Letter to county commissioner
Commissioner ______:
_____ County requires cities add fluoride to water supplies. Specifically, Section ______of the ____ County Code of Ordinance mandates this. Because you are the commissioner who represents my district, I'm asking you to fight to change this mandate.
Lastyear, my city, ______spent$ ______in Hydrofluosilicic acid to fluoridate the water supply. Hydrofluorosilicic acid is a toxic substance, classified as hazardous waste; it is absolutely not pharmaceutical-grade fluoride and is frequently contaminated.Due to health concerns, many municipalities throughout the country have been deciding not to fluoridate water; Portland, Oregon is a notable example.
I'm attaching a recent peer-reviewed, published article by Hirzy et al. that explains the social, health, and economic costs of using hazardous mine-waste (hydrofluorosilic acid) rather than pharmaceutical-grade fluoride. One of the contaminants in the hydrofluorosilicic acid hazardous waste is arsenic and I found that interesting because when we paid to have our tap-water analyzed in order to buy the correct filters, one of the contaminants for which we had to purchase a specific filter was arsenic.
I would very much appreciate it if you would review the Hirzy paper.I happen to believe that whether or not to consume fluoride should be a personal choice, not medication against one's will.You may disagree, but I hope you can at least agree that your constituents should not be forced to consume hazardous, contaminated waste.
Please respond to me with your decision as to whether or not you are willing to take steps to protect public health by fighting to rescind the ______County mandate for fluoridation or at the very least to amend the ordinance so that cities in the county be required to use pharmaceutical grade fluoride uncontaminated by arsenic and other toxins.
Thank you for your consideration and I look forward to your response.
Cara L. Campbell
Response from county staff
Hi Cara,
I am in receipt of your inquiry sent to Commissioner_____regarding the fluoridation of local water supplies and wanted to take an opportunity to respond to your concerns.I reviewed the article you shared as well as the content of your email and appreciate your having raised these questions. It sounds like you have a thorough understanding of the regulations that support the use of fluoride in our local water supplies and so I expect that additional background is not required.
However, as you did inquire specifically about the possible rescission of code requirements as it relates to the fluoridation of water in ______County, I would note that the major international and national health organization continue to point to fluoridation of water supplies as one of the greatest public health benefits realized during the last century as a result of the dental protections it provides.
While there are several communities throughout the U.S. with naturally occurring levels of fluoride that meet dental health recommendations, the fluoride concentration in most raw water supplies is not adequate to provide the necessary levels of fluoridation to protect teeth against decay. This is true of ______County and is the basis for the ordinance to which you have referred.
As it relates to the chemical form of fluoride used to fluoridate water supplies, you are correct in noting that hydrofluorosilicic acid is widely used and approved but the National Sanitation Foundation for use in the public water supply process. As it relates to the potential for leaching of trace metals into the water supply distribution system, our public water utilities provide regular monitoring of finished water for both primary and secondary water quality standards, reports which are published and include metal analyses on a tri-annual basis. We are pleased to note the compliance by all of our water utilities with these strict water quality standards.
_____ County and the ______County Department of Health believe that fluoridation of our water supplies is a prudent practice that continues to provide the ______community with vital public health benefits.
Should you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
______
Letter to county commissioner
Commissioner______:
I received the response from ______, to whom you evidently forwarded the inquiry I sent you.
Thisissue is of great importance to me and of growing concern to increasing numbers of people, including residents of ______County. In 2014,alone, at least 30 communities in North America and other countries providing water to nearly 10 million people (this included the whole State of Israel) decided to reject or end water fluoridation.Ideliberately chose to address my concerns to you, my elected representative, rather than to anunelected______County staff member and I'm disappointed in the way my letter was handled.I had rather expected my elected representative would respond to me directly, not merely forward my letter.I certainly hope you will find time to respond to me this time.
______’s response is expected from a bureaucrat defending the status quo. Practices entrenched in bureaucracy, however, are not necessarily in the best interests of your constituents.______brushes aside the Hirzy article’s documented instances ofhydrofluorosilicic acid causing lead to leach. Her response that public water utilities publish metal analyses on a tri-annual basis is irrelevant unless the public water utilities check water from every house in ______County. They did not check the water in my house; I paid for that analysis. If the utilities do not monitor all dwellings, then her comment is worse than meaningless and an apparent attempt to diminish valid, documented concerns.
