Fluoride

[Knobby22]

in 1987, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization, labeled fluorides as “non-classifiable as to their carcinogenicity [ability to cause cancer] in humans.” While they noted that the studies “have shown no consistent tendency for people living in areas with high concentrations of fluoride in the water to have higher cancer rates than those living in areas with low concentrations,” they also noted that the evidence was inadequate to draw conclusions one way or the other."

Convincing argument (not).
You can say the same about Vegemite or Evian mineral water.

 

[Sprinter79]

OK whiskers, what would be a realistic goal for the anti-fluoridites?

Long term, to remove fluoride from drinking water? Fair enough.

Short term, to put in place measures to remove fluoride at a local level until such time as either a) credible scientific studies are able to provide a significant body of evidence to show that fluoride in the drinking water is a significant enough public health issue; or b) a political party has this issue high enough on its priority list so that it acts?

By the way, who do you think has the most to gain from confusion over tap water? It wouldn't be the beverage companies would it?

Just looking at a certain 'bottled water' bottle the other day, I noticed that it contained magnesium...... mmmm tasty!

 

[Whiskers]

Convincing argument (not).
You can say the same about Vegemite or Evian mineral water.

Hi Knobby

That's my point, there is no convincing evidence that fluoride doesn't have a carcinogenic effect, ableit maybe less concern than other health issues. With all issues evaluated in a holistic view there is good reason to err on the side of caution and refrain from mass medication and respect individual rights NOT to medicate with it if they choose so.

I've not heard much complaints about Vegemite, except I think that a Yanke company bought it.

So called 'mineral waters' are being critised and examined. Apparently they actually range from filtered tap water to unadulterated spring or stream water with all sorts of varing elements.

OK whiskers, what would be a realistic goal for the anti-fluoridites?

For Qld who doesn't have it yet... STOP. Do not install intill the Gov acknowledges the risks of increasing exposure are more serious than doing nothing and undertake a HOLISTIC evaluation that enables people to make individual well informed choices about whether to use fluoride or not... preferably in consultation with their GP as they would with any other medication, allowing the GP to consider the other effects of fluoride in present medications, diet, local enviornment etc.

Those who already have fluoridation... I would refrain from consuming it and go to above status.

Even dental groups in the US that believe in some benifit from fluoridation recognise that increasing exposure to fluoride is harmful as the following excerpt from the Oregon Dental Association site

SCIENTISTS SOUND WARNING ON HIGH NATURAL FLUORIDE LEVELS

From the Los Angeles Times By Marla Cone Times Staff Writer
March 23, 2006

A national panel of scientists reported Wednesday that high levels of naturally occurring fluoride in drinking water are leaving children in some communities at risk of tooth enamel damage and adults prone to weakened bones that could lead to fractures.

At the request of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a panel of the National Academy of Sciences examined the EPA's standard, which allows 4 parts per million of fluoride in drinking water supplies.

The panel of the National Research Council reviewed all the scientific evidence about exposure to and effects of fluoride, particularly over the last 12 years. It determined that lowering the EPA's 4-ppm limit would "prevent children from developing severe enamel fluorosis and will reduce the lifetime accumulation of fluoride into bone," which "is likely to put individuals at increased risk of bone fracture."

The panel found insufficient evidence that fluoride increased the rate of bone cancer, a threat debated for decades. They said the evidence was "tentative at best," with some studies showing a link and others not.

Instead, their concerns focused mostly on the tooth enamel of children and the potential for bone weakening in adults.

About 10% of children in communities with drinking water at or near the EPA's fluoride limit develop severe tooth enamel fluorosis, a condition involving extreme staining of developing teeth, the scientists reported. Though the threat is mostly cosmetic, the majority of the scientists on the panel deemed the condition "an adverse health effect" because loss and pitting of enamel can compromise the ability to protect teeth from decay and infection.
In Lowell, Ind., which has drinking water with about 4 ppm of fluoride, 7% of the children had at least one tooth with the worst possible score for the amount of staining from fluorosis, the report says. Similar results were found in Bushnell, Ill., and Lordsburg, N.M., at fluoride levels of 3.5 to 3.8 ppm.

Also, nine members of the 12-person committee decided that 4 ppm of fluoride was likely to increase bone fractures in the population. They said the evidence was inconclusive about the effects of 2 ppm.
http://www.oregondental.org/i4a/pages/headlinedetails.cfm?id=50&archive=1

By the way, who do you think has the most to gain from confusion over tap water? It wouldn't be the beverage companies would it?

