FAN newsletter
FLUORIDE ACTION NETWORK
http://www.FluorideAlert.org
FAN Bulletin 1046: Professionals ask SHA board members to reject fluoridation. Part 3Feb 13, 2009
First, apologies for leaving out the email address (iron@berkeley.edu) of Juanita Neilands in our last bulletin. Juanita is the widow of the late professor Joe Neilands, one of the signers of the Professionals Statement calling for an end to fluoridation, who passed away recently.
Below we have printed out two more important statements sent into the SHA panel who are considering the possible fluoridation of Southampton and some surrounding communities in the UK, as well as two short statements on mercury amalgam developments. All statements pose issues about potential liabilities for the dental lobby.
John Spottiswode reminds the panel that the World Health Organization advises communities considering fluoridation that they should first check to see what the community's current exposure to fluoride is from other sources. While promoters often cite the WHO's support for this practice they never acknowledge this important caveat. With so many children now impacted with dental fluorosis such an omission is utterly irresponsible. Children could either have their urine tested for fluoride or examined for the signs of dental fluorosis. The early promoters of fluoridation believed that at optimal levels of fluoride (1 ppm) approximately 10% of children would develop dental fluorosis in its mildest form. Running this logic backwards: if one found that over 10% of children had dental fluorosis in a community (before fluoridation) then we can assume that they are getting the optimal fluoride exposure and they don't need any more. Today over 10% of children living in communities with fluoride levels less than 0.3 ppm have dental fluorosis and over 20% living in communities with fluoride levels between 0.3 and 0.7 ppm have dental fluorosis (Heller et al., 1997). This is all very rational of course, but it makes the generous assumption that those who promote fluoridation care about science.
What they really care about are their liabilities. Is it fear of liabilities more than anything else which led the ADA to recommend to their membership that parents be advised not to use fluoridated tap water to make up infant formula? If they cared about our kids they would have warned the parents themselves as well as the media and the WIC clinics. And is it fear of liabilities which has forced Colgate to remove fluoride supplements ("Luride") from pharmacy shelves? Colgate has very quietly removed all reference to "Luride" from its web page. Has any one told the many pediatricians throughout the world who still prescribe fluoride tablets to babies? See this February 6th announcement Several Sodium Fluoride Chewable Tablets Discontinued.
Dan Stockin from The Lillie Center also warns the SHA about the liabilities incurred by those who promote fluoridation without warning kidney patients and diabetics that they may have extra risks from consuming fluoridated water. He writes: "
"Here's the bottom line: as a public health professional I can tell you that doctors, dentists, and government agencies no longer have credibility in their statements that fluoridated water is safe. Based on my conversations with attorneys, I believe for liability reasons you do not want to be in the position where kidney patients and diabetics can prove you were provided this and other information, yet you decided to fluoridate anyway."
While we are on liabilities we should not forget that other issue over which the ADA has built up huge liabilities: their continued support for the use of mercury amalgams to fill teeth. For over 170 years they and their predecessors have claimed that these were "safe and effective" and that there was no scientific evidence of harm. Now whole countries have banned these amalgams and the writing is on the wall for the US. The similarities between the ADA's promotion and rhetoric on mercury amalgam "safety" and fluoride "safety" are remarkably similar. In my view when one falls the other will soon follow. So we should heartily celebrate the progress being made by the dentists who have been fighting mercury amalgams and penalized for doing so, like Dr. Hal Huggins (see email below), and the lawyers who are fighting on their behalf like Charlie Brown (see email below).
If you live in the UK make sure you get to watch the ITV program "Tonight" on Monday Feb 16, 8-8:30 pm, which will be featuring an expose on mercury amalgams in a special entitled What's in your mouth?
Paul Connett
___________________________________________________________
Statement from John Spottiswoode, Hampshire Against Fluoridation
Dear Members of the SCSHA,
One important aspect of the public consultation on fluoridation in the SCSHA area has not received the attention it deserves and that is 'How much fluoride are residents of Hampshire consuming today, even without fluoridation?' The SHA has failed to answer this question yet the NHS's systematic review, the York Review, identified this as an important consideration in 2000.
