The Non-Fluoridated Consumer
July 2009 Second Bevis shipment a staggering amount of material
Thanks to the generosity of Martha Bevis’ family and friend Freda White a second, monumental shipment of archival material has been sent to the UMASS Du Bois Library Special Collections department. The shipment consisted of 10 pallets of boxes filled with a wide variety of archival material (see commentary below). NFC editor Michael Dolan, who is doing the first, rough sorting of the material, estimates this first stage of processing will not be completed before the end of 2009. The material would then need to undergo a second round of sorting after which it would be cataloged and made available to the public. George L. Waldbott Papers in Du Bois Library The professional papers of Dr. George L. Waldbott of Michigan, one of the most important grassroots/professional activists in the long struggle to end water fluoridation, have been deposited in the Special Collections Department of the W.E.B. Du Bois Library at UMASS Amherst, Dr. Michael F. Dolan, who is helping to organize the collection, announced on July 6. The Waldbott papers were in a larger collection obtained from the family of the late Texas-activist Martha Bevis, and represent the first collection in the Du Bois Library's new Special Collection on the history of opposition to water fluoridation, part of the Library's emphasis on the history of protest movements. Waldbott was a prolific writer of such books as A Struggle With Titans (1965) and Fluoridation: The Great Dilemma. The catalog entry for his collection can be found at http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/umarmot/?p= 924
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end of a lopsided 4,891 to 1,599- referendum vote against the practice. Now comes the Board of Selectmen’s election in May, and the rascal Marasco finishes fourth among the four candidates, ending his political career. The people of Yarmouth have demonstrated the importance of following through on referenda victories by removing the local pro-fluoridation officials from office. Can they now pull off the Triple Crown and usher the pro-fluoride state senator and representative to the State House door?
The situation in Athol, MA
An Annual Town Meeting article in Athol, MA to end the practice of water fluoridation was defeated May 4 although it set the stage for hearings and engagement over the issue with the town’s Board of Health. The meeting was attended by fewer than 60 people including at least two dozen town officials. Athol’s population is over 8,600. A group of young activists led by Carolyn Salls filed the town meeting article. They admitted they were new to town government and were easily outnumbered at the meeting. However, remarks by Board of Health members at the meeting opened the door for a hearing before that body. The Board of Health member gave a somewhat rambling presentation that included a story about eating potatoes in wartime England that appeared to indicate that he did not understand the difference between chronic and acute toxicity. He not only invited the opponents of fluoridation to ask his board to hold a hearing on the matter, but also indicated that it is the responsibility of government to notify citizens when they are exposed to toxic materials. This later remark could be an opening to press the board to notify all water users in town about the ADA and CDC recommendations that parents not give their infants baby formula reconstituted with fluoridated tap water. Statement in support of the Athol group [Worcester, MA] Telegram & Gazette web site I salute Carolyn Salls and her colleagues in Athol for their efforts to end water fluoridation there. They have a genuine concern for the health of infants and children in town while the so-called
Pro-fluoridation selectman defeated in Yarmouth vote
At this point it’s safe to say that William Marasco overestimated the people of Yarmouth, Massachusetts affinity for fluoridated water. Marasco pushed the Board of Health there to fluoridate the water, only to come out on the losing
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leaders of Athol are strangely indifferent to the risks of this chemical therapy. I was present at the town meeting and was struck by the fluoride-backers twisted arguments, ignorance of the difference between acute and chronic toxicity, and general lack of responsibility. The Board of Health member questioned why the matter had not been addressed to his board for a hearing, but we can just as well ask why has the Board of Health not held hearings on this already? When fluoride has repeatedly been found to be carcinogenic? When it was found to be a neurotoxin? When everyone, including the ADA and the CDC, agreed that infants will develop dental fluorosis when given infant formula reconstituted with fluoridated tap water? Mr. Grosky, the retired principal, testified to seeing rampant tooth decay in his school, and how the students would benefit from fluoridation, but apparently forgot that Athol has been fluoridated for 57 years. The fluoride-backers, and your reporter, miss the main point here – that we have an inalienable human right to decide for ourselves if we want to take a drug. No number of town meetings, referenda or mandates will change that. For this reason water fluoridation will eventually join lead paint, leaded gasoline, DDT, asbestos and other failed chemical interventions of the past. Michael F. Dolan Belchertown, MA As a result I published the following letter in the Athol Daily News. To the editor, At the May 5 Annual Town Meeting Selectman Wayne Miller testified that a Harvard Dental School study that found a seven-fold increased risk of bone cancer in boys who were reared on fluoridated water was not supported by a subsequent study. I asked Selectman Miller to provide me with the citation for that study, and heard back from him that he referred my query to his colleague Myron Allukian. A month has now passed and I have not heard back from either Mr. Miller or Mr. Allukian. I have also not been able to find a record of any such study as Mr. Miller indicated, and have concluded that there is no such study. Surely, if the proponents of water fluoridation had a study that refuted the Harvard finding, they would produce it at a moment’s notice. At this point we can conclude the water fluoridation – caner-finding remains unchallenged in the peer-reviewed literature, that Mr. Miller’s remarks at the Annual Town Meeting were inaccurate, and that he should withdraw them. Sincerely, Michael F. Dolan, PhD.