Just looking at a certain 'bottled water' bottle the other day, I noticed that it contained magnesium...... mmmm tasty!

Certainly the beverage companies have benifited from confusion over the quality of tap water in the past, but I don't know of any that are promoting any benifits of fluoride. I think many of them also contain varying amounts of fluoride.

Magnesium is classified as an essential element for plant and animal life, albiet in proper balance... I don't believe fluoride can be put in the same catogary. In all my experience of plant sap and soil analysis and even personal blood tests, I have never seen fluoride mentioned as a necessary element, more often associated with undesirable salts.

 

[ajoz]

Came across this interesting article today about children's medication that has not been found to be safe or effective for them to take much less doctors actually knowing how to prescribe them. Perhaps fluoride should be added to the same category and as 'Whiskers' pointed out should not be used unless proven to be 100% safe. Why do we persist with this when there are more than enough countries that don't, yet their children have the same or better dental health without any potential risks or side effects.

A Gap in Knowledge About Kids, Medication

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 23, 2007; Page A01

A decade after the government began trying to ensure that prescription drugs used to treat children work and are safe, doctors still have scant information to guide them when they administer many medications to kids.

Although federal regulators have enticed or forced pharmaceutical companies to conduct hundreds of studies that have produced vital results about more than 200 drugs, perhaps two-thirds of the thousands of medications given to children remain untested on them.

"Are there children dying because of this? I don't know. Are there children being less effectively treated because of this? Probably yes. But I can't tell you because I don't know," said Richard L. Gorman of the American Academy of Pediatrics. "That's the problem: We don't know what we don't know."

What researchers have discovered has been disturbing. A highly effective adult migraine drug, for example, turned out to be worthless in children, while sometimes causing serious side effects, including strokes. An asthma inhaler could inhibit growth. A narcotic patch routinely used to relieve pain, such as after tonsil surgery, could cause fatal overdoses. Doctors were giving far too little of a medicine used to prevent seizures.

The alarming gap in medical knowledge is the legacy of many factors. The testing of drugs in children was shunned for decades as unnecessary and unethical; Congress and the pharmaceutical industry did not provide adequate funding; and conducting medical experiments on children is difficult.


The quandary stems from the same dynamics that left over-the-counter pediatric cold remedies on drugstore shelves despite little evidence that they helped and mounting evidence that they could be dangerous. Pharmaceutical companies, regulators and researchers long thought that doctors could safely extrapolate the results of studies in adults and simply scale down the doses.

"Up to the late 1990s, children were mostly left out of new drug development," said Ralph E. Kauffman, an emeritus professor of pediatrics at the University of Missouri School of Medicine in Kansas City. "It just wasn't thought necessary."

At the same time, pharmaceutical developers had little incentive to focus on children.

"Pediatric patients were always the orphans. People didn't pay enough attention to them. They're just not a big enough market share," said Lisa Mathis, associate director for the pediatric and maternal health staff at the Food and Drug Administration's office for new drugs.

But researchers started to realize that children react to many drugs in surprising ways.

"Children are different; they are not just small adults," said Gregory L. Kearns, a professor of pharmacology and pediatrics at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. "They are not just fractions of adults."

In 1997, Congress began to address the problem. The FDA Modernization Act gave the agency a crucial tool: It could offer companies six precious extra months to sell a drug without competition if they studied it in children. The prospect of millions if not billions of dollars of extra sales stimulated a willingness and the necessary infrastructure to do such testing on a wide scale.

Congress renewed the FDA's authority in 2002 with the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act, which also established mechanisms for the FDA to work with the National Institutes of Health to start scrutinizing some drugs that companies ignored or had no incentive to study because they already had generic competitors.

The legislation called for Congress to appropriate $200 million for the NIH to study the highest-priority medications. And in response to criticism that the pharmaceutical industry was getting a windfall from profitable patent extensions, the legislation established a fund to help finance studies that companies would not at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, a private nonprofit entity.

"There was a lot of horse-trading going on, and the pharmaceutical companies implied they would also step up to the plate," Gorman said.

Advocates pushed for a written commitment from the industry to provide $6 million a year, said Elaine Vining, who was the chief lobbyist of American Academy of Pediatrics at the time. Then-Rep. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-La.) chaired the House committee that negotiated the legislation.

