MAY 20, 2015
Dan Stockin does it again (see his media release below). Using the Freedom of Information Act he has obtained all the un-redacted correspondence
among those individuals at the CDC, ADA and Pew who were involved in
the attempt in May-June of 2011 to “put the lid on” concerns from Civil
Rights leaders in Atlanta (former UN Ambassador Andrew Young; the Rev
Durley and the niece and daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr) about the
disproportionate harm fluoridation is causing Black and Hispanic
communities in the US and the failure of the CDC to warn these
communities of their extra vulnerabilities to fluoride (“FluorideGate”).
These
statements from Civil Rights leaders were of huge concern to
fluoridation promoters. According to Dr. Leon Stanislav (who was sent by
the ADA to the meeting discussed below), “This is becoming a very large
picture (issue, PC) with a movement through the black ministries and,
possibly, even as high as the administration.” (p.260)
Having read through the 320 pages of documentation provided by FOIA,
it is clear that much of the information has been redacted - 80 pages
were blanked out and another 45 pages were partially blanked out. It is
puzzling that so much of the discussion on this public health practice
is deemed so confidential that it has to be kept hidden from the public.
Usually, there are very serious reasons (e.g. national security) why
FOIA pages are redacted. However, in this case national security would
not apply. So when it
comes to the defense of a public health practice
the redaction of so much material would seem to fly in the face of the
spirit of the Freedom of Information Act.
The
key event at the heart of the “fluoridation fortress (CDC, ADA, Pew)”
response to the Civil Rights’ leaders was a meeting held at Morehouse
College in Atlanta on June 1, 2011. The meeting was organized behind
the scenes by the PEW Charitable Trusts, but they had no representative
at the meeting. (p.259) Those attending were:
Ambassador Andrew Young
Rev. Gerald Durley
Dr. David Satcher (former US Surgeon General)
Dr. John Maupin, Morehouse School of Medicine
EPA
Dr. Gwen Keyes Fleming, Administrator Region IV
HHS/ CDC
Dr. Ursula Bauer, Director of the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and health promotion
Dr. Scott Presson – CDC program services
Dr. Gina Thornton-Evans – CDC oral health epidemiologist
Dr. Desmond Williams – lead, Chronic Kidney Disease Initiative
HHS/Office of Minority Health
Dr. Garth Graham –Deputy Assistant Director for Minority Health
Dr. Rochelle Rollins –Director, Division of Policy and Data
Dr. Arlene Lester – Regional Minority Health Consultant
Georgia State
Dr. Elizabeth Lense –State Dental Director
National Dental Association (NDA)
Dr. Sheila Brown, President, NDA
Dr. Roy Irons P-E
Dr. Kim Perry, Chairman of the Board, NDA
Mr. Robert Johns, ED
American Dental Association (ADA)
Dr. Bill Cainon, Pres-Elect, ADA
Dr. Leon Stanislav, former Chairman NFAC
Judy Sherman, Washington DC office, ADA
A
noticeable absentee from this list was Dan Stockin, who was invited to
attend by Rev. Durley, but was dis-invited en route to the meeting!
Clearly, this meeting was designed to provide only one side of the fluoridation debate to the Civil Rights leaders.
Involved
in the discussions before the meeting was Dr. William Maas, former Oral
Health Director of the CDC and in 2011 was working for Pew as a
consultant. In one of his emails (dated May 6 to Dr. William Bailey the
current Oral Health Director at the CDC) he is clearly worried about the
ramifications of the number of studies that indicate that fluoride
damages the brains of both animal and humans. He writes:
"Bill,
you may recall that I suggested some time ago, perhaps even before you
were CDO, that we ought to find someone who is 'the Gary Whitford of
brain change or IQ studies.' If my recollection is correct, some of the
very first studies associating fluoride with IQ were refuted by a
review of David Locker. Of course his death has ended that source of
ongoing rebuttal. I thought it best that we find out the types of
people that other divisions of the CDC would use to answer questions
about whether substances cause brain alteration. Of course our biases
may be entirely different that [sic] other divisions. They may be
looking for the slightest evidence that something in the environment is
bad for brains, whereas we are only interested in compelling evidence
that our favorite substance causes brain changes, and want to minimize
the credibility of poorly conducted studies or well-conducted studies
that are not relevant.
While
I don't want to completely dismiss the possibility that fluoride in
water at levels provided to the public in the US (that would be 4mg/L or
less) causes brain changes, IQ changes, etc, I suspect that all of
these 130 studies that were mentioned share some common flaws that
someone who studies IQ and brain changes for a living would be able to
identify and summarize for us, (much as we've used Gary Whitford to help
us understand the flaws in studies purporting changes to kidney
functions, etc.)..."
One
notices with this comment a common feature in the activities of the
CDC, ADA and Pew. The emphasis is on finding ways to “deny” harm rather
than a genuine effort to find out if harm is being caused by this
practice. It is 20 years since the first animal studies on fluoride’s
neurotoxicity (Mullenix et al, 1995) and subsequent IQ studies were
published, why has so little effort been put into research on this issue
in the US and other fluoridated countries?
As Dan Stockin concludes in his media release,
“Fluoridegate is about officials being more concerned to protect water
fluoridation at all costs than protecting the health of the people they
serve.”
How can you help?
Write to your Senator and Congressperson and ask them to support
“FluorideGate” hearings to investigate this issue more fully. We need
these fluoridation promoters and defenders to testify under oath. Why
are they hiding the health risks from minority communities? Meanwhile,
ask your representatives if they can help find out what is hidden in the
redacted pages in this FOIA document.
See also
Sincerely,
Paul Connett, PhD
Director,
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