THE FLUORIDE ACTION NETWORK
FAN Bulletin #518: Easy Money.
March 9, 2006.
Dear All,
Last Tuesday night at the meeting in Massena, called by the City Council to
discuss the future of fluoridation in that city, Dr. Dobies, the city's long
serving health officer, attempted to counteract the arguments I had made with a
document he claimed came from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). After he
had finished Ellen got up and asked if it was the National Research Council
review of 1993 and if it was he should hold his fire until the current two and
half review had been completed some time in the next few weeks. Someone in the
audience, who also had the document, checked the date and said no, it was published
in June 2003. It was not until after the meting that we were able to see the
document and to our surprise found it was not from the NAS but from Michael
Easley!
However, it is not surprising that citizens and officials are fooled into
thinking that this is an offiicial document rather than yet another piece of
junk propaganda from Easley. The front page looks like this:
A QUESTION AND ANSWER GUIDE FOR CITIZENS, PUBLIC OFFICIALS, AND THE MEDIA
(a picture of the
(c) Michael W. Easley, D.D.S., M.P.H., Presdient & Chief Executive Officer,
International Health Managaement & Research Associates; and Director,
National Center for Fluoridation Policy & Research
This publication was originally made possible by grant number
1999-B1-CA-PRVS-01
from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
June 2003
One wonders how much taxpayers'
money was used to to pay for this piece of junk.
There are 15 pages of text and another 14 pages of references and three
appendices. Most of it is the usual Easley puffery. Very few of the 108
references deal with health issues (other than teeth), and most of those that
do are fairly dated and highly selective. I will be using it with my Environmental
Chemistry and Toxicolgoy class to demonstrate what junk science really looks
like. There are no references to fluoride's impacts on the central nervous
system; children's bones; the pineal gland; the thyroid gland; the kidney; the
reproductive system; hypersensitivity to fluoride and the voluminous
biochemical literature on fluoride's interaction with G-proteins.
Easley repeats the false claim that 60 countries worldwide practice water
fluoridation. He must know by now that this is false. Even if you include
countries with only one city fluoridated it is diffiuclt to find a list of more
than 30 countries. Only 8 countries worldwide have more than 50% of their
population drinking artificially fluoridated water.
Easley also repeats the insulting charge that the reason that the vast majority
of European countries don't fluoridate their water is because their water
delivery systems are too primitive to do so! This is utter nonsense. If you go
to the FAN homepage there is a list of reasons officials have given from about
a dozen European countries as to why they are not fluoridated, not one of them
offers a primitive water supply system as the reason <
http://www.fluoridealert.org/govt-statements.htm>.
Easley also says that no European country has banned fluoridation. That claim
is difficult to square with the fact that in both the
Now I have obtained three of these "Easley reports"
from three different states - NY,
The Utah report was prepared for the "Statewide Coalition of Utahns for
Better Dental Health", and the Vermont report was prepared for the
"Vermont Department of Health; Burlington, Vermont." It is incredible
to me that a State Department of Health would use such a dubious source of
material.
All Easley appears to have done with each new version is to change the state
name, change the flag and put in a few lines pertaining to the state in
question. Below are the only changes I have been able to find.
For
In the section, How Widespread Is the Practice of Community Water
Fluoridation in the
"Unfortunately, only three per cent of Utahns
currently enjoy the same decay-preventive benefits of fluoridation, ranking
In the section, Who Benefits
From the Cost Savings That Result From Fluoridation? (p.10) he writes:
"
For
Easley adds a photo of Everett Koop in the introduction.
In the section, How Widespread Is the Practice of Community Water
Fluoridation in the
"In
In the section, Who Benefits
From the Cost Savings That Result From Fluoridation? (p10), he writes:
"Nationally, the tax funded Medicaid program paid
$1.99 billion for dental services in 1998. Total dental expenditures in
The
Of particular interest is the fact that the date on the
For
In the section, How Widespread Is the Practice of Community Water
Fluoridation in the
"Thanks to
In the section, Who Benefits
From the Cost Savings That Result From Fluoridation? (p.10), he writes:
"
So how much extra did
Has any one else got one of these Easley pamphlets from a different State? If
you haven't please ask around to see if he has produced one. They might also
appear in other countries. We know that Australian dental researcher Armfield
cites Easley to support claims for the safety and effectiveness of
fluoridation, so perhaps Easley has an Australian version as well!
One final word. Easley's biggest claim to fame is the unending vitriol and
scorn he pours on those who oppose fluoridation. Unfortunately, his vitriol is
not matched with any commensurate courage. He has refused to debate me and
others (Dr. Willima Hirzy and Dr. Phyllis Mullenix), even when invited to do so
by groups such as the Association for Science in the Public Interest; the US
EPA and the American College of Toxicology. Easley is the living proof of my
quote: "Fluoridation is for the birds: they promote it like parrots and
defend it like chickens."
Paul Connett
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fan_bulletins mailing list
Fan_bulletins@lists.fluoridealert.org
http://lists.fluoridealert.org/listinfo/fan_bulletins