"Unfortunately for children, that money never materialized," Vining said. Tauzin subsequently took over as the head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

The foundation has raised $4.2 million -- barely enough to pay for half of one study of one drug.

Industry representatives said there was never a formal obligation to contribute to the fund. Noting that companies are spending tens of millions of dollars sponsoring studies of patented drugs, they blamed the shortfall primarily on the failure of Congress to appropriate the promised money.

"The expectation was that NIH funding would come into play to help conduct those studies," said Alan Goldhammer of PhRMA.

In the absence of the congressional funding, the NIH has spent $25 million a year in each of the past three years to study a handful of the drugs identified as the biggest concerns.

"We've sort of cobbled together studies as best we can based on the resources we have available," said Donald R. Mattison, chief of the obstetric and pediatric pharmacology branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Of about 50 drugs that have been deemed high priority, the NIH has managed to launch studies of 14, including Ritalin, lithium and morphine. But only preliminary steps have been completed.

"It takes time, and it's complicated," Mattison said. "We've made substantial progress in terms of identifying drugs that need to be tested and the appropriate testing that we need to do to better understand how to use them in children. But these are very difficult studies to do."

Physically collecting and analyzing blood samples and other data from children is often harder, for example. Drugs usually need to be evaluated separately in four age groups. And parents can be wary about letting their children participate.

"When they hear the word 'study,' parents are often very reluctant," said Robert M. Ward, director of the pediatric pharmacology program at the University of Utah. "They don't want their child to be thought of as a guinea pig or a rat in a study. What I try to explain is that if they are receiving a medication that hasn't been studied, then they are essentially participating in an experiment anyway."

One big help was the 2003 Pediatric Research Equity Act, which authorized the FDA to require companies to test new drugs on children before they are approved for sale. That has stimulated more than 200 studies, resulting in 64 drugs carrying specific information about how to use them in children.

But the most successful part of the effort remains the initial program offering incentives to drug companies. The FDA has requested more than 800 studies of nearly 300 drugs, and pharmaceutical companies have agreed to do most of them, enabling the FDA to give doctors specific advice about 138 drugs, so far.

"It's been highly successful," said Dianne Murphy, head of the FDA's office of pediatric drug development. "We've really begun to learn how much we don't know."

In about a fifth of the cases, drugs that work in adults were found ineffective in children. In about another fifth, the doses being used had to be changed. Another third caused unexpected side effects, including some that were potentially fatal.

"We have been humbled by the knowledge we have gained from these studies," Mathis said.

Surprisingly, the dosages were often too low. Children's bodies, it turns out, often process drugs more quickly than adult bodies do.

At the same time, one of the major concerns is that drugs may adversely affect development.

"Unlike adults, children are growing. So there are a lot more things that can be adversely affected in a child than in an adult. Their growth could be stunted. Their emotional or cognitive development could be adversely affected," Mattison said.

Researchers have identified broad categories of drugs that should be a priority for testing, including those used to treat cancers, infections, asthma, high blood pressure and hyperactivity, as well as individual drugs including the antibiotic ampicillin, the autism drug clonidine, the blood thinner heparin and the sedative ketamine.

"You're always treading water," Murphy said.

"We've made a dent over the past 10 years. We've gotten more than 200 drugs studied. But we know that, in that time, there have probably been at least that many new products that have come onto the market that haven't been studied."

It also called again for $200 million more in funding.

"When's the next dangerous drug going to be found? That's what keeps me up at night," said Wayne R. Snodgrass, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas Medical Branch. "It's what we can't predict that worries me."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/22/AR2007112201525.html?nav=rss_health

 

[chops_a_must]

We just need to face up to the problem that living causes death. :alcohol:

 

[wayneL]

We just need to face up to the problem that living causes death. :alcohol:

I'm assuming you have hard data to back that up Chops?

 

[Sprinter79]

Hahahahah!

Well, 100% of births result in death, or, put another way... 100% of deaths begin with birth :

Almost like how 100% of divorces begin in marriage hahahaha

 

[BraceFace]

We just need to face up to the problem that living causes death. :alcohol:

Yes an 50% of the population have below average intelligence.....

 

[Yeti]

URGENT!

For those of us who prefer our water without fluoride, here is our chance to stop fluoridation, but note we have to act now, i.e. today is the last day:-

The Queensland Government is accepting formal complaints until December 21 about the proposal to fluoridate Queensland public water supplies.

