Michael Easley - the #1 snake oil salesman for
fluoridation - has surfaced in Cayuga County, NY. He came
to the rescue of pro-fluoridation forces there, who were
looking pretty ineffective after a local TV debate with me
and a pro-con piece in the Syracuse Post-Standard.
He has made his usual offensive remarks.
Below are two articles from local papers today and my
reply to both.
1) Article in the Syracuse Post-Standard
www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/cayuga/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1138183403146230.xml&coll=1
Fluoride Backers Get
Help in Cause
National advocate offers health
professionals ways to push for adding it to water.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
by Beth Beer Cuddy
staff writer
The director of the National Center for Fluoridation gave
the local dental and medical community the tools needed to
begin a pro-fluoridation campaign.
The Cayuga County Dental Society and the Cayuga Community
Health Network invited Dr. Michael F. Easley to discuss
the benefits of having fluoride in the public's drinking
water Tuesday during a dinner and meeting at the Holiday
Inn in Auburn.
After Easley's talk, about 65 dentists, physicians, and
dental hygienists present resolved to discuss with
patients and public officials the health benefits and
Medicaid savings of fluoridating public water supplies.
No specific plan for advocating fluoridation was
formulated.
The discussion was prompted by an article in The
Post-Standard about the high percentage of cavities among
children in the county, said James Kennedy, executive
director of the health network. The organizations invited
all primary health care practitioners to the event.
Kennedy said the purpose was to address the lack of
fluoride in public water systems in the county. Auburn
voters banned fluoridation in 1972.
According to a state Department of Health report, which
will be released this Spring, 72 percent of third-graders
surveyed in the county have at least one cavity compared
with 42 percent of third-graders surveyed in Onondaga
County, where 93 percent of the population receives
fluoridated water.
"It's safe, effective and economical," said Easley before
the meeting. "It's the best single public health activity
that can be implemented in a community to affect the oral
health of the community."
Easley, whose organization is based in Chicago, told
audience members about the resources available and the
ways to counter opposition.
Opponents view fluoridation as government's attempt to
medicate its populace and contest its ability to prevent
tooth decay. Paul H. Connett, a St. Lawrence University
chemistry professor and executive director of the Fluoride
Action Network, recently gave a presentation before Auburn
city councilors in which he called fluoride a toxic
substance and a contributor to disease.
"He's misleading people and misrepresenting things,"
Easley said. "He has the right to say what he wants, but
he's wrong."
Fluoridation helps prevent periodontal disease, which is
entwined with such conditions as diabetes, heart disease,
and stroke, Easley said.
After the talk, local dentist Theresa Casper-Klock led a
discussion of what steps will be taken next.
Fluoride is one of 50 beneficial chemicals approved by the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention for use in public water
supplies, Kennedy said.
Staff writer David L. Shaw contributed to this report.
Beth Beer Cuddy can be reached at 253-7316 or
bcuddy@syracuse.com
2) Connett's Letter to the Syracuse Post-Standard
Dear Editor,
In your article on fluoridation (Wednesday, January 25)
you quote Dr. Michael Easley as saying that in my talks on
fluoridation I have been "misleading people and
misrepresenting things."
Easley would be a little more convincing if he would
debate the fluoridation controversy with me in public. I
would be more than happy to return to the Syracuse area to
do just that, so that people can see who is really
"misleading people and misrepresenting things" and who is
telling the truth. However, Easley has not been willing to
do that in the past, even when invited to do so by
organizations such as the Association of Science in the
Public Interest; the American College of Toxicology or
even the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Anticipating yet another refusal to debate me publicly,
readers can see an article deconstructing Michael Easley's
typical stump presentation at
www.fluoridealert.org/d-easley.htm
, which I co-authored with my son.
The following simple facts undermine his claims that
fluoridation is safe and effective and the best way to
provide dental protection.
1) Like Albany, Ithaca, and Long Island, the vast of
majority of European nations do not fluoridate their water
(some fluoridate their salt) and yet according to World
Health Organization statistics their teeth are just as
good as ours.
2) The fact that the natural level of fluoride in mothers
milk is about 0.008 ppm, undermines any claim that
fluoride is a nutrient. Only the reckless and the
doctrinaire would insist on imposing fluoride on bottle
fed babies at levels 100-200 times higher than nature
intended.
3) The fact that the Center for Disease Control (CDC,
1999, 2001) now concedes that the benefits of fluoride are
largely topical not systemic - that is, it works from the
outside of the tooth not from inside the body - makes
fluoridation inappropriate. Fluoridation of the water
makes as much sense as swallowing sun block!
4) The fact that according to the CDC (2005) over one
third of American children now have dental fluorosis (a
known systemic effect of fluoride and an indication of
over-exposure to fluoride) - three times the level the
percentage expected by the early promoters of fluoridation
- is a clear indicator of the failure of this policy.
Dr. Paul Connett,
Professor of Chemistry,
St. Lawrence University,
Canton, NY 13617
315-379-9200
******************************************
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3) Article in The Citizen.
Dentists Promote
Fluoride in Water
www.auburnpub.com/articles/2006/01/25/news/local_news/news03.txt
by Amaris Elliott-Engel / The Citizen
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
AUBURN - Michael Easley leaned forward in a light-hearted,
conspiratorial whisper to an audience of 55 dentists,
dental hygienists, physicians, and other health
professionals.
