Posted in reply to the post by lilypads:
APRIL M. HURLEY, MD
BOARD CERTIFIED FAMILY MEDICINE
www.HomeCareNow.net
Open Letter to Board of Supervisors about Water Fluoridation
I am a local physician very concerned that special interests may harm residents in Sonoma County. Today, most experts are calling for an international moratorium on water fluoridation. 97% of Europeans resist fluoridation. Please go to www.fluoridealert.org to review the evidence against water fluoridation discussed globally, though not in the United States. The precautionary principle trumps other arguments.
Fluoride is a demonstrable carcinogen, mutagen (DNA damage), hormonal disruptor, and a serious neurotoxin. Fluoridation of county water supplies will increase residents’ risk of many expensive health conditions that will dwarf the suffering and costs of cavities. Our Sonoma County Medical Association (SCMA) is negligent in blindly supporting fluoridation; most doctors and dentists are under-informed and too busy to find the science.
Dental hygiene, good nutrition, and fluoride applied to teeth, are safe and effective in preventing tooth decay. Ingested fluoride is, in fact, neither. The June 2013 issue of the Journal of Dental Research includes yet another study showing that the natural sweetener xylitol safely and effectively protects dental enamel.
The Wall Street Journal has been reporting on credible research (consistently and deliberately marginalized) showing clear evidence that human cancer and neurological damage results from fluoridation of water. Peer-reviewed human and animal studies confirm that fluoride lowers intelligence and increases bone fractures. Increasing numbers of adolescents, greater than 40%, have visible tooth enamel damage (dental fluorosis), an indicator of high body exposure, toxic injury of fluoride. Fluorosis of bones, brain, glands, and organs, is not visible; those critical studies have been politically avoided in the US.
African-Americans and Hispanic residents, who are more vulnerable to fluoride harms, have not been warned. Maternal iodine deficiency, which is found in at least half of pregnant women, increases fluoride toxicity. Even after more than a decade of well documented research, the same Institute of Medicine behind fluoride in drinking water has yet to show concern for the developing brain.
That is to ask, where is the long overdue advisory to correct prenatal iodine deficiency? Both congenital hypothyroidism and neurological impairment are on the rise; these conditions are associated with maternal iodine deficiency, increasing radioactive iodine fallout, and fluoride exposure. Not only do SCMA physicians have the option to avoid foods containing fluorinated pesticides and herbicides, but we can travel to pristine places and install expensive water filtration or distillation in our homes to remove fluoride. True, we may not see our own families as being threatened by fluoridated water. But with each passing year of economic stress, more of our
patients are unable to afford organic food, fluoride-free beverages, and they cannot escape job or local pollution exposures.
According to most current studies, children often ingest an overdose of fluoride simply through inattention when brushing with kids’ fluoride toothpaste.
Keep in mind that promoting more plastic water bottle use and waste is not good health policy.
MEDICAL SCHOOL ON THE FLY (for board members without medical licensure):
· Fluoride for water treatment is not medical grade. It is industrial sourced, added at the water plant along with “officially acceptable” contaminants: arsenic, lead,
(radioactive salts in some samples). It all eventually contaminates our environment.
· Water fluoridation means each one of you is prescribing a whole body dose of an FDA designated "unapproved drug" to every resident for many years - without informed consent. This is not a personal freedom issue; it is public health malpractice,
· Have you noticed that the incidence of autism is now one in fifty children born
today? In the early 1980’s, when I started medical school, it was one in ten thousand.
Fluoride is not a nutrient, it is another neurotoxin.
· Fluoride is bioaccumulative. There is a very low level of safe body burden,
mostly bone and pineal gland storage of fluoride. Have you been monitoring the
fluoride content in foods and beverages (high in grape products and tea, for example)? Are you monitoring the fluoride laden air pollution arriving in Sonoma County 24/7 from China? From Japan, Fukushima meltdown pollution has increased US radioactive iodine to over 200 times “acceptable” (?) levels at several EPA monitoring devices.
· 30 tons of fluorinated pesticides are dispersed in Sonoma County vineyards
every year. These fluorocarbons are themselves harmful and release free fluoride intoour bodies as well. The product information sheets do not show this.
· Your malpractice risk is over more years than physicians or dentists. Besides
your dosing of toxic water, patients are prescribed long term fluorinated medications
The effects of fluoride from the metabolism of these drugs in humans has not been
published and package inserts do not include data about the release of fluoride (by
known hepatic enzyme pathways) demonstrated in mammalian animal studies.
· Do you know each patient? Will Sonoma County supply distilled water to WIC moms and officially warn vulnerable patients and tourists: “Do not drink tap water”?
Water fluoridation is a placebo promoted to band-aid the converging national crises of poor nutrition and inaccessible dental care. Your public health officer is proposing an archaic policy never supported by scientific study. She has brought you fluoridation “experts” who work overtime to sell an industrial toxic waste. They are hoping to delay the inevitable, when sixty years of deliberate deception about water fluoridation is officially deconstructed. Your role in local fluoride poisoning may be inescapable; you have been well informed by many local health professionals and knowledgeable citizens who are committed to keeping clean water.
Think long and hard about the predictable harms to your children and grandchildren, all your constituents, as well as the impact on wine country tourism, before caving in to forces pushing water fluoridation. Will you start a persisting financial hemorrhage for a dangerous countywide program imposed on your watch? Should you be consulting your lawyer?
Please vote on the side of caution. Do not fluoridate our drinking water!
April M. Hurley, MD 7/8/2013