Other authorities have also attested to the importance of this aspect, as far back as 1971, the World Health Organisation (WHO International Drinking Water Standards) warned: "In the assessment of the safety of a water supply with regard to the fluoride concentration, the total daily intake by the individual must be considered."
In 1994 a WHO Expert committee again said: "Dental and public health administrators should be aware of the total fluoride exposure in the population before introducing any additional fluoride programme."
And in its Guidelines for drinking water quality, 3rd Ed (2006) the WHO stated that "It was also emphasised that in setting national standards for fluoride, it is particularly important to consider ... volume of water intake and intake of fluoride from other sources." ( S.12.63 page 377)
No information on fluoride intake by residents of Hampshire was provided to the public during the public consultation in the South Central Strategic Health Authority area, contrary to WHO warnings. In view of this very serious omission it would seem essential for the SCSHA - even at this late stage in the process - to consider carefully the only data on fluoride intake that is available, viz the data available from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey of 2003.
This has been analysed by Dr Peter Mansfield who found that 20.2% of the adult population between 19 and 64 yrs old across all of England, Wales and Scotland is already exposed to above safe intakes of fluoride. Dr Mansfield has further found that in those areas with fluoridated drinking water, the proportion above the safe intake rises to 65% of adults. Safe intake has been set by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food (COMA) as 0.05mg F /kg body weight/ per day. Above this safe level the fluoride accumulates in the body and the bones to such an extent that by the time of retirement people can expect serious adverse health effects, even if they have avoided them successfully until that age. Dr Peter Mansfield presented this personally to us on the 31st January and since then he has also presented this at the Department of Health to the Chief Dental Officer, Dr Barry Cockcroft.
We are alerting you to this important information to avoid any misunderstanding arising from a possible future claim that people were not made aware of this most relevant omission from the consultation.
SCSHA members should also bear in mind that the government agency responsible for commissioning the National Diet and Nutrition Survey, the Food Standards Agency, has been kept fully informed of this new information and has not refuted the figures supplied by Dr Mansfield. The reference for the information published in the BMJ 'Fluoride Consumption -- Much Higher than We Are Told' is on http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/335/7622/699#177639
It would seem prudent for the SCSHA to investigate immediately why those promoting fluoridation in Hampshire have not investigated this crucially important matter. The onus is now on those proposing fluoridation in Hampshire to provide evidence that people in Hampshire are not already consuming too much fluoride. Since no evidence whatsoever has been offered that the diet of people in Hampshire differs from that in the rest of the UK, the SCSHA must reject the proposal for a twelvefold increase of fluoride in Hampshire's drinking water.
Yours sincerely,
John Spottiswoode
Hampshire Against Fluoridation
Statement from Dan Stockin, Senior Operations Officer, The Lillie Center Inc.
To SHA panel members,
My name is Daniel Stockin. I am a 20-year-career public health professional with a strong background in toxics assessment and hazardous materials management. I'm writing to advise you of two developments you should be aware of concerning water fluoridation. Our public health training firm, The Lillie Center Inc., formally submitted an ethics complaint to the joint ethics committees of the Centers for Disease Control concerning unethical actions by CDC managers in promoting water fluoridation. Disturbingly, CDC has refused to answer in writing key questions in the complaint. One result of the complaint was an attorney firm seeing the document and then becoming interested in harm to citizens from fluoridated water. The firm's subsequent actions helped force the National Kidney Foundation to change its stance on fluoridated water, and the Kidney Foundation's name has now been removed from the American Dental Association's list of water fluoridation supporters. The ethics complaint may be viewed online. Contact me if you would like to see a copy of CDC's response.
Secondly, you should be aware that diabetics and kidney patients (and attorneys) are waking up to the issue of legal liability for public and private sector organizations that promote use of fluorides. The liability cases will include legal actions for failure to warn kidney patients and diabetics that they have been designated in 2006 by the National Research Council as "susceptible subpopulations" that are especially vulnerable to harm from ingested fluorides.