Allukian, “Social Conscience of Dentistry” explains confusion
A week after The Athol Daily News published my letter the Board of Selectman’s clerk sent this statement from Myron Allukian (emphasis, and various typographical errors, lack of punctuation, poor writing, etc. in original): Harvard Study I would like to address the confusion as to who said what about fluoridation in the Harvard study The Department Chair and Professor at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine at that time, Dr Chester Douglass, had clarified that a comprehensive long term study was taking place in his department in his letter to the editor of the Journal Cancer Causes & Control. Dr Bassin was a post doctoral student in his department who did a small retrospective study of existing cases between 1989 and 1992 for her thesis. . Dr Bassin herself stated that her study may not accurately reflect fluoride consumption. A much more sophisticated and comprehensive prospective study was done for new incident cases from 1993 to 2000 with bone specimens. The preliminary analysis of the data in the larger and more sophisticated study showed no association
Athol selectman unable to produce study refuting Bassin
At the Athol, MA Annual Town Meeting in May Selectman Wayne Miller, apparently in response to a flyer I was handing out at the front door of the Town Hall, acknowledged that Bassin and others’ Harvard School of Dental Medicine study found an increased risk of bone cancer in boys reared on fluoridated water, but then reported to the Meeting that a subsequent study had not supported Bassin, so there was nothing to worry about. I wrote to Dr. Miller (he’s a physician) asking him for the citation of this subsequent study. A clerk in the Board of Selectman’s office responded that Dr. Miller has referred the matter to his colleague Myron Allukian, the former Dental Director for the City of Boston. A month passed and neither Dr. Miller nor Dr. Allukian provided me with the citation to this new study. Many readers of these pages will not be surprised by this because, of course, there is no new study.
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between fluoridation and osteosarcoma. Another study of rats by the National Toxicology Program also found no relationship. Public policies should not be changed based on one limited study, especially when the bulk of evidence in other well controlled studies show no significant relationship. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) In regard to the allegation that fluoridation violates EPA regulations, EPA’s responsibility is to set safe drinking water standards i.e. maximal permissible dose of water contents. For naturally occurring fluoride in a water supply, the maximum limit is 4 parts per million (ppm) fluoride. This means that if there is greater than 4 ppm of naturally occurring fluoride in a water supply the fluoride content should be adjusted downwards. The National Research Council’s(NRC) &nbs p;report was on the maximum permissible dose of fluoride of naturally fluoridated water. The Committee recommended that fluoride levels be considered to be lowered from the existing 4 ppm . The Environment Protection Agency (EPA) now needs to determine the maximum permissible levels of naturally occurring fluori de in water based on benefit, risk, cost and practicality. This NRC report does not affect community water fluoridation at the recommended level of 0.7 to 1.2 ppm, but some people have used this report to further confuse the public about community water fluoridation. I hope this explains the confusion some people may have about community water fluoridation. More than 184 million Americans now receive the health and economic benefits of community water fluoridation in over 10,000 communities. It is the foundation for better oral health and has been used as a sound and effective public health measure for over 60 years. The Non-Fluoridated Consumer’s response: In addition to the above rambling statement Allukian attached a biography that concludes, “Dr. Allukian has been called “The Social Conscience of Dentistry.” I can think of some other things he’s been called. There was no confusion in this case. Miller asserted that Douglass’ study refuted Bassin. I asked Miller for the study. Both he and Allukian failed to produce the study, because there is no study. Allukian then tries to confuse people by distinguishing between natural and artificial fluoridation, and makes the unconscionable claim that the NRC report does not affect community water fluoridation. If someone who ignores serious evidence that adverse health effects result from chronic exposure to this toxic chemical is “The Social Conscience of Dentistry,” I would hate to meet “The Sociopath of Dentistry.”