If you are very opposed to the proposed forced fluoridation of 4 million Queenslanders please submit a formal complaint

( STATE IT IS A COMPLAINT, NOT A COMMENT )

either write to Dr Jeannette Young Chief Health Officer GPO Box 48 BRISBANE QLD 4001

or email her: jeanette_young@health.qld.gov.au
Please mark email high priority and request a read receipt and if you do not mind also send a blind carbon copy to QAWF Inc at info@qawf.org

The formal complaint period closes this Friday.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO OTHERS OPPOSED TO THIS DRACONIAN PLAN OF THE QLD GOVT.

Merilyn Haines on behalf of Queenslanders Against Water Fluoridation Inc 07 38791080 mob 0418 777112

Link where the Qld Govt's spin can be found

http://www.getinvolved.qld.gov.au/consultqld/index.cfm?go=consultonline.viewIssue&activityID=150

 

[Whiskers]

I like... you are what you think.

If you think positive thoughts you tend to achieve positive things.

We just need to face up to the problem that living causes death. :alcohol:

Don't be in too much hurry to get there... you might just get your wish.

Hahahahah!

Well, 100% of births result in death, or, put another way... 100% of deaths begin with birth :

Almost like how 100% of divorces begin in marriage hahahaha

Sprinter, just when I thought you were coming around to rational objectiveness.

But at least you see both sides of the spectrum.

Yes an 50% of the population have below average intelligence.....

Come on braceFace... let's get out of the negativity... it harbours bad karma.

I prefer to think 50% of the population have above average intelligence.

I do have hard data to back that up.

Goodonya Yeti, that was going to be my next task.

 

[Yeti]

URGENT!

Correction to e-mail address in post number 209 above:

Please note that Jeannette should be spelled with double-n in the email address as follows:

jeannette_young@health.qld.gov.au

For those who may be interested, I have sent the following email:

To: Dr. Jeannette Young, Chief Health Officer.

Complaint about proposed fluoridation of Queensland public water supply.

Dear Dr. Young,

I am not convinced that fluoridation of drinking water has any benefits. In fact, in my personal research I have found much evidence that it may be dangerous and I have grave concerns that it will be detrimental to public health.

Because of that I believe that the choice whether to take Fluoride in any way, be it added to drinking water or added to food or as a medication, must be left to each person individually or in the case of children, to those children's parents or guardians.

Please note therefore that I hereby lodge my formal complaint against the proposed legislation and fluoridation of Queensland's public water supply.

Respectfully,

 

[Julia]

Many thanks, Yeti.
Have added my protest.

 

[chops_a_must]

I'm assuming you have hard data to back that up Chops?

I think it's just called Tavern Philosophy 101.

Kind of like when you analyse the logical fallacies of the warnings on cigarette packs. You know, the ones that say things like, "Smoking is a leading cause of death." I would have thought not breathing and hearts failing to beat would be right up there. But there you go, obviously not.

 

[moneymajix]

Those behind fluoride in drinking water would be better off looking at reducing the population's surgar intake, imo.

Dental researchers have proven that the teeth are subject to the same metabolic processes that affect other organs of the body. The entire body is one.

By adapting a technique originally developed to study movement of fluid within organs like the liver and kidneys, two researchers from Loma Linda School of Dentristry have found that subtle changes in the internal activity of teeth, caused by sugar, can be an early sign of later decay ...

Resistance to tooth decay involves the health of the entire body. Complex physiological processes are involved in maintaining and protecting the health of teeth. The two researchers found that:

- A high-sugar diet can slow the rate of transport of hormonal chemicals by as much as two-thirds even in one week.

- Teeth with sluggish internal activity have a high incidence of decay.

- A hormone released by the hypothamlamus stimulates the release by the salivary or parotid gland of a second hormone. This second hormone increases the rate of fluid flow in the teeth.

- A high sugar diet upsets the hormonal balance and reduces the flow in the internal system. This weakens the tooth and makes it more susceptible to decay.

- Healthy teeth are normally invulnerable to the microbes that are always present in the mouth.

Who wants to get rid of friendly germs in the mouth except those crazy people selling mouthwash?


William Duffy
Sugar Blues

 

[2020hindsight]

well I've taken smurf's advice, and bought an electric toothbrush.
now to remember to brush within half an hour of eating - (when a lot of the decay occurs)
and cut out snacks between meals

PS MMx, giving up sugar is easy - giving up chocolate is not so easy lol.
taste the difference between "natural" yoghurt and a sugar flavoured one (which might contain more than the equivalent of 12 teaspoonfuls).

just by the way - sugar and constipation are a deadly combination!! - serious - turns to acid etc - attacks your insides.

