IMPORTANT RELATED NEWS!
On March 22, 2006 a National Research Council panel of the National Academy of Sciences released a report of their in-depth research on fluoride toxicity, completed at the request of the EPA. This panel concluded that the EPA’s current safety standards for fluoride in water supplies are not protective, that too much fluoride at the present standard level of 4ppm (parts per million) can be harmful to health, and it recommends that the EPA lower this Maximum Contaminant Level Goal (MCLG) of 4ppm. It remains to be seen whether the EPA will comply with the NRC recommendation. This 450-page report covers a lot of ground, detailing many health risks from overexposure of fluoride from many sources. The panel makes many recommendations for further scientific research on health effects of fluoride.
Also, on April 5, 2006, a paper by Dr. Elise Bassin was published in a mainstream journal, Cancer Causes and Control. This paper was based on the author’s 2001 doctoral thesis, which has recently gained much media attention. Dr. Bassin claims that boys who are exposed to water fluoridation between ages 6-8 have a five-fold chance of developing osteosarcoma, a rare and usually fatal form of bone cancer, some years later. This peer-reviewed paper adds more credibility to these findings, which are only the latest of several studies indicating increased osteosarcoma in young males, both animal and human.
Although we cannot update the POWA petition
itself, when it is submitted to Congress, it will be accompanied by a cover
letter listing all the latest developments, and
mentioning that they only
make stronger our support for a moratorium and a Congressional investigation.