FAN Bulletin 2030

September 2, 2010

As we continue to receive support in response to Dr. Mercola’s “One town at a time” initiative to end fluoridation, our efforts for the fall have received another a huge boost.

We had a very large number of applicants for the Campaign Manager position. They had a wide variety of backgrounds, skills and qualifications. Thanks to all of you who threw your name into the ring. As we reviewed this list we realized what a wonderful group of people fighting this monstrous practice we have. So talented in fact that we ended up hiring two people- not just one as we had originally intended. We have hired both a Campaign Manager and a Science and Health Liaison Officer.

FAN’s new Campaign Manager is Stuart Cooper. Stuart has nearly a decade of government affairs and campaign management experience at the local, state, and federal levels. Prior to joining FAN, he managed government relations and public affairs services for numerous corporations, nonprofits, and industry associations at New Hampshire’s leading lobbying firm, Policy Management Associates.

Stuart has extensive campaign management and media relations experience, getting his start as a Field Director for the Maine People’s Alliance during their successful campaigns for a cleaner Penobscot river and state-level healthcare reform in Maine. Most recently, Stuart was the campaign manager of the Washington, DC based nonprofit MPP (Marijuana Policy Project) during their presidential primary campaign, where he recruited and coordinated a large advocacy network of doctors, nurses, and medical professionals and lobbied all 18 presidential candidates and their campaign staff. His campaign resulted in 10 of the 18 presidential candidates, including Barack Obama, publicly pledging their support, and in 2009 resulted in an Obama administration executive order. His campaigns have been covered by media outlets throughout New England, as well national media outlets including, CNN, C-SPAN, CBS, NBC, Sirius Radio, Reason Magazine, Associated Press, Politico, and Wired magazine. He has been called a “fixture on the campaign trail” by Campaigns and Elections magazine, and credited with “inventing a new form of lobbying: video lobbying” by TechPresident. Stuart lives in New Hampshire.

FAN’s new Science & Health Liaison Officer is Tara Blank. Tara is a Ph.D. Biologist whose background includes aquatic toxicology, environmental impact assessment, developmental physiology, endocrinology, chemistry and biostatistics. She has worked with several programs to educate and involve the public in scientific studies that directly impact their local communities. Tara also has nearly a decade of film production experience, including involvement in documentaries and independent feature films. She currently lives in San Antonio, Texas.

Stuart and Tara need your support

As talented as these two appointees are they cannot win this battle alone. They will need your ongoing support on two fronts: from people at the grass roots level and from professionals.

Stuart is going to need an army of people who are willing to say “I want fluoridation out of my town” and are prepared to do something about it. That something can start by organizing a meeting with like-minded people in order to set up a group to organize to achieve this end. You could call yourselves: “Fluoride Free (your town’s name)” or FAN-your town’s name.”

So the best way you can welcome Stuart is to contact the FAN state representative in your state (see list below) and volunteer to be a point person for your town. (Since yesterday’s bulletin we have added California, Missouri and New Jersey). In some instances Stuart will be working through the state representative and in others directly with local point persons. So please send in your name, your town, your email address and your phone number to your state rep. If your state doesn’t have a rep (yet) please send this information to me.

The best way you can help Tara is to encourage more professionals to sign the professionals’ statement calling for an end to fluoridation (they can sign up online). And if you are one of those 3,000 + professionals we urge you now to offer your services to Tara to help local communities in your state or country to get this issue discussed in the institutions or in the professional bodies to which you belong. For far too long too many dentists have allowed their opinions to be dictated by the ADA; too many doctors have stood back and allowed dentists to run a show they have no credentials to run and too many scientists have stood idly by while the fluoridation proponents have played havoc with genuine science.

Hopefully the new book, due for release next month, will help more professionals get informed and get involved. We need our best-informed professionals to give presentations in their communities, dental and medical schools, and universities to help educate the next generation. We also need to have a greater presence at professional meetings. Hopefully, Tara will help to achieve some of this but she is going to need a lot of help. Meanwhile, she will be updating FAN’s health database and provide monthly digests of the latest scientific papers on this issue.

Our ability to make these new appointments has been made possible by a bequest from the late Carol Patton. We have taken a bit of a gamble by putting a large part of that bequest into these positions but we feel confident that the exciting activities that they will help to generate will in turn generate more contributions. So if you are not in a position to be a point person for your town and would still like to be part of the momentum building up on the efforts to rid the world of this reckless practice then please consider a donation to keep this effort going into the future. Tax-deductible donations can be made online at https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=5061

Please send a warm welcome to Stuart Cooper stuartecooper@gmail.com and Tara Blank taramonet@yahoo.com Let them know a little about yourself and how you got involved.

Paul Connett

FLUORIDATION POINT PEOPLE BY STATE

CANADA

Alberta - James Beck

Ontario - Diane Sprules

Quebec - Gilles Parent

UNITED STATES

Arkansas - Crystal Harvey

Arizona - Laurie LeDuc >

California (Southern) - Diane Bourdeau

California (Northern) - Jeanette Bajorek

Colorado - Cathy Justus

DC, Metro Region -Cynthia Erville

Florida - Kurt and Marcia Irmischer

Georgia -Dan Stockin

Louisiana - Vic Hummert

Maryland - Bernie Miltenberger

Massachusetts - Mike Dolan (Central and South Mass) (Boston area) - Bill Patenaude

Minnesota - Jason Kreuger

Missouri - Barry Pulley

New Hampshire - Katie Lajoie,

New Jersey - Harvey Kunz

New York - Carol Kopf

North Carolina - Evan Folds >

Oregon - Kimberly Kaminski,

Pennsylvania - Mike Ewall

Tennessee - Jack Cook

Texas - Rae Nadler-Oelnick

Vermont - Karl Novak

Virginia - Ken Case

Washington - Audrey Adams audrey55@comcast.net