Before we get to some thoughts from a number of FAN supporters about their dedicated efforts to end fluoridation, here is a quick update on our annual fundraiser.

Yesterday was another splendid day for us. Since our last bulletin the tally has risen from $10,478 from 133 donors to $13,136 from 173 donors. Still a long way to go to reach our goal of $100,000 from 500 donors by midnight December 31, but the pace is definitely picking up.

Many thanks to all of you who have given so generously at this very difficult financial time. If you wish to make a tax-deductible donation and help us continue the struggle against the well-heeled promoters of this wretched practice please use the donation and premium details below, or use this donation link. If you need any more reasons for supporting FAN I think you will find them in the comments below.

Thoughts from some Fluoridation Opponents

I asked a number of key fluoridation opponents to send us a few words on how and why they got involved in the fluoridation issue and what FAN has meant to their efforts. I count it a great privilege to have met, worked with and become close friends with all the people on this list. They are a wonderful group of totally dedicated and tireless fighters for truth and justice.

When I shared this bulletin with Carol Kopf, FAN's media officer, she replied, "This is great. There are things in this I didn't know. I especially enjoyed Roger Burt's commentary."

In future bulletins I hope to share with you more commentaries and I invite other friends, colleagues and supporters to share their thoughts with us.

Here then are just a few of the commentaries I have received.

James Beck, MD, PhD, from Calgary, Alberta

As a physician I had the privilege during my short clinical experience of helping people to have lives a bit better and longer, one at a time. I see stopping fluoridation as a way to help people make their lives better by the thousands, by the millions ultimately. That is a great privilege.

Beyond that, I see fluoridation as one issue of many where we struggle against material interests, pride, ignorance, even scientific dishonesty. But it is a solvable problem: just stop. And in making that stoppage happen we show ourselves and others that it is possible to move powerful people and institutions to do the right thing and it is possible for us to take some control by hard, honest work. We can hope-more, expect-that as we succeed that lesson will be applied to other problems.

I got involved with the long effort to stop fluoridation in Calgary in 1999 when I was invited to join an anti-fluoridation group consisting of five dentists and one physician. Prior to this I hadn't given much thought to fluoridation, but when I did I was appalled at the violation of human rights and medical ethics that it is. I began to study the science (I am a physician and biophysicist) and quickly came to the conclusion that it was neither substantially effective nor safe. I began-along with Bob Dickson, a family practitioner-to lobby members of city council. In 2007 we persuaded a member of the Alberta legislative assembly to sponsor a public meeting to which we brought Paul Connett to make a presentation. It animated our group and got us some press attention.

We continued lobbying councilors. One of them introduced a motion to stop fluoridating in 2009. The motion failed but during that period there was more attention in the news media, including some of the usual misleading arguments in support of fluoridation from the president of the provincial dental association and from leading lights from the Faculty of Medicine. But we got rebuttals published in the Calgary Herald and some television coverage.

FAN helped in our lobbying efforts by providing us with a great deal of information as well as contacts with other fluoridation opponents worldwide. It is always helpful to know that you are not fighting these battles alone.

Meanwhile Paul Connett was putting his tremendous collection of information on fluoridation into book form and circulating his work to some colleagues. Spedding Micklem and I were giving considerable attention to this effort and Paul asked us to join him as co-authors. I learned much during the year and a half in which we worked together on this text.

In the fall of 2010 I asked the six councilors who openly opposed fluoridation to meet with me to discuss how we might proceed (five were able to attend). By then The Case Against Fluoride was published and I was able to show them a pre-publication copy. They were enthusiastic and encouraged me in my proposal to push the issue again.

In January, 2011, the council agreed to have one of its committees hold a public forum. I was able to speak after five representatives of Alberta Health Services spoke. These comprised two medical officers of health, one dental officer of health, a dietician and a community health worker. In the meeting, which spanned some eleven hours, I was able to refute much of the standard misinformation given out by these health service representatives. The committee voted to recommend to council that fluoridation be stopped and subsequently council voted to stop fluoridation by a margin of 12 to 3.

When word of this decision got out (I had an e-mail list of about a thousand contacts who were kept informed, many of whom had sent messages to councilors) requests for information came to me from a half-dozen or more countries.

I continue to write rebuttals of material provided to Canadian city and town councils by provincial health officials and Health Canada. I have provided testimony to council meetings and public meetings in six Canadian provinces. I find that there is increasing willingness on the part of the public, press and councils to question the propaganda of health officials and to resist their pressure. It is now clearer than ever that fluoridation will be ended in Alberta and Canada within a few years.

Dan Stockin from Georgia

In 2004 we had just formed a very small public health training company. One week later, my boss, Dr Lillie of The Lillie Center, came to me to show me a rash on her arm that doctors had been unable to help her get rid of. We were both new to the area, living outside Nashville, and she had seen signs on the road that boasted of the area's fluoridated water. We had never previously been exposed to fluoridated water.

Knowing my background in toxics assessment, she asked me if this water she was now drinking and showering in could be causing the rash. So I did what I've done hundreds of times in my career, looking at a chemical to see how the body metabolizes it, what the target organs are, etc. I had worked with very dangerous fluoride chemicals previously, but somehow fluoride in water had flown under my radar. I came across FAN's wonderful website, shared what I learned with Dr. Lillie, and she said she didn't feel it would be morally right to take steps to protect our own families and not help prevent harm to others (Dr. Lillie is a minister). So she said, "I don't know who you have to talk to... get it turned off!"

