Fluoride

1/20 no notes

merri ok

goes back to JBS; is it oddly bi-polar like vax? see R reich on fda: rw'ers says lied to me in past (vioxx?) why trust now?

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11/4 trump will put rfk2 in charge of food, women health, fluoride

'Dire implications': Trump’s possible vaccine ban could spark US, global health crisis

David Badash an 11 24

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aha conspiracy theories just this stew of memes that get recycled and combined? related to pseudo-populism? the system is rigged, just not in the way you think.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump-voters-2649007931/

roger s salon

Plaintiffs in a number of the Trump campaign's lawsuits challenging the president's electoral defeat have peddled conspiracy theories and made racist comments. One of them, a plaintiff represented by Rudy Giuliani in federal court this week, was even implicated in an election fraud scheme of his own.

The new revelations, first reported by Salon, add another dimension of doubt to President Donald Trump's widely discredited, last-ditch legal challenges to President-elect Joe Biden's electoral victory.

"We are through the looking glass when Rudy Giuliani is appearing in court to allege voter fraud in the presidential race on behalf of a plaintiff who has previously been implicated in election fraud schemes himself," Kyle Herrig, president of government watchdog Accountable.US, told Salon in a statement. "The plaintiffs in these cases have long histories peddling conspiracy theories online. It is time for this legal freak-show to exit the courtroom and go back to the chat room where it belongs."

Among the more recent of the campaign's lawsuits is a complaint filed in Pennsylvania, which seeks a court order to block the certification of votes in the state. Giuliani took over that case on Tuesday, when he made his first arguments before a federal bench since 1992.

The amended complaint to that case includes allegations from a Uniontown resident named Larry Roberts, who claims the state did not notify him after his ballot was canceled.

Roberts is a former Pennsylvania Democratic state representative, who served from 1993-2006. During that time, he was accused of violating campaign laws multiple times, including election fraud.

In 2004, Roberts was accused of bribing a stalking-horse candidate to siphon primary votes from a Democratic challenger. That spoiler candidate, Michael Ciampanelli, at the time 20 years old, told the local board of elections that Roberts had paid him $200 to put his name on the ballot. A state grand jury investigated the claims, as did the attorney general, but what became of the probe is unclear.

That same year, the rival also accused Roberts of forging 33 signatures on his own nominating petition. The allegation was backed up by a woman who worked in one of Roberts' offices. The woman said Roberts staff told her to lie about the matter, warning her she could face jail time "if the real story came out," according to the Associated Press.

In 2007, the Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission slapped Roberts with a $600 fine for violations in 2001 and 2004, including unlawfully using legislative staff to organize campaign events and co-opting his legislative office as a drop-off point for campaign materials.

A separate Pennsylvania lawsuit dropped on Thursday by the campaign featured Ted Dannerth as a plaintiff, a man who has repeatedly spread conspiracy theories online.

For instance, Dannerth has tweeted multiple times this year about "Project Blue Beam," an apparent reference to a fringe conspiracy theory falsely claiming that a NASA-Illuminati joint effort is engineering earthquakes in order to establish a new-age religion led by the antichrist. Dannerth has also called women a "weapon" against what he considers to be the "imminent threat" of sterility that would accompany a COVID-19 vaccine.

The Trump campaign plaintiff stitched a number of baseless fringe, QAnon-adjacent theories together in a lengthy Facebook post this April. Among other things, he claimed that Oprah Winfrey's house had been raided in a sex-trafficking sting and the media had brainwashed Americans against the president, who "is working from the bottom up, to remove the Democrat/Communist/Socialist Epstein/Deep State/CCP scourge from the planet."

Dannerth was also involved in a previous 2020 election lawsuit challenging public use of a private grant to fund election initiatives over his opposition to "the election of progressive candidates in local, state and federal elections." That suit was dismissed by District Judge Matthew Brann, who is presiding over the Trump campaign's current lawsuit.

Several plaintiffs in the campaign's challenge to block Michigan canvassers from certifying Detroit-area ballots present similar personal histories.

Eric Ostergen, a Republican poll challenger named in the suit, has repeatedly pushed misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic. This April, he shared a Washington Times op-ed calling coronavirus "the biggest hoax in political history," on Facebook. In a separate post, he endorsed the since-discredited treatment hydroxychloroquine.

