Anti-fluoride group will submit more than 35,000 signatures to Portland in 'confident' bid to force vote

Editor's Note:  Now you know why I live in Portland.

Oregon Live
Brad Schmidt

 An anti-fluoride group said it's been so successful collecting signatures to block Portland's controversial fluoride plan that it will turn them in Thursday -- a day ahead of schedule and with thousands of signatures to spare.

If they succeeded in collecting 19,858 valid signatures from city voters, Portland's already-approved fluoride plan would come to a screeching halt. It wouldn't move forward unless voters approve, with the most likely election date not until May 2014.

Clean Water Portland collected more than 35,000 signatures by Wednesday afternoon, leader Kim Kaminski said, and the group plans to submit them Thursday afternoon, ahead of Friday's 5 p.m. deadline.

"I am confident that we will get this on the ballot," she said. "If I weren't confident, we wouldn't be turning them in a day early."

Portland's long and contentious history with fluoride dates back nearly 60 years, with residents supporting the cavity-fighting chemical once but voting against it three times. Before the City Council unanimously approved its plan Sept. 12, Portland was the largest city in the country that hadn't taken steps to add fluoride to its water supply, which also serves residents in Gresham, Tigard and Tualatin.

City Commissioner Randy Leonard, who pushed the Water Bureau to add fluoride by March 2014, conceded Wednesday that all planning work will stop if the signature-gathering is successful. But he said he isn't disappointed.

"That's why the process exists," he said, adding that he expects a "full and meaningful debate" in the months ahead.

Ironically, that's been a major complaint about Portland's process. Mayor Sam Adams and Commissioner Nick Fish joined Leonard in announcing their support of fluoridation weeks before public meetings or casting votes. While some residents fervently oppose fluoride, others were upset by city leaders' failure to let voters weigh in.

Since the council vote, Clean Water Portland's referendum committee has collected more than $41,000 and paid dozens of people to collect signatures. Referendums challenge a City Council ordinance but give opponents just 30 days to collect signatures from at least 6 percent of registered voters.

"Given the short amount of time that we have, and given the lack of notice by City Council and the way they railroaded it through, we had really no choice but to hire paid signature gatherers," Kaminski said.

It's been 11 years since a group successfully challenged a city decision. In 2001, the City Council voted to establish street fees, but big businesses -- which would have faced big bills -- helped bankroll a signature-gathering effort. The City Council repealed its decision instead of sending it to voters.

"It's not a typical process for the city, so we don't have a lot of history to go of off," said Deborah Scroggin, the city's elections officer.

Once Clean Water Portland submits its paperwork, city and county officials will have 30 days to certify whether enough of the signatures are valid. From there, the council has another 30 days to consider whether to repeal its ordinance, although that scenario is unlikely.

That means the fluoride issue would head to voters in the May 2014 primary election unless the council pushes for an earlier decision. According to city code, the council can set an earlier date if the "public interest in a prompt resolution of the question outweighs the costs associated with a special election." Among possible options are March, May, September or November 2013.

Fluoride supporters said they want to wait until all the signatures are verified before talking about next steps. But the Everyone Deserves Healthy Teeth Coalition has proved politically savvy through lobbying efforts at City Hall and in a television ad campaign.

"We absolutely will continue to promote fluoridation as the right step for our city to improve the dental health of Portland children and families," said Raquel Luz Bournhonesque, who organized the coalition.

Kaminski said voters deserve a chance to decide for themselves.

"It puts everything on hold," she said, "so that people have time and step back and take a deep breath and figure out what's going on."

Harvard Study – Published in National Institute of Health Journal – Finds Fluoride Lowers Children’s IQ

Washington's Blog

Yet Another Government Report Finds that Fluoride Lowers IQ in Kids

The Harvard School for Public Health reports:

For years health experts have been unable to agree on whether fluoride in the drinking water may be toxic to the developing human brain. Extremely high levels of fluoride are known to cause neurotoxicity in adults, and negative impacts on memory and learning have been reported in rodent studies, but little is known about the substance’s impact on children’s neurodevelopment. In a meta-analysis, researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and China Medical University in Shenyang for the first time combined 27 studies and found strong indications that fluoride may adversely affect cognitive development in children. Based on the findings, the authors say that this risk should not be ignored, and that more research on fluoride’s impact on the developing brain is warranted.

The study [click for abstract] was published online in Environmental Health Perspectiveson July 20, 2012.

Environmental Health Perspectives is a publication of the United States National Institutes of Health’sNational Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Harvard’s announcement continues:

The researchers conducted a systematic review of studies, almost all of which are from China where risks from fluoride are well-established. Fluoride is a naturally occurring substance in groundwater, and exposures to the chemical are increased in some parts of China. Virtually no human studies in this field have been conducted in the U.S., said lead author Anna Choi, research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health at HSPH.

***

Choi and senior author Philippe Grandjean, adjunct professor of environmental health at HSPH, and their colleagues collated the epidemiological studies of children exposed to fluoride from drinking water. The China National Knowledge Infrastructure database also was included to locate studies published in Chinese journals. They then analyzed possible associations with IQ measures in more than 8,000 children of school age; all but one study suggested that high fluoride content in water may negatively affect cognitive development.

