Posted on 11/18/2007 1:29:04 PM PST by truthfinder9
Pennsylvania HB 1649 breezed through the PA House Health & Human Services Committee and the Rules Committee. As of Nov 8th, the bill now sits in the House Appropriations Committee.
Action is needed to make sure this bill dies in committee!
Call your State Representative, tell them that you oppose the bill and that it's too controversial of a topic to push through without hearings. Ask that they vote to send House Bill 1649 to the Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, where it can have balanced hearings. (No hearings have been held on the issue in nearly 20 years and none of the new science on the topic have been presented to the legislature.)
Contact Dwight Evans, Chair of the House Appropriations Committee (where the bill sits as of 11/1/2007), and ask him to let the bill die or at least hold balanced hearings on the financial and legal liability implications of the bill.
Contact House Speaker Michael O'Brien and ask that the bill not come to a vote on the floor of the house until it's sent to the Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, where balanced hearings can be held for the first time.
If you like, here are some useful talking points
1) Fluoride is NOT good for teeth Many studies -- new and old -- have shown that the effects of fluoride are topical and that ingesting fluoride does not help fight cavities. Most studies of fluoridated vs. non-fluoridated communities show no difference in tooth decay. Tooth decay is decreasing over time all over the world, regardless of fluoridation status. Swallowing fluoride to prevent tooth decay makes as much sense as swallowing suntan lotion to prevent sun burns. See: http://www.fluorideaction.net/health/teeth/caries/
2) Fluoride is actually BAD for teeth Dental fluorosis is caused by fluoride exposure. It is the white, yellow or brown pitting/mottling of teeth. Several studies presented at the March 2006 conferences of the American Association for Dental Research showed no benefit from fluoridation, but increased incidence of dental fluorosis in fluoridated communities. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 32% of American children now have some form of dental fluorosis, with 2 to 4% of children having the moderate to severe stages. See: http://press.arrivenet.com/health/article.php/764156.html and http://www.fluorideaction.net/health/teeth/fluorosis/
3) Fluoridation is not needed Fluorides are put into water in order to dispose of a hazardous waste byproduct of the phosphate mining industry in Florida. They get away with doing so by telling people that it's good for teeth, yet no reputable medical practitioner would give out medication through the water supply, allowing people to take any dose they like and to have most of it wasted on non-target areas (people outside of the age range that supposedly benefits, systemic ingestion rather than topical application, dispensing of fluoride while washing cars, flushing toilets, taking showers, etc.).
Chlorination is used to treat water to kill biological hazards that would harm people more immediately. Fluoridation is used to treat people, not water. Also, chlorination is harmful to people's heath as well and there are alternative means to treat water that don't require chlorination, but that's a separate issue from fluoridation.
Chemicals used in water fluoridation are not pharmaceutical grade and come contaminated with arsenic, lead, radionuclides and other contaminants. Try dumping fluoridation chemicals in rivers or oceans and it's considered a hazardous waste. Dump it in the water supply at 1ppm and it's medication. See: http://www.fluorideaction.net/phosphate/overview.htm
4) 11 EPA Unions have called for an end to fluoridation In August 2005, eleven unions representing over 7000 environmental and public health professionals at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have called for a national moratorium on water fluoridation in response to increasing evidence indicating a connection between fluoride and bone cancer and links between fluoride and increased levels of lead in drinking water. The EPA headquarters union of scientists originally got involved when their reports were rewritten to support a standard that they believed is not protective of public health. See: http://www.nteu280.org/Issues/Fluoride/Press%20Release.%20Fluoride.htm
5) Numerous other health problems are tied to fluoride exposure Fluoride exposure has been linked to many health problems, including hip fractures, neurological damage, ADD/ADHD, lead poisoning, Alzheimer's Disease, birth defects, skeletal fluorosis, dental fluorosis, early onset of puberty, immune system suppression, kidney damage, thyroid problems, bone cancer and other rare forms of cancer.
The National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council (NRC) recently published a 450-page report re-evaluating the toxic hazards posed by water fluoridation. The project is titled "Toxicologic Risk of Fluoride in Drinking Water" and may be the first truly independent review of the matter in decades, if not ever. It reviewed hundreds of scientific studies on a variety of health effects and validates the concerns over many of the health effects that scientists and anti-fluoride advocates have been warning about for years. See: http://www.fluorideaction.net/health/ and http://www.fluorideaction.net/health/epa/nrc/
If all the statements (1-5) are true, then why-—do you suppose-—are governments doing it?
Attention Gen Jack D. Ripper.
I think they did that in OK in the 60’s
Must cover teeth with tin foil!
Do the Amish have better teeth?
Wasn't fluoridation one of the big Red Scares of the 50's? Don't tell me I'm going to have to live through "My Mother the Car" again.