Ostergen posted two times on Facebook about lawsuits he filed against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D-Mich., over coronavirus measures, saying that "the tyrants will now be reeled in." He has also denied climate change science on Facebook, a platform where he has also posted baseless claims about Hunter Biden's laptop and voter fraud in Detroit's 2016 election.

The Trump campaign's Michigan case also features another coronavirus truther, Marian Sheridan, head of the Michigan Conservative Coalition (MCC), who in October led a "guard the vote" project after Trump's calls to recruit an "army" of poll-watchers.

In April, Sheridan's group staged "Operation Gridlock," where thousands of protesters jammed the streets of Lansing with their vehicles to express displeasure with Whitmer's stay-home orders. MCC also launched "Operation Haircut" in defense of a barber who opened his shop for illegal haircuts amid the state's lockdowns. And Sheridan hosted a Tea Party event to educate the public about "the common roots of COVID-19 hysteria and climate change."

A third plaintiff in the Michigan lawsuit, Grosse Pointe City Councilman Matt Seely, has mocked allegations of sexual assault in social media posts, including against Trump and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

"I'M SORRY THAT BAD MAN TOUCHED YOU INAPPROPRIATELY," read one meme, featuring a crying woman, which Seely shared during the Kavanaugh hearings. "LET'S WAIT 30 OR 40 YEARS … UNTIL HE RUNS FOR OFFICE … AGAINST A DEMOCRAT."

Seely also drew criticism for a social media post in which he connected four Democratic Congresswomen of color, known collectively as "the Squad," to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In the post — which was published on the 2019 anniversary of the attacks — Seely said the elevation of those women to Congress was "proof we have forgotten" about 9/11. The words accompanied a picture of the Twin Towers on fire.

Seely pushed back against criticism over the post, saying he could express political views on his private Facebook page. In doing so, he was backed by the mayor of Grosse Pointe Shores and other city council members.

In Nevada, former Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle — who already had a mail-in ballot case tossed in October — filed a lawsuit parallel to other GOP election challenges in the state, asking the court to stop the state from certifying its votes.

Angle is known for repeatedly pushing right-wing conspiracy theories, such as warning that American towns would fall to Sharia law and claiming fluoride in drinking water is a "communist plot to undermine Western democracy."

In a radio interview ahead of the 2010 midterms, Angle, who at the time was running against Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, alluded to armed insurrection as a remedy for a liberal Congress, saying — citing Thomas Jefferson — that "it's good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years."

"I hope that's not where we're going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying, 'My goodness, what can we do to turn this country around?" Angle said. "I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out."

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As bans spread, fluoride in drinking water divides communities across the US - Alternet.org

mONROE, N.C. — Regina Barrett, a 69-year-old retiree who lives in this small North Carolina city southeast of Charlotte, has not been happy with her tap water for a while.

“Our water has been cloudy and bubbly and looks milky,” said Barrett, who blames fluoride, a mineral that communities across the nation have for decades added to the water supply to help prevent cavities and improve dental health.

“I don’t want fluoride in my nothing!” said Barrett, echoing a growing number of people who not only doubt the mineral’s effectiveness but also believe it may be harmful despite decades of data pointing to public health and economic benefits.

In February, the Board of County Commissioners in Union County, whose seat is Monroe, voted 3-2 to stop adding fluoride to drinking water at the Yadkin River Water Treatment Plant, the only water source wholly owned and operated by the county. But the decision came after heated discussions among residents and county officials.

“My children had the blessing of growing up with fluoride in their water and … they have very little dental issues,” said Commissioner Richard Helms ahead of the vote. A fellow commissioner saw it differently: “Let’s stop putting something in the water that’s meant to treat us, and give people the freedom to choose,” said David Williams.

Barrett’s water comes from the city of Monroe, not the Yadkin facility. So, for now, she will continue to drink water enhanced with fluoride. “I’m suspicious as to why they add that to our water,” she told KFF Health News.

It is a scenario playing out nationwide. From Oregon to Pennsylvania, hundreds of communities have in recent years either stopped adding fluoride to their water supplies or voted to prevent its addition. Supporters of such bans argue that people should be given the freedom of choice. The broad availability of over-the-counter dental products containing the mineral makes it no longer necessary to add to public water supplies, they say. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that while store-bought products reduce tooth decay, the greatest protection comes when they are used in combination with water fluoridation.

