EPA Unions Call for Nationwide Moratorium on Fluoridation
(FURTHER INFORMATION at end of two documents: Sign the petition, contact your congressman, links to Senate and Congressional Hearings, further reading)
(transcript of letters)
Coalition of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Unions
August 5, 2005
RE: Bone Cancer-Fluoridation Cover-Up
Hon. Stephen L. Johnson, Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Dear Administrator Johnson:
We, the undersigned representatives of a majority (eleven) of EPA's employee unions, are requesting that you direct the Office of Water to issue an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking setting the maximum contaminant level goal for fluoride at zero, in accordance with Agency policy for all likely or known human carcinogens. Our request is based on the overall weight of the evidence supporting the classification of fluoride as a human carcinogen, including new information from Harvard on the link between fluoride in drinking water and osteosarcoma in boys that was conveyed to you in a meeting with union officials on May 4, 2005.
We appreciate that the Agency anticipates a report next year from the National Research Council on the propriety of its current drinking water standards for fluoride. But it seems highly inappropriate for EPA to do nothing now that it is in possession of this science, while millions of young boys continue to be exposed unwittingly to the elevated risk of a fatal bone cancer as the Agency waits for the NRC to issue its report, then for the report to undergo peer review, and then for the Agency to undertake its own deliberations.
By issuing an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking the Agency would inform the public and local health authorities about the results of the doctoral dissertation from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine by Elise Bassin without committing the Agency to a formal rulemaking until all those other steps are taken.
It is noteworthy that when industry becomes aware of important new scientific findings like this, it has (depending on the specific statute) a very brief time to notify EPA. The Agency is then expected to take timely and appropriate action based on the specifics of that notification. In the present case EPA is aware of important new, high quality evidence of potentially serious danger to young boys drinking fluoridated water, and we believe EPA has an ethical duty to send an effective warning immediately about this hazard.
It may in fact be appropriate for you to direct EPA's Office of Criminal Enforcement to investigate why Dr. Bassin's study, which was of sufficient quality for her to earn her doctoral degree, remained hidden from EPA for four years. Alternatively, you could request that the Department of Justice undertake the investigation.
As you know, the apparent cover up of the link between water fluoridation and a seven-fold increased risk of osteosarcoma in young boys, shown by the research of Dr. Bassin, is now national news. Major newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have covered the story. The Environmental Working Group has petitioned the National Toxicology Program to classify fluoride as a human carcinogen based in part on Dr. Bassin's work. (We recommend EWG's petition as a succinct and authoritative overview of the total weight of peer-reviewed evidence supporting the classification of fluoride as a human carcinogen.) EWG has also caused an investigation of the cover up to be started by Harvard and NIEHS, which funded the research.
The eyes of the nation are on the federal science establishment because of a host of scientific integrity issues. Former EPA Assistant Administrator Lynn Goldman and Roni Neff have just published a paper in the American Journal of Public Health on the cost of delayed adoption of health-protective standards that illuminates the real public health costs of the government's failure to act on sound scientific evidence.
We believe our Agency can make an important statement about its commitment to scientific integrity and its application to public health protection by taking the precautionary action we are recommending.
We at EPA can be ahead of the curve on this important issue or behind it. We do not think the latter choice is in the best interest of the public, the Civil Service or EPA, and we fervently and respectfully hope that you will agree with us. As a wise man once said, "The science is what the science is."
We will be happy to discuss this with you and your advisers at your convenience.
Sincerely,
Dwight A. Welch, President
NTEU Chapter 280
EPA Headquarters
J. William Hirzy, Vice-President
NTEU Chapter 280
EPA Headquarters
/s/Steve Shapiro, President
AFGE local 3331
EPA Headquarters
/s/Paul Sacker, President
AFGE Local 3911
Region 2 Office, New York
/s/Larry Penley. President
NTEU Chapter 279
EPA Cincinnati Laboratory
/s/Nancy Barron, President
NAGE Local R5-55
Region 4 Office, Atlanta
/s/Wendell Smith, President
ESC/IFPTE Local 20
Region 9 Office, San Francisco
/s/Patrick Chan, President
NTEU Chapter 295
Region 9 Office, San Francisco
/s/Henry Burrell, President
AFGE Local 3428
Region 1 Office, Boston
/s/Alan Hollis, President
AFGE Local 3611
Region 3 Office, Philadelphia
/s/Frank Beck, President
AFGE Local 2900
Ada Laboratory
/s/Mark Coryell, President
AFGE Local 3907
Ann Arbor Laboratory
cc:
Sen. James Inhofe
Sen. Mike Enzi
Sen. Saxby Chambliss
Sen. Ted Stevens
Sen. James Jeffords
Sen. Edward Kennedy
Sen. Tom Harkin
Sen. Daniel Inouye
Rep. Joe Barton
Rep. Sherwood Boehlert
Rep. Paul Gillmor
Rep. Nathan Deal
Rep. Henry Waxman
Rep. John Dingell
Rep. Bart Gordon
Rep. Hilda Solis
Rep. Sherrod Brown
Letter from 11 EPA Unions to Senator Tom Harkin
Coalition of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Unions
August 5, 2005
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
Dear Senator Harkin:
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.
One of 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Sincerely,
Dwight A. Welch, President
NTEU Chapter 280
EPA Headquarters
J. William Hirzy, Vice-President
NTEU Chapter 280
EPA Headquarters
/s/Steve Shapiro, President
AFGE local 3331
EPA Headquarters
/s/Paul Sacker, President
AFGE Local 3911
Region 2 Office, New York
/s/Larry Penley. President
NTEU Chapter 279
EPA Cincinnati Laboratory
/s/Nancy Barron, President
NAGE Local R5-55
Region 4 Office, Atlanta
/s/Wendell Smith, President
ESC/IFPTE Local 20
Region 9 Office, San Francisco
/s/Patrick Chan, President
NTEU Chapter 295
Region 9 Office, San Francisco
/s/Henry Burrell, President
AFGE Local 3428
Region 1 Office, Boston
/s/Alan Hollis, President
AFGE Local 3611
Region 3 Office, Philadelphia
/s/Frank Beck, President
AFGE Local 2900
Ada Laboratory
/s/Mark Coryell, President
AFGE Local 3907
Ann Arbor laboratory
cc: Hon. Stephen L. Johnson, Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Hon. Tom Harkin, Ranking Member
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry
SR-328A Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-6000
FURTHER INFORMATION/ACTION REQUESTED
Please sign the petition asking Congress to Re-examine 'fluoride'
SAMPLE TELEPHONE and/or EMAIL MESSAGE (cut and paste)
I am one of your constituents concerned about nationally publicized research linking water fluoridation to bone cancer in young males. I understand that eleven EPA unions are calling for an immediate moratorium on fluoridation and a full Congressional hearing into this and other studies showing adverse health effects. Because of the unavoidable exposure due to publicly fluoridated water's contribution to our dietary sources, even if a person chooses to drink bottled water, this issue is crucial to my health and the health of the nation, and I urge your support for both the moratorium and hearing.
Chemical and Engineering News Special Report 1988
The Environmental Working Group
Congressional Investigations and Responses 2000
Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons Summer 2005