August 12, 2015
We know that the Denver Dental Society is urging its members to send letters to the water board members. It’s imperative we do the same, but at a greater volume. If you haven’t already submitted a comment calling for the end to fluoridation in Denver, Colorado, then please do so today! The board especially needs to hear from our professional supporters. Please help us make history and boost our movement’s momentum around the world significantly by helping end fluoridation in Denver. Contact the board TODAY:
If you missed the live coverage of the fluoridation forum in Denver, you can now view video of the historic event.
- WATCH: 30-minute edited video of Dr. Paul Connett’s (FAN’s Director & Co-author of The Case Against Fluoride) presentation to the water board, closing remarks, and follow-up interview. Please share this video!
- WATCH: The full three-hour fluoridation information session with a panel of experts on both sides of the issue. Here is the meeting agenda and Powerpointpresentation for every speaker.
Dear Water Commissioners,
I
am appealing to you again with my third and last submission of comments
on your fluoridation policy. This one has to do with the
well-entrenched policy statement on Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies of
the American Water Works Association. If you choose to vote in favor
of changing Denver’s fluoridation, I can understand how AWWA may feel
rubbed the wrong way, particularly since AWWA is headquartered in
Denver. However, opposition to fluoridation is not new to them.
Several
years ago, as a previously long-standing AWWA member, I took an online
survey AWWA was conducting. One question asked what it would take for me
to renew my membership after having let it lapse. I responded that
they would have to change their fluoridation policy. Previous to that, I
sent comments during their periodic (5-year) review and update of their
published policy. I pointed out the self-contradiction, i.e., “AWWA
supports the application of fluoride in a responsible, effective, and
reliable manner . . .” because adding fluoridation chemicals in and of
itself is irresponsible considering the science associating fluoride
with adverse health effects. The National Research Council’s 2006
report on fluoride in drinking water is unequivocal in its conclusions
that more study is needed to determine safe levels of ingestion. More
recently the Cochrane review has suggested that ingesting fluoride is
not effective at all for preventing tooth decay, and Ko and Thiessen
(2014) have debunked the mantra that “every $1 spent on fluoridation
saves $38 in dental treatment costs,” further diminishing fluoridation’s
ability to be done responsibly.
My
professional engineering licensure calls for me to hold paramount the
public health, safety, and welfare in the practice of my profession.
Knowing what I have learned and observed over the past six years,
supporting water fluoridation violates that professional commitment. The
ANSI/AWWA Standards allow the contamination of our drinking water with
known carcinogenic heavy metals for which the EPA has established MCLGs
of zero. To that I object, personally and professionally.
If
you look into AWWA’s history of fluoridation policy, you will find one
of the committee members for AWWA’s fluoridation standards was an
employee of the CDC. In fact, his position title at one time was
National Fluoridation Engineer of the CDC. I may be mistaken of the
exact year, but I recall it was in 2007 that fluoridating utilities were
notified about an anticipated shortage of fluorosilicic acid. But the
FSA suppliers were not the ones who sent the notifications of their
supply shortage; it was the National Fluoridation Engineer who sent the
notifications from his CDC office. Surely the CDC has a hotline to the
FSA suppliers for that mailing list. My point here is that many of the
leadership in the anti-fluoridation movement, including Dr. Connett, Dr.
Hirzy, Dr. Carton, Dr. Limeback, Dr. Thiessen, and many others who have
researched the science and history of fluoridation, recognize the deep
infiltration of highest government level influence, frequently in
collusion with the phosphate fertilizer manufacturers and private
funding machines (primarily ADA, Delta Dental and PEW). We fully expect
that you have been and are currently being confronted with pushback
from those entities warning you against a vote for change. That
pushback will likely continue after a vote for change, may very well
include ad hominem attacks with insinuations of lack of responsibility
or integrity, caving to junk science, possibly even veiled threats of
dental insurance group rate premium increases. So be it. And they will
congratulate you for being “responsible” in for voting the status quo.
I
also would like to comment on the cosmetic dentistry industry. We know
that ingesting fluoride causes dental fluorosis, a cosmetic defect.
Realizing of course that not all cosmetic dentistry is performed to
mitigate fluorosis, I find the following interesting, and am curious to
know how much is performed on fluorosised teeth:
· The
American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry estimates that Americans spend
about $2.75 billion each year on cosmetic dentistry. Two thirds of
cosmetic dentistry patients are female and 33 percent are male.
· According to the ADA, a person’s smile outranked eyes, hair and body as the most important physical feature. (http://www.dentalplans.com/press-room/dentalfactsfigures)
There
is no doubt you will wrestle with pushback and ripple effects whichever
choice you make. But the fact remains that if the status quo is your
ultimate vote, the issue will not go away. The anti-fluoridation
movement is growing commensurate with the increasingly available and
instant access to knowledge never before imagined. The customers you
serve are concerned about what they put in their bodies. Once they are
educated as you have been, they will support you to the very end on your
decision to change policy in a way that assigns a higher priority to
their future health and that of their children than to corporate
lobbying interests. Fiscal responsibility considering lack of
quantifiable benefit, and yielding to higher priorities, is also a
viable option and justifiable rationale for changing policy.
The
bottom line here is a face-off between the better future health of your
customers, and the reputations of those in distant high places who
perpetuate an obsolete policy and wrongfully mask it as being “safe and
effective” for the public good. There are better ways to spend money on
improving public oral health.
Again, thank you for your deepest and heartfelt consideration of this issue.
Sincerely,
John Mueller, P.E.
"A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." -Simon & Garfunkel / “The Boxer”
Sincerely,
Stuart Cooper
Campaign Manager,
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