FAN Bulletin 1087

August 11, 2009,

First a correction to yesterday’s bulletin, we will be sending a “plaque” to our 2009 winners of Albert Burgstahler Scientific Integrity Award - not a “plague”! We are saving the latter for the proponents (only kidding). Now to more serious stuff.

For 13 years I have had to read editorials like the one that appeared a few days ago in the Mercury News, a newspaper that supposedly serves San Jose, California. Editorials like this are typical of the way that fluoridation is slipped into unsuspecting communities. First, comes an announcement that fluoridation is being considered - or - that at long last money is now available to finance the scheme ? or - that several groups of “highly respected” dentists as well as local professional bodies and social organizations have got together to endorse fluoridation. A few days later comes the editorial in the local paper, containing the usual rhetoric: “Our town is behind the times.” “Every scientific body says that fluoridation is the best thing since sliced bread.” “All the scientists and professional bodies say it is ’safe and effective’” and “only a vocal minority is holding us back” blah blah blah.

For those who know the issue it is nauseating that supposedly “professional” journalists can do so much damage while doing so little ? if any ?homework. For those who do not know the issue it must be so easy to go along with the honeyed words and be deluded into thinking that “progress” is being served and rampant tooth decay among the children of low-income families is going to be cured. They will probably feel that it is great that money has been found to finance such a worthy cause!

You can read the Mercury News editorial below. If it makes you as angry as it does me, and especially if you live in California, then please consider sending in a letter along the same lines as the one I have sent in below.

Please email to letters-to-the-editor and various officers at the newspaper by sending your message to
letters@mercurynews.com, dbutler@mercurynews.com, pdelevett@mercurynews.com, jfensterwald@mercurynews.com, bmarshman@mercurynews.com, mtully@mercurynews.com

Please let me know if you have had time to do this. Many thanks.

Paul Connett

My letter sent in on August 10:

Your Unprofessional Editorial

Dear Editor,

Like every citizen in a democracy you are entitled to your opinion. However, your readers are entitled to expect you to behave professionally. Lest you have forgotten, that means that you are expected to visit both sides of a controversial issue before you issue your opinion. In the case of your fluoridation editorial (August 8) you have not done this. You have simply parroted one side without making any effort to investigate the other. If you honestly believe what you wrote then you have been duped.

It only takes a very little effort to get the other side of this issue. All you needed to do was to type 21 characters into your computer: www.FluorideAlert.org There you could have watched 15 professionals talk about the “science” and the “ethical” issues involved in this debate and explain why fluoridation is a very bad idea.

You could have also read the statement now signed by over 2500 professionals calling for an end to fluoridation worldwide. Even better you might have investigated the document on which this statement is largely based, namely the 507-page review by a panel, appointed by the National Research Council, entitled “Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Review of EPA’s Standards” published in March 2006. This is accessible from the same web site (scroll down on the right hand side). If time was you might simply have read a short article published in the Scientific American in January, 2008 entitled “Second Thoughts about Fluoride” by Dan Fagin. In that article there is a short statement by the chairman of the NRC panel, Dr. John Doull, which might have given you pause before you wholeheartedly and unreservedly recommended that fluoridation be imposed on the unsuspecting citizens of San Jose. Here is the section in which Dr. Doull was quoted:

“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.”

I believe that you owe your readers an apology for your rash assumptions in this matter. If professional journalism means anything to you ? and of course, it may not - you need to go back and do your homework. Among the many things a democracy needs to survive is a strong and objective Fourth Estate. Without it corruption is allowed to flourish and sadly, as in this case, foolish public health policies can continue without being informed by sound science. I do not say these things lightly. I am a scientist and I have spent 13 years investigating this issue and I am appalled by the way newspapers like yours treat this matter and how badly editors like yourself represent your profession.

Dr. Paul Connett,
Professor Emeritus of Environmental Chemistry,
St. Lawrence University, Canton NY
Executive Director, Fluoride Action Network

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Editorial: The evidence is clear: Let’s fluoridate San Jose’s water
Mercury News
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_13022725?nclick_check=1

August 8, 2009

For all of Silicon Valley’s talk of embracing science, it’s stunning that much of the water supply in San Jose and Santa Clara County isn’t treated with fluoride - one of the most basic scientific advances in public health of the past century.

So it’s heartening to see that the Health Trust, with support from city and county officials, is launching a capital campaign to cover the estimated $18 million cost of fluoridating drinking water throughout the county.

Some areas already have fluoride, including Evergreen and other parts of San Jose served by the city’s municipal water system. But most of the city is served by the private San Jose Water Co., and it has not taken on the cost of fluoridating its water.

The project will be complex, since more than 100 wells are scattered throughout San Jose. And it will be controversial because of an extremely vocal minority who fight fluoridation whenever and wherever it’s proposed.

The scientific evidence of the benefits of fluoride is overwhelming, however - especially for children. Today one in every three kindergartners in Santa Clara County has untreated tooth decay that will likely lead to greater health problems and cause pain that interferes with early learning. Cities with fluoridated water report decreases in tooth decay of 18 to 40 percent.

From the national Centers for Disease Control to the local Santa Clara County Public Health Department, credible health agencies are strong proponents of fluoridation.

For far too long, San Jose has held the dubious distinction of being the largest city in the United States that doesn’t fluoridate its water. It’s past time to make that a bad memory.