Fluoride Follies

FLUORIDE DATE LECTURE #49 - WIC: BILINGUAL DECEPTION

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:35:30 GMT

Good afternoon, Council members. Last December 15, when you voted to continue the indefensible practice of water fluoridation, you awarded to the victims of that practice a sort of consolation prize: the promise of flyers with information in English and Spanish about dental fluorosis to be posted at WIC centers around town. (WIC stands for Women, Infants & Children - a state-run nourishment program for low-income mothers.) The flyers—which I’ve distributed as a handout—are quite attractive, with bright kid colors and an appealing layout. Unfortunately, they’re also grossly misleading.

The very first sentence is just plain wrong: so-called optimally-fluoridated water poses many health risks for infants, of which you’re all aware. The last paragraph contains an egregious contradiction. After telling mothers how to to minimize an infant’s exposure to fluoride, it then adds that if they do so, “Your baby’s doctor may recommend fluoride supplements beginning at age six months.”

The upshot is to plant doubt in the parent’s mind and to promote the spurious notion of a nutritional requirement for fluoride, theoretically beginning on baby’s six-month birthday. Why six months?—when milk or formula is a baby’s primary sustenance for the first full year, and both the CDC’s and ADA’s 2006 cautions against mixing formula with tap water plainly referenced the first 12 months of life?

Best guess: infants cut their first tooth, on average, at around six months.   Even the fluoride pushers, in their frenzy to sell their product, recognize the absurdity of trying to peddle a supposed cavity fighter for toothless beings. But the moment that first tooth erupts: voila! A new customer is born.

The CDC/ADA’s warnings, however, pertain to dental fluorosis, and babies over six months of age are no less susceptible to that condition than those under six months. Fluorosis develops in teeth as they form beneath the gums—and the 6-to-12-month-old is still living largely on liquids. So why should a doctor want to prescribe any fluoride at all?

The wording has been made deliberately vague. The doctor “may” recommend supplements beginning at 6 months. Then again, they may not. Either way, such a recommendation, would be inappropriate.

We’ve tracked the language of this strange final sentence to the document from which it was cribbed word for word: a February 2010 newsletter written by one Jay Hoecker, MD of the Mayo Clinic. Ironically, Mayo, once a supporter of water fluoridation, has withdrawn its endorsement.

BIZARRO! COUNCILMEMBER MARTINEZ CARES ABOUT CAMPAIGN MANAGER'S CHILD, BUT NOT YOURS

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:41:02 GMT

Last year, after Mike Martinez took over the position of chair of ACC's Public Health and Human Services Committee, he held private discussions with several Fluoride Free Austin members concerning the potential addition of a warning against mixing infant formula with tapwater to the city's utilities bill. During that time, he unexpectedly invited Laura Pressley to become his Facebook "friend." Surprised, Dr. Pressley accepted out of curiosity, and some routine exchanges followed. Routine, that is, until September 23, when she commented on a picture he had posted of his cute honorary nephew:



According to our information, Amy Everhart, Martinez's onetime campaign manager, currently serves as policy director to Mayor Lee Leffingwell.

On December 15, Martinez voted to continue Austin's water fluoridation program indefinitely and to provide a toothless non-warning about dental fluorosis to participants in the state's WIC (women, infants and children) nourishment program for low-income mothers.

IT'S OFFICIAL: LAURA PRESSLEY VS. MIKE MARTINEZ FOR AUSTIN CITY COUNCIL PLACE 2

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:36:08 GMT

                                 Laura Pressley, Ph.D.                                         "For the Health of Austin"

On January 20, following a month of suspense and speculation (and serious worry among all three incumbents), Dr. Laura Pressley announced that she will oppose Mike Martinez for the Place 2 seat on the Austin City Council. In taking on Martinez, who until last May also held the position of Mayor Pro Tem, Pressley will be challenging an antiquated tradition - held together by a "gentlemen's agreement" since the 1970's - that designates Place 2 the "Hispanic seat." There is no legal force behind this custom and in fact, it has been broken before. But the pressure remains strong. Pressley is unfazed. "I don't think he's been doing a very good job of representing the Hispanic population," she told a TV reporter in a recent interview. Many in Austin's Hispanic/Latino community agree: Pressley has the support of numerous prominent leaders there.

Martinez, a former firefighter, has done a good job of supporting the fire and police forces, which is commendable. But the "gentlemen's agreement" doesn't reserve a seat for a fireman or a police officer. Martinez, in theory, is there to represent his ethnic group. There's little sign that he does. Gentrification that leads to flight of less affluent citizens is a problem on Austin's rapidly upscaling east side - the heart of the barrio. Martinez is on the wrong side of that issue. He is in the process of building a McMansion in a far east location, a formerly affordable of neighborhood of small, unassuming houses.  The spot already harbors a cluster of other bloated spanking new McMansions. It's only a matter of time.

Laura Pressley's campaign slogan is "for the health of Austin" - and that includes environmental and economic as well as personal health. She can be expected to fight very hard for these principles - and for everyone. Learn more at her campaign website.


                                                                                  Mike Martinez

Mike Martinez' New East Side House (white strip a left beyond orange Port-O-Potty is roof of house next door)

NEW RELEASES FROM CHANNEL FLUORIDE FREE AUSTIN

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:14:56 GMT

The first City Council citizens' communication of 2012 brought out a wealth of 3-minute speakers on a variety of interesting topics - not just fluoridation.  But Fluoride Free Austin was well-represented by four stalwarts at the podium and numerous supporters in the audience as well.



Darcy Bloom explained the importance of the toothbrush in oral hygiene, information apparently lost on the present-day City Council.

John Bush, just back from several months' banishment from City Hall for exercising his free speech rights on a previous occasion, addressed those issues. Bush, a FFA Steering Committee member, is even better known for his leadership role in Texans for Accountable Government.



Rae Nadler-Olenick let the Council know that we've drawn the line and we're not going away. Then she wished them a Happy New Year.

Philip Greene talked about the non-FDA-approved fluorosilicic acid used to mass-medicate Austinites.

It would be great to have a turnout like this for every Citizens Communication. If you're interested in becoming a speaker, contact us at info@fluoridefreeaustin.com or 512-371-3786. Or, just call the City Clerk's office 512-974-2210 to learn the signup procedure.

FLUORIDE DATE LECTURE #48 - FLUORIDE MAKES AUSTIN CHRONICLE'S TOP 10 ENVIRONMENTAL STORIES OF THE YEAR

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:50:50 GMT

Good afternoon, Mayor and councilmembers. It’s 2012, and as you can see, we’re back. I think 2012 will be the year that the citizens of Austin finally shake free of the unsafe and ineffective forced medication we call fluoridated water.

The Austin Chronicle just named water fluoridation one of the top 10 environmental stories of the year: they listed it #7. Recognizing fluoride as the legitimate environmental concern it is, Chronicle news department managing editor Amy Smith wrote that “the issue refuses to die.” She also noted that it has risen to the level of a campaign topic in the forthcoming May Council election.

Her words echoed my husband Walt’s observation that “Councils come and go but the fluoride issue endures.” He makes a good point. Councils change regularly, and in fact, we sometimes have a hand in that change. Come June, this Council may very well look different. But whether or not that happens, we’ll keep working toward our goals because, to quote Victor Hugo, “No army can stop an idea whose time has come.” And abandoning the practice of dumping unrefined toxic waste into the city’s drinking water and calling it medicine is definitely an idea whose time has come.

So we have no choice, really, but to be here. Fluoridation is a health issue affecting all of us.

It’s also fundamentally different from most issues the Council wrestles with. The Council, in its day-to-day proceedings is concerned primarily with finance. It takes money to run a government. So most of the matters before you involve collecting and spending our—the taxpayers’—money. But fluoridation isn’t about spending —on the contrary, it would save money—it’s about health, ours and that of future generations.

Average citizens busy with their lives will put up with a lot. But it’s one thing to make us pay for projects most of us don’t want: toll roads, race tracks, unnecessary water plants, the Red Line, the Domain—and quite another to spike our water with a known poison. It’s a natural place to draw the line So we don’t plan to quit until we finish the job that we’ve started. Thank you, and Happy New Year.

READ MY LIPS: IF THEY'RE MOVING...

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 03:24:10 GMT

        Cole               Spelman               Morrison            Leffingwell                        Tovo                Riley                 Martinez

Now for a few words about some politicians who are NOT lying...

We’ve all heard this old saw:

Q: How can you tell when a politician is lying?

A: His (or her) lips are moving.

The entire current Austin City Council can be considered professional or at least semi-professional politicians whatever their particular backgrounds. They’re ambitious. They like to hold high positions in this and that. As Council members, they act largely out of political expediency, and are minimally responsive to the desires of the average Austinite. On the whole, they prefer to dodge personal one-on-one interactions with their constituents. They enjoy making rules for the masses, which they themselves may or may not follow.

Yet on one point they have been unwaveringly forthright.

Never, in the three-plus years of Fluoride Free Austin’s advocacy, have they tried to pretend that Austin’s water fluoridation policy has anything to do with helping children’s teeth. Poor children’s...rich children's...
children’s in-between...Zip. Zilch, Nada. In fact, to my recollection, the word “children” hasn’t once passed the lips of anybody on the dais in response to our dozens and dozens of citizens communication presentations.

Instead, they’ve focused exclusively on precise adherence to scientifically and medically unsound “best practices” developed long ago by self-serving federal bureaucrats. Their motivation is very simple and direct--to please the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control. And they make no bones about it.  Their collective message is: The CDC says it’s OK. The CDC wants us to do it. So we’re doing it. If you don’t like it, take a hike.

No matter that the CDC has no authority to mandate water fluoridation in Austin, or anywhere else, for that matter. Placating the agency, a generous provider of grant monies to the city, comes first, the public’s health a distant second.

Come to think of it, this Council seems relatively uninterested in health issues in general (it devotes three times more funds to water fluoridation than to sickle cell anemia). Unless, that is, they are the CDC's pet health issues.

Then it's a whole different ball game.

Take tobacco. In recent years, the city has reaped the bounty of millions of dollars in anti-smoking money from the CDC: between 2009 and 2011 alone it received $7.5 million* " to decrease tobacco use and exposure to second hand smoke."   A goodly chunk of it went up in smoke, figuratively, for flashy public relations campaigns - including over a quarter of a million dollars for a single 30-second TV spot.

Now Austin has a new CDC handout** good for just over $1 million for each of the next five years. This one spotlights childhood obesity, currently made trendy by the endorsement of Michelle Obama and promoted by the Mayor's wife.  Not that childhood obesity isn't a serious problem. It is. But while money flows freely for such celebrity-backed causes, others equally worthy are left out in the cold.

A year ago, councilwoman Laura Morrison, a cheerleader for the latter cause, hosted a forum. Morrison, who once famously remarked that she didn't have enough "bandwidth" for fluoride has plenty of bandwidth for suchlike well-underwritten exercises. Clearly in her element, she cracked jokes, "reverse-envisioned" ways to make all the city's children fat, and mentioned food last on a list of breakout topics - after physical activity, "the built environment" and health & cultural literacy.



The entire day's program, including the Channel 6 video, is archived here, Even a quick scan of the proceedings makes it pretty clear why the councilmembers aren't attracted to pedestrian matters like low-income children's dental problems.

There's simply not enough funding around such issues to make them interesting. No money for feel-good seminars to generate grand new projects of soaring complexity: visioning sessions; task forces, partnerships, networking opportunities, ad infinitum. The endless merry-go-round of grant-getting and spending aims to keep a thousand balls in the air at once. Anything less is dismissed as unimportant.

And that is exactly how the present Council treats the question of dental health in Austin's lower-income areas. It's largely invisible to them, which is unfortunate. But we appreciate their honesty in not putting on a charade of concern, or forcing us to contend with a bogus social equity scenario. They've done an excellent job of unmasking themselves. Public, are you paying attention?



*CCPW (Communities Putting Prevention to Work) grant
**Community Transformation Grant (CTG)

THE WIZARD BEHIND THE CURTAIN

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:31:59 GMT

Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a scene from the Wizard of Oz. You know, the one in which Dorothy’s little dog Toto pulls aside the curtain to reveal a flustered white-haired old man. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” he pleads, while four sets of eyes bore straight into him.

By way of a refresher: Dorothy and her companions, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion, have vanquished the Wicked Witch of the West, evaded monsters, and made their perilous way through dark forests to the Emerald City. There dwells the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz—the only one in the kingdom who can grant them their heart’s desire. The Wizard, however, refuses to see them. “Come back tomorrow,” he thunders through loudspeakers.

But the four friends have discovered new strength in themselves along the way. Dorothy, a simple country girl, is unshakable in her determination to get home to Kansas. The Scarecrow is neither as foolish nor the Lion as cowardly as first appeared. And the Tin Woodman had a heart all along.

Then Toto pulls the curtain and they get a glimpse of harsh reality. But they’re ready for it now. “You’re a humbug,” the Scarecrow tells the Wizard, who promptly admits it: “Yes, yes, exactly so. I’m a humbug.”

That’s the fictional version.

In the real world, the “Wizards” pulling the levers - the 30 dentist-bureaucrats at the CDC’s Office of Oral Health and their counterparts at other federal, state and local agencies; at dental and medical societies; in academia and industry - will never confess that they are humbugs. Too much is at stake: money, power and prestige. Too many ties, some stretching back over a half-century, would need to be broken.

So they keep telling us (through their megaphone, Dr. Huang): Pay no attention. Pay no attention to all the kids with dental fluorosis, to the endemic hypothyroidism, to the skyrocketing rates of diabetes, and kidney disease, and arthritis, and osteosarcoma, and hip fractures, and the dulling of intellect. . .Don't notice the alarming rise in dental disease among our lower-income population despite 40 years of fluoridation. Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.

But we are looking. The cat is out of the bag: water fluoridation is neither safe nor effective. More and more people realize it all the time. The days of these Wizards' fraud are numbered.

Happy New Year! We’ll be back with more in 2012.

GATEKEEPER: WHO IS PHILIP HUANG?

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 07:24:03 GMT

                                                         Philip Huang, MD, MPH

When the Austin City Council seeks to justify its policy of ignoring Austin citizens’ anti-water fluoridation input in favor of its own relentlessly pro-fluoride stance it turns for support to a man with no toxicology expertise, no dental background, and strong ties to the federal Centers for Disease Control – promoter-in-chief since Day One of fluoridated water for every man, woman and child in the USA from cradle to grave.

Philip P. Huang (rhymes with "wrong"), MD, MPH, medical director of the Austin Travis County Health and Human Services Department, is the slender reed to whom these so-called public servants cling to validate their increasingly non-tenable position.

It’s best to let Huang’s own CV tell the story. Having received a BA in civil engineering from Rice University in 1982, he decided to become a doctor instead. He then enrolled at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas, graduating with an MD degree in 1986. From 1986-89 he served his internship/residency at Austin’s Brackenridge Hospital, emerging with a specialization in family practice: an area whose subject matter is comparable to that of a general practitioner. Although he held the position of Chief Resident during 1989, it appears he never hung out his own shingle. Instead, he was soon off to Boston for a year of polishing at the Harvard School of Public Health, whose mission is “to advance the public’s health through learning, discovery and communication."

Though that august institution claims to post descriptions of the courses necessary to the Master of Public Health degree,the links all appear to be broken: from their titles, few if any seem to deal with the actual science and art of medicine. At any rate, Huang received his MPH in 1989, then lingered for an additional year as a work/study intern with the Harvard Center for Health Communication.

In 1990, he moved on to the big time at the CDC in Atlanta, where he remained for two very important years in the title of epidemic intelligence service officer. Undoubtedly, he forged important contacts at the agency during that time. It would seem he also discovered the wellspring of federal grant money freely available for anti-tobacco projects. During 1991, the year he gave his first anti-smoking presentations—on tobacco advertisements and children—at professional meetings, he also presented on disease-causing blue-green algae-like bacteria. But from that time forward to today the lion’s share of his professional presentations, as well as his mile-long list of publications, have trod the safe and well-funded terrain of smoking prevention.

1992 brought him to the Texas Department of Health (reorganized as the Texas Department of State Health Services in 2004), where he remained in several positions until his jump, in 2008 to the Austin Travis County Health Department—an agency which itself has since suffered a renaming, to its present Austin Travis County Public Health and Human Services Department.

The title of Huang’s current position: Medical Director/Health Authority is revealing in itself. Health Authority has that perfect ring. A look at his resume over the years suggests a tirelessly active, politically-skilled individual, adept at attracting honors, committee posts and money from early on. The kinds of career-enhancing awards and Who’s Who listings and high level appointments he’s racked rarely come unbidden even to the well-qualified, but require a certain level of self-promotion.

One particularly interesting appointment is his membership between 1992 and 2008 on the Texas Diabetes Council. Diabetes is a chronic medical condition—extremely common in our population—well-known to be aggravated by fluoride.

What emerges, without fanfare, is an outstanding talent for getting major CDC grants for anti-cigarette-related activities.

Huang’s long-cultivated reputation for expertise in tobacco matters (though not the hard-science aspects) begins in the early 1990’s. Of the 17 post-1992 publications his CV lists, 16 pertain to smoking and over a third of those are specifically CDC-sponsored. His papers tend to be of a statistical/ sociological nature. None involve any hands-on biological or toxicological research.

So what qualifies him to be the arbiter of fluoride safety for the masses?

Nothing.

Watching Huang’s recent performances before the City Council and its satellite Public Health and Human Services Committee, as he glowingly reported on his latest multi-million dollar CDC grants before a rapt, appreciative audience, one cannot resist speculating that this is the principal raison d’etre for his placement in his current position. Here, his record is indeed impressive. In 2009, he snagged a 2-year $7.5 million grant exclusively for anti-smoking programs: an achievement which spawned an explosion of flashy public relations campaigns (including a 30-second TV spot that cost a cool $250,000 to make and air) as the grant period drew to a close.


                                      Here's How the City Spends Its Grant Funds. . .


                                                        This Cost $250,000 to Make and Air. . .

Not to disparage the very real importance of smoking-related health issues: imagine what that same amount - $7.5 million - or a half, or a third, or even a quarter of it, could buy in terms of dental care for the economically disadvantaged children the toxic placebo called fluoride is supposed to be “helping.”   Mobile dental clinics…vouchers…toothpaste and toothbrushes…dental hygiene education for parents and children…

But that’s not how things operate in the upside-down world of grant-seeking, where projects are driven by infusions of outside money and priorities based more on available funding than need. The Centers for Disease Control pushes water fluoridation in place of real dental care. The same agency that invests millions to keep us away from the tobacco poison wants us to consume the fluoride poison.

This fall, the expired $7.5 million anti-tobacco grant was superseded by a more modest but longer-running one. The latest CDC funding provides just over $1 million per year over the next five years, to address smoking and other issues, including childhood obesity (an important health problem but dealt with as if in a vacuum). Studies, spawning programs spawning partnerships, spawning endless seminars: it’s a self-perpetuating bureaucracy’s dream come true. One has to wonder then: what would happen if the Prince of Grants, as I think of Huang, were to be undermined in any way? Even on the unrelated subject of water fluoridation?

I suspect the Council members have had this in mind too as they've sat through his several cut-and-paste CDC talking point presentations delivered with smug assurance that his title of authority, however hollow, would always prevail. Is it possible - were he seriously challenged, even opposed - that the CDC’s beneficence might fade along with his authority?

It’s a question worth pondering and I presume the Council has done their share and drawn their own conclusions. I myself can’t answer it. But this I do know: if the Council members wouldn’t turn to family practitioner Huang for open heart surgery or a kidney transplant, they shouldn’t turn to him for advice on toxicology: another specialty in which he lacks the appropriate training. And leave the whole city at his mercy too.

But then, they already know that.

EVER-PREDICTABLE CITY COUNCIL CONTINUES MARCHING TO CDC'S TUNE

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 04:04:37 GMT

The Austin City Council Addresses Item #11

Well, the big day NOT—December 15—has come and gone, with the City Council predictably following through on its plan to continue fluoridating Austin’s water, and to provide some misleading information about infant formula now posted on the city’s website to a larger audience. All this with the blessing of Dr. Philip Huang, Austin’s Public Health & Human Services Department medical officer and conduit-in-chief to millions of dollars in CDC grant money, behind whose flimsy skirts the Council continues to hide.

Because the outcome was such a foregone conclusion, we made the difficult call not to widely promote this occasion beyond our website, blog and Facebook. Indeed, we feared a strong showing might inspire the Council to postpone the item until late at night, or even to table it. We didn’t want a large cohort of our supporters waiting around, possibly all day, possibly in vain, for the inevitable during this season of cheer.

Things went well enough, however By pre-arrangement, three Fluoride Free Austin members (including Laura Pressley, a strong contender for City Council) signed over their speaking slots to me, allowing me time, for once, to make a decent presentation and to get some of Public Health’s most egregious misrepresentations onto the public record. Because I had ample speaking time, I was able to wing it rather than read from my usual prepared script, which also gave me a rare chance to observe the council members’ expressions. They were not pleased as I exposed the dishonesties and incompetencies of their bureaucratic lords, but were determined to bow down to them anyway. (Dr. Huang, who didn’t speak himself, brought two local dentists with him to make the Atlanta-based CDC’s point). By the time the Council voted - without any discussion - you could have heard a pin drop. Only Mayor Leffingwell’s voice could be heard assuring us that Council member Mike Martinez had made a motion, Laura Morrison had seconded it and the vote in favor was unanimous. It was as though the issue was so toxic, so scary, that council members shrank from any part of it—even approving their own recommendation. Martinez - who recently had his arm twisted by Libby Doggett, an officer of the Pew Charitable Trusts, which pushes fluoride as well as wife of a powerful Austin-based Congressman - must have felt a shade uncomfortable, though assured in the long run that his vote to continue fluoridating made it all right.

The situation did have its puzzling side. Is a toothless warning (the Council repudiated the actual word “warning”) that bundles false information with a modicum of fact better than no warning at all? Worse? The same? My initial impulse, when signing up at the computer kiosk, was to list myself as against Item #11. But a subsequent conversation with Dr. Pressley—in which she expressed the opinion that even a “warning” that figuratively turns on itself is better than nothing because it will alert people to the fluoride issue—changed my mind. Perhaps it will do some good anyway. Perhaps not. Only time will tell. At the podium, I declared myself neutral. Neutral about fluoride—definitely a first for me!

Mayor Leffingwell was on his best behavior, presumably relieved to have it all done with, if that’s what he thinks. In a sense, last Thursday’s vote was a non-event. It settled nothing. Water fluoridation will continue for now (no surprise), an unsatisfactory warning will be issued with consequences yet to be seen, and Fluoride Free Austin will redouble our efforts in the coming year.

RED ALERT! RED ALERT! RED ALERT! FLUORIDE ON THE AUSTIN CITY COUNCIL AGENDA FOR THURSDAY, DEC. 15, 2011

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:51:51 GMT

Now, before we get too excited by this news, let's understand that this is simply the City Council's latest attempt to screw us. Still, it's progress because we've forced them to respond in a way they never imagined they'd have to throughout their three years of sullen rudeness and ignoring us (or trying to) from the dias. Poor things, we're distracting them from their joy: the joys of wheeling and dealing; of social climbing and endless grant getting and lavishly spending the taxpayers' money. What an inconvenience! They all must be gnashing their fluoride-perfect (grin) teeth right now.

Friday, the following item appeared on the draft agenda for next Thursday's City Council meeting:

*****************
RESOLUTION NO.___________________
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF AUSTIN:

The City Council supports the City Manager’s recommendation to do the following:

•           to continue to keep Austin water fluoridated because fluoridation of public drinking waters is good, population based public health per the CDC and ATCHHSD

•           to post information on Fluoride and Infants on the City’s website and at ATCHHSD Neighborhood Centers and WIC Stations, in English and Spanish; and

•           to mail information to Austin Water Utility customers highlighting Fluoride and Infant information from the City’s website

ADOPTED: _____________ ,2011
ATTEST: _______________________                                   Shirley A. Brown
            City Clerk

****************

Since it's a draft agenda, it won't be absolutely final until Monday, but we can expect to see something comparable to this at that time. The item is very curious in that it includes a resolution to do what they are already doing - surely a first. Beyond that, they propose to disseminate the spun-out-of-recognition pseudo-information on the City's website to a wider audience. Wouldn't want to miss the large and vulnerable Spanish-speaking population, after all.

The development has several important ramifications. First, we don't know at exactly what time Thursday it will come up. Unlike citizens communication, which always takes place very close to noon, agenda items can be and often are moved around with abandon. As Item #11, it theoretically should come early in the day, and be dealt with in short order. (Since the wording would appear to make it a package deal, I'd expect a unanimous vote in favor - that is, keeping fluoridation and spreading bilingual misinformation about infant formula in a systematic way.)

The fly in their ointment, though, is that we get a chance to talk prior to the vote. And, again unlike citizens communication, there is no limit to the number of speakers, and people can assign their 3-minute slots to others, thus giving some individuals enough time to actually say something. If enough of us show up to annoy them, they could decide to put Item 11 off until 10 p.m. Or next month. There's no overestimating the vindictiveness of this bunch. But hopefully, that won't happen.

Despite its nearness to Christmas and the time investment involved, we'd like a good turnout for this, the last Austin City Council of the year. For those able to take a day off to observe our city government in action, we recommend you arrive at City Hall at 10 a.m. - starting time - and promptly sign up at the computer kiosk to speak on Item #11. (If you don't want to speak yourself, that's OK; you can give away your 3-minute slot to someone else). Come prepared for a long day: bring a book or your knitting or whatever you'll need to amuse yourself during those times when watching the antics of our elected and unelected "civil servants" becomes unbearable and you need to step out for a break. Then settle down to enjoy the show, either within chambers or on the large screens generously provided out in the atrium. With luck, they'll get to it in the morning and then we can all go home.

Although the Council can be expected to rubber-stamp whatever shoddy proposal city staff comes up with, it won’t do them any good. We’ll be back in 2012, energized and ready for the next round.

Merry Christmas, and hope to see you on Thursday.

SECOND OPEN LETTER TO THE PUBLIC HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE: PHHSC, PLEASE GET IT RIGHT!

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 03:33:25 GMT

                                                                              Letter #2

Following is a message I sent to the Public Health & Human Services Committee, with copies to the rest of the City Council and various and sundry city staff. I'm sure they loved it:

*************

November 30, 2011

To the Austin City Council Public Health & Human Services Committee: M. Martinez, L. Morrison & C. Riley

Dear Council Member:

I'm writing to address two issues that came up during the Public Health and Human Services Committee's proceedings of November 22.

Background: Since summer 2010, the city has posted a website notice to inform parents and caregivers about possible negative effects (dental fluorosis) from mixing formula with fluoridated tapwater during an infant’s first year. The notice follows from an advisory the ADA issued in 2006 in response to a National Research Council report which showed fluorosis to be widespread and increasing among American children. As the time nears for the website information to receive wider distribution, its specific wording becomes paramount.

I’ve previously expressed concern that the language has been crafted (“massaged” in Ms. Morrison’s terms) to convey a subliminal message far from the ADA’s intent: namely, that following the directive might result in a fluoride deficit, leading to the need for F supplements at the age of 6 months.   Dr. Huang pointed to a CDC supplement schedule which shows an entry for 6-month-olds. However, that document is dated 2001, several years prior to the ADA/CDC’s newer guidelines of 2006. The crucial information, presented in the January 2007 Journal of the American Dental Association in bullet point form, makes it clear that the guidelines are applicable to the first 12 months of life. I’ve included the relevant pages as attachments. Furthermore, breast milk—highly recommended—contains virtually no fluoride, yet no supplementation is being proposed for breast-fed babies. The core message is: to avoid dental fluorosis, the less fluoride the better during the first year.

A notification more consonant with both the letter and spirit of the ADA’s guidelines is that found in the 2010 Sugarland, Texas annual water quality report. Many other entities from cities to state governments to dental associations, nationwide, are following this more realistic model.

Also of note: During the Public Health and Human Services Department presentation, Mr. Rivera stated that the National Kidney Foundation is the only organization ever to have withdrawn its endorsement of community water fluoridation. That is incorrect. The list of names removed within the past decade or so, in addition to the NKF, is substantial. It includes, but is not limited to, the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology; Environmental Protection Agency; US Department of Agriculture; Mayo Clinic; American Veterinary Medical Association; Indian (Native American) Health Service; National Research Council; and National PTA. These changes are reflected in the most current version of the compendium, now on the ADA's website at. I've attached a searchable copy of that document. Nowhere do any of the following terms appear: bone, diabetes, kidney, arthritis, heart, thyroid, endocrine, toxicology, brain, neuro. ADA’s compendium is as striking for what doesn’t appear on it as for what does.

We appreciate your efforts to bring accurate information to a wider public, including the Spanish-speaking public. Many thanks for your attention.

Rae Nadler-Olenick
info@fluoridefreeaustin.com
(512) 371-3786

3 Attachments: MMWR table; JADA Jan. 2007; ADA current compendium

MORE OF THE SAME: THE PUBLIC HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE DIGS IN DEEPER; CITY STAFF AND LOCAL DENTISTS PARROT THE PARTY LINE

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:58:24 GMT

                              Safe and Effective! Safe and Effective. Safe and Effective! Safe and Effective!


The Public Health and Human Services Committee of November 22 went off pretty much as expected. A bevvy of invited dentists—under pressure from the president of their local organization—showed up to extol water fluoridation: they became the first living souls (with the exception of city staff) to speak in favor of the chemical additive in Fluoride Free Austin’s three-plus years of advocacy.

Because the outcome was so predictable—and the date so close to Thanksgiving, we didn’t promote this event as vigorously as we have some in the past. Still, the turnout of 40-50 supporters—just two days before a major holiday, was gratifying. The dentists had their own little cheering section, consisting of themselves, and the Austin/Travis County staff were there as usual, ready, willing and able to recite their lines.

Unlike last month’s meeting, where fluoride was at the top of the agenda, this time our issue was the last item. Sitting through what came before was instructive. Dr. Philip Huang, Austin Travis County Health & Human Services Department chief medical officer and official gatekeeper/enforcer of CDC fluoridation "best practices" talked about the latest $1 million-plus CDC grant he's snagged for the city, as well as the previous $7.5 million one, just ending. Another grant administrator type followed him in due course, tossing around bureaucratese terms like "partnering" with abandon before a starry-eyed Committee. Watching these performances makes it clear why City Council finds issues like water fluoridation so boring . No grant money - what fun is that? As if we didn't already know.

Finally our turn came. We had been told, unofficially, that each side would be given 30 minutes for its speakers and that there would probably be no formal pro-fluoride presentation. Wrong on both counts. Huang was allotted time to run through his standard CDC-endorsed monologue, accompanied on this occasion by Carlos Rivera, the newly-appointed (last August) director of the Austin-Travis County Health & Human Services Department. Rivera, clearly out of his depth, stumbled through his part using outdated slides. Their embarrassing performances can be viewed here, in Part 1:


                                     Part 1                                                   Part 2

Bert Lumbreras, one of Austin's myriad assistant city managers - associated with Human Services - and Jane Burazer of the Austin Water Utility also weighed in toward the end. But the main spotlight belonged to Huang and Rivera.

Next came citizens' communication (Part 1 & Part 2). Because of the time allotted to the pro-fluoridation presentation, each side received only a total of 15 minutes instead of the promised 30. The issue of a water bill warning against mixing infant formula with fluoridated tapwater was still on the table. Both the dentists and the Public Health and Human Services staff strongly opposed any warning labeled as such. They did accept the distribution to a wider audience of fluoride
"information" currently posted on the city's websites. That advisory - cleverly crafted by Dr. Huang - amounts to an endorsement of fluoride for infants.  I pointed this out during my 3-minute talk. Dr. Huang defended his word choice using obsolete information. Drs. Laura Pressley and Griffin Cole, Carol Vander Stoep, RDH and Mike Ford also spoke for Fluoride Free Austin, and five dental professionals voiced the ever-predictable opposition.

THE UPSHOT: a recommendation by city staff to disseminate the city website's misleading message more widely - in English and Spanish - through means ranging from mailouts to community bulletin boards. The Committee, ever eager to appear progresive, seized upon the occasion to vote that staff prepare a resolution to bring before the full Council for consideration.

Of course all this posturing proved nothing, since the language of the "information" is unacceptable. Still, it will be fun to see if, when and how the full Council deals with the proposal.

FLUORIDE FREE AUSTIN IS ON TWITTER NOW.

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 08:51:47 GMT

We will be tweeting our news at fluoridefreeAUS in the future. Please follow us.

PEW PRESSURE: THE PLOT THICKENS

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 21:57:30 GMT

            Libby Doggett                                           Austin's True Seat of Government?

In my third- and fourth- most recent blog entries - posted on November 3 and 7 respectively - I made reference to a mysterious letter allegedly from the Pew trust to the Public Health and Human Services Committee in the days just prior to their notorious October 18 meeting. At the time, I had no knowledge of the authorship , though I did remark on the inappropriateness of Austin's public servants taking, or appearing to take, direction from distant bureaucracies whether governmental or private. I rather suspected Matt Jacob, a Pew communications specialist who had boasted about it.

But now we have the missive - an email addressed to Committee chair Mike Martinez - and, to our surprise, it comes from non other than Libby Doggett, wife of powerful Austin-based Congressman Lloyd Doggett and herself an officer of the Pew organization. It appears below. Hmmmm.



The first thing to notice is that Dr. Doggett (she has a PhD in early childhood special education) is writing not in her private capacity as an Austin citizen but as an officer of the trust. Behind the easygoing language is a pointed reminder that the wife of the powerful Lloyd holds power in her own right. Her bio on the Pew Charitable Trusts website gives her title as Director, Pew Home Visiting Campaign, Pew Center on the States, and lists a Washington, D.C. contact number. '

The Philadelphia and Washington-based Pew Charitable Trusts is a complex collection of charitable funds separately established by heirs to the Sun Oil Company (SUNOCO) empire, having aggregated assets of nearly $5 billion. It supports multiple causes ranging from the arts to children's programs. After the fashion of great foundations, it pursues its own agenda as a change agent through the funding of projects consistent with its goals. In the case of its Children's Dental Campaign, it has some commendable accomplishments. It has advocated for the right of qualified dental hygenist-practitioners to provide care to children in regions where dentists are in short supply, and it has worked to enhance the reach of dental services to Medicaid recipients, who go about 85% underserved.

It also, like all other entities tied into 3-way mariage of federal bureaucracy, industry and philanthropy, endorses water fluoridation blindly and universally. Because the bad is so tightly bundled with the good, it's difficult to criticize Pew across the board. But in the matter of water fluoridation, they are on the wrong side of both science and history. Libby Doggett's credentials, excellent as they may be, do not qualify her in toxicology, and her words rely exclusively on the decades of CDC self-endorsement that we are challenging as illegitimate today.

Apart from this, their remains the issue of: who does the Austin City Council answer to? The people? Or distant funding agencies like the Pew? If the latter, Austinites have a right to feel concern. And local politicians up for re-election might want to give it some thought too.

OPEN LETTER TO THE PUBLIC HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 21:05:54 GMT

The following open letter was written in response to the proceedings shown in the video below:

November 14, 2011

To the Austin City Council Public Health & Human Services Committee: M. Martinez, L. Morrison & C. Riley

Dear Council Member:

I'm writing to address several points that were raised during the last 22 minutes of the
Public Health and Human Services Committee's proceedings of October 18^th.

The remarks of city staff from the Austin-Travis County Health & Human Services Department and the Austin Water Utility may have conveyed an impression that the advisory re infant formula currently on AWUs website at was placed there following the CDC's downward adjustment, last January, of its recommendation for “optimally” fluoridated water from 0.7-1.25 ppm to 0.7 ppm. That is incorrect. The notice went up in August or September 2010, months ahead of the CDC's new directive. It came as a direct consequence of a July 2, 2010 meeting between Fluoride Free Austin representatives and City of Austin personnel. Present for the city were David Lurie, then-director of the Austin/Travis County Health & Human Services Department, Dr. Philip Huang, his chief medical officer, and Ms. Jane Burazer of the Water Utility.

With regard to the warning itself: during your committee’s deliberations of 10/18/11, the suggestion came up that a printed link on the monthly utility bill pointing to the city’s information might suffice. But that cannot solve the problem since the information itself is deeply flawed. The city’s warning is supposedly based on one issued in late 2006 by both the CDC and ADA in response to the National Research Council’s ”Fluoride in Drinking Water” report of the same year, and summarized in the January 2007 Journal of the American Dental Association. However, PHHS’ language departs so far from both the wording and spirit of CDC/ADA that it scarcely amounts to a warning at all; indeed, it comes close to a fluoride endorsement. I’ve attached a copy of the two together so you can judge for yourself whether they carry the same message.

Also on October 18, a question was asked, but not answered, as to whether the city’s annual Drinking Water Quality Report specifically shows that fluoride is added to our water supply. The answer is yes. Attached is a copy of the most recent such report, 2010. In the second-page table, in the Fluoride row under possible sources appears: “natural geology, supplement.” So the report does inform the public that our fluoride comes from two different sources. What it omits to mention is that the natural and supplemental fluorides are two very different chemical species, with the additive—fluorosilicic acid—being far more dangerous than the naturally-occurring calcium fluoride, itself a potent toxin.

The Committee’s discussion can be reviewed here (Item #5, pt. 2 & Item #6 starting at 31:00 minutes).

We will continue to press for a meaningful warning regarding the risks of mixing infant formula with fluoridated tap water. Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

Rae Nadler-Olenick

Fluoride Free Austin

info@fluoridefreeaustin.com

2 Attachments: CDC/ACC & COA warnings; 2010 Annual Austin Drinking Water Report

VERDICT OF 3: CITIZEN INPUT DOESN'T COUNT

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 05:20:51 GMT

                                                   Bring on the Clowns!

The Public Health and Human Services Committee meeting of October 18 has come and gone. The event to which many of us had looked forward with such hope (and others with some skepticism) has emerged as just another show.

The hearing before the Committee had been in the works for quite a while.  City Council having remained adamant for three years in its refusal to even discuss reversing water fluoridation, we proposed something more incremental and, hopefully, less terrifying to professional politicians.  Perhaps the committee dedicated to health matters would entertain the idea of warning consumers of the risk to babies of consuming fluoridated water during the first year. After all, even the CDC and the American Dental Association supported that idea. And Mosaic Co., the the vendor of the fluorosilicic acid Austin dumps into our drinking water, states clearly in its own literature that tooth and bone damage - called fluorosis - are health risks, starting in infancy.

Council chambers was packed with our supporters. There was plenty of testimony from well-informed citizens:  40 signed up to speak, and 25 had the opportunity before time was called and the remaining names read into the record. The speakers included two dentists, a physician, a pharmacist, a nurse, and several Ph.D. scientists. Not a single member of the public at large showed up to represent the opposing view.



            Citizens request a warning: Griffin Cole, DDS (l) and Mike Ford (r)

In the end, none of it mattered. The Committee ignored it all. Directing not a single question to any of the speakers, they turned exclusively to the city's hired guns, Janet Pichette of the Department of Health and Human Services and Jane Burazer for their information.  Quickly satisfied with the CDC-driven version of things, they then voted unanimously to defer their final decision about a warning until they could collect more information - from the same sources whose legitimacy we've been challenging all along.  Their shameful performance can be seen below:



We have since learned that the Committee has specifically invited dentists to appear at their next meeting, on Tuesday, November 22, at 2 p.m. It should be an interesting occasion.

NEW FROM CHANNEL FLUORIDEFREEAUSTIN: CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF NOVEMBER 3, 2011

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:48:21 GMT

Walter Olenick talks about osteopenia. Philip Greene expresses frustration. Rae Nadler-Olenick drops a bombshell.

The City of Austin has promised to produce the Pew foundation's letter. We can hardly wait. We will continue to cover this story.

FLUORIDE DATE LECTURE #47: PEW! THERE'S SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF (AUSTIN) TEXAS

M. Rae Nadler-Olenick — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 05:35:27 GMT

Hamlet had his problems too...

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. We've heard tell of a letter sent by the Pew charitable trust to the Committee on Public Health and Human Services in the days just prior to the Committee's October 18 vote to defer action on a health warning about fluoride for the monthly water bill.

Is any one of you able to produce a copy of that letter? I'd like to have a look at it.

The letter allegedly pressures the Committee to reject the warning. The reason we know about it is that a reference to it was posted on the Public Health Dentists' listserv on October 24 by a Pew official. Matt Jacob is communications project manager of Pew's Children's Dental Health Campaign, so we assume he knows what he's talking about. His exact words to his newsgroup were:

“Just last week, a committee of the Austin, Tex. city council voted 3-0 against a proposal requiring the city's water company to place a warning about CWF on all consumer water bills. Pew wrote a letter urging the committee to reject this unnecessary and misleading warning.”

What I’d like to know this: How often do distant bureaucracies, meddling in Austin's internal affairs, determine the outcome entirely or in part? Why are they permitted to meddle at all?

The question goes beyond the matter of water fluoridation—to the issue of home rule. Who does the City Council really answer to? Austinites? Or outside interests?

So far as fluoridation goes: this City Council listens to the CDC (based in Atlanta); the ADA and AMA (both based in Chicago), and now, it appears, the PEW trust (based in Philadelphia and D.C.). The one group whose input it resists is, seemingly, the people of Austin themselves. Austinites of community stature and impressive credentials - practicing dentists, doctors, Ph.D. scientists, pharmacists, nurses, dental hygenists - have appeared here only to have their testimony cavalierly dismissed. Nor has the Council heeded voices from the past: the misgivings of the late Mayor Roy Butler on whose watch fluoridation passed; the warnings of the late UT biochemist Dr. Alfred Taylor, whose monumental laboratory studies proving the link between sodium fluoride and cancer, remain definitive to this day.

That’s all I have time for today. Something to think about. Thank you.