Commentary
Medical geology texts wrongly consider fluorine a nutrient
The new and expanding field of medical geology – the study of the public health impacts of geological materials and processes (Berger, 2003) promises to improve our ability to recognize and remediate geological hazards, create new opportunities for biologists and geologists, and provide some interesting courses for non-science majors who don’t find biology or geology alone that compelling. But in the case of at least one geological hazard it appears that some old baggage is jeopardizing the field’s credibility – the claims that fluoride in water is a nutrient. The struggle over fluoride in water has waged for 60 years and in many cases has had a negative impact on scholarship. There is the dental school professor who claims his research shows there is no risk of cancer from fluoridated water – and then cites his own student’s work that found a five-fold increased risk of bone cancer in boys reared on fluoridated water. Then the National Research Council (NRC) released a report in 2006 that found serious health concerns from fluoride in water and recommended that the maximum contaminant level for fluoride in water be lowered, only to have the American Dental Association, which for decades has tried to legitimize artificial water fluoridation by pointing out that fluoride occurs naturally in water, say that the NRC study is not relevant to fluoridation programs because the panel only studied naturally fluoridated water. Now we see in some of the first textbooks on medical geology claims that fluoride is a nutrient – replete with citations of studies that report just the opposite. The British Geological Survey’s Mike Edmunds and Pauline Smedley in the monumental 2005 Essentials of Medical Geology begin their chapter, “Fluorine is an essential element in the human diet. Deficiency in fluorine has long been linked to the incidence of dental caries…”. No evidence is reported. No authority is cited. It is as if the assertion were common knowledge not requiring any proof. As if dental caries form naturally in the absence of fluoride regardless of
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diet or hygiene. I wonder if the authors would also consider acne a deficiency in Clerosil? But the author who most strongly supports the idea that fluorine is a nutrient, and who commonly writes the fluoride or bone chapters in these texts is Yale School of Medicine’s H. Catherine W. Skinner. She contributed chapters in Essentials of Medical Geology and Geology and Health (which she also co-edited). She also wrote a 2007 review in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. In all cases she reports that fluorine is a nutrient. Her citations supporting the claim are a) nonexistent, b) incomplete, c) contradictory to her claim. In a table in her 2003 chapter in Geology and Health she lists fluorine as a micro-nutrient (“Elements with daily requirement less than 1 mg up to 100 mg”). No citation is given. An accompanying table that lists the actual mineral components of bovine cortical bone doesn’t mention fluorine. In her 2005 chapter in Essentials of Medical Geology Skinner lists fluorine as an essential element with a Recommended Daily Intake, of 1.0 mg, and cites the Institute of Medicine’s 10th edition of Recommended Dietary Allowances (1989). Yet that report reviewed several studies that gave conflicting results and concluded, “These contradictory results do not justify a classification of fluorine as an essential element, according to accepted standards.” The same organization’s more recent (1997) report, also does not list a Recommended Dietary Allowance for fluoride. The 1989 report does list an Estimated Safe and Adequate Daily Dietary Intake for fluoride, but it is clear from the context that this refers to the maximum amount of a toxic chemical to be ingested. The 1997 report lists an Adequate Intake for fluoride, again placing it in the no-man’s land between nutrient and toxin. In this same chapter Skinner also lists the cryptic citation “Federal Register #2206” as supporting her claim that fluorine is a nutrient. Yet the Federal Register for December 28, 1995 includes the final rule for Reference Daily Intakes (RDI) [which the Food and Drug Administration used to replace Recommended Daily Allowances for food labeling] that cites the 1989 Institute of Medicine report and removes fluoride from the RDI list “because there is no consensus on the essentiality of fluoride.” Her most recent piece, the 2007 Annual Review article, again touts fluorine, now listing it simply as an “element”, but again mistakenly reporting its “recommended daily (sic) adult allowance” and again citing the 1989 Institute of Medicine’s Recommended Dietary Allowances, the report that explicitly states that fluoride is not an essential element and does not have an RDA. She notes, “Many of the values are under discussion and differences have been suggested since this publication, especially for children and the elderly.” The elimination of fluoride from the Reference Daily Intake list is not a difference that has been suggested. It is the final rule of the Department of Health and Human Services of the government of the United States of America. The non-essentiality of fluorine in nutrition is widely accepted. In a 2006 interview Kathleen Thiessen, one of the panelists on the