An online petition calling for a Congressional investigation into the safety of fluoridation has been posted on the Fluoride Action Network website.
Maureen Jones, the director of Citizens for Safe Drinking Water, is calling attention to the petition which, she says, supports the 11 environmental protection unions that are contending that there should be a nationwide moratorium on fluoridation due to recent bone cancer findings that were covered-up.
A letter dated August 5, 2005, adddressed to Hon. Daniel Inouye, ranking member of the senate committee on science and transportation, calls for a moratorium on the national program of the U.S. Public Health Service to fluoridate all of America’s public water supplies. It was signed by the presidents of 11 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency labor union chapters and represents the viewpoint of their rank and file.
On the same day a letter signed by the same union leaders representing a majority of the EPA’s employee unions, was directed to Stephen L. Johnson, U.S. EPA administrator, calling for setting the “maximum contaminant level goal for fluoride at zero.”
What precipitated these letters was what they considered the “overall weight of evidence supporting the classification of fluoride as a human carcinogen, including new information from Harvard on the link between fluoride in drinking water and osteosarcoma in boys.” The reference was to the results of a doctoral dissertation from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine by Elise Bassin, written in 2001, yet unpublished, which suggests a strong correlation between fluoride exposure and bone cancer, primarily for boys exposed at ages 6 through 8 years of age. Portions of the thesis were published on the Internet after anti-fluoridation activists gained access to the document at Harvard’s Countway Library of Medicine.
Although there has been prior evidence supporting the labeling of fluoride as a contaminent, the Joplin City Council without putting the measure to a vote of its citizens passed Ordinance 2004-203 on September 7, 2004 authorizing the introduction of fluoride to the public water supply. This mandate was implemented by Missouri American Water the beginning of August 2005. The company plans to pass along a cost of approximately $.30 a month for its residential customers and 1.8% to its industrial customers as part of a rate increase pending the approval of the Missouri Public Service Commission.
The Neosho City Council, on the other hand, voted unanimously to put the question of adding fluoride to the public water system on the April 2005 ballot. Carl Junction chose to do the same. In Carl Junction, the measure passed with 336 more “yes” votes than “no” votes. The proposal was squashed by voters in Neosho, with 1,223 opposing it and 509 favoring it.
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