As we enter the holiday season, I find my anticipation is extraordinarily high, but not for Christmas. My focus in on two events in early 2024.

The first is the much delayed trial against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) brought by the Food and Water Watch (FWW) et al. which will be heard in federal court beginning in January. The second is a decision on Senate Bill 460 and House Bill 827 by the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. Both concern fluoridation policy.

The trial is one for the history books as it is the first time anyone has attempted to hold the EPA accountable for its failure to protect “susceptible sub-populations” under the statute of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The lawsuit is also notable because stakeholders in fluoridation policy include the small Oral Health Division of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), public health officials at all levels of government, and industry polluters who provide fluoridation chemicals to cities and towns.

Legal discovery in 2023 uncovered that fluoridation policy stakeholders successfully lobbied Admiral Rachel Levine, the head of the Public Health Service, to deep-six a multi-year National Toxicology Program (NTP) systematic review and meta-analysis which confirmed fluoride exposures consistent with what pregnant women receive on Cape Ann harm the developing brains of children. The paper trail also revealed that a leading proponent of fluoridation engaged in scientific fraud in order to disappear evidence of pre- and post-natal harm. I expect both of these items will figure in a Perfect Storm of a trial.

As if the subtle damage caused to baby brains isn’t enough, consider the harm caused to consumers every day with every glass of fluoridated water and every meal prepared with that water:

Do you have bad knees? How about back pain and degenerative disk disease? Fluoride is stored in bones and the symptoms of arthritis are identical to Stages 1 and 2 of skeletal fluorosis.

Do you suffer with inflammatory conditions like eczema, psoriasis, or IBS? Fluoride is not the cause of all of incidences of inflammatory disease, but it can cause and does worsens all of these conditions.

Are you on thyroid medication? Canadian and British studies have documented that between 30% and 50% more low-thyroid disease is diagnosed in fluoridated communities.

How are your kidneys? The “optimal” concentration in fluoridated water communities is 0.7 ppm which is the equivalent of a 0.7 mg/L dose assuming a typical adult consumption of 1 liter of water a day. Scientific studies have validated that so-called “safe” doses of fluoride stresses kidneys. Kidney patients, like diabetics, drink at least three times more water than is typical and so get higher doses of fluoride which damage kidneys. Many kidney doctors, like most thyroid doctors, privately advise their patients to avoid fluoridated water and food prepared with it.

In 2019, the editors of JAMA Pediatrics advised pregnant women to avoid fluoridated water based on the high-quality evidence from a large NIH-sponsored Canadian study.

In 2019, both the Rockport and Gloucester Conservation Commissions went on record against fluoridation policy. So did the Gloucester Shellfish Advisory Commission. They did so because only about 1% of municipal drinking water is consumed by people. Almost all the rest of it goes into the environment where it harms plants and animals.

The bills before the Massachusetts Legislature would ban fluoridation policy because not only is fluoride consumption dangerous to bodies, brains and bones, fluoridation policy harms plants and animals.

Because state and municipal legislatures control fluoridation, a favorable ruling on the national level might not result in an instantaneous end to fluoridation. I expect the EPA and its partners will continue to promote the very profitable policy in whatever way they can. Therefore, residents in Gloucester, Rockport, Manchester and Essex, like our State House representatives need to pay attention to the scientific facts as well as the trial.

I recommend browsing the annotated bibliography of modern science and other material on FluorideLawsuit.com and watching the November interview with our attorney, Michael Connett, which can be found on MomsAgainstFluoridation.org. The interview includes deposition clips of CDC, EPA and NSF leadership confirming under oath that there is no evidence of safety for vulnerable populations.

Concerning Gloucester’s water, with the exception of Klondike which is only used for a week or two in extreme droughts, calcium fluoride concentrations in city reservoirs are typically at or below 0.2 ppm (not 4 ppm). Sodium fluoride is added to reach a target concentration of 0.7 ppm (not 7 ppm). The concentration of calcium fluoride in seawater is up to 1.5 ppm but not only do we not drink seawater, calcium reduces fluoride absorption into tissue. Consequently, there is a significant difference between naturally occurring calcium fluoride and fluoridation chemicals like sodium fluoride.

People, including legislators on Beacon Hill and in City Hall, should stop depending on marketing slogans, biased stakeholders and imperfect memories to advocate for contaminating public water supplies with a known poison in order to medicate people from womb to tomb. It is an immoral medical mandate based on politics and profit that causes misery to many of us.

A former Gloucester resident, Karen Favazza Spencer is a retired analyst and member representative on behalf of the Food and Water Watch in its TSCA lawsuit. Ms. Spencer filed the bills in the State House by citizen request.

*Original full-text article online at: https://www.cleburnetimesreview.com/cnhi_network/commentary-fighting-fluoridation-of-our-water/article_84323c9b-c51b-539d-94f4-bd0a0aa5406d.html

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