Nexus - 1206 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

OB OY YL VEN? ISRAELI HEALTH MINISTRY ISSUES WARNING ON SOY EPA UNIONS CALL FOR FLUORIDATION MORATORIUM Scientists doctors and S nutritionists who have warned that soy is not a health food and poses special risks to infants and children received support this week from the Israeli Health Ministry, which issued a health advisory recommending that soy foods be eaten only in moderation. "The Jerusalem Post (July 20) reports that the Israeli Health Ministry strongly recommended that consumption of soy foods be limited for young children and adults and that soy formula be avoided altogether by infants," said Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD. Dr Daniel noted that there are hundreds of studies linking soy foods and soy infant formula to digestive problems, thyroid dysfunction, ADD/ADHD, dementia, reproductive disorders and even a” leven Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employee unions representing over 7,000 environmental and public health professionals of the Civil Service have called for a moratorium on drinking water fluoridation programs across the country, and have asked EPA management to recognise fluoride as posing a serious risk of causing cancer in people. The unions acted following reve- lations of a cover-up of evidence from Harvard School of Dental Medicine, linking fluoridation with elevated risk of a fatal bone cancer in young boys. The unions sent letters to key congressional committees, asking Congress to legislate a moratorium pending a review of all the science on the risks and benefits of fluoridation. The letters cited the weight of evidence supporting the classification of fluoride as a likely human carcinogen; it includes other epidemiology results similar to those in the Harvard study, animal studies, and biological reasons why fluoride can reasonably be expected to cause the bone cancer—osteosarcoma—seen in young boys and test animals. The letter to EPA administrator Stephen Johnson asked him to issue a public warning in the form of an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, setting the health- based drinking water standard for fluoride at zero, as it is for all known or probable human carcinogens, pending a recommendation from a National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council committee. The unions also asked Congress and the EPA's enforcement office, or the Department of Justice, to look into reasons why the Harvard study director, Chester Douglass, failed to report the sevenfold increased risk seen in the work he oversaw, and instead wrote to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the federal agency that funded the Harvard study, saying there was no link between fluoridation and osteosarcoma. Douglass sent the same negative report to the National Research Council commit- tee studying possible changes in EPA's drinking water standards for fluoride. tive problems. They strongly urged that consumption of soy foods be minimised until absolute safety has been proven. "The Israeli Health Ministry's recom- mendations are in accord with those made by the United Kingdom's Chief Medical Officer and the British Dietetic Association, both of which have alerted pediatricians and parents to use soy infant formula only in unusual circumstances," said Dr Daniel. (Source: News release from Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, July 26, 2005, http://www.wholesoystory.com; Jerusalem Post, July 20, 2005) cancer. "The Israeli Ministry took this matter very seriously and based its advice upon the conclusions reached by a 13-member committee of nutritionists, oncologists, pediatricians and other specialists who spent more than a year examining the evi- dence. The committee concluded that the estrogen-like plant hormones in soy can cause adverse effects on the human body, including cancer promotion and reproduc- =Ceiti. = or 6 = NEXUS "Yeah, I'm completely lost in the desert. The good news is...1 landed a job." www.nexusmagazine.com OCTOBER —- NOVEMBER 2005