Fluoride and Failure

"Dental Fluorosis, no matter how slight, is an irreversible pathological condition recognized by authorities around the world as the first readily detectable clinical symptom of previous chronic fluoride poisoning. To suggest we should ignore such a sign is as irrational as saying that the blue-black line which appears on the gums due to chronic lead poisoning is of no significance because it doesn't cause any pain or discomfort.”
-Dr. Geoffrey Smith

Canada still remains primarily on the wrong side of the fluoride debate in that a good chunk of our country still adds fluoride to our drinking water. However, this may not be the case for long as many cities are starting to remove it, including some major ones like Calgary, Windsor, Slave Lake, Quebec City, Thunder Bay and Waterloo. The percentage of people in Canada who mandatorily drink fluoridated water has apparently fallen from 43 to 32.5 percent since 2005.

The debate over the issue that occurred in Windsor has proven particularly effective in getting home the point that the science is simply not behind water fluoridation, at least not the way we currently do it. This remains the case despite endorsements from some major health authority groups like the Canadian and American Dental Associations, Health Canada, and the World Health Organizations. How could all of these major players be wrong? Because of a Bate-and-Switch tactic that has real and credible scientists believing one product is added to the water when we actually add another.

In Windsor, it was brought up that Ontario's Safe Drinking Water Act (2002) requires licenses for the operators of water treatment facilities. These licenses demand that any chemicals added to the water must meet the standards set out by the American Waterworks Association and the American National Standards Institute. These specify NSF60 (National Sanitation Foundation) guidelines must be followed. The trouble is that NSF60 states that: "The standard requires a full formulation disclosure of each chemical ingredient in a product to allow for toxicological evaluation (p. 2)." Dr. Allen Heimann is the Medical Officer of Health for Windsor and was a speaker and expert during the Windsor hearings who advocated for continued fluoridation. He claimed that the hydrofluorosilicic acid which was added to the water to provide the fluoride was safe and met the NSF60 requirements, meaning that it had been proven safe by toxicological evaluations.

However, this is contradicted by his own slideshow during the presentation which states: "Since 1962, toxicity and adverse health impacts have tested fluoride rather than fluorosilicates (hydrofluorosilic or fluorosilicic acid.)" It also states that "...no research has focused on the direct consumption of fluorosilicic acid outside of occupational settings." The total lack of toxicology evaluations that support the safety and efficacy of hydrofluorosilicic acid is confirmed by the Windsor Utilities Commission (WUC) who agree they don't exist. When confronted with the lack of supporting evidence, Dr. Heimann admits that it is appropriate to take precautions in accordance with the precautionary principle. This means discontinuing water fluoridation until its safety is proven. The councilors of the City of Windsor would take this testimony and vote to follow the precautionary principle by removing it.

What it comes down to is that we have allowed studies on naturally-occurring calcium fluoride and pharmaceutical grade-sodium fluoride, the type found in toothpaste, to be used as evidence for the safety of another type of fluoride. Despite all fluorides having a higher toxicity than lead, it was argued that small doses would benefit the teeth and be tolerable for the body. Hydrofluorosilicic acid, the type we add to our water, is different from these and is used instead because it is much cheaper. This is because it is industrial waste from the phosphate fertilizer industry that would otherwise need to be expensively disposed of in a manner that keeps it out of the environment due to its high toxicity. As it is untreated waste, it is by nature impure. As studies have shown, "HFSA, a liquid, contains significant amounts of arsenic (As)" and has "been shown to leach lead (Pb) from water delivery plumbing." This means using research regarding sodium and calcium fluoride to demonstrate the safety of hydrofluorosilicic acid is akin walking into a restaurant and asking for water and being provided with a cup of urine. When you ask why you were given urine instead of H20, they say the urine contains the H20 and don't worry about the rest of it.

The main benefit of fluoride is supposedly that it prevents cavities which seems to make sense considering that cavity rates have been falling in the last three decades. However, it's important to remember that they have been falling regardless of whether fluoride is added to the local drinking water or to your salt. This seems to imply there are other things at work. Better nutrition, fluoridated toothpaste, and an increased emphasis on dental hygiene are likely the real culprits of this decrease in cavities because it certainly isn't only occurring where people are drinking fluoride.

