Court denies fluoridation foes’ appeal
By Jeremy Schwartz
Peninsula Daily News (Washington State)
http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20130623/news/306239993/court-denies-fluoridation-foes-8217-appeal
PORT ANGELES — Opponents of fluoridated water supplies on the North Olympic Peninsula are again considering asking the state Supreme Court to stop the practice after three state appellate judges ruled against them last week.
The panel of judges in the state’s Division II Court of Appeals last week agreed with a previous ruling that fluoride is not a drug and as such does not need approval from the federal Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, to be used in public water supplies.
The plaintiffs in the case — Protect the Peninsula’s Future, Clallam County Citizens for Safe Drinking Water and retired Sequim physician Eloise Kailin — oppose fluoridation in the water supplies of the cities of Forks and Port Angeles and filed suit against the two cities in Clallam County Superior Court in May 2011 to stop the practice.
The plaintiffs argued that fluoride is a drug and could not be added to either water supply without FDA approval.
The Superior Court dismissed the case, saying such regulations do not apply to public water supplies, after which the plaintiffs, represented by Tacoma-based attorney Gerald Steel, petitioned the state Supreme Court to hear it.
The high court declined, sending the case to the Division II Court of Appeals.
The appellate court decision, handed down Wednesday, is part of the third court case fluoride opponents have filed against Port Angeles after the city started adding fluoride to its water supply in 2006.
The most recent case is the first the plaintiffs have filed against the city of Forks, which has fluoridated its water supply for nearly six decades.
Private donations
Kailin said Friday she did not have exact figures on how much these court cases have cost to work through, though she said all the money spent has been acquired through private donations.
“If we [go] back to 2006, it certainly is measured in the tens of thousands [of dollars],” Kailin said.
Steel said his clients have 30 days to petition the state Supreme Court to hear the case, though he said a final decision to file such a petition has not been made.
“There’s a lot of detail in the decision we have to study before we decide what we want to do next,” Steel said.
However, he said he was hopeful that if petitioned, state Supreme Court judges would choose to hear the case.
This is because the Supreme Court heard a separate case brought by the same plaintiffs claiming the choice to add fluoride to Port Angeles’ water supply should be put to Port Angeles voters.
The state Supreme Court ruled against the plaintiffs in that case in September 2010.
Appeals court ruling
In their Wednesday ruling, the panel of three appellate judges cited a 5-4 1954 state Supreme Court decision, Kaul v. City of Chehalis, in which the high court upheld a trial court decision dismissing a lawsuit brought by a Chehalis resident opposed to the city adding fluoride to its water because fluoride was not held to be a drug.
The appellate court also denied both the plaintiffs’ and the two cities’ requests for attorneys’ fees and for sanctions in the cities’ case.
The court said the plaintiffs did not prevail in the case and so should not get attorneys’ fees, and the plaintiff did not act in bad faith in filing the 2011 lawsuit, so sanctions against the plaintiff that the city requested are not warranted.
Port Angeles City Attorney Bill Bloor said he was satisfied with the appellate court opinion.
“We’re of course pleased the appellate court agreed with us,” Bloor said. “We think it was a correct decision.”
Neither Bloor nor Forks City Attorney Rod Fleck could estimate Friday how much either city has spent dealing with this case.
Fleck said the bulk of the work has been handled by attorney Roger Pearce with Seattle-based law firm Foster Pepper PLLC, with which both cities have contracted.
Opponents have historically argued that extended consumption of fluoride can cause adverse health affects, such as brittle bones and teeth spotting, while advocates have said fluoride is added to water supplies to fight tooth decay.
Hamilton-wide fluoride referendum to be debated
DANIEL ADAMS
Last updated 08:07 25/06/2013
A city-wide fluoride referendum will be debated next Thursday, almost two weeks after a special tribunal vote to end water fluoridation came into force.
A re-crafted notice signed by councillor Ewan Wilson - without reference to the timing of a referendum - has been accepted for discussion by council.
City council democracy manager Jude Pani confirmed the notice of motion for the July 4 agenda met Standing Orders and would be on that agenda.
It's understood that because the notice does not refer to a referendum at the time of October's elections, previously ruled out by council, it is not seeking to revoke a council decision and needs just one signature.
Mr Wilson said his petition for a citizens' initiated referendum, needing 1500 signatures for the same outcome, has collected one thousand names.
He hoped to have the petition complete in time for the referendum debate. A special tribunal voted 7-1 on June 5 to end fluoridation by June 21.
Is Fluoride "Brain-Drain" Damaging Generations of Children?By NYS Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation
NYS Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation
Last modified: 2013-06-25T15:20:37Z
Published: Tuesday, Jun. 25, 2013
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/06/25/5522782/is-fluoride-brain-drain-damaging.html#storylink=cpy
NEW YORK, June 25, 2013 -- /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Fluoride is one of 213 known brain-toxic chemicals that may lower the intelligence of generations of children, reports renowned physician and 30-year brain researcher, Dr. Phillipe Grandjean in his new book, "Only One Chance: How Environmental Pollution Impairs Brain Development," reports the New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. (NYSCOF)
EPA lists fluoride as having "Substantial Evidence of Developmental Neurotoxicity." Fluoride, never safety-tested in humans for brain or many other health effects, is an unapproved drug says the FDA. Yet, physicians and dentists routinely prescribe fluoride supplements and endorse fluoridated water as a cavity-preventive.
When environmental chemicals affect developing brains, children risk cognitive deficits, learning disabilities, mental retardation, ADHD, autism, cerebral palsy, and other disorders that will remain for a lifetime, says Grandjean. "Fluorides are known to cause brain toxicity and neurological symptoms in humans," Dr. Grandjean says. He laments that vested interests often manipulate brain-drain research and manufacture uncertainties to wrongly discredit scientists' conclusions and credibility.
Vested interests caused decades to pass before children were protected from the brain-damaging effects of lead exposure reported in the literature. We unnecessarily lost a generation to lead-induced brain damage, reports Grandjean.
When Grandjean's research team published a careful review of studies (meta-analysis) linking fluoride to children's lower IQ, worried fluoridation promoters and regulators immediately and incorrectly claimed that only excessive exposures are toxic, the effect is insignificant, decades of fluoridation would have revealed brain deficits (although nobody looked, yet), and that it was probably lead and arsenic that lowered IQ. Example here.
"When such a misleading fuselage is aimed at the authors of a careful meta-analysis of 27 different studies, what would it take to convince critics like that," asks Grandjean.
Another respected researcher, whose experiments revealed fluoride clearly is brain damaging, was fired because she "was jeopardizing the financial support of [the] entire institution [Forsyth]," writes Grandjean (See: The Fluoride Deception, Chapter 1).
Grandjean was part of a WHO International Program of Chemical Safety. Most committee members promoted fluoride's beneficial effects but curtailed any mention of fluoride's toxic effects in the draft report.
Grandjean writes, "as I was considered part of the secretariat I had no vote and my views were not allowed in the final document. Realizing that I had been taken hostage, I had to disengage from this report."
Attorney Paul Beeber, NYSCOF President says, "Fluoride has powerful, influential and rich defenders. It's up to the rest of us to protect children by demanding that unnecessary and ineffective brain-draining fluoride chemicals cease being added to public water supplies. Call your elected officials today and tell them you want fluoridation stopped where you live. Our children are victimized guinea pigs in this on-going experiment. It must end." Find your legislators here.
Dr. Grandjean's Chemical Brain Drain website and Video:
http://braindrain.dk/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7pqF43WIOk&feature=youtu.be
Contact: Paul Beeber, JD, 516-433-8882
"mailto:nyscof@aol.com">nyscof@aol.com
"http://www.fluoridation.webs.com">
http://www.fluoridation.webs.com
http://www.FluorideAction.Net">
http://www.FluorideAction.Net
SOURCE NYS Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation
• Read more articles by NYS Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/06/25/5522782/is-fluoride-brain-drain-damaging.html#storylink=cpy
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