The outcome of an ongoing federal case in California could force the Environmental Protection Agency to create a rule regulating or banning the use of fluoride in drinking water nationwide. In the meantime, the trend is raising alarm bells for public health researchers who worry that, much like vaccines, fluoride may have become a victim of its own success.

The CDC maintains that community water fluoridation is not only safe and effective but also yields significant cost savings in dental treatment. Public health officials say removing fluoride could be particularly harmful to low-income families — for whom drinking water may be the only source of preventive dental care.

“If you have to go out and get care on your own, it’s a whole different ballgame,” said Myron Allukian Jr., a dentist and past president of the American Public Health Association. Millions of people have lived with fluoridated water for years, “and we’ve had no major health problems,” he said. “It’s much easier to prevent a disease than to treat it.”

According to the anti-fluoride group Fluoride Action Network, since 2010, over 240 communities around the world have removed fluoride from their drinking water or decided not to add it.

One needs only to look to Union County to see just how intense discussions can be. Usually when the commissioners meet on the first floor of the Government Center in downtown Monroe, there are more vacant seats than attendees. But sessions about the prohibition of fluoride in public water supplies were packed, and residents who signed up to speak were divided.

One person who came to the microphone on Feb. 5 compared water fluoridation to a seat belt. It does not “prevent the car crash, but it limits the harm done,” he said. Another argued that there is no proof fluoride is safe or effective. “It’s a significant potential milestone to reverse 60-plus years of poisoning the public,” he said, using an unproven claim often made by opponents of fluoridation.

Fluoride opponents claim the mineral is responsible for everything from acne to high blood pressure and thyroid dysfunction to bone cancer.

The National Institutes of Health acknowledges that, when ingested in extremely large amounts, fluoride from dental products or dietary supplements can cause nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, bone pain, and even death in extremely rare cases.

Infants and children who receive too much fluoride can develop discoloration or small dents in their teeth. In adults, consumption of excessive fluoride for extended periods can lead to skeletal fluorosis, a very rare condition that causes joint pain and stiffness, weak bones, muscle loss, and nerve problems.

However, the recommended dosage in drinking water has always been small. In 2015, the Department of Health and Human Services lowered the optimal fluoride concentration from 1.2 milligrams per liter to 0.7 mg/L.

Juneau, Alaska, voted to remove fluoride from its drinking water in 2007. A study published in the journal BMC Oral Health in 2018 compared the dental records of children and adolescents who received dental care for decaying teeth four years before and five years after the city stopped adding fluoride to the water. Cavity-related procedures and treatment costs were significantly higher in the latter group, the study found.

Portland, Oregon, is the largest city in the nation that has consistently refused to fluoridate its drinking water. Voters have repeatedly rejected measures to add it, first in 1956 and the latest time in 2013.

Despite the strong recommendation of local doctors and dentists, voters in Wichita, Kansas, have rejected adding fluoride to the water several times, most recently in 2012.

The Brushy Creek Municipal Utility District in Williamson County, Texas, had been adding fluoride to its water system since 2007 but ended the practice in December.

In 2016, Collier County, Florida, commissioners opted not to remove fluoride from the water system. But they unanimously reversed that decision following a 2023 Health Freedom Bill of Rights county ordinance in response to covid-19 “to safeguard the healthcare rights and freedoms of Collier County residents.”

The State College Borough Water Authority in Pennsylvania stopped adding fluoride to the water of its 75,000 customers in March 2023. Officials used claims often cited by fluoride opponents, such as potential environmental contamination, concerns about medical freedom, and possible adverse health effects, like the potential for the appearance of faint white lines on the teeth and lowered IQ for babies.

A study published in JAMA Pediatrics in 2019, conducted in six Canadian cities, associated fluoride exposure during pregnancy with lower IQ scores in children. But the study was based on self-reporting and has been criticized for its perceived methodological shortcomings.

In 2016, several consumer advocacy groups, including the Fluoride Action Network, Food & Water Watch, and Moms Against Fluoridation, petitioned the EPA to end water fluoridation under the Toxic Substances Control Act, alleging that significant research showed fluoride was neurotoxic at the doses now used. The same group filed a federal lawsuit against the EPA the following year, after the agency denied their citizen petition.

