FAN Bulletin 1051
 
March 11, 2009

Crystal Harvey (crystalthepink@gmail.com) strikes again. Another attempt to introduce a mandatory fluoridation bill before the Arkansas legislature legislature has failed. No bill was introduced before the deadline was passed.

The article below may explain why. More importantly the article - and the lawyer’s letter it contains - may provide many other communities and countries confronted with fluoridation a means of combating this foolish practice.

As most of our readers have experienced first hand, a key plank in the promotion of this practice is for people with “authority” to stand up before decision makers, and declare that fluoridation is “safe and effective” along with many other assertions which are wholly untrue or partly so (half truths). And they usually get away with it, because they have titles like “State Dental Director.” In the eyes of the ill-informed, their “authority” is often sufficient to drown out real arguments and real science. They have the power and the money and they know how to use both to keep this practice going. They have been getting away with this “strategy” for over 60 years, seldom having to defend their position scientifically in writing, or in an open public debate or under oath in Congressional Hearings or in court.

Thus it is that promoters can make pronouncements like the National Research Council 2006 report, “Fluoride in Drinking Water” is not relevant to water fluoridation because the authors only looked at studies of people drinking water at 4 ppm.” They argue that 4 ppm is much higher than the levels used in fluoridated communities (0.7 ? 1.2 ppm).  Such an assertion betrays a total lack of understanding (and I would say willful misunderstanding) of toxicology and the critical need for a “margin of safety” analysis to protect whole populations once a harmful effect has been established at any dose level in studies involving a relatively small number of people.  They also dismissed the fact that the report found that many population subsets were receiving too much fluoride even at the level of 1 ppm fluoride in drinking water, due to their consumption of greater than average amounts of water or due to their body weight (such as infants and children).  However the claim that the NRC report is irrelevant to water fluoridation has been made repeatedly by many pro-fluoridation authorities since its publication in 2006. This claim was made most recently by the South Central Strategic Health Authority (SHA) in Southampton, UK, and by Bazian Ltd., the consultants the SHA hired to do a hatchet job on the NRC report. Before them was the NHMRC (2007) report in Australia, and before them was the CDC, just six days after the NRC (2006) report was published and before them the ADA, on the actual day the NRC report was published (March 22, 2006). Such willful misunderstanding is self serving since all the entities cited zealously promote water fluoridation whatever the science and whatever the costs to human health and medical ethics. How wonderful it must be to be able to dismiss three and half years work, 507 pages and 1000 references in a single sentence ? and get away with it!

At last, someone has challenged this nonsense legally. See the 11-page letter sent by lawyer Janie Evins, to Dr. Lynn Moulton, the Dental Director of Arkansas, with respect to the testimony he gave to the Arkansas legislature a few months back at http://fluoridealert.org/arkansas.2-19-09.letter.pdf . This letter is a “must read” for anyone fighting fluoridation. My suggestions: check with any lawyer to see if similar letters can be sent to the “authority” figures who promote or defend fluoridation in your community or country. First, track down a statement made by one of the promoters in your community in which you believe they have made misleading or false statements. Second, check with any lawyer to see if a similar letter can be sent to the “authority” figure who promotes or defends fluoridation in your community or country. The ultimate charge may be that they are encouraging local officials to practice medicine without a license. That is bad enough but if they are doing so using false or misleading statements then that is even worse.

Meanwhile, in the race between science and sleaze as of 10 am March 11, 2009, the total number of professionals signing the statement calling for an end to fluoridation worldwide has risen to 2179 ( http://www.fluorideAlert.org/professionals.statement.html ) and the number of viewers of the Osmunson, Howard and Foster video vignettes has risen to 108,897, 20,523 and 8,347 respectively ( http://www.youtube.com/user/fluoridealert ). I can’t wait until we get the same kind of numbers of people watching the NEW 29 minute DVD, “Professional Perspectives on the Fluoridation Debate.” We will be posting this online as soon as we get a small glitch in the Osmunson vignette ironed out. For those who wish to get a hard copy of this with the glitch still in you can do so for the bargain price of $15 US or $17 outside US (includes 1st class postage). Please note there is no glitch in the 29 video itself only in the 5 minute piece featuring Bill Osmunson, added as an extra. To order the DVD you can either send us a check (payable to FAN) to Connett, 82 Judson Street, Canton, NY 13617 or email us at info@FluorideAlert.org and let us know that you have made a donation (for the same amount) using our “donate now” secure server at https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=5061.