I once read a book about a BAMBY diet (which has greatly influenced my choice of diet)
Bran,
And
Multivitamins
B complex , and
Yoghurt

but no matter which way you look at it , sugar is just "white death" - and sucarine (?) is no better. (as I understand it).

 

[2020hindsight]

sugar and constipation are deadly !!

that book incidentally said the most important measure of a healthy lifestyle / diet is your STT.

and it's important that you get your STT down!!

that's Stool Transit Time

achieved with exercise, bran, stuff like that lol.

 

[Julia]

that book incidentally said the most important measure of a healthy lifestyle / diet is your STT.

and it's important that you get your STT down!!

that's Stool Transit Time

achieved with exercise, bran, stuff like that lol.

Oh God, can you please not go on to include a description of your personal bowel habits.
How could we have gone from fluoride to this!

 

[2020hindsight]

don't worry about it sugar

 

[Whiskers]

Controversy looming in US over the toxocology of fluoridation.

A very substantial number of Australian professionals have also signed the petition to end water fluoridation and the numbers keep growing.

DECEMBER 2007 UPDATE: Due to the more than 1,200 professional signers to this Statement the signatories are now listed in the following sections:

UNITED STATES: Names beginnning with A-M - N-Z and INTERNATIONAL signers

PROFESSIONALS' STATEMENT CALLING FOR AN END TO WATER FLUORIDATION
AUGUST 9, 2007

We, the undersigned professionals, come from a variety of disciplines but all have an abiding interest in ensuring that government public health and environmental policies be determined honestly, with full attention paid to the latest scientific research and to ethical principles.

EIGHT recent events make action to end water fluoridation urgent.

1. The publication in 2006 of a 500-page review of fluoride’s toxicology by a distinguished panel appointed by the National Research Council of the National Academies (NRC, 2006). The NRC report concluded that the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) safe drinking water standard for fluoride (i.e. maximum contaminant level goal or MCLG) of 4 parts per million (ppm) is unsafe and should be lowered. Despite over 60 years of fluoridation, the report listed many basic research questions that have not been addressed. Still, the panel reviewed a large body of literature in which fluoride has a statistically significant association with a wide range of adverse effects. These include an increased risk of bone fractures, decreased thyroid function, lowered IQ, arthritic-like conditions, dental fluorosis and, possibly, osteosarcoma.

The average fluoride daily intakes (*) associated with many of these adverse effects are reached by some people consuming water at the concentration levels now used for fluoridation -- especially small children, above average water drinkers, diabetics, people with poor kidney function and other vulnerable sub-groups. For example, the average fluoride daily intake associated with impaired thyroid function in people with iodine deficiency (about 12% of the US population) is reached by small children with average consumption of fluoridated water at 1 ppm and by people of any age or weight with moderate to high fluoridated water consumption. Of special note among the animal studies is one in which rats fed water containing 1 ppm fluoride had an increased uptake of aluminum into the brain, with formation of beta-amyloid plaques, which is a classic marker of Alzheimer's disease pathology in humans. Considering the substantial variation in individual water intake, exposure to fluoride from many other sources, its accumulation in the bone and other calcifying tissues and the wide range of human sensitivity to any toxic substance, fluoridation provides NO margin of safety for many adverse effects, especially lowered thyroid function.
* Note: "Daily intake" takes into account the exposed individual’s bodyweight and is measured in mg. of fluoride per kilogram bodyweight.

2. The evidence provided by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2005 that 32% of American children have dental fluorosis – an abnormal discoloration and mottling of the enamel. This irreversible and sometimes disfiguring condition is caused by fluoride. Children are now being overdosed with fluoride, even in non-fluoridated areas, from water, swallowed toothpaste, foods and beverages processed with fluoridated water, and other sources. Fluoridated water is the easiest source to eliminate.

3. The American Dental Association’s policy change, in November 2006, recommending that only the following types of water be used for preparing infant formula during the first 12 months of life: "purified, distilled, deionized, demineralized, or produced through reverse osmosis." This new policy, which was implemented to prevent the ingestion of too much fluoride by babies and to lower the risk of dental fluorosis, clearly excludes the use of fluoridated tap water. The burden of following this recommendation, especially for low income families, is reason alone for fluoridation to be halted immediately. Formula made with fluoridated water contains 250 times more fluoride than the average 0.004 ppm concentration found in human breast milk in non-fluoridated areas (Table 2-6, NRC, 2006).

