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GLOBAL NEWS PROMINENT DENTISTS SAY FLUORIDATED WATER IS HARMFUL Breeke away from dental school dogma, more dentists are speaking out against fluoridation because fluoride chemicals, added to the water supply to reduce tooth decay, are actually a money-wasting health risk, reports the New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation (NYSCOF). Hydrofluosilicic acid, a lead- and arsenic-laced chemical left over from making phosphate fertiliser, is New York City's fluoride chemical of choice. In 2008, fluoridation cost NYC approximately US$25 million. Dr Caree Alexander, a former Royal Australian Navy practitioner and a private-practice dentist for 20 years, says that fluoridation is "totally ineffective and actually damaging as well". Dr Alexander says: "[W]hen I graduated from university, we weren't given any information about where [fluoride] came from. We all assumed it was [pharmaceutical-grade] calcium fluoride." Prominent New York City dentist Dr Thomas Connelly writes: "I do not see the good in fluoridating our drinking water... To me, the ‘bad’ it can do outweighs the good." Dr Andrew Harms, former president of the Australian Dental Association, who once supported fluoridation, says in the video documentary Fire Water. "| deeply regret this... [W]hen I did read the science about 10 years ago, | started to get serious concerns." He adds: "{T]jo my amazement, when | tried to raise the issue with the [Australian] Dental Association, whom | thought were interested in the science and...integrity, there was no interest. In fact, there was a lot of pressure against me to say anything at all. There was a great concern about upsetting our principal sponsors, the toothpaste manufacturers, who heavily compromise our university.” Dr Hardy Limeback, professor of preventive dentistry at the University of Toronto, apologised for promoting fluoridation because toxicology research shows that the purported benefits no longer outweigh the risks. Dr Bill Osmunson, spokesperson for the Fluoride Action Network, promoted fluoridation for 25 years until his patients persuaded him to read the science. "It [was] like a knee in the gut," he says. "Science has turned against fluoridation and we must stop adding fluoride to water." Dr David Kennedy, International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT) past president and fluoride information officer, says: “Water fluoridation delivers a drug to infants at a level which would be gross malpractice if prescribed by a physician or dentist.” Over 3,790 professionals, including 324 dentists, have signed a statement opposing water fluoridation (see http://tinyurl.com/86mkhad). Attorney Paul Beeber, NYSCOF president, says: "The National Research Council reported that fluoride, even at levels used for fluoridation, can damage bones and teeth, disrupt thyroid function and be harmful to kidney patients, and that studies linking fluoride to lowered IO and cancer are plausible." He adds: "All New York State communities should stop uoridation as soon as possible." Dr Jennifer Luke says: "My [published] work showed that fluoride accumulates in the human pineal gland and lowers melatonin production in animals. I find it extraordinary that no government promoting uoridation has chosen to pursue these worrying findings." Dr Elise Bassin published unrefuted scientific evidence showing that uoride can increase the risk of osteosarcoma (a type of bone cancer) in boys and young men. About 250 communities have stopped fluoridation in recent years. ‘Source: PRNewswire, 5 October 2on, http://tinyurl.com/6swjc) funding and support for opposition groups inside Syria, spanning both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. In an 18 April 2011 CNN article, acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner stated: "We're not working to undermine that [Syrian] government. What we are trying to do in Syria, through our civil society support, is to build the kind of democratic institutions, frankly, that we're trying to do in countries around the globe. What's different, | think, in this situation, is that the Syrian government perceives this kind of assistance as a threat to its control over the Syrian people.” Toner's remarks came after the Washington Post released cables indicating that the US has been funding Syrian opposition groups since at least 2005 and has continued to do so to this day. In an 8 April 2011 AFP report, Michael Posner, the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, stated that the US government "has budgeted $50 million in the last two years to develop new technologies to help activists protect themselves from arrest and prosecution’ by aeeth wt arrest and prosecution by authoritarian governments”. The report went on to explain that the United States "...has organized training sessions for 5,000 activists in different parts of the world. A session held in the Middle East about six weeks ago gathered activists from Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon who returned to their countries with the aim of training their colleagues there." Posner added: "They went back and there's a ripple effect." That ripple effect of course is the "Arab spring", and in Syria's case is the impetus for the current unrest threatening to unhinge the nation and invite foreign intervention. (Source: by Tony Cartalucci, Land Destroyer Report, 15 November 2011, http://tinyurl.com/6pv6zqqg) NEXUS ¢ 9 DECEMBER 2011 - JANUARY 2012 www.nexusmagazine.com