Letter: Author an expert on fluoride

In response to Arthur Thomas’ letter (”Degree doesn’t imply expertise,” Oct. 3), the author is mistaken on Dr. Paul Connett’s credentials. Dr. Connett’s doctorate is in chemistry (not waste management), with his specialties in environmental chemistry and toxicology. He has studied the issue of fluoridation for 19 years and lectured on the topic covering 49 U.S. states and 62 other countries. Dr. Connett has presented lectures on fluoridation to the International Society for Fluoride Research, the American College of Toxicology, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Research Council, Centers for Disease Control in China, the Parliamentary Committee on Health and Children in Ireland, a parliamentary committee of the Knesset, as well as to hundreds of other groups throughout the world.

Dr. Connett wrote a book with scientist and physician James Beck, MD, PhD, and scientist Spedding Micklem, PhD, titled “The Case Against Fluoride,” published in 2010. This book contains 80 pages of research material references in the endnotes. In the five years since they published this book, there has been not one rebuttal of it from any group or individual fluoridation proponent. (Dr. Connett also did publish a book titled “Zero Waste Management” in 2013.)

As for so-called proponent experts, every single one of them on Cape Ann and beyond was invited to debate with Dr. Connett when he was here on Cape Ann. Out of the 100-plus proponent invitees, not one of them had the courage of their convictions. Dr. Connett was even willing to debate any number of the invitees all at once. And yet these so-called proponent experts, doctors and dentists alike, knew they didn’t have the facts on their side, and chose not to expose the weakness of their arguments or their comparative ignorance of the subject.

The denial, dismissal and denigration of Dr. Connett’s qualifications to address this issue of fluoridation is hardly helpful to the voters who would like to better understand it.

How do fluoridation proponents explain that 14 Nobel laureates, in both chemistry and medicine, have opposed fluoridation, yet not one we’ve heard of has supported it? Were the 1,500 scientists and other professionals at the EPA unqualified when they published a statement saying that the only safe level for fluoridation is zero?

More than 400 communities have rejected fluoridation since 1990. In the past five years alone, 199 communities have rejected it. Gloucester would be wise to be the 200th.

In the words of Phyllis Mullenix, PhD in toxicology: “The evidence against the safety of this public health policy will keep mounting and never disappear again. My ignorance of fluoride in the beginning was a matter of chance. If you ignore this evidence today, it will be a matter of choice.”

Barbara Goll