Today, Dec 1, 2016, marks the opening of FAN’s annual fundraiser. It also marks the beginning of an important new campaign which will inform much of what we do in 2017.

On Nov 22, Dr. Bill Hirzy and I, along with nutritionist Valerie Green and three of her children, delivered a legal petition (plus over 300 supporting documents) to the EPA headquarters in DC. This petition, written by Michael Connett, calls upon the EPA to ban the addition of fluoridating chemicals to the public drinking water under provisions in the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The full petition can be accessed here, a shorter 8-page summary here, and our press release here. The EPA has 90 days to respond and after that time we can take the issue to court. This may be the lawsuit we have all been waiting for.

I would like to pay tribute to Michael and summarize his very special 16-year contribution to FAN’s efforts to end fluoridation.

When Michael came to us in 2000 and said he wanted to help us end fluoridation we were flabbergasted. We had no idea that he had taken any interest in our efforts. He explained that he wanted to set up a web page – which he did. A central feature of this was the Health Database, which enabled anyone, and everyone to quickly access all the studies that indicated that fluoride causes harm. This quickly became the largest database ever assembled on fluoride’s toxicity. A central feature of this was the section on fluoride and the brain, for which Michael had many studies translated from Chinese, Russian and Persian. These have since been used by many key scientists (for example Choi et al, 2012) and it is at the core of the material presented in this petition to the EPA.

In 2008, Michael left FAN to go to law school, but before he did so, he left us with a splendid swan song, the video Professional Perspectives on Water Fluoridation which he produced and edited.

After a short spell leading FAN in 2016, Michael returned to legal practice in Los Angeles. This petition is his second swan song. It represents the culmination of both his scientific and legal contributions to FAN. In my view, it also spells out the beginning of the end of fluoridation worldwide if we all pull together and make sure as many citizens, professionals, journalists and decision-makers as possible are made aware of its contents.

We must continue to ask the promoters of fluoridation, “There are over 300 red flags waving on fluoride’s neurotoxicity, where are the green flags that give you the confidence to ignore all these studies?” So far they have failed miserably to provide any significant scientific evidence for doing so.

We must continue to ask regulators, who spend a lot of time, money and effort attempting to reduce our children’s exposure to lead because it is neurotoxic, why they stand by and allow the deliberate addition of fluoride to the drinking water, even though there is now overwhelming evidence that fluoride is also neurotoxic.

We must be ready to provide this petition and the body of scientific evidence it contains to ill-informed journalists and editors who continue to state – often in the most strident and sarcastic terms -that opponents of fluoridation have no science to support their claims.

This petition will be at the center of our fundraising effort and our campaign in 2017. While we provide regular updates on our fundraiser we will also be providing many ways you can support this effort.

This year we are seeking to raise $150,000 from 1000 donors by midnight Dec 31, 2016. All donations are tax-deductible under the 501-c3 status of our parent organization the American Environmental Health Studies Project, Inc (AEHSP).

To make a tax-deductible donation to the Fluoride Action Network, a project of the American Environmental Health Studies Project, you can either:

  • Donate online using our secure server.  If you should experience difficulty in donating at our secure server, please call Network For Good at 1-888-284-7978 and press option 3 to make your donation over the phone.
  • Or by check – please make checks payable to Fluoride Action Network and send to: FAN, c/o Connett, 104 Walnut Street, Binghamton NY 13905

*Please note that some corporations match tax deductible donations made by their employees to some non-profits. We qualify for this. This is the information to provide your corporation finance people, the parent body for FAN is the American Environmental Health Studies Project, Inc, registered in Vermont.

Paul Connett, PhD
Senior Advisor & Fundraising Team Leader
Fluoride Action Network

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