announcements on every station promoting the benefits of water fluoridation. Many who wrote opposition letters never saw them published in the Cape Cod Times though there were numerous letters printed from fluoride proponents.
 
Doesn’t matter-we whupped ‘em!!! Big time!

See article at http://www.wickedlocal.com/yarmouth/news/x647000572/Yarmouth-re-elects-Groskopf-says-no-to-override-fluoride
 
Many thanks from Cape Cod.

Those who wish to congratulate the team of citizens who organized to defeat the effort to fluoridate Yarmouth, please send your emails to  Sue Phelan at suephelan@comcast.net .

The dear and late Martha Bevis must be smiling above with this news. It was she who so generously paid for my trip to speak before the Yarmouth Board of Health.

Paul Connett