NEWS RELEASE June 12, 2008. Contact: 706-669-0786
Giant Water Group Warned Not to
Remove or Destroy Evidence for Water Fluoridation Injury Legal Actions
Robert Reeves, an attorney whose work helped force FDA to concede
potential harm from mercury in dental fillings, sent a fluoride evidence
preservation letter to the Denver-based 60,000-member American Water Works
Association. The letter listed AWWA’s headquarters office, its regional section
offices, and national and regional officers personally as “potentially
responsible parties” that may be the subject of legal actions by kidney
patients and others harmed by ingesting fluorides.
The development comes on the heels of last week’s dramatic news
that the National Kidney Foundation has admitted that chronic kidney disease
patients “should be notified of the potential risk” from ingesting fluorides
and fluoridated water.
Kathleen Thiessen, PhD, one of the members of a National Research
Council panel that issued a 500-page report on fluorides in 2006, says, “The
NRC report indicated that kidney patients, diabetics, infants, and other groups
are susceptible population groups. I am also personally concerned that black
and other minority Americans are disproportionately
harmed by fluoride, and I believe there is a potential risk of thyroid damage
for overexposed Americans in general.”
In a January 2008 Scientific American article about fluorides,
toxicologist John Doull, the chairman of the NRC panel, admitted, “The thyroid
changes do worry me.”
Reeves’ letter demonstrates that attorneys across the country are
becoming educated about fluoride, a substance acknowledged to rival arsenic and
lead in toxicity. The letter also zeroes in on AWWA’s slogan that it is “The
Authoritative Resource on Safe Water.” Reeves points out that AWWA doesn’t
claim to be the authoritative resource on “pure or compliant” water, but on
“safe” water, putting the organization and its directors in a position of “top
tier accountability and responsibility” to disseminate even the bad news about
fluoride.
“Looks like AWWA has painted a made-for-plaintiff-attorneys
bulls-eye on themselves,” observes Daniel Stockin of
The Lillie Center, Inc., a Georgia-based public health training firm that is
working to end water fluoridation.
AWWA chose not to include scientists opposing fluoridation in a
web-cast about fluoridation in 2006.
In AWWA’s written response to Reeves, the organization wrote,
“AWWA looks to the medical and dental communities, the U.S. EPA, the Centers for
Disease Control, and other…organizations for their information and research on
medical and dental health.”
“Well, which is it?” Stockin questions.
“Either AWWA is ‘The Authoritative Resource on Safe Water’ or it isn’t,” he
states. “AWWA apparently ignored the rather obvious conflicts of interest of
dental and health organizations that gave glowing reports on the safety of
fluorides. If AWWA doesn’t quickly distance itself from the old-school idea
that fluoride is safe even for sensitive populations, it will probably result
in AWWA member water districts being forced to name the headquarters or
regional staff or offices of AWWA as third party defendants when they’re sued
by kidney patients and other groups.”
A growing number of cities have recently rejected water
fluoridation, including the Canadian city of
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Contact:
Daniel G. Stockin, MPH at 706-669-0786 or: stockin2@yahoo.com
Attorney
Robert Reeves’ letter to AWWA may be viewed at: http://fluoridealert.org/reeves.pdf
Video and news related to the National Kidney Foundation’s
changed position on fluorides for kidney patients can be viewed at: http://www.fluoridealert.org/press/nfk2.html
Source:
The Lillie
Center, Inc.
Ph: 706.635-7720 //
Fax: 706.635.8170