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Dan Stockin was one of two winners last year of the Albert W. Burgstahler Scientific Integrity Award, awarded each year by FAN. This award is to remind all of us that it is not enough to win this battle against fluoridation but we must do so with our scientific integrity intact.
An update on Fluoridegate
By Daniel Stockin
At The Lillie Center we continue to focus on certain four key aspects of the Fluoridegate scandal:
1) the role of the CDC and its parent agency, Health and Human Services, in suppressing developments in the scandal;
2) the issue of disproportionate fluoridation harm to black citizens and other minority communities;
3) fluoride harm to kidney patients and diabetics, and
4) the legal and risk management issues related to dental fluorosis.
We're a nonprofit organization, not lawyers or a law firm -- but what we've learned by talking with lawyers across the country makes sense to us. Legal and risk management concerns are real, and during 2012 we saw increasing leverage and traction unfolding in this arena as our Fluoridegate scandal articles were posted up on legal blogs (one example is linked below).
Most city and water utility leaders, and in fact most people in general, do not know that today's highly visible water fluoridation promoters have never been placed under oath and forced to directly answer the specific and frankly unanswerable questions about harm from fluoridation. And the vast majority of fluoridation-endorsing water agencies and private sector groups have not considered the risks that can accrue from promoting uncontrolled, unsupervised use of fluorides. Many board members and leaders of corporations and nonprofit groups do not know that they may be placed uncomfortably under oath -- either in court cases or Fluoridegate hearings.
This is why we believe it is useful to encourage leaders to carefully consider if the limited amount of cavities prevented by fluorides weighs well against the staggering health, legal, and financial risks that can accrue from their promotion, distribution, or sale.
I encourage you to visit the links below; they are highly leverageable, and risk managers will find them eye-opening. Dental fluorosis is the achilles heel of fluoridation, and we believe risk managers can readily grasp that dental fluorosis is the gateway that will lead to other actions being taken on behalf of kidney patients, diabetics, and minority and low-income families harmed by fluorides. The links provide third-party verification that fluorides are being looked at by major corporations.
It was very gratifying recently when I heard the reaction from a highly placed risk management official. He did not know that Gerber is now selling an unfluoridated bottled water so parents of young babies can avoid using fluoridated city water when mixing milk formula. Nor did he know that Colgate is selling a toddler toothpaste advertised as: "Fluoride-free. Safe if swallowed." He and his staff will be digesting information on the dental fluorosis lawsuit in federal court in Maryland, reading one of the legal blogs that has posted up our "Questions of Fluoridegate" article series, and viewing the recent Durham NC media coverage about dental fluorosis.
Fluoridation promoters often attempt dismissively to argue that fluoridation legal actions have historically never gained much traction. But they fail to recognize that personal injury claims today are very different from the arguments made in decades-ago legal cases about the police powers of the state. After all, if dental fluorosis is "barely noticeable," and "usually only a dental expert would notice it," as fluoridation promoters claim, then why did federal health officials in 2011 even bother recommending lowering the amount of fluoride in fluoridated water because of fluorosis concerns?
I believe your water utility risk manager and local, state, and federal leaders will find that the following links, taken together, paint a picture far different from what they've heard about fluorides and fluoridation. People need to know that a Fluoridegate scandal is unfolding -- and that the collapse of water fluoridation is now underway. The world is not flat, and fluorides and water fluoridation are not safe.
Links:
Dental fluorosis lawsuit - now includes Dannon
Daniel G. Stockin, MPH 706-669-0786
The Lillie Center for Scientific Research & Development
in Health & Alternative Energy
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