I would like to encourage both citizens and
scientists to attend the Second
Citizens' Conference on Fluoride to be held in
Canton, NY, from July 28 -
August 1, 2006.
The decision to fluoridate is one that
ultimately only the people in the
jurisdiction can make. There is an old Roman
adage - "whatever affects all
should be decided by all." Instead, in many
instances the decision is taken
from the people and made by administrators or
city councils saturated with
one-sided arguments and what has become a
rigid scientific ideology by the
U.S. Public Health Service.
On any public health issue, we have to keep
the doors open to what Alfred
North Whitehead once called "options for
revision." Foreclosing such options
leads to little continuing scientific reaserch.
The U.S. Public Health
Service closed its mind over 50 years ago.
Nonetheless, more scientists are
opting for open minds and more data is
forthcoming to warrant ground for a
broader public re-examination.
Tooth decay is not contagious. Even the
advocates of fluoridation have
declared the substance relevant only to
youngsters. So why is the entire
drinking water supply fluoridated for the
entire population with its
variable risks and its variable doses and its
variable intakes and the often
ignored question of the total fluoride intake
from all sources in a
particular community? Why is ingestion for all
preferable to topical
applications for the few?
Attendance of scientists from the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and
three of the National Research Council's panel
members, among others, makes
the Fluoride Action Network's conference more
than ordinary. The NRC's
review of the EPA's safe drinking water
standards and the Harvard study on
fluoridation and osteosarcoma this past May
provide contemporary material
for opening the public debate further and
deeper.
The scientific method should reject the
ossified ideology of fluoridation as
an "acquired characteristic" to be intoned. It
should be an entrenched
proposition to be examined. May this
conference do so with the open mind
that is the essence of the scientific attitude
and the underlying principles
of democratic decision-making in the open.
Signed