Paul Connett

State oral health director challenged over comments about fluoridation
March 10, 2009
By Kathryn Lucariello
Carroll County News

EUREKA SPRINGS — The battle against mandated fluoridation in the State of Arkansas has again been enjoined by concerned citizens, who are challenging recent statements made by the state’s oral health director.

A letter http://fluoridealert.org/arkansas.2-19-09.letter.pdf  dated Feb. 19, 2009, by Hot Springs attorney Janie Evins, representing a group of concerned citizens, challenged State Oral Health Director Lynn Mouden on several statements he made while testifying before the House and Senate Interim Committee on Public Health, Welfare and Labor on Dec. 18, 2008.

A copy of the letter was forwarded to the Carroll-Boone Water District (CBWD), who provides unfluoridated water to its four member cities of Eureka Springs, Berryville, Green Forest and Harrison and their subsidiaries.

In the letter, Evins demands retraction of eight “false or misleading statements” about fluoridation made as fact, and not opinion, in Mouden’s position as a dentist and public servant. It demands he either state they are his opinion, or if fact, support them with scientific proof, or retract them. He had five working days to respond or the citizens would take further action.

Evins says Mouden’s use of his membership in the state and national dental associations and his public servant position to promote fluoridation is unethical and “likely to mislead or deceive because of a failure to disclose material facts” about fluoridation.

The result of unfairly influencing a positive outcome toward mandated fluoridation, she says, will place an undue burden upon the state’s citizens to purchase costly devices to remove fluoride from their water if they don’t want it.

Her letter challenges the truth in several of Mouden’s statements, such as that fluoridation is “merely the intentional upward adjustment” of a naturally occurring fluoride ion. It omits that other toxic chemicals, such as arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury, included in the industrial waste fluoride product, would also be added to the water.

Also challenged is Mouden’s statement that “tooth decay is a fluoride deficiency disease,” as though fluoride were an essential vitamin.

In 2008, CBWD Office Manager and Water Operator Jim Allison and 10 other water operators at Carroll-Boone wrote a letter to Mouden asking, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), whether new legislation was afoot in the state legislature to require fluoridation of the water supply and whether affected parties, such as water district operators, would be notified.

He and the water operators expressed their “adamant opposition” to mandated fluoridation.

The only response they received was a statement that their questions did not fall under the FOIA.

The fluoridation issue has been on the table for CBWD’s member cities twice before but was defeated both times.

“All the cities wanted it except Eureka Springs,” Allison said. “It was their city councils that voted for it, but in Eureka they decided it was important enough to let the people decide, and the people turned it down.”

Eureka’s veto was enough to defeat it.

“We told the cities they were welcome to fluoridate the water when it gets to them, but none of them wanted to do that,” Allison said.

Eureka Springs is not the only Arkansas city who turned the vote over to the people. Crystal Harvey of Hot Springs is an avid opponent of mandated medication of the pubic water supply to prevent or treat disease without solid scientific data of its safety and effectiveness and citizen support. She collected petitions which forced the Hot Springs city council to put the issue to a referendum vote. Citizens voted it down.

The measure has also been defeated in other cities, such as Texarkana, where the citizens, as opposed to the city council, were allowed to vote on it.

Harvey said she is not against people choosing to use fluoride. They can get it from their dentists or from department stores and use toothpaste that contains it.

“I’m not anti-fluoride,” she said. “I’m anti-water fluoridation. I am anti-medicating people without their consent.”

Harvey said Evins received a response March 4 from Deputy General Counsel Reginald A. Rogers of the Arkansas Health Department.

Rogers does not respond to the demands in Evins’ letter for proof of Mouden’s statements but merely states, “The comments made by Dr. Lynn Mouden . . . are consistent with credible scientific evidence. Community water fluoridation has been proven in scientific research and practical experience for more than 60 years in the U.S. as being safe and effective. While your client may disagree with some statements made, we base our policy on proven science.”

Harvey said that as Mouden missed the deadline, she sent a copy of Evins’ letter to the governor’s office.

State Representative Mike Burris has filed Bill #1804 for the state legislature this year that will require public water operators not to introduce any chemical additive for the treatment or prevention of a disease without obtaining product review data and making it available to the public.

The chemical must also meet the product classification standard of the American Water Works Association. Water operators violating this law would be liable to pay court costs for enforcement of the law.
http://www2.fluoridealert.org/Alert/United-States/Arkansas/State-oral-health-director-challenged-over-comments-about-fluoridation