- August 5, 2005
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- RE: Bone Cancer-Fluoridation Cover-Up
Hon. Tom Harkin, Ranking Member
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry
SR-328A Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-6000
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- Dear Senator Harkin:
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- Our unions represent a substantial portion of the nation-wide
workforce at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and we are writing
to ask for a moratorium on the national program of the U.S. Public Health
Service to fluoridate all of America's public water supplies.
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- One us us (Dr. Hirzy, of NTEU Chapter 280) testified
before the Subcommittee on Wildlife, Fisheries and Water of the Senate
on June 29, 2000 on this subject on behalf of his headquarters union. At
that time the union called for a moratorium based on science indicating
a number of adverse health effects and out-of-control, excessive exposures
to fluoride.
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- We now join NTEU Chapter 280 in renewing the call for
a moratorium, based on startling and disturbing new information that confirms
the worst fears expressed in the earlier testimony.
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- Work done at Harvard College's School of Dental Medicine
by Dr. Elise Bassin, which has been hidden since 2001, shows that pre-adolescent
boys who drink fluoridated water are at a seven-fold increased risk of
osteosarcoma, an often fatal bone cancer. We ask that the moratorium take
effect immediately and remain in place until a full hearing by the Congress
on the wisdom of continuing the practice is concluded. The last such hearing
was in 1978.
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- Dr. Bassin's work, done as her doctoral thesis, was completed
and accepted by Harvard in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
her Ph.D. in 2001. It is a landmark investigation of age-specific exposure
of young people in a case-control epidemiology study of the incidence of
osteosarcoma. The thesis remained sequestered until 2004, when her research
adviser, Chester Douglass, inexplicably reported to the funding agency,
the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, that no connection
was found between fluoride and osteosarcoma. This discrepancy between Chester
Douglass' written report and the actual findings of the funded study is
under investigation by several entities, and we believe should be looked
into by the Congress as well. It appears to be yet another instance of
federally funded science gone awry to protect special interests. Chester
Douglass edits Colgate Company's Oral Health Report.
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- Chapter three of Dr. Bassin's work (enclosed) cites the
impressive weight of convergent evidence for the carcinogenicity of fluoride
in young boys (but not girls): fluoride is a mitogen, increasing the rate
of cell division; it has been shown to be mutagenic, damaging chromosomal
structure; it accumulates primarily in bone, site of the cancer; several
previous epidemiology studies have found heretofore unexplained increases
in osteosarcoma in young men (but not young women); a National Toxicology
Program animal study found statistically significant increases in osteosarcomas
in male (but not female) rats. And she discusses why several other epidemiology
studies found no association between fluoridation and osteosarcoma; principally,
those studies did not consider age-specific exposures and development of
the cancer.
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- It is simply unconscionable that her federally-funded
work was hidden for four years while millions of young boys continued to
be exposed to increased risk of this disease, whose best outcome involves
amputation. Several federal statutes express Congressional intent regarding
timely warning about such risks. These include, for example, the Toxic
Substances Control Act, section 8(e) and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide
and Rodenticide Act section 6(a)(2). We believe another area for Congressional
investigation is: who knew about the results of Dr. Bassin's work besides
herself and Chester Douglass? and was any federal statute violated by
keeping those results hidden for four years?
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- Another reason for a Congressional review of fluoridation
is the recent work of Dr. Richard Maas of the Environmental Quality Institute,
University of North Carolina-Ashville, which shows that use of chloramine
disinfectant and silicofluoride fluoridating agents with excess ammonia
increases lead concentrations in public water supplies. This may explain
at least some of the increased lead levels seen in the District of Columbia's
water supplies and in the blood of children drinking water fluoridated
with silicofluorides. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says
that ninety four percent of fluoridated water systems use silicofluorides.
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- Dr. Hirzy is available to meet with your staff to pursue
this matter, and we hope that you will find it of sufficient concern to
initiate a full investigation of fluoridation, which we believe is long
overdue.
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- Sincerely,
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- Dwight A. Welch, President
NTEU Chapter 280
EPA Headquarters
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- J. William Hirzy, Vice-President
NTEU Chapter 280
EPA Headquarters
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- /s/Steve Shapiro, President
AFGE local 3331
EPA Headquarters
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- /s/Paul Sacker, President
AFGE local 3911
Region 2 Office, New York
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- /s/Larry Penley. President
NTEU Chapter 279
EPA Cincinnati Laboratory
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- /s/Nancy Barron, President
NAGE Local R5-55
Region 4 Office, Atlanta
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- /s/Wendell Smith, President
ESC/IFPTE Local 20
Region 9 Office, San Francisco
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- /s/Patrick Chan, President
NTEU Chapter 295
Region 9 Office, San Francisco
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- /s/Henry Burrell, President
AFGE Local 3428
Region 1 Office, Boston
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- /s/Alan Hollis, President
AFGE Local 3611
Region 3 Office, Philadelphia
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- /s/Frank Beck, President
AFGE Local 2900
Ada Laboratory
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- /s/Mark Coryell, President
AFGE Local 3907
Ann Arbor Laboratory
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- cc: Hon. Stephen L. Johnson, Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
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