Let us see what the experts say about Fluoride

By Cynthia A. Janak

I was very intrigued by what I found out about fluoride so I wanted to find out what the experts had to say about fluoride in our water.

This is taken from the Chadron http://www.thechadronnews.com/articles/2008/10/24/chadron/brief/news502.txt

Record, Friday, October 24, 2008

There are some, however, who believe fluoridation should not be done on a community-wide level for various reasons. Dr. Arvid Carlsson of Sweden, the 2000 Nobel Prize winner in physiology or medicine, says individual differences in reactions to a medication such as fluoride should be weighed. One person may react differently to the substance, and therefore, it should be handled on an individualized basis rather than in a community-wide prescription.

A report by the Collaborative on Health and the Environments Learning and Development Disabilities released earlier this year cites studies that indicate ingesting too much fluoride could cause health problems. One study said too much of the medication can decrease thyroid hormone levels, and a Chinese study linked lower IQ levels to fluoridated water.

The Environmental Protection Agency's maximum standard for fluoride is 4 milligrams per liter. However, two years ago, the National Academy of Science found that amount can cause dental fluorosis n spots on the teeth — and weakened bones. The study also pointed out that a 20-40 percent decrease in tooth decay from fluoridation equals less than one tooth surface per person.

Opponents also say community fluoridation takes away an individual's right to consent to medical treatment. They also argue that fluoride is more beneficial when it is applied directly to the teeth in the form of toothpaste than it is when ingested.

Those against fluoridation also claim that in order to afford the process, many cities and villages get their supply of fluoride in the form of hydrofluorosilicic acid, a classified hazardous waste captured in the production of phosphate fertilizer. Dr. Joseph Mercola, a family practitioner who founded a natural health Web site, Mercola.com, says many of the studies lauding the benefits of fluoride are done on systems that use pharmaceutical grade fluoride and not the waste product that many cities use.

Here is the information on the Chinese study that they were mentioning.

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/newscience/2007/2007-0705wangetal.html

Wang SX, ZH Wang, XT Cheng, J Li, ZP Sang, XD Zhang, LL Han, SY Qiao, ZM Wu and ZQ Wang. 2007. Arsenic and fluoride exposure in drinking water: children's IQ and growth in Shanyin County, Shanxi province, China. Environmental Health Perspectives 115(4):643-7.

Synopsis by Dr. Sheela Sathyanarayana and Wendy Hessler

Chinese children drinking well water with very high levels of fluoride scored poorly on intelligence testing compared to those with lower exposures.

This is one of the first studies in humans to find that too much fluoride is associated with low performance on intelligence tests. More information is needed to ascertain if the sum total amount of ingested fluoride from tap water, consumer products and other sources are enough to inhibit brain development in children living in the US and other countries where fluoridation is common.

At this time, there are no studies quantitating the sum of all fluoride exposures for an average child in the US. The American Dental Association has recommended that infants not be given formula reconstituted with fluoridated water to prevent excess exposures. Further studies should measure all fluoride exposures to children to prevent fluorosis and potential neurodevelopmental toxicities.

Fluoride & Organized Dentistry: Big Losers Election Day

http://www.placerherald.com/detail/99056.html

New York — November 15, 2008 — Fifty-three cities rejected fluoridation in referenda held in four states on November 4, 2008, according to the Fluoride Action Network (FAN).

Forty-nine Nebraska cities said "no thanks" in referenda on Election Day.

Corning NY residents passed a citizen-initiated referendum to rescind their city council's right to decide the issue for them — effectively halting fluoridation. A pro-fluoridation dentist raised $100,000, mostly from dental organizations, to fund the fluoridation scheme. Corning joins 15 NY State communities that have rejected fluoridation in past years.

Also voting down fluoridation: Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin; Jackman and Moose River, Maine.

"Once again we have seen confirmed — from Maine to Nebraska — that informed citizens, when given a choice, will reject fluoridation," says FAN Executive Director, Paul Connett, PhD. "This is not surprising considering twenty-three studies now link fluoride exposure to lowered IQ." Health effects from fluoride can be found here: http://www.FluorideAction.net/health

Alamo Heights, Texas rejected fluoridation in September 2008. A city council member who is a retired geophysicist, with a keen interest in research and the time to do it, confronted Texas "fluoridation experts" who were unable to answer important safety questions. As a result, the council unanimously said "No" to fluoridation.