Here's the bottom line: as a public health professional I can tell you that doctors, dentists, and government agencies no longer have credibility in their statements that fluoridated water is safe. Based on my conversations with attorneys, I believe for liability reasons you do not want to be in the position where kidney patients and diabetics can prove you were provided this and other information, yet you decided to fluoridate anyway. For public health professionals like myself, this whole issue has shattered my belief in the integrity of our health system. Don't be swayed by proponents of fluoridation; the science shows fluorides are actually harmful, and no one can control the dose of fluorides susceptible people ingest if you put it in the water.
Daniel G. Stockin, MPH
Senior Operations Officer
The Lillie Center Inc.
P.O. Box 839 Ellijay GA 30540
United States
Email: dan@thelilliecenter.com
This message from Dr. Hal Huggins (info@hugginsappliedhealing.com)
With the recent admissions by the FDA that mercury fillings should not be placed in pregnant or lactating women, nor in children whose brain is still developing, I feel exonerated. I lost my license for telling people mercury did this and more. Now trial lawyers can come to the front and see to it that dentists - after being sued - should stop poisoning people. I vote to make lawyers part of the health profession.
And this message from lawyer Charlie Brown, National Counsel, Consumers for Dental Choice, charlie@toxicteeth.org
12 February 2009
We are landing good punches in both the publishing and broadcast media. Two state trial lawyer associations, the ones in Colorado and Idaho, published my article, Mercury Dental Fillings as an Emerging Toxic Tort. My article sketches out for trial lawyers a cause of action against the major amalgam manufacturers, including Danaher (Kerr) and Dentsply. As you may recall, we simultaneously are mounting a shareholder challenge against these economic colossuses.
ITV, a major TV network in Great Britain, is doing an exposé on mercury amalgam on Feb. 16 -- the topic is What's in your mouth? It's on ITV's award-winning "Tonight" program -- analogous to Sixty Minutes in the US. The story is done by the well-known (in the U.K.) investigative reporter Morland Sanders. I was interviewed at length for the story, as was mercury-free U.K. dentist John Roberts.
As the date approaches for FDA to classify mercury amalgam (no later than July 28), we continue to build the momentum in the press that amalgam is on its way out.
Charlie
http://www.FluorideAlert.org
FAN Bulletin 1046: Professionals ask SHA board members to reject fluoridation. Part 3Feb 13, 2009
First, apologies for leaving out the email address (iron@berkeley.edu) of Juanita Neilands in our last bulletin. Juanita is the widow of the late professor Joe Neilands, one of the signers of the Professionals Statement calling for an end to fluoridation, who passed away recently.
Below we have printed out two more important statements sent into the SHA panel who are considering the possible fluoridation of Southampton and some surrounding communities in the UK, as well as two short statements on mercury amalgam developments. All statements pose issues about potential liabilities for the dental lobby.
John Spottiswode reminds the panel that the World Health Organization advises communities considering fluoridation that they should first check to see what the community's current exposure to fluoride is from other sources. While promoters often cite the WHO's support for this practice they never acknowledge this important caveat. With so many children now impacted with dental fluorosis such an omission is utterly irresponsible. Children could either have their urine tested for fluoride or examined for the signs of dental fluorosis. The early promoters of fluoridation believed that at optimal levels of fluoride (1 ppm) approximately 10% of children would develop dental fluorosis in its mildest form. Running this logic backwards: if one found that over 10% of children had dental fluorosis in a community (before fluoridation) then we can assume that they are getting the optimal fluoride exposure and they don't need any more. Today over 10% of children living in communities with fluoride levels less than 0.3 ppm have dental fluorosis and over 20% living in communities with fluoride levels between 0.3 and 0.7 ppm have dental fluorosis (Heller et al., 1997). This is all very rational of course, but it makes the generous assumption that those who promote fluoridation care about science.
What they really care about are their liabilities. Is it fear of liabilities more than anything else which led the ADA to recommend to their membership that parents be advised not to use fluoridated tap water to make up infant formula? If they cared about our kids they would have warned the parents themselves as well as the media and the WIC clinics. And is it fear of liabilities which has forced Colgate to remove fluoride supplements ("Luride") from pharmacy shelves? Colgate has very quietly removed all reference to "Luride" from its web page. Has any one told the many pediatricians throughout the world who still prescribe fluoride tablets to babies? See this February 6th announcement Several Sodium Fluoride Chewable Tablets Discontinued.