The average loss was only half of one IQ point, but some studies suggested that even slightly increased fluoride exposure could be toxic to the brain. Thus, children in high-fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-fluoride areas. The children studied were up to 14 years of age, but the investigators speculate that any toxic effect on brain development may have happened earlier, and that the brain may not be fully capable of compensating for the toxicity.

“Fluoride seems to fit in with lead, mercury, and other poisons that cause chemical brain drain,” Grandjean says. “The effect of each toxicant may seem small, but the combined damage on a population scale can be serious, especially because the brain power of the next generation is crucial to all of us.”

Numerous other government reports have shown fluoride’s adverse impacts on intelligence:

[A] 2006 National Academy of Science [report ] reviews the scientific studies which have been performed on fluoride, and concludes:

It is apparent that fluorides have the ability to interfere with the functions of the brain and the body by direct and indirect means. (bottom of page 222).

The NAS report also notes that fluoride may actually impair intelligence, and that more testing should be done in this regard.

Indeed, studies from around the world continue to find that exposure to sodium fluoride – especially in the very young – lowers IQ. See this and this. The same is true for rats exposed to fluoride. See this and this. And see the studies listed here.

Dr. Vyvyan Howard – a PhD fetal pathologist, who is a professor of developmental toxico-pathology at the University of Liverpool and University of Ulster, president of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment and former president of the Royal Microscopical Society and the International Society for Stereology, and general editor of the Journal of Microscopy – said in a 2008 Canadian television interview (short, worthwhile video at the link) that studies done in several countries show that children’s IQ are likely to be lower in high natural water fluoride areas.

He said that these studies are plausible because fluoride is known to affect the thyroid hormone which affects intelligence and fluoride is also a known neurotoxicant. Such studies have not been conducted in countries that artificially fluoridate the water such as the US, UK and Canada, but should be, he said.

And as the International Business Times noted last month on the newest Chinese study on fluoride:

Exposure to fluoride may lower children’s intelligence, says a study published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a publication of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Fluoride is added to 70 percent of U.S. public drinking water supplies.

***

About 28 percent of the children in the low-fluoride area scored as bright, normal or higher intelligence compared to only 8 percent in the “high” fluoride area of Wamaio.

In the high-fluoride city, 15 percent had scores indicating mental retardation and only 6 percent in the low-fluoride city. The authors of the study eliminated both lead exposure and iodine deficiency as possible causes for the lowered IQs.

One scientist – Jennifer Luke – alleged in a 2001 scientific article that fluoride accumulates in the brain (specifically, in the structure of the pineal gland) more than it accumulates in our bones. In other words, she implies that fluoride may accumulate more in the brain than in the teeth, doing more harm than good (here’s Luke’s 1997 PhD dissertation on the topic.)

The 2006 National Academy of Sciences report corroborates some of Luke’s allegations:

As with other calcifying tissues, the pineal gland can accumulate fluoride (Luke 1997, 2001). Fluoride has been shown to be present in the pineal glands of older people (14-875 mg of fluoride per kg of gland in persons aged 72-100 years), with the fluoride concentrations being positively related to the calcium concentrations in the pineal gland, but not to the bone fluoride, suggesting that pineal fluoride is not necessarily a function of cumulative fluoride exposure of the individual (Luke 1997, 2001). Fluoride has not been measured in the pineal glands of children or young adults, nor has there been any investigation of the relationship between pineal fluoride concentrations and either recent or cumulative fluoride intakes.

Donald Miller – cardiac surgeon and Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington – alleges:

Fluoride … inhibits the enzyme acetylcholinesterase in the brain, which is involved in transmitting signals along nerve cells.

***

Fluoride also damages the brain, both directly and indirectly. Rats given fluoridated water at a dose of 4 ppm develop symptoms resembling attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. High concentrations of fluoride accumulate in the pineal gland, which produces serotonin and melatonin.

***

People with Alzheimer’s disease have high levels of aluminum in their brains. Fluoride combines with aluminum in drinking water and takes it through the blood-brain barrier into the brain. Dr. Russell Blaylock, MD, a neurosurgeon, spells out in chilling detail the danger fluoride poses to one’s brain and health in general in his book Health and Nutrition Secrets that can Save Your Life (2002).

Hat tip:  Paul Beeber.

New Study: Fluoride Can Damage the Brain - Avoid Use in Children

Sweet Remedy


PRNewswire, June 21, 2011

"The prolonged ingestion of fluoride may cause significant damage to health and particularly to the nervous system," concludes a review of studies by researchers Valdez-Jimenez, et al. published in Neurologia (June 2011), reports New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc.

Valdez-Jimenez, et al. describe studies that show fluoride induces changes in the brain's physical structure and biochemistry which affects the neurological and mental development of individuals including cognitive processes, such as learning and memory.

The research team reports, "It is important to be aware of this serious problem and avoid the use of toothpaste and items that contain fluoride, particularly in children as they are more susceptible to the toxic effects of fluoride."

A different research team (Tang et al.) reported in 2008 that "A qualitative review of the studies found a consistent and strong association between the exposure to fluoride and low IQ."

Dr. Russell Blaylock: Fluoride and Mercury