Thus began our work at The Lillie Center to end fluoridation... and we are so grateful that FAN was there to provide us with important facts and science-based arguments, so we could use them in the context of our targeted strategies to help end fluoridation. Now we continue our efforts, having relocated to Georgia, home of the Centers for Disease Control. We're not giving up, we're not giving out, and we're not giving in until fluoridation ends. We are deeply grateful for all the years of assistance from FAN.

Jeanette Bajorek from Sacramento, California

I am a senior who has carried an unfulfilled longing to 'be a scientist' since the fourth grade.  When my neighborhood was fluoridated a few years ago, my sense of betrayal and frustration about trying to deal with it sent me to the internet where I soon found Dr. Paul Connett and FAN. Immediately and whole-heartedly I joined in this worldwide effort to inject truth in the fight to end fluoridation.  You can't get any closer to science than that!

Rae Nadler-Olenick from Austin, Texas

I have a background in science and journalism. Alarm bells went off for me about five years ago when my husband and two of his friends - all healthy-living construction workers - were diagnosed with osteopena.  Research led me to suspect fluoride, and when I learned about vulnerable sub-populations, everything fell into place. In 2008 I realized I could use my journalistic and (arguably) speaking skills to call attention to water fluoridation issue by speaking out publicly using Austin's city council chambers as a venue.  I was soon joined by other talented people like Linda Greene, Dr. Neil Carman and Dr. Laura Pressley (and others too numerous to mention). Today we are a large, robust, multi-leader group determined to get fluoride out of Austin's water.

Throughout all our efforts, FAN has been the giant on whose shoulders we have stood.  It's impossible to list all the ways in which we rely on the Fluoride Action Network.  The website is a rich source of science-based informational material.  The videotape "Professional Perspectives" is an invaluable teaching tool. (I just sent six copies to a woman in Gun Barrel City, Texas who's attempting to start a movement there).  The FAN conference of 2010 was a font of excitement and inspiration that endures to this day.  The book The Case Against Fluoride is a concise, layman-friendly reference that I constantly carry with me and recommend to others.

Dr. Bruce Spittle from Dunedin, New Zealand

I became involved with the water fluoridation issue after reading the book Fluoride: The Freedom Fight by Hans Moolenburgh in 1978 and listening to John Colquhoun at Mosgiel, New Zealand, in 1979. It appeared clear to me that fluoridation was causing a health problem rather than providing a benefit and I felt I would like to help stop it. Changing paradigms takes time and FAN's bringing together so many of the people opposed to fluoridation to share resources and understanding has been very effective in hastening progress.

Roger Burt from Portland, Oregon

Painful as it is to admit, I voted for water fluoridation in 1972 in Marin County, California.  I did so without looking into the evidence.  I merely went by the impressive list of organizations endorsing fluoridation, and by the total lack of impressive opposing views in the voter pamphlet.  The measure passed.  I recall my neighbor asking me how I planned to vote, and when I said I planned to vote for it, she asked, "Do you really believe fluoridation is a good idea?"  I didn't respond, but I have never forgotten the seed of doubt she planted in my thinking.  

When the fluoridation issue came up in Portland in 1978, I decided that this time I was going to check out the evidence for myself. I read all I could at both the local medical and dental school libraries.  I realized there was a real issue here, with substantial evidence against fluoridation.  

The measure passed, 55% to 45%.  The city council had been lobbied on the sly by the promoters, the issue had been kept from the public until the last possible moment, and there was no well-organized opposition. 

The opposition group swelled after passage, and I became active.  We carried out a successful initiative petition campaign and put fluoridation back on the 1980 ballot.  Yes, it took that long because we needed over 30,000 signatures.  One amazing individual, the late Elsie Flink, an elderly retired schoolteacher, personally gathered almost 10,000 signatures. I still don't know how she accomplished this feat, but I do recall how fiercely determined, and personally sweet, she was.  This time our measure passed, 55% to 45%.

We then took legal action against the county for using public tax dollars improperly in a political campaign.  Our lawyer was the late Charles O. Porter, a well-known Democrat who had established his liberal credentials by serving as a US representative and special envoy to Mexico for President Kennedy.  We had to pay him $100 per hour up front, which required fundraising for nearly ten years.  Our action sought six county individuals to pay, out of their own pockets, the money improperly spent, about $50,000.  We won in the Oregon Supreme Court two times, and finally settled out of court for $38,000, enough to pay our expenses.  Six county officials had to pay and suffer the public humiliation of their indiscretions.  The county dental officer left his position, moved to California and went back to practicing dentistry where he remains today working in a public health clinic.  He never practiced dentistry in Oregon and wasn't even licensed in Oregon.  His primary job was to implement fluoridation here.   The county health officer resigned, left the public health field, and went to work as an administrator for Kaiser-Permanente.  Three county commissioners did not seek re-election and left public office.  Only one commissioner, Earl Blumenauer, stayed in politics:  He is now a US representative from Portland.

Our Oregon Supreme Court decision, Burt vs. Blumenauer, continues to be quoted across the US as a warning against government using tax dollars to tell the public how to vote. 

By my ongoing opposition to fluoridation I continue to do 'penance' for my erroneous 1972 vote.

How wonderful it is now to have the tremendous resource of FAN, the website, Paul Connett, and all associated FAN strengths!  We could only dream of something like this in 1980.  Thank you, FAN!

And thank you Roger! And thanks to everyone else out there for your dedicated efforts to end this wretched practice worldwide. And thanks to all of you who have contributed so generously in our annual fundraiser. If you would like to make a tax-deductible contribution please use the donation details below.

Paul Connett, PhD

Director of FAN