recent NRC study of EPA’s fluoride in drinking water standard said, “Fluoride is not an essential nutrient. I’m not aware of any studies that have ever been able to demonstrate that. There have been a few that have tried. But there are very, very few sources that even now try to insist that fluoride is an essential nutrient. The general opinion by all concerned is that fluoride is not an essential nutrient. The body does not have a systemic requirement for it.” In the same year another NRC panelist, Hardy Limeback of the University of Toronto’s Dental School, wrote, “Public health officials responsible for community programs are misleading the public by stating that ingesting fluoride “makes teeth stronger”. Fluoride is not an essential nutrient. It does not make developing teeth better prepared to resist dental decay before they erupt into the oral environment.” It is clear from her writings that Catherine Skinner supports water fluoridation unquestioningly, and has not examined the extensive research that chronic exposure to low levels of fluoride in water is harmful. With a long, distinguished and diverse career as a mineralogist why does Catherine Skinner feel the need to carry water, so to speak, for fluorine as a nutrient? Surely the fact that it is found in mother’s milk at levels 250 times lower than in fluoridated water, according to the NRC’s 2006 report, is Nature’s way of telling us that fluorine is not needed. Kafka in Amherst. Readers may recall my continuing struggle with the Amherst Town Clerk to obtain easy access to birth records. My goal is to write letters to parents of newborns to notify them of the ADA and CDC warning re. fluoridated water and reconstituted infant formula. In our last episode, I had appealed the Clerk’s ruling, that I would need to pay up to $37.00 to obtain a list of recent newborns, to the Secretary of State’s office. After an investigation that took about six months I was finally notified that my appeal had been
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rejected and that the Clerk’s ruling stood. The matter was closed. The Secretary of State’s investigation was deficient because it failed to ask the Clerk the crucial question – how many impounded birth records does Amherst produce each year. The Clerk requires payment of up to $37.00 to separate the impounded birth records, which are not public records, from the public birth records, and then to reinsert the impounded records back into the public ones. Get it? What surprised me about the investigation is that it revealed the Clerk’s management practice as detailed in the above paragraph was entirely of her own choosing. I had assumed there was some regulation that required her to keep the records in such a ridiculous fashion. When asked, by the Secretary of State’s office, why she kept the two types of records together, the Clerk replied to the investigator that there was not enough room to keep two separate binders – one with the impounded records, and one with the public ones, that could readily be turned over to the public. I found this response amusing because the Amherst Town Clerk’s office is quite large, and could easily hold an additional three-ring binder. The disturbing aspect of the investigation is that the Secretary of State’s office took the Town Clerk’s word, without requiring any data, that she did not have enough room to store records so that they could be made easily available to the public. (Recall from an earlier report that the binder was demonstrated to this reporter to be kept at hand at the Clerk’s window.) By this reasoning, every custodian of a public record in Massachusetts could simply assert that he or she did not have enough room to store the record in an accessible fashion and the public would have to pay exorbitant fees to obtain the record. This is going a long way to making our public records law null and void. water fluoridation. She employed newspaperclipping services to feed her the local news from around the country. She kept up a voluminous correspondence with dozens of people. She monitored the federal budget, the awarding of grants to dental schools, the activities of the public health agencies, the dental insurance programs, fluoride in industry. She read Chemical and Engineering News, Chemical Week, Scientific American, JADA and other journals There are hundreds of examples of her characteristic propaganda. She would take a newspaper article and then type up and paste on the original several annotations that would point out the inaccuracies and half-truths in the report. This would then be photocopied and distributed. There are reports, newspapers, newsletters from all the grassroot groups, obscure internal newsletters from EPA, and thousands of newspaper stories. I see that she had already tried different approaches that I have wanted to pursue, such as putting pressure on the food and drink producers. Working on this collection has inspired me to become more involved in the struggle, but has also been a sobering reminder of how long this struggle has been going on. There are many groups and people who were quite active, but who are apparently no longer around. I wanted to establish this archive above all so we could fully document how water fluoridation is eventually defeated, and so all the good people who have fought in this campaign can receive the recognition they deserve.