"Did you know ice cream was a chemical byproduct of the
milk industry?" the bearded men asked as he flicked his
thumb over a trigger for his Powerpoint presentation.
Easley, a dentist by training and the president of the
National Center for Fluoridation, parodied the efforts of
anti-fluoridation activists who Easley said describe the
addition of fluoride as a poisonous byproduct that can
cause serious health problems like cancer. Proponents of
fluoridation say that there are no harmful impacts of its
addition to public water and only benefits communities
with a reduction of tooth decay.
Those anti-fluoridation efforts that have been so extreme,
Easley said, that he needed a police escort to safely
leave a Johnstown, Fulton County, water board meeting
where several anti-fluoridation activists booed down his
presentation.
Easley was the keynote speaker during a Cayuga County
Dental Society and Cayuga Community Health Network meeting
Tuesday organized following a recent flurry of media
interest in the high rate of cavities in Cayuga County,
which is without fluoridate water, in comparison to other
counties that do have fluoridated water.
The Cayuga County Board of Health unanimously passed a
resolution in the support of the fluoridation of the
county's public water system Tuesday, saying fluoridated
public water is a safe and effective way to prevent tooth
decay. Cayuga County is only one of six counties in the
region without fluoridated public water, but has the
highest percentage of cavities. About 150 water systems in
the state add fluoride to their water and another 800
water systems have fluoridated water by purchasing water
from those 150 original systems.
No legitimate professional organization opposes
fluoridation of water, except "groups who believe that
fluoridation is a conspiracy," said Easley, describing
opponents as typically conservative with no professional
credibility.
They achieve success by planting enough doubt in the
public that there might be something wrong with
fluoridated water, Easley said.
He said anti-fluoridation opponents will ask public
officials to stay neutral or ask for a public referendum.
A citywide referendum will be required to change the
city's charter, which forbids adding fluoride to the water
supply. Efforts to fluoridate water in the early 1970s,
1988, and 1997 were all unsuccessful.
"We think its a benefit to our children and long overdue,"
said retired pediatrician Dr. Henry Romano, who attended
the meeting and last spearheaded a campaign to fluoridate
the city's water after a 1990s study showed 39 to 40
percent of Auburn schoolchildren had cavities..
Staff writer Amaris Elliott-Engel can be reached at
253-5311 ext. 282 or at
amaris.elliot-engel@lee.net
e-mail the citizen:
citizennews@lee.net
4) Connett's Letter to The Citizen
Dear Editor,
In Elliot-Engel's January 25th piece describing Michael
Easley's presentation on fluoridation to the local dental
association he is quoted as making two extraordinary
claims.
First, he claims that "he needed a police escort to safely
leave a Johnstown, Fulton County, water board meeting
where several anti-fluoridation activists booed down his
presentation." However, according to local citizens, who
taped the meeting, the problem began when a local
businessman, and biggest employer in the area, said to
Easley that he wasn't treating their concerns with much
respect. Easley replied, "I am treating you with the
respect you deserve!" With which, at the suggestion of the
same businessman, the whole audience got up and walked out
of the meeting.
Second, according to the article, Easley claimed that "No
legitimate professional organization opposes fluoridation
of water, except "groups who believe that fluoridation is
a conspiracy," and that he described opponents as
"typically conservative with no professional credibility."
Easley makes a living by attacking opponents of
fluoridation in this way. It makes good media copy, but
like much else he says it bears little relation to
reality. Leading opponents of fluoridation include the 11
EPA Unions representing over 7000 professionals at the US
EPA; the International Academy of Oral Medicine and
Toxicology; the Environmental Working Group in Washington,
DC and many highly respected scientists, including the
winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2000, Dr. Arvid
Carlsson. Nor should we forget the large number of
scientists who influenced the vast bulk of European
countries not to fluoridate their water.
A simple test of the validity of Easley's claims of the
safety and effectiveness of water fluoridation, as well as
his characterization of opponents, including myself, would
be to invite him back to Auburn, NY to debate this issue
with me. He has not be willing to do this in the past,
even when invited to do so by organizations such as the
Association of Science in the Public Interest; the
American College of Toxicology or even the US
Environmental Protection Agency.
Easley may have a large physical stature but his
scientific stature evaporates when there is someone in the
room with credentials who can engage him on the substance
of the issue.
Anticipating yet another refusal to debate me publicly, I
would like to draw the attention of your readers to an
article deconstructing Michael Easley's typical stump
presentation at
www.fluoridealert.org/d-easley.htm,
which I co-authored with my son.
Finally, I am very surprised that the Cayuga County Board
of Health passed a resolution in the support of the
fluoridation of the county's public water system, based
largely on a newspaper account of an unpublished report
from the NY State Department of Health. You would think
that a body charged with protecting the public health
would wait until they had read the whole report after it
has been published, and for that matter, also wait for the
National Research Council's three-year review of the
latest scientific evidence on the toxicology of fluoride
in water, which is due out next month.
Dr. Paul Connett,
Professor of Chemistry,
St. Lawrence University,
Canton, NY 13617
315-379-9200