During a 10-day bench trial in San Francisco that concluded in mid-February, the two sides debated the risks and areas of uncertainty. If Senior U.S. District Judge Edward Chen determines water fluoridation presents an “unreasonable risk” to human health, the EPA will be forced to create a rule regulating or banning water fluoridation in the U.S. A decision is expected soon.

For the time being, decisions about whether to fluoridate community water systems are still made primarily at the local level, which Barrett hopes will change.

“Of all things, they want our teeth healthy when basic needs of housing and food are lacking.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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*KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF

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https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/but-not-simpler/why-portland-is-wrong-about-water-fluoridation/

why Portland Is Wrong About Water Fluoridation

Late last night, Portlanders rejected a plan to fluoridate their city's water supply (and the water of over a dozen other cities). It's the fourth time Portland has rejected the public health measure since 1956.

By Kyle Hill on May 22, 2013

Late last night, Portlanders rejected a plan to fluoridate their city’s water supply (and the water of over a dozen other cities). It’s the fourth time Portland has rejected the public health measure since 1956. It’s the fourth time they’ve gotten the science wrong.

When new medical treatments are implemented, when new drugs are introduced into the populace, there is always some hesitation. There are (hopefully) some clinical trials to back up the new intervention, but the long-term implications are often unclear. Water fluoridation doesn’t have this problem. For over 65 years, it has been rigorously tested as a public health measure, and considered one of the most successful measures of the last 100 years, alongside others like recognizing that tobacco use is a health hazard.

" data-newsletterpromo-image="https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/CF54EB21-65FD-4978-9EEF80245C772996_source.jpg" data-newsletterpromo-button-text="Sign Up" data-newsletterpromo-button-link="https://www.scientificamerican.com/page/newsletter-sign-up/?origincode=2018_sciam_ArticlePromo_NewsletterSignUp" name="articleBody" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 30px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; outline: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: break-word;">

Simply put, the refusal of water fluoridation doesn’t have any scientific support. A review on fluoride’s effect on IQ out of Harvard was waved about as the main scientific opposition, but has since been thoroughly refuted. Decades of studies in different cities in different states, involving millions of people, have concluded that there is a safe level of fluoride–one part-per-million–that can be added to water for enormous benefit to our teeth and oral health with little to no adverse effects.

Without a study to stand on, the main opposition to water fluoridation seems to be political. It is almost understandable that Portland could stand up to health experts and refuse fluoride. Part of the American experiment was letting states decide for themselves what’s best for them and giving citizens the freedom to criticize government action. But the opponents of water fluoridation are boxing with a ghost. There are no known victims of water fluoridation. There are no cities receiving a toxic concentration of the ion. Water fluoridation isn’t just the addition of fluoride; it’s the regulation of fluoride in the water supply. The ion occurs naturally in ground water in varying levels, some that are in fact too high. When this is the case fluoride is actually removed from the water to get the greatest benefit. Arguing against having a regulated supply of fluoride in your water is like an anemic refusing to take iron supplements. The doctor isn’t trying to add enough iron to your blood so that Magneto could pull it out; she is trying make sure the levels in your blood are right for health.

“Keep Portland Weirdly Out Of Touch With Modern Medicine”

Portland is a lovely, if a little rainy, city replete with greenery, mountains, and some of the most interesting nightlife you will ever see. But chemophobia is in the air. Fluoride–an aggressively electronegative atom with an extra electron–has been singled out for scrutiny with a smear campaign. The charge against this negatively charged particle uses propaganda laced with a high concentration of fear-inducing terms and mischaracterizations to rally a small but highly vocal base.

Because there is no evidence that a regulated amount of fluoride in our water is causing harm–the reality is just the opposite–graphic posters like this one on the right color the conversation. Poison? Insecticides? Bone cancer? Why would Portland fluoridate if this poster were right?