After researching both the ADA and Centers for Disease Control's fluoridation information, a Hastings, Nebraska businessman turned activist against fluoridation because those in favor of fluoridation were never able to prove that it was harmless.

(See: http://www.hastingstribune.com/news111108_faces.html )

Other US cities rejecting fluoridation in 2008 prior to Election Day: Littleton and Yarmouth, Massachusetts; Poughkeepsie, NY; Manila, California; Marion, Wisconsin.

In Canada: Quebec City, Quebec; Dryden, Welland, Pelham, and parts of Thorold, Ontario

In the UK: Isle of Man; Pendle, Hyndburn, and Lancashire, England.

In New Zealand: Alexandra, Earnslceugh/Manuheriki and Cromwell.

Fluoride Vote: Yes or No?

Grand Island
Posted: 7:00 PM Oct 28, 2008
Last Updated: 7:04 PM Oct 28, 2008
Reporter: Sara Geake

http://www.kolnkgin.com/2008election/headlines/33473934.html

"We know they're putting it in the water at 1 part per million, but we've also found that there are issues tied with fluoridation all the way down to .7 parts per million," said Chuck Carpenter, spokesperson for Nebraskans For Safe Water.

"They're finding things in China with lower I.Q. in children. They're finding forms of cancer in New Jersey where they've had a chance to do some severe studying."

"It's a medicine being delivered to the people, and you set a dangerous precedent when you start mass medicating the public to get to a small segment of the population," said Carpenter.

During my research I found this nice tidbit that I know you would be interested in. It comes from the National Treasury Employees Union, Chapter 280 out of Washington, D.C. Here are two excerpts from the press release.

http://www.nteu280.org/Issues/Fluoride/Press%20Release.%20Fluoride.htm

PRESS RELEASE FOR AUGUST 19, 2005
EPA Unions Call for Nationwide Moratorium on Fluoridation, Congressional Hearing on Adverse Effects, Youth Cancer Cover Up

Eleven EPA employee unions representing over 7000 environmental and public health professionals of the Civil Service have called for a moratorium on drinking water fluoridation programs across the country, and have asked EPA management to recognize fluoride as posing a serious risk of causing cancer in people. The unions acted following revelations of an apparent cover-up of evidence from Harvard School of Dental Medicine linking fluoridation with elevated risk of a fatal bone cancer in young boys.

The unions who signed the letters represent EPA employees from across the nation, including laboratory scientists in Ohio, Oklahoma and Michigan, regulatory support scientists and other workers at EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C. and science and regulatory workers in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and San Francisco. They are affiliated with the National Treasury Employees Union, the American Federation of Government Employees, Engineers and Scientists of California/International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, and the National Association of Government Employee/Service Employees International Union.

While I was checking out the rest of the site, I came upon the history of the NTEU Chapter 280 that I found to be very informative. I know this section is long but I tried to just pull excerpts but it would not have done the NTEU 280 justice.

http://www.nteu280.org/history.htm

Fluoride and Professional Ethics As that battle was raging, another one was in the making. While EPA was engaged in revising its drinking water standard for fluoride in 1985, an employee came to the union with a complaint. He said he was being forced to write into the regulation a statement that offended his sense of professional ethics. The statement was to the effect that EPA thought it was alright for children to have "funky teeth" (as he put it) i.e., severe dental fluorosis. It was OK, EPA said, because that condition was only a cosmetic effect, not an adverse health effect. The reason for this EPA position was that it was under political pressure to set its health-based standard for fluoride at 4 mg/liter. At that level, EPA knew that a significant number of children develop moderate to severe dental fluorosis, but since it had deemed the effect as only cosmetic, EPA didn't have to set its health-based standard at a lower level to prevent it.

We tried to settle this ethics issue quietly, within the family, but EPA was unable or unwilling to resist external political pressure, and we took the fight public with a union amicus curiae brief in a 1986 lawsuit filed against EPA by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The more union scientists looked into the fluoride issue, the darker it got.

For example, we uncovered a letter from the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Water telling a citizen that EPA views the use of hydrofluosilicic acid to fluoridate water supplies as "an ideal solution to a long standing problem. By recovering by-product fluosilicic (sic) acid from fertilizer manufacturing, water and air pollution are minimized. . ." In other words, this stuff that would be considered a pollutant if it got into the air or dumped into a river, is OK as long as it is dumped straight into a drinking water reservoir. The solution to pollution is dilution, according to this official. Thus EPA turns a toxic waste whose disposal would cost the fertilizer industry many millions of dollars into a pure profit item for industry worth many millions of dollars.