Dan Stockin from The Lillie Center also warns the SHA about the liabilities incurred by those who promote fluoridation without warning kidney patients and diabetics that they may have extra risks from consuming fluoridated water. He writes: "
"Here's the bottom line: as a public health professional I can tell you that doctors, dentists, and government agencies no longer have credibility in their statements that fluoridated water is safe. Based on my conversations with attorneys, I believe for liability reasons you do not want to be in the position where kidney patients and diabetics can prove you were provided this and other information, yet you decided to fluoridate anyway."
While we are on liabilities we should not forget that other issue over which the ADA has built up huge liabilities: their continued support for the use of mercury amalgams to fill teeth. For over 170 years they and their predecessors have claimed that these were "safe and effective" and that there was no scientific evidence of harm. Now whole countries have banned these amalgams and the writing is on the wall for the US. The similarities between the ADA's promotion and rhetoric on mercury amalgam "safety" and fluoride "safety" are remarkably similar. In my view when one falls the other will soon follow. So we should heartily celebrate the progress being made by the dentists who have been fighting mercury amalgams and penalized for doing so, like Dr. Hal Huggins (see email below), and the lawyers who are fighting on their behalf like Charlie Brown (see email below).
If you live in the UK make sure you get to watch the ITV program "Tonight" on Monday Feb 16, 8-8:30 pm, which will be featuring an expose on mercury amalgams in a special entitled What's in your mouth?
Paul Connett
___________________________________________________________
Statement from John Spottiswoode, Hampshire Against Fluoridation
Dear Members of the SCSHA,
One important aspect of the public consultation on fluoridation in the SCSHA area has not received the attention it deserves and that is 'How much fluoride are residents of Hampshire consuming today, even without fluoridation?' The SHA has failed to answer this question yet the NHS's systematic review, the York Review, identified this as an important consideration in 2000.
Other authorities have also attested to the importance of this aspect, as far back as 1971, the World Health Organisation (WHO International Drinking Water Standards) warned: "In the assessment of the safety of a water supply with regard to the fluoride concentration, the total daily intake by the individual must be considered."
In 1994 a WHO Expert committee again said: "Dental and public health administrators should be aware of the total fluoride exposure in the population before introducing any additional fluoride programme."
And in its Guidelines for drinking water quality, 3rd Ed (2006) the WHO stated that "It was also emphasised that in setting national standards for fluoride, it is particularly important to consider ... volume of water intake and intake of fluoride from other sources." ( S.12.63 page 377)
No information on fluoride intake by residents of Hampshire was provided to the public during the public consultation in the South Central Strategic Health Authority area, contrary to WHO warnings. In view of this very serious omission it would seem essential for the SCSHA - even at this late stage in the process - to consider carefully the only data on fluoride intake that is available, viz the data available from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey of 2003.
This has been analysed by Dr Peter Mansfield who found that 20.2% of the adult population between 19 and 64 yrs old across all of England, Wales and Scotland is already exposed to above safe intakes of fluoride. Dr Mansfield has further found that in those areas with fluoridated drinking water, the proportion above the safe intake rises to 65% of adults. Safe intake has been set by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food (COMA) as 0.05mg F /kg body weight/ per day. Above this safe level the fluoride accumulates in the body and the bones to such an extent that by the time of retirement people can expect serious adverse health effects, even if they have avoided them successfully until that age. Dr Peter Mansfield presented this personally to us on the 31st January and since then he has also presented this at the Department of Health to the Chief Dental Officer, Dr Barry Cockcroft.
We are alerting you to this important information to avoid any misunderstanding arising from a possible future claim that people were not made aware of this most relevant omission from the consultation.
SCSHA members should also bear in mind that the government agency responsible for commissioning the National Diet and Nutrition Survey, the Food Standards Agency, has been kept fully informed of this new information and has not refuted the figures supplied by Dr Mansfield. The reference for the information published in the BMJ 'Fluoride Consumption -- Much Higher than We Are Told' is on http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/335/7622/699#177639
It would seem prudent for the SCSHA to investigate immediately why those promoting fluoridation in Hampshire have not investigated this crucially important matter. The onus is now on those proposing fluoridation in Hampshire to provide evidence that people in Hampshire are not already consuming too much fluoride. Since no evidence whatsoever has been offered that the diet of people in Hampshire differs from that in the rest of the UK, the SCSHA must reject the proposal for a twelvefold increase of fluoride in Hampshire's drinking water.
Yours sincerely,
John Spottiswoode
Hampshire Against Fluoridation
Statement from Dan Stockin, Senior Operations Officer, The Lillie Center Inc.
To SHA panel members,
My name is Daniel Stockin. I am a 20-year-career public health professional with a strong background in toxics assessment and hazardous materials management. I'm writing to advise you of two developments you should be aware of concerning water fluoridation. Our public health training firm, The Lillie Center Inc., formally submitted an ethics complaint to the joint ethics committees of the Centers for Disease Control concerning unethical actions by CDC managers in promoting water fluoridation. Disturbingly, CDC has refused to answer in writing key questions in the complaint. One result of the complaint was an attorney firm seeing the document and then becoming interested in harm to citizens from fluoridated water. The firm's subsequent actions helped force the National Kidney Foundation to change its stance on fluoridated water, and the Kidney Foundation's name has now been removed from the American Dental Association's list of water fluoridation supporters. The ethics complaint may be viewed online. Contact me if you would like to see a copy of CDC's response.
Secondly, you should be aware that diabetics and kidney patients (and attorneys) are waking up to the issue of legal liability for public and private sector organizations that promote use of fluorides. The liability cases will include legal actions for failure to warn kidney patients and diabetics that they have been designated in 2006 by the National Research Council as "susceptible subpopulations" that are especially vulnerable to harm from ingested fluorides.
Here's the bottom line: as a public health professional I can tell you that doctors, dentists, and government agencies no longer have credibility in their statements that fluoridated water is safe. Based on my conversations with attorneys, I believe for liability reasons you do not want to be in the position where kidney patients and diabetics can prove you were provided this and other information, yet you decided to fluoridate anyway. For public health professionals like myself, this whole issue has shattered my belief in the integrity of our health system. Don't be swayed by proponents of fluoridation; the science shows fluorides are actually harmful, and no one can control the dose of fluorides susceptible people ingest if you put it in the water.
Daniel G. Stockin, MPH
Senior Operations Officer
The Lillie Center Inc.
P.O. Box 839 Ellijay GA 30540
United States
Email: dan@thelilliecenter.com
This message from Dr. Hal Huggins (info@hugginsappliedhealing.com)
With the recent admissions by the FDA that mercury fillings should not be placed in pregnant or lactating women, nor in children whose brain is still developing, I feel exonerated. I lost my license for telling people mercury did this and more. Now trial lawyers can come to the front and see to it that dentists - after being sued - should stop poisoning people. I vote to make lawyers part of the health profession.
And this message from lawyer Charlie Brown, National Counsel, Consumers for Dental Choice, charlie@toxicteeth.org
12 February 2009
We are landing good punches in both the publishing and broadcast media. Two state trial lawyer associations, the ones in Colorado and Idaho, published my article, Mercury Dental Fillings as an Emerging Toxic Tort. My article sketches out for trial lawyers a cause of action against the major amalgam manufacturers, including Danaher (Kerr) and Dentsply. As you may recall, we simultaneously are mounting a shareholder challenge against these economic colossuses.
ITV, a major TV network in Great Britain, is doing an exposé on mercury amalgam on Feb. 16 -- the topic is What's in your mouth? It's on ITV's award-winning "Tonight" program -- analogous to Sixty Minutes in the US. The story is done by the well-known (in the U.K.) investigative reporter Morland Sanders. I was interviewed at length for the story, as was mercury-free U.K. dentist John Roberts.
As the date approaches for FDA to classify mercury amalgam (no later than July 28), we continue to build the momentum in the press that amalgam is on its way out.
Charlie
posted by Bill at
9:53 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home