Fluoridation is banned in the EU for good reason. The responses in this thread are childish. Here is a primer to get you started on seeing how you have been duped your whole life.
Rather than have an argument over the plusses and minues of fluoride, simply assert that plenty of people don’t want it, and the people who do want it can supplement it on their own.
Yet another thing the government wants to give us that we don't want or need.
Organized dentistry is always at the forefront of fluoridation. Legislators blindly trust them. This is especially so in Pennsylvania.
Right now there’s a dental health crisis in the U.S. 108 Million people don’t have dental insurance. And 80% of dentists refuse to treat Medicaid patients. The recent highly publicized death of Deamonte Driver from untreated tooth decay, after being refused treatment by over 20 dentists, has brought more heat on the dental community.
Fluoridation gives the illusion that organized dentistry gives a whit about low income Americans and are doing something about this crisis.
However, the only immediate solution to the crisis is for every dentist (who have grown very rich by lobbying efforts in their favor)to accept a certain number or percentage of low-income Americans for free, on a sliding scale or for what Medicaid offers.
Dentists, who have received welfare for the rich through government subsidies to their colleges and to themselves, need to give back and they don’t want to.
Dentists don’t want government on their backs. The same dentists who put governments on our backs by forcing fluoride into every U.S. citizen, one way or another.
By the way, fluoride is not a nutrient nor essential for healthy teeth. There is NO evidence that any Pennsylvanian is fluoride-deficient. In fact, studies show the opposite, American school children are fluoride overdosed with up to 51% sporting dental fluorosis - white spotted, yellow, brown and sometimes crumbly teeth. Covering these teeth with veneers brings cosmetic dentists up to $17,000 some dentists have reported.
It’s all politics. Dental groups are well-financed and big players with their Political Action Committees. Last I looked they were the second highest in terms of money spent in the medical field. Do you think they spend all that money because they care about us - they will do everything they can to protect their bottom line.
Dentists often pat themselves on the back saying, they are they are the only profession trying to put themselves out of business by forcing fluoride down our throats. Of course, that in itself is ludicrous because doctors could say that about any preventive measures they prescribed or administer - but the don’t. It’s just the dentists looking for the kudos.
However, after 60 years of water fluoridation, reaching 2/3 of Americans on public water supplies and virtually 100% via the food supply and with fluoridated toothpaste 95% of the market and with a glut of fluoridated dental products from toothpicks to mouthwash, tooth decay is an epidemic in the U.S. along with fluoride overdose.
And dentists - well they make more money than physicians while working fewer hours and fewer days doing less demanding work.
So I guess fluoridation worked very well - for dentists, anyway.
What's your solution for this "crisis"?
Flouride is given to bulls to so they become tame, passive and submissive. Why do you think the govt is big on flouridation? Silly you.
Immediate solution is for every dentist to take 5, 10 or some reasonable number of low-income Americans for free on a sliding scale or for what medicaid offers, every year.
Long run solution. Allow Dental Health Aide Therapists (DHATs) to work in the U.S. DHATs have worked for decades in developed countries as effectively as dentists.
DHATs are two year trained specialists that will drill, fill and bill more cheaply in areas and mouths where dentists refuse to go.
The first U.S. DHATs are working in Alaska after a multi million dollar lawsuit from the American Dental Association and the Alaska Dental Society failed to stop the DHAT program.
Rural Alaska has tried for decades to lure dentists to their dentist deprived areas. The DHAT program is working very well for them.
Unfortunately, the politically powerful ADA lobbies hard against any group who infringes on their lucrative monopoly.
Organized dentistry claims that they sued because they are very concerned that the Alaskans will get substandard care.
However, a recent expose by WABC news in Virginia revealed horror stories about how poorly children were treated by dentists in Small Smiles, a nationwide chain. The ADA didn’t make much noise about that. THey did however, send out a notice to their members to be prepared to be questioned by the media.
In your first paragraph you want dentistry to become compulsary service. In your last paragraph you talk about horror stories that are caused when dentristry is just a job and not a profession. Those two don’t jive. In between I agree, there should not be monopolies in medicine in general.
First of all, Small Smiles caters to Medicaid patients - children. Medicaid pays much less than private insurance. The dentists in Small Smiles are required to bring in a certain amount of money each day. They have been accused of doing unnecessary work. And if they do multiple procedures in one day, the get a bonus.
The real question, to me, about small smiles is why would any dentist want to work under such harsh conditions if they make so much money on their own. I would have to conclude that they are either not good enough for private practice, don’t want to be bothered with being a small business or they are charitable. However, the substandard work, unnecessary fillings, root canals and caps, tying them down in a papoose - not allowing the parent to be there, holding their noses so they are forced to open their mouths - doesn’t indicate a charitable person.
The truth is that Medicaid doesn’t give dentists the money they want. They will continue to hold poor people “hostage” until the government forks over more money.
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