FLUORIDE ACTION NETWORK
http://www.FluorideAlert.org
   
FAN Bulletin 928: Fluoride-Gate
February 12, 2008

Dear All,

Dan Stockin of the Lillie Center has informed me that his article on the CDC, "Fluoride-Gate," which was published on January 15 in the Juneau Empire, Alaska, has been picked up by US  Water News. This piece by Dan names the people at the CDC who are not performing their public duty to inform subsets of the public that they are especially threatened by drinking fluoridated water, even though this agency promotes the practice throughout the country.

U.S. Water News is a monthly hard copy publication mailed throughout the country to water and wastewater treatment professionals and organizations. The San Francisco Chronicle has called U.S. Water News "the 'Wall Street Journal' of water publications."

We don't have an electronic link to the U.S. Water News article, as the publication doesn't put its current edition online. What's significant is that U.S. Water News viewed the information as significant and worthy of reading by thousands of water industry professionals. These engineers, water treatment operators, and others are now learning about fluoride's harm and that CDC is not telling the whole story about the dangers of fluoridation.
  
I hope everyone will forward a copy of the Fluoride-Gate piece  (printed out below) to their water district managers and tell them to see the February edition of U.S. Water News and consider these developments:

   1. Kidney patients are now acknowledged to be particularly susceptible to harm from fluoride ingestion and legal cases are being formed.
   2. The journal Scientific American has published "Second Thoughts about Fluoride" based largely on the 507-page review by the National Research Council entitled "Fluoride in Drinking Water and published in March, 2006.
   3. More than 1,400 doctors and other professionals have signed a petition calling for an end to fluoridation worldwide.
   4. Over 11,000 people have now watched the five minute statement from Dr. Bill Osmunson on Youtube. Dr. Osmunson once promoted fluoridation but now he opposes the practice because it is not effective and it is not safe for everyone.
   5. There is a scandal growing about how CDC has elected not to answer key questions about the safety of fluorides, and U.S. Water News and other publications are part of mushrooming media coverage of the issue.
   6. There is a shortage of the fluoridating chemicals thus increasing costs to local communities nationwide. This would be a very good time to halt this practice of putting a pharmacologically active chemical in the public water supply at levels which are 250 times the level in mothers' milk.
   7. On Nov 9, 2006 the American Dental Association recommended that parents not use fluoridated tap water to make up baby formula (10th par.), BUT government officials are not getting this warning to citizens. Meanwhile, dental fluorosis, the damage to tooth enamel caused by ingesting too much fluoride, is sky-rocketing and now impacts nearly 1 in 3 American children (CDC, 2005).

In addition to water district officials, FAN members can send the Fluoride-Gate piece to their local newspaper and TV stations, suggesting they do a follow-up story. Please also send the Fluoride-Gate info to your legislators.

I also hope FAN folks would consider an email or fax to both CDC officials mentioned in the piece (and their boss, Julie Gerberding). Contacts are as follows, and we hope some folks can do a fax. stephanie.bailey@cdc.hhs.gov   and tatjana.popovic@cdc.hhs.gov and Julie.gerberding@cdc.hhs.gov Fax to Chief of Public Health Practice Dr. Bailey: 404-639-7171. Fax to Chief Science Officer Dr. Popovic: 404-639-7171. Fax to CDC Director Dr. Gerberding: 404-639-7111.

Please send a copy to Dan Stockin. His contact details: Daniel G. Stockin, MPH, The Lillie Center, Inc., 706-669-0786 stockin2 @ yahoo.com or dan @ thelilliecenter.com

Many, many thanks.

Paul Connett

Juneau Empire, January 15, 2008

www.juneauempire.com/stories/011508/opi_20080115024.shtml

Fluoride-Gate, naming names at Centers for Disease Control

DANIEL G. STOCKIN

Americans' distrust of societal institutions continues to grow, and now comes evidence of yet another burgeoning scandal: Fluoride-Gate. A torrent of recent bad news about the safety of fluorides has brought key names to the surface from the murky alphabet soup of players in the fluoride game at EPA, CDC, FDA, NIDCR, USDA, ADA, and AMA. The inevitable questions have begun about who knew what, when, and why was certain information kept quiet.

The first ominous drumbeats started in 2006, when a National Research Council committee recommended that the Environmental Protection Agency lower the allowable amount of fluoride in drinking water - to an unspecified level. As if that wasn't unnerving enough, the committee specifically stated that kidney patients, diabetics, seniors, infants, and outdoor workers were susceptible populations especially vulnerable to harm from fluoride ingestion.

Centers for Disease Control officials strove mightily to dismiss NRC's report as irrelevant, but in August of 2007 CDC's ethics committees received a formal ethics complaint about CDC's activities in promoting fluoridation. The complaint circled the globe via the Internet. A Kentucky attorney began assembling a list of "potentially responsible parties." After having been contacted by angry kidney patients, in September he formally notified the National Kidney Foundation that the organization may be held liable for failure to warn its constituents that kidney patients are particularly susceptible to harm from fluorides. The issue was immediately put on the agenda of the next meeting of the foundation's national board and the foundation's former position statement about fluoridated water has been retracted and the issue is now undergoing review.

The ethics complaint became a hot potato. How would CDC explain why its own data showed blacks to be disproportionately harmed by moderate and severe "dental fluorosis" teeth damage, yet CDC had not felt it necessary to openly show photos of the conditions to the black community? What would be the response of CDC's Chief of Public Health Practice, Dr. Stephanie Bailey, an African American woman who witnessed the presentation of the complaint? The complaint embarrassingly documented that Bailey had acknowledged earlier that a CDC-funded and nationally distributed public health ethics policy was not being implemented internally by CDC.

Apparently Bailey's concern about public health ethics did not extend to fluoridation. A 2007 Tennessee water agency report describes how the Harpeth Valley Utility District had accidentally introduced so much fluoride into its water that the concentration reached 18 times the amount generally in the water. The report describes how HVUD contacted Bailey, who told the district she believed "there was no health threat to HVUD's customers." This statement would be welcome news to a nervous HVUD, but is highly suspect, since Bailey could not possibly know how much of the tainted water individuals had consumed, the body weight of those who drank it (babies, children, etc), or individuals' prior health status (such as end-stage kidney disease). How could such a remarkably convenient statement come from a physician whose job description calls for her to be the "conscience of public health practice" at CDC?

Instead of having its ethics committee comprised of external ethicists look into the matter, CDC decided that the ethics charges against Director Dr. Julie Louise Gerberding and Oral Health Director William Maas would be handled internally by Dr. James Stephens, who works for Chief Science Officer Dr. Popovic, who reports to Dr. Gerberding. Without addressing many of the specifics in the complaint, Dr. Stephens predictably concluded that he had "found no evidence" that CDC managers had acted inappropriately. But the proverbial holes in the fluoridation dike can no longer be contained. This month's edition of the journal Scientific American has an article entitled "Second Thoughts about Fluoride." The cat is out of the bag that the Department of Agriculture has voiced concern about fluoride exposures.

Bailey's job description calls for her to address emerging and cross-cutting issues. Dr. Popovic's job is to ensure timely translation of science into practice by CDC. Citizens, attorneys and political leaders now have these officials' names and job descriptions. They should be the first, but not the only parties brought into court and into congressional hearings. Now that the "Fluoride-Gate" has swung wide open, it's time for names to be named.

See Also:  Fluoride Linked to Gum Disease

See Also:  What is the Best Way to Purify My Water?