FAN Bulletin 1003

Oct 10, 2008

Dear Supporter,

It has long been an ongoing goal of those promoting fluoridation to keep intelligent, open-minded people away from this issue. They have done it with two tactics: a) citing a long list of endorsements and b) claiming that opponents cite pseudo-science. With the advent of Internet sites like our own, which have made the science documenting fluoridation’s ineffectiveness and dangers readily available, these tactics are collapsing. Today this collapse is most notable in Canada, which sends us very good news almost daily.

This supply of good news reflects a very exciting coalition building up in that country. This coalition includes Dr. James Beck and Elke Babiuk (Calgary, Alberta); Marlene Kane (Nova Scotia); Diane Sprules (Oakville, Ontario); Cindy Mayor (Hamilton, Ontario); Carol Clinch and Robert Flemming (Waterloo, Ontario); Chris Gupta (London, Ontario); Peter van Caulart (Niagara region, Ontario); Karen Buck and Aliss Terpstra (Toronto); Linda Gasser and Kerry Mayhem (Oshawa, Ontario); our stalwart friends in Quebec (Gilles Parent, Jimmy Siles, Pierre Larose et al.) and others from other cities in Canada who came to the FAN conference in August. I have met each of these individuals in person and I can emphatically assure you that it is a formidable team ?and it is growing.

Their efforts are getting considerable press coverage ? both local and national. This includes the extensive coverage surrounding the triple conference events in Toronto (ISFR, FAN and CSE) in August. Starting with our press conference (August 7) featuring Dr. Vyvyan Howard, President of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment, and ending with Dr. Susheela’s rousing presentation downtown Toronto (August 11), those events provided a solid scientific information base from which journalists have been able to build and ask the kind of questions which mainstream journalists in the US (let alone Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand etc.) seldom ask.

For example see the article by Paul Berton (son of the distinguished Canadian author Pierre Berton) published in multiple papers (Toronto Sun, Edmonton Sun, Calgary Sun, London Free Press, Vancouver Sun, Winnipeg Sun, Ottawa Sun) at http://fluoride.ecobytes.net/Alert/Canada/Alberta/Time-to-brush-up-on-fluoride-risks. Also see an excellent letter (”Fluoride in water is useless”) it sparked from the former mayor of Chatham, Ontario, Margaret N. Archibald, QC, at http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Opinion/Letters/2008/10/06/6991101-sun.html .

In addition, the October 8 issue of the Waterloo Gazette (Ontario) had three articles on fluoride:

– The first describes a visit of citizens and councilors to the local water works where Peter Van Caulart (Environmental Education Institute) explained the dangers and difficulties of handling the hexafluorosilicic acid, the most common chemical used to fluoridate water at http://fluoride.ecobytes.net/Alert/Canada/Ontario/Water-expert-looks-at-how-fluoride-gets-in-our-water-and-its-origins.

– The second article talks about the source of the hexafluorosilicic acid at http://fluoride.ecobytes.net/Alert/Canada/Ontario/Welcome-to-state-of-Fluorid-a-on-hydrofluorisilicic-acid.

– The third features a guest column by Robert Flemming: “Bottled Water Ban just a Cover” at http://fluoride.ecobytes.net/Alert/Canada/Ontario/Water-bottle-ban-just-a-cover.

All these articles can be accessed from FAN’s “Latest News” section on the left hand side of our home page. I urge our readers to avail themselves of this service, which we update on a daily basis — especially when, like now, I have a very busy travel schedule and the number of bulletins I am able to send is limited. You will note that whenever an article is posted, it becomes permanently accessible, unlike the original. There are also links on the right hand side of the article to all the other stories from the same state or country. Using the links, one can always examine the details of each story in the context of what has happened before in the area in question.

FAN’s “Latest News” section is one of our most visited sites. You may recall that on March 17 the FAN site had a cataclysmic melt down and we feared that we had lost the large accumulation of “Latest News” articles. Fortunately, the articles were rescued by a group of talented computer experts and were restored online the first week of August.

You can help make this section even more helpful by sending us any article on fluoride which appears in your local newspapers as they are often not available on Google. We will then place them in the “Latest News section. Send them to Ellen at info@fluoridealert.org -or mail us the hard copy.

Turning to our ultimate goal, what we need to WIN this battle against fluoridation is more national coalitions like the one in Canada, more journalists prepared to take the lid off this can of worms and more professionals examining the issue ? who will then, then, hopefully, join the over 1800 professionals who have signed the Professionals’ statement calling for an end to fluoridation worldwide. See http://www.FluorideAlert.org/professionals.statement.html

Paul Connett

PS: Our funds are running very low and we plan to launch our annual fundraiser towards the end of the year. Meanwhile, please consider making a tax deductible donation now to support our continued efforts to bring about our common goal of ending fluoridation worldwide. Making a donation is very easy to do. Just go to our web site at http://www.FluorideAlert.org and click on the DONATE button on the right hand side of the home page.