Fluoride Study

Late in August, eleven EPA unions, representing more than 7,000 dentist and other professionals from across the United States, issued public request for Congress to enact "a national moratorium on water fluoridation," pending a full scientific review on its risks and benefits. They also jointly urged "EPA management to recognize fluoride as posing a serious risk of causing cancer in people." Representatives of the unions sent letters to key Congressional committees, asking Congress to legislate a moratorium pending a review of all the science on the risks and benefits of fluoridation.

The letters pointed out ‘’the weight of evidence supporting a classification of fluoride as a likely human carcinogen," citing "epidemiology results similar to those in the Harvard study, animal studies, and biological reasons why fluoride can reasonably be expected to cause the bone cancer- osteosarcoma - seen in young boys and test animals."

Hey also asked Congress and federal enforcement entities to investigate why the Harvard study director, Chester Douglass, failed to report "the seven-fold increased risk seen in the work he oversaw," instead declaring to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences that "there was no link between fluoridation and osteosarcoma."

One of the letters was written directly to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and asked him "to issue a public warning … selling the health-base drinking water standard for fluoride at zero." pending a recommendation from a NAS National Research Council committee, whose work is not due until next year. The Protect Our Water Alliance provides an online petition at www.powalliance.org/petition/ supporting the EPA unions' multiple requests. – ST

Vol 24 Issue 4 Page 44