______'s assertion that "the major international... health organization (sic) ...point to fluoridation as one of the greatest health benefits" is a typical response to a valid and challenging concern. Pointing to fluoridation as a benefit is not supporting it with facts and ______doesn’t provide any document to refute the Hirzy article, nor does she provide any peer-reviewed published articles to prove that fluoridation is a public health benefit devoid of harm. She merely glosses over my concerns by alluding to unnamed organizations. She definitely did not address the ethical issue I raised to you: that of medicating people against their will and, I might add, without them having full knowledge of the consequences. There is no other medication forced upon an unsuspecting populace en masse in the U.S.
______is not a medical professional and perhaps doesn't realize or is confused about the difference betweena level of fluoride ("concentration") in treated water and the dose one receives. A level hasabsolutely nothing to do with a doseconsumed by a human being; it is merely the amount in the water. Can ______purport to know what dose people are getting, no matter the "concentration"? A child ingesting lots of city water, unfiltered, would be getting an inadvertently large dose while a huge person would get a lesser dose. Likewise, someone who doesn't drink much tap water, or filters out the fluoride contamination, would get a smaller dose than someone who drinks quantities of tap water. A dose would be the total amount ingested, according to body weight, and neither ______nor anyone else has a way of calculating that figure for every resident who receives municipal water.
Moreover, fluoride allegedly protects from decay when applied to tooth surfaces, not when ingested. If one should choose to use fluoride, it can be applied topically by a dentist or bought in toothpaste that, tellingly, contains pharmaceutical grade fluoride, and not hydrofluorosilicic acid. Please request ______provide you peer-reviewed, published articles in recognized scientific journals that back up her claims that drinking fluoride provides benefit without other harmful effects and that ingestion is preferable to topical application.
Please know that ______'s quoting the NSF's approval of hydrofluorosilicic acid and noting it is widely used does not change the fact that this chemical is a toxic byproduct of the phosphate mining industry and, dumped into a river or released into the air, is considered hazardous waste. It defies logic that once sold to be disposed of into water supplies, it miraculously becomes safe, no matter who believes in that miracle. Again, I expect such a response from a bureaucrat defending an entrenched practice and that is why I did not involve_____County employees in my inquiry, but rather a _____County elected official.
There is no requirement for fluoride in human nutrition. Are you aware that more than 36 studies have linked fluoride with diminished IQ in children? As a matter of fact,most developedcountries in the world have rejected fluoridation, including 97% of Western Europe.
Lead paint and asbestos were once used indiscriminately and I’ll wager their use was defended, and concerns about their safety dismissed, by bureaucrats like ______. At one time the AMA endorsed cigarettes; that did not make cigarettes safe; need I remind you of the tragic results of the FDA-approved drug Thalidomide? I hope you will give serious thought about the practice ______is supporting and the ill effects to your constituents’ health that may be your legacy.
Once again, I look forward to a response from you, my elected representativeon the ____ County Commission. Please respond to me with your decision as to whether or not you are willing to take steps to protect public health by fighting to rescind the ______County mandate for fluoridation or at the very least to amend the ordinance so that cities in the county be required to use pharmaceutical grade fluoride uncontaminated by arsenic and other toxins.
Cara Campbell
Response from commissioner’s assistant
We have received and read all of the emails sent to our office Ms. Campbell. We have been in contact with ____ with regards to this matter, who is one of the foremost experts in her field and who ______County is very lucky to have in our employ, as recently as just a few minutes ago. Since she is the individual with professional knowledge in this area I will leave it to her to respond to the substantive portion of your email.
If you have any other____ County issues that you need assistance with, please don’t hesitate to contact our office.
Letter to commissioner’s assistant
Mr. ______:
Thank you for your response. What is the field in which ______is a "foremost expert"? Is she a toxicologist?
Your employer, Commissioner ____, still has not had the common courtesy to answer a question posed to him multiple times by a constituent. I very much object to having my concerns fobbed off.Once more I ask that my elected representativeplease respond to me with the decision as to whether or not he iswilling to take steps to protect public health by fighting to rescind the ____ County mandate for fluoridation or at the very least to amend the ordinance so that cities in the county be required to use pharmaceutical grade fluoride uncontaminated by arsenic and other toxins.
Cara L. Campbell
Response from county commissioner
Ms. Campbell:
After consulting with County staff on the issue of fluoridation of drinking water, I do not support any change to the county’s current policy relating to this issue. Adding fluoride to drinking water has been beneficial in preventing tooth decay over the last 60 years. In addition, our water supply is subject to federal regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency, which includes limits on the level of fluoride, as well as other toxins, to ensure that our water is safe to drink.
I appreciate you sharing your views on this issue with me.
Sincerely,
Commissioner______