FAN Bulletin 1083

July 20, 2009,

Tomorrow I am off to the UK for two weeks, speaking on both waste and fluoridation in Wales, England and Scotland. I will be keeping in touch via internet and email and Ellen will be holding the fort this end. Ellen’s email info@fluoridealert.org .

FAN was shocked when we found out from a media release that students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had spearheaded the effort to get mandatory fluoridation into Mississippi. The article below indicates that five graduate students from a masters program on public health, aided and abetted by their professor Edward “Ned” Brooks and the dental director of the state of Mississippi, were able to persuade the Mississippi Health Board to pass this retrogressive legislation and even worse that they were proud to do it.

This raises serious questions about this University course:

* What reading material was made available to these students?

* What discussion took place on the ethics of this practice and the ethics of forcing it on a whole state?

* How much attention did the students and the professor pay to both sides of the debate?

* To what extent were they encouraged to challenge the pronouncements from promoting agencies like the CDC and the ADA?

* Did they consider the Professionals’ Statement calling for an end to fluoridation worldwide, and if they did, did they wonder why over 2500 professionals have signed this statement?

* What consideration was given to the contents of the 507-page National Research Council report Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Review of EPA’s Standards (NRC, 2006) and the voluminous scientific literature available on fluoride’s toxicity in FAN’s health database?

* Did the students determine that there was an adequate margin of safety to protect everyone drinking water at 1 ppm, regardless of how much water they drink?

* Did they include the ADA warning from Nov 9, 2006, that parents be advised not to use fluoridated water to make up baby formula? Did they make any recommendations how families of low income could access non-fluoridated water?

* How did the students rationalize the fact that infants who consume formula reconstituted with fluoridated tap water will receive approximately 250 times more fluoride than the human-fed infant?

* How did the students rationalize the potential of lowered IQ in children from exposure to fluoride. Eighteen papers have been published reporting this association, and there are five others which have yet to be translated from Chinese. The links to these full-text published papers have been available online at the Fluoride Action Network for the past year at http://fluoridealert.org/iq.studies.html

* How did the students rationalize the use of an industrial waste for use as the fluoridating agent in public drinking water?

We hope readers who know anyone affiliated with this university, whether it be faculty members, students or administrators, will pose these questions to them. They need to hear what an outrage this is and what a poor message it sends out to the rest of the world about the quality of American university education.

If you do not know anyone at UNC please consider sending an email to Erstine Bowles, President of UNC at Chapel Hill, at ebowles@northcarolina.edu . If you are pushed for time you might simply forward this whole bulletin to him.

The new mandatory ruling is already being used in the attempt to get more communities in Mississippi to fluoridate. The first community targeted appears to be Greenwood, but the move is being greeted with a certain amount of skepticism ? probably more than the UNC students and Professor Edward Brooks exercised (see media report below)

Paul Connett

UNC Students’ Research Contributes to Fluoridated Water Legislation in Mississippi
ASPH [Association of Schools of Public Health] FRIDAY LETTER #1575
June 26, 2009
http://www2.fluoridealert.org/Alert/United-States/Mississippi/UNC-Students-Research-Contributes-to-Fluoridated-Water-Legislation-in-Mississippi
ALSO AT http://www.sph.unc.edu/hpaa/research_news.html

Greenwood: Fluoridate or not? Dentist says it would improve both water and teeth
Greenwood Commonwealth
July 18, 2009
By Charlie Smith, News Editor
http://www2.fluoridealert.org/Alert/United-States/Mississippi/Greenwood-Fluoridate-or-not-Dentist-says-it-would-improve-both-water-and-teeth

Regulation Govererning [sic] Fluoridation of Community Water Supplies
Mississippi Office of Health Protection, Bureau of Public Water Supply
April 08, 2009
http://www2.fluoridealert.org/Alert/United-States/Mississippi/Regulation-Govererning-sic-Fluoridation-of-Community-Water-Supplies