But it isn’t. The fear of fluoride follows the same playbook for mischaracterizing chemicals. First, the chemical is labeled “toxic,” but it isn’t mentioned that everything is toxic in the appropriate amounts. Advil and Tylenol are toxic at high enough concentrations, as is water. Many chemicals are harmless within a range of toxicity, and many are beneficial up to certain point. Next, the chemical’s dangerous effects at massive concentrations are stated. But 1/100 or 1/10 of an ounce of fluoride would never be in a glass of tap water in a regulated area–indeed, you are much more likely to find dangerously high levels of fluoride in unregulated water supplies. One part-per-million is the recommended dose, and so one ion floats among a million water molecules. What happens at higher doses can be terrible, which is precisely why you won’t find those levels in regulated water supplies.

The final effort is to link the chemical to other scary things that contain it. This may come as a surprise, but it shouldn’t scare you–your body produces formaldehyde. It does so naturally, but the chemical doesn’t damage or kill you. It’s all about the dose; it makes the poison. Just as a natural amount of formaldehyde in your body isn’t a cause for alarm, neither is a regulated, and proven beneficial, amount of fluoride in your water.

And the fear is selective. Where is the anti-chlorine lobby? Chlorine is a chemical–also an ion–added to water, also considered one of the greatest public health measures in history. It too is proven to reduce disease and create a more healthy population. Chloride has all the attributes that make fluoride “scary.” When an identical situation produces almost no blowback, it speaks to the basis of fluoride fear. It’s not science.

Posters and information campaigns like the one above have caused more damage to the reputation of chemicals than yesterday’s vote. The chemophobia playbook has tattered edges and frayed bindings. The game plan for destroying public support for a chemical is tired, disparaging, inaccurate, and it worked in Portland.

Chemical Conspiracy

“Portland is wrong about fluoridation” is exactly what a government shill would say, isn’t it?

The claims against fluoride are overblown, the science deems it safe, so what’s left are the conspiracy theories claiming it to be a mind control agent or a dumbing-down recipe fed to the helpless sheeple. Though a conspiracy is nigh impossible to refute–every piece of evidence against the conspiracy is “part of the conspiracy”–the supposed fluoride conspiracy is nigh impossible to accept. While we sit in stagnant congressional deadlock, accepting a fluoride conspiracy means answering “yes” to all the following:

Could the government…?

:{Control each and every scientist who has ever published a study on water fluoridation?

Control each and every website that promotes the use of fluoridation?

Have significant private control of the infrastructure of the Internet to suppress conspiracies?

Keep every government employee or scientist who knew about fluoridation for the last 65 years from mentioning one word about its dangers at recommended levels?

Control and coordinate advocacy groups on the local level to write reports and organize in favor of the process?

Have the time and resources to conduct all these suppressive operations for half a century?

Fluoridation conspiracy theorists can’t trust the government to safely add/remove something to/from their water–as they do for chlorine, cryptosporidium cysts, carbon-based solids, oil, grease, arsenic, lead, and selenium–but will give the government the benefit of the doubt when it comes to policing every shred of information on fluoridation for the last 65 years. As with most conspiracies, pulling on the thread unravels the theory.

And if water fluoridation is a grand conspiracy, at least it’s a safe and cost-effective one. The CDC estimates that every $1 invested in the practice saves approximately $38 in dental costs.

The freedom to question the government that makes America great is a banner that shades our most cherished values. Sometimes, the shadow creeps too far. Should we have the freedom to refuse a critically important public health measure? When the enshrinement of autonomy bleeds into areas where personal opinion is the lowest form of evidence, it leads to perplexing questions about whether or not we have a right to be less healthy by choice.

Portland has the right to keeps fluoride out of its water because the battle cry of American freedom trumps a data point on a graph. Even when surveys of 1^st-3rd grader’s dental health recommend water fluoridation, the issue is contorted and amplified into a political screech with unpleasant lows and cringe-worthy highs. Portland remains out-of-step with dental health by choice, by political motivations, and by often-valid concerns over government intrusion. Yesterday’s vote was a failure of science communication, and it falls on public health officials to rectify that, to take back the word “chemical.” Perhaps re-framing the conversation in terms of dental health or water fluoridation as regulation, not just addition, could help. Until political questions are seriously informed by scientific answers, fear and freedom beats facts.

Science can lead a man to fluoridated water, but it can’t make him drink.

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Image Credit:

Panoramic X-ray of all 32 teeth of a male in his 40s with no cavities or fillings or other dental work by Ruhrfisch.

Anti-fluoridation poster from Alex Jones’ Infowars.com

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