Old Orchard juices are fluoridated
The customer-relations agent for Old Orchard Brands LLC has informed this reporter that all the company’s juices are made in Sparta, MI and that the water used in the juices is fluoridated. “We use a municipal water source which has been detected to contain about 0.57 to 0.90 ppm (parts per million) of fluoride,” wrote Joanna Mangione in an email message. “This is a very miniscule amount in contrast to the max allowance of 4.0 ppm of fluoride,” she wrote. My response is printed below: Dear Ms. Mangione, Thank you for your message. While you are correct about the maximum contaminant level for fluoride in drinking water, you should know that the National Research Council has determined that the current MCL for fluoride is set too high and should be lowered. Also, the most refined epidemiological study on the topic has found a seven-fold increased risk of bone cancer in boys
Thoughts on organizing Martha Bevis’ archive.
For the past several months I have been working one afternoon per week to organize the massive amount of papers that Martha Bevis’ family has so generously shipped to the Du Bois Library in Amherst. The first shipment was sent here by freight and consisted of 28 large plastic containers that weighed over 1,200 pounds. According to Freda White, who is helping Martha’s sons ship the material, this first shipment represented just 10 percent of the material in Martha’s home. The first thing that struck me was how comprehensive she was in tackling the issue of
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reared on fluoridated water. This has led the union of scientists at EPA to call for an end to water fluoridation in the USA (see attached flier). Because our readers want to avoid drinking fluoridated water and beverages made with fluoridated water, we will have to list Old Orchard juices as “not accepted.” Sincerely, Michael F. Dolan, editor The Non-Fluoridated Consumer
Tolstoy hits the nail on the head
Although he was not writing about water fluoridation, in 1896 the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy in the following statement hit the nail on the head about the “clever men” who still push water fluoridation. “I know that most men – not only those considered clever, but even those who really are clever and capable of understanding the most difficult scientific, mathematical or philosophic problems – can seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as obliges them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty – conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives.” Quoted in Freeman Dyson. 1984. Weapons and Hope.
Lists of fluoridated towns by state
Disclaimer: The following list is a condensed version of information provided by the state governments. Readers should not assume that municipalities not listed here are non-fluoridated. Readers should verify the fluoridation status of a community water system with the authority operating that system.
Rhode Island: Barrington, Bristol, Central Falls, Coventry, Cranston, Cumberland, E. Greenwich, E. Providence, Johnston, Lincoln, Middletown, Newport, N. Providence, Pawtucket, Portsmouth, Providence, Scituate, Smithfield, Tiverton, Warren, Warwick, W. Warwick, Woonsocket. Towns that are not fluoridated: Burrillville, Charlestown, Exeter, Foster, Glocester, Hopkinton, Jamestown, Little Compton, Narragansett, New Shoreham, N. Kingston, N. Smithfield, Richmond, S. Kingstown, Westerly, W. Greenwich.