Two Big Victories
This week there were two major victories against fluoridation in the U.S. The first was in Newport, Oregon, where residents voted 64% to 36% to overwhelmingly reject the introduction of fluoride chemicals into the public drinking water. This vote was the first dealing with fluoridation in Oregon since Portland’s landmark vote defeating fluoridation 61% to 39% in 2013.
Newport was fluoridated from the 1960’s until 2005, when dust from the fluoride chemicals created unsafe conditions for water treatment staff and violated OSHA guidelines, causing the city to end the practice. The issue resurfaced last summer after the Lincoln County Public Health Advisory Committee recommended adding the toxin to the drinking water. In response, members of Clean Water Newport organized local residents in opposition, packing public hearings, putting up yard signs, demanding a ballot vote, and using every grassroots strategy available to defeat the measure. You can learn more about this amazing victory by clicking here.
The second victory was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where members of the Water Utility Authority voted 4-2 to cut funding for fluoridation from their 2017 budget after hearing from residents who overwhelmingly opposed the practice. The city fluoridated their drinking water up until 2011, when they suspended the practice until the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services came out with an official recommendation of the “optimal fluoride levels.”
Since ending the practice 5 years ago, the water utility authority has been under intense pressure from the fluoride-lobby to re-start the practice, since Albuquerque is one of the largest cities in the U.S. that is not fluoridated, along with Portland, Oregon. Despite lobbying from local dentists, the New Mexico Department of Health, and from Delta Dental, Albuquerque councilors concluded that it wasn’t their role to force a medical treatment on their citizens using the water supply.
I’d like to thank all of the local campaigners who participated in our email/phone campaign, and especially those who testified at the hearings.
Get a Free Copy of “The Case Against Fluoride”
From now until Sunday, we are offering a free copy of The Case Against Fluoride to the first 50 people who make a tax-deductible donation online. If you support FAN’s work, this week is a particularly helpful time to donate as Dr. Mercola has pledged to match all donations to FAN made during Fluoride Awareness Week, which runs until Sunday, May 22. So please consider supporting FAN’s ongoing work by making a contribution, by either:
- Using our secure online server, or
- By check (payable to Fluoride Action Network) and mailed to: FAN, 104 Walnut Street, Binghamton NY 13905.
Press Release on FDA/Fluoride Supplement Petition
FAN has issued a press release on our campaign with The International Academy of Oral Medicine & Toxicology calling for the FDA to remove all unapproved fluoride supplements from the market (see below). The release has already been picked up by
the Drug Store News and Pharmaceutical Technology which should help to get the attention of the pharmacies and supplement manufactures currently selling these prohibited products.
To help spread this information, please share our press release with your local media outlets (newspapers, radio stations, TV news outlets). We suggest emailing this version of the release to the news department or editors of your local news outlets.
Also, we have set up an automated system that allows you to quickly and easily send a letter to the editor of your local newspapers. Please take a few minutes to educate your neighbors about the ongoing unlawful sales of unapproved drugs by the nation’s biggest pharmacies that are being targeted to infants, toddlers, and young children:
SEND LETTERS TO YOUR LOCAL EDITORS
FAN Press Release:
Petition Asks FDA to Remove All Unapproved Fluoride Supplements from Market
LOS ANGELES, CA – The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a “Warning Letter” that orders a manufacturer of fluoride drops and tablets to “immediately” discontinue marketing these products because FDA has never approved them as safe and effective. Now the Fluoride Action Network (FAN) has joined with the International Academy of Oral Medicine & Toxicology (IAOMT) to petition the FDA to take similar action against all other companies producing unapproved fluoride drugs, commonly known as fluoride “supplements.”
Fluoride supplements are sodium fluoride-containing drops, tablets, and lozenges sold for the purpose of preventing tooth decay. Despite being labeled “supplements,” the FDA’s Warning Letter states that these products are “drugs” which are “not generally recognized as safe and effective” for cavity prevention.
Although prescribed to millions of children for decades, no manufacturer has ever submitted clinical evidence to the FDA to prove the safety and effectiveness of fluoride supplements. As FDA’s Warning Letter confirms, the agency considers fluoride supplements “unapproved new drugs” that are unlawful to sell.
The FDA issued the Warning Letter in January to Kirkman Industries, Inc., one of the manufacturers of fluoride supplements.
“Each and every one of the issues that FDA identified with Kirkman’s fluoride supplements is equally applicable to the fluoride supplements being manufactured by other companies,” states attorney and FAN Executive Director, Michael Connett.
A number of pharmaceutical companies, including Libertas Pharma, Sancilio & Company, Inc., and Qualitest, continue to manufacture fluoride supplements, and the nation’s largest pharmacies continue to sell them, including Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, and Walmart. “This ongoing, widespread sale of unapproved fluoride drugs constitutes a systematic violation of federal and state law,” Connett states.
Fluoride supplements were launched in the 1940s on the now universally discredited premise that fluoride needs to be ingested during early childhood to provide a meaningful role in cavity prevention. The overwhelming body of evidence today shows that fluoride’s predominant effect on cavities comes from topical application, not ingestion.
“There is no need for children to be swallowing any fluoride, whether in drops, tablets, or any other form, including water,” notes Connett.
Recent scientific and medical research shows that ingesting fluoride poses serious health risks. In 2006, the National Research Council identified fluoride as an “endocrine disruptor” that can impair the normal functioning of the thyroid gland, and in 2014, The Lancet published a paper classifying fluoride as one of 11 chemicals known to damage the developing human brain (i.e., a “developmental neurotoxin”), alongside lead and mercury.
“Whether fluoride is added to water or prescribed as a supplement, it is a neurotoxic and endocrine disrupting substance with no discernible health benefit when swallowed,” comments Dr. Jack Kall, DMD, Chairman of IAOMT’s Board Directors. “We are seriously concerned that there have been no safety studies done on fluoride supplementation and no accurate assessment of just how much fluoride Americans are taking into their bodies from water, supplements, and an array of other sources.”
“Rather than continuing to increase children’s ingestion of fluoride, the urgent need now is to find ways to reduce it,” adds Connett. “Removing unapproved fluoride drugs from the market is one important and obvious way to do so.”
The formal petition filed by FAN and the IAOMT can be viewed in its entirety at http://fluoridealert.org/citizen_petition/.
Public support for the petition has been significant, with over 8,500 signatures achieved in the first 48 hours since the petition went public. All signatures supporting the petition (via http://fluoridealert.org/fda/) will be uploaded to FDA’s website before the comment deadline and addressed to Robert M. Califf, M.D., Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Stuart Cooper
Campaign Director
Fluoride Action Network
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