In May, 1992, EPA fired the Office of Drinking Water's chief toxicologist, who also was our local union's Treasurer at the time, for refusing to remain silent on the fluoride cancer risk issue. This occurred following publication in 1991 of a National Toxicology Program bioassay of sodium fluoride that showed male rats got bone cancer after dosing with fluoride at levels only about one hundred-fold greater than the public receives. The judge who heard the lawsuit brought against EPA over the firing made the finding that EPA fired the toxicologist over his fluoride work, and not for the phony reason put forward by EPA management at his dismissal. He won his lawsuit and was put back on the payroll at EPA in 1994, with back pay and a $50,000 damage award, but only after the Agency was forced to do so by the Secretary of Labor and public embarrassment.

In 1997, the union was asked to write a support letter, outlining our past involvement with the fluoride issue, for Dr. Phyllis Mullenix, a neurotoxicologist, who was suing her former employer for firing her because she published a paper on the neurotoxicity of sodium fluoride. This we did. That letter came to the attention of some California citizens. They then asked the union to endorse the Californians For Safe Drinking Water ballot initiative aiming to keep fluoride out of that State's water supplies. Before calling for a vote of its members on this request, the union arranged a seminar by Prof. Paul Connett of St. Lawrence University and Dr. Bob Carton, our former Local President, covering toxicity data published in the mid and late 1990's. Based on the seminar and the preponderance of other adverse information on fluoride of which we had become aware since 1985, we voted unanimously to endorse the California initiative.

We published a White Paper in May 1999 on the subject of fluoride toxicity and water fluoridation that is now on the Internet. Two scientists from the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, who happen also to be union officers, sent a memo to EPA's Children's Health Protection work group on neurotoxicity hazards that could be experienced by children from fluoride, based on recent studies (never receiving the courtesy of an acknowledgment of that memo). We have asked EPA to supply non-fluoridated water to its Headquarters employees, and we have been responding to inquiries from the public, press and government officials who want to know about the union's stand on this issue. We also worked through 1999 and into 2000 with Congressional Committees as they began to inquire into this issue.

In June 2000, the union was invited to testify before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Water. In our testimony we called attention to the vast amount of adverse information on fluoridation that has accumulated since Congress last studied the issue and called for a national moratorium on the practice pending anepidemiology study. The epidemiology study would use childhood dental fluorosis as the index of exposure and behavioral problems and bone pathology as the effects of concern. We also called for an independent review of cancer slides from the 1991 National Toxicology Program bioassay on sodium fluoride, for chronic toxicity testing of hydrofluosilicic acid, and for a full Congressional hearing on fluoridation. Citizen groups around the country also are petitioning Congress for a hearing, the last previous one having been held in 1977.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/31/obama-supports-union-organizing

Obama supports union organizing

Donald Lambro
Thursday, July 31, 2008

Legislation that would make it more difficult for workers to hold a private ballot vote in unionization drives, which critics say would lead to harassment and intimidation, has spurred a pitched battle between powerful labor unions supportive of Sen. Barack Obama and big business in the presidential campaign.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, a staunch opponent of the bill, has said it would deny a democratic right of workers to decide by secret ballot whether they will come under union representation or not.

The bill is "a poorly-disguised attempt by the labor unions to swell their ranks at the expense of workers' rights and employers. John McCain strongly opposes the efforts of the labor unions to strip working Americans of their right to a private ballot in deciding whether or not to organize as a union," the McCain campaign said.

I know you are wondering what this last article has to do with fluoridation. Let me put it all together for you.

What we have is the potential with the next administration to cater to big business and not the public safety and health. To avoid this from happening we need to contact our elected officials and stay in contact with them to promote our Constitutional rights and our rights to be able to live in a safe environment.

Here we have the proof that fluoridation of our water is potentially dangerous to the citizens of this country and the communities that recognize this threat which are doing something. They are standing together and making their voices heard by voting. Now it is our turn to take the initiative to protect ourselves and our neighbors from any further encroachment of big government and big business.

Our business should be promoting the small business owner to hire more employees which will bring forth a better economy for all not the bonus checks of corporate executives as seen with the banking bailout and auto industry.

We The People are the stewards of this country and we need to take our job seriously as laid out by our forefathers in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Come visit my website at http://www.cynthiajanak.com

© Cynthia A. Janak