4. The CDC’s concession, in 1999 and 2001, that the predominant benefit of fluoride in reducing tooth decay is TOPICAL and not SYSTEMIC. To the extent fluoride works to reduce tooth decay, it works from the outside of the tooth, not from inside the body. It makes no sense to drink it and expose the rest of the body to the long term risks of fluoride ingestion when fluoridated toothpaste is readily available.

Fluoride’s topical mechanism probably explains the fact that, since the 1980s, there have been many research reports indicating little difference in tooth decay between fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities (Leverett, 1982; Colquhoun, 1984; 1985 and 1987; Diesendorf, 1986; Gray, 1987; Brunelle and Carlos, 1990; Spencer,1996; deLiefde, 1998; Locker, 1999; Armfield and Spencer, 2004; and Pizzo 2007 - see citations). Poverty is the clearest factor associated with tooth decay, not lack of ingested fluoride. According to the World Health Organization, dental health in 12-year olds in non-fluoridated industrialized countries is as good, if not better, than those in fluoridated countries (Neurath, 2005).

5. In 2000, the publication of the UK government sponsored “York Review,” the first systematic scientific review of fluoridation, found that NONE of the studies purporting to demonstrate the effectiveness of fluoridation to reduce tooth decay were of grade A status, i.e. “high quality, bias unlikely” (McDonagh et al., 200).

6. The publication in May 2006 of a peer-reviewed, case-controlled study from Harvard University which found a 5-7 fold increase in osteosarcoma (a frequently fatal bone cancer) in young men associated with exposure to fluoridated water during their 6th, 7th and 8th years (Bassin et al., 2006). This study was surrounded by scandal as Elise Bassin’s PhD thesis adviser, Professor Chester Douglass, was accused by the watchdog Environmental Working Group of attempting to suppress these findings for several years (see video). While this study does not prove a relationship between fluoridation and osteosarcoma beyond any doubt, the weight of evidence and the importance of the risk call for serious consideration.

7. The admission by federal agencies, in response to questions from a Congressional subcommittee in 1999-2000, that the industrial grade waste products used to fluoridate over 90% of America's drinking water supplies (fluorosilicate compounds) have never been subjected to toxicological testing nor received FDA approval for human ingestion (Fox, 1999; Hazan, 2000; Plaisier, 2000; Thurnau, 2000).

8. The publication in 2004 of “The Fluoride Deception” by Christopher Bryson. This meticulously researched book showed that industrial interests, concerned about liabilities from fluoride pollution and health effects on workers, played a significant role in the early promotion of fluoridation. Bryson also details the harassment of scientists who expressed concerns about the safety and/or efficacy of fluoridation (see Bryson interview).

We call upon Members of Congress (and legislators in other fluoridating countries) to sponsor a new Congressional (or Parliamentary) Hearing on Fluoridation so that those in government agencies who continue to support the procedure, particularly the Oral Health Division of the CDC, be compelled to provide the scientific basis for their ongoing promotion of fluoridation. They must be cross-examined under oath if the public is ever to fully learn the truth about this outdated and harmful practice.

We call upon all medical and dental professionals, members of water departments, local officials, public health organizations, environmental groups and the media to examine for themselves the new documentation that fluoridated water is ineffective and poses serious health risks. It is no longer acceptable to simply rely on endorsements from agencies that continue to ignore the large body of scientific evidence on this matter -- especially the extensive citations in the NRC (2006) report discussed above.

The untold millions of dollars that are now spent on equipment, chemicals, monitoring, and promotion of fluoridation could be much better invested in nutrition education and targeted dental care for children from low income families. The vast majority of enlightened nations have done this (see statements).

It is time for the US, and the few remaining fluoridating countries, to recognize that fluoridation is outdated, has serious risks that far outweigh any minor benefits, violates sound medical ethics and denies freedom of choice. Fluoridation must be ended now.

STATEMENT SIGNED BY:

• UNITED STATES: Names beginnning with A-M and N-Z

• INTERNATIONAL SIGNERS

http://www.fluorideaction.org/statement.august.2007.html

 

[Julia]

Will Ms Bligh and her cohorts take any notice of this?
Unlikely. They have managed to ignore all the other evidence put before them of a similar nature.
Are you, however, sending it through to them,Whiskers?