Excessive fluoride consumption results in problems. And let's remember, when we're talking water fluoridation, we are talking fluoride consumption because unlike toothpaste, we don't spit it out after. Consumption causes dental fluorosis, a browning and discoloring of the tooth enamel. Although the Canadian Dental Association writes off dental fluorosis as simply a cosmetic problem, “A linear correlation between the Dean index of dental fluorosis and the frequency of bone fractures was observed among both children and adults” according to several peer-reviewed studies. Which means having dental fluorosis makes it more likely your bones will break. The Centers for Disease Control has stated that 32% of Americans have dental fluorosis. Fluoride is known to leach into the teeth and bones. That it also makes them brittle when we literally see it disfiguring teeth is not surprising.

In 2006, the American Dental Association actually released a warning that fluoridated water should not be used in infant formula for kids under one due to its tendency to cause fluorosis. If you live in a fluoridated area, are you supposed to go to the store and buy non-fluoridated water to give to your child because your tap water isn't safe? This seems quite unfair and this advice will likely be ignored by many, resulting in kids unfairly winding up with discolored teeth and brittle bones.

In addition, being a neurotoxin, studies conducted by Harvard School of Public Health and the China Medical University in Shenyang have shown that fluoride damages developing brains in children and reduces IQ. A study in Taiwan also showed a much higher incidence of bladder cancer in women in areas where natural fluoride levels were high.

Even beyond the damage studies' have shown it to cause the body, there are ethical reasons for not forcing people to ingest it in their water. Mass medicating society in the hopes that it will benefit a few who do not brush their teeth is not a logical plan. Considering that people drink different amounts of water, it will also not affect everyone the same. Some people drink way more water. Athletes, diabetics, people who work in the sun, etc. This means they are getting much higher dosages than others. Medicine is about the right dose for the right person and mass fluoridation moves directly away from that principle. In addition, think how little of that hydrofluorosilic acid actually goes onto your teeth or into your body? Most of it is sprayed on your car or lawn or washed down the drain in the shower. Considering that HFSA is a toxic contaminant that needs to be disposed of carefully by guys in hazmat suits when in industrial settings, does it make sense to simply flush it into our water bodies so that a tiny fraction can enter our bodies?

Honestly, there are not a lot of countries that still add fluoride to their water. Some add it to salt so that people have the choice of consuming it without forcing it on everybody. Germany, France, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Scotland, and several others all choose to do that instead. Which is fine. If you believe in it having health benefits, then by all means please ingest it. Less than 1% of Japan fluoridates and China chose to stop in 2002. These are major countries with smart people in them. Why do we in Canada assume we somehow know better?

Israel is the latest to ban the toxic additive from being added to their water. The Israeli paper Haaretz has stated that Israeli Health Minister, Yael German, has decided that Israel will stop adding fluoride within a year. What's more is that law firm Dan Ashkenazi and Associates is suing Israeli water provider Mekorot for $4 billion NIS ($1.16 billion Canadian). This lawsuit is based on accusations that Mekorot provided "Israeli citizens with false information regarding their drinking water content and (for) causing  environmental damage for the past 10 years." What was Mekorot hiding from the Israeli people? That it was doing exactly what we do here in Canada! Adding chemical waste in the form of hydrofluorosilicic acid to provide the fluoride ion while ignoring the fact that there is other junk in it.

So in conclusion, despite the endorsements of some major North American health officials, adding fluoride to our water is not safe and certainly not in the form we do it. It discolors our teeth, weakens our bones, and damages our brains. Most of the advanced world doesn't do it. In fact, only 5.7% of the people in the world do. If it was such a large cost saver, doesn't it seem likely more countries would do it and that less would be ending their fluoridation programs later? And even if we want to engage in it, doesn't it make sense to use a fluoride source that doesn't contain so much lead and arsenic?

Some of our official medical organizations are simply wrong on this issue. Wrong because they've been mislead into believing that pure forms of fluoride are the same as industrial waste forms. There is no evidence to show that the waste form is safe or effective. Let's quit paying people to pollute our bodies and our environment until they can prove beyond a doubt that it's safe and that there is a good reason for doing so.

I suspect I'll be waiting a while.

AS

Glowing Green with Outrage

"For 50 years, nuclear power stations have produced three products which only a lunatic could want: bomb-explosive plutonium, lethal radioactive waste and electricity so dear it has to be heavily subsidized. They leave to future generations the task, and most of the cost, of making safe sites that have been polluted half-way to eternity."
-James Buchan

I suspect I might take some flak for this one but I completely support the above quote. Now don't get me wrong. I like electricity. I like that this computer I'm typing on is not simply an inert piece of plastic and metals and whatever else makes-up a computer. I like that my lights work and that my stove turns on and my fridge keeps the food from spoiling. I realize that there will necessarily be consequences and side-effects and pollution created in the pursuit of these conