Massachusetts Fluoridation News

Massachusetts Fluoridation News
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ Vol. 2 No. 13 Belchertown, Massachusetts March 14, 2016

Baker, Rosenberg notified of lead-fluoride synergy

Governor Charlie Baker and Senate President Sam Rosenberg have been sent a letter and report on the epidemiological and laboratory studies that have found fluoridated water increases the rate at which lead is leached into drinking water from leaded pipes and plumbing fixtures. The Representative for Belchertown, Susannah Whipps Lee of Athol was also notified. 

The governor and legislators were asked to respond, on the record, as to how the State will take action regarding this enhanced risk of lead poisoning. 

Here is the text of the letter: 

Dear Sen. Rosenberg,
The whole nation has been saddened and angered by the Flint, MI water crisis in which
mismanagement of the water supply resulted in widespread lead poisoning. The water was too corrosive, and leached lead from leaded pipes and plumbing fixtures. Experts say that Flint is just the tip of the iceberg, as most cities east of the Mississippi have this same problem with leaded pipes and fixtures. 

Unfortunately, the situation is even more complicated. As is fully documented in the peer-reviewed journal Neurotoxicology, both laboratory and epidemiological studies have found that fluoridation makes drinking water more acidic, and increases the amount of lead in the drinking water. All else being equal, children in fluoridated cities and towns are at greater risk of lead poisoning than their counterparts in non-fluoridated municipalities. 

I have enclosed a report that summarizes the situation, citing the peer-reviewed scientific literature. [This is the excellent summary of the situation by Michael Connett on the Fluoride Action Network website.] 

I am writing to ask that you respond on the record for my readers. In light of these findings, should the state ban fluoridation? Will you take action in the legislature to be sure that the state fully understands this fluoridation-based risk of lead poisoning? Would you agree that the State has a responsibility to notify the public of this increased risk of lead poisoning? 

My email address is mdolan.ecsn@outlook.com if you should like to respond by email. Thank you for your attention. 

Sincerely, Michael F. Dolan 

Massachusetts Fluoridation News is published weekly at Belchertown, Massachusetts by East Coast Science News, P.O. Box 797, Belchertown, MA 01007. Michael F. Dolan, editor. Phone: 413-323-5327; Email: mdolan.ecsn@outlook.com. We request a nominal $3.00/year fee so that readership levels can be documented for advertisers. Back issues are available for $1.00 each. Please make checks payable to East Coast Science News.

Massachusetts Fluoridation News March 14, 2016 2 

Adopting Assange’s “scientific journalism”

One of our goals with the Massachusetts Fluoridation News is to serve as the paper of

record on what is known about fluoridation, how politicians, bureaucrats and journalists have

been notified of these findings, and how they should be corrected when they make errors in

their written and oral statements on fluoridation. 

We were happy to find in his book, When Google Met Wikileaks that the journalist and

publisher Julian Assange has a similar vision of improving journalism, what he called “scientific

journalism.” 

In the book, a transcript of his conversation with Eric Schmidt and others from Google,

Assange writes, “I have been pushing this idea of scientific journalism – that things must be

precisely cited with the original source, and as much of the information as possible should be

put in the public domain so that people can look at it, just like in science so that you can test to

see whether the conclusion follows from the experimental data. Otherwise the journalist

probably just made it up. In fact, that is what happens all the time: people just make it up. Most

wars in the twentieth century started as a result of lies amplified and spread by the mainstream

press. And you may say, “Well that is a horrible circumstance; it is terrible that all these wars

start with lies.” And I say no, this is a tremendous opportunity, because it means that

populations basically don’t like wars and they have to be lied into them. That means we can be

“truthed” into peace. That is cause for great hope.” 

Assange goes on to suggest a new standard for journalism” 

“But this question of how you distinguish truthful publishers from untruthful publishers

is a reputational business. What I would like to see is the introduction to journalism of that part

of the reputational business, as in science, that asks: ‘Where is your data?’ If you’re not

providing your data why the hell should I take this seriously? Now that we can publish on the

internet, now that there is physically room for the data, it should be there. Newspapers don’t

have physical room for the primary source; now that there is physical room for the primary

source we should create a standard that it should be there. People can deviate from this

standard, but if they deviate from the standard and can’t be bothered to provide us with the

primary source data then why should we pay any attention to what they are writing? They are

not treating the reader with respect.” 

We invite readers, who want to leave a permanent record of their communications with

officials and journalists to send us the information. We won’t reproduce all of these, but we will

report that they have occurred, and that the recipients can no longer claim they don’t know

what is going on. This is particularly true with journalists, who might often repeat errors or as

Assange says “make it up”. We would like to have a record of these corrections, so these

officials and journalists stop repeating the same errors.

EPA whistleblower’s comment on Flint lead-poisoning crisis

“There was an EPA whistleblower named Miguel Del Toral and he tried to blow the whistle in April. And ... in EPA’s culture, if you try to blow the whistle the first thing they do is demean

you. They start spreading rumors that you’ve got mental illness or that you’re not quite up to par in the EPA. 

“They demeaned his work, they discredited what he tried to do. And what’s really fabulous about this particular man, he just refused to allow the people of Flint to be poisoned, on his watch, without sounding the alarm. And so he joined with a Virginia Tech scientist named Mark Edwards, who also, by the way, was the person who exposed the lead poisoning in Washington, D.C. And EPA and the CDC did the same thing to this professor. They also demeaned him, tried

to discredit him. And he also refused to be intimidated by the EPA and the CDC. 

“And also a medical doctor who noticed that a lot of her patients were bringing their children in to see her. And when she evaluated them and performed tests she realized that they had 3 to 4 times the amount of lead in their system that’s allowed. So there [are] some real heroes in this story. There’s one EPA employee who [has] been really battered but he’s still standing. But all the officials from Region 5, Chicago all the way to Washington, D.C., none of these officials lifted a finger to help the people of Flint, Michigan. 

Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, EPA whistleblower
 
Author of No Fear: A Whistleblower’s Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA Interview published at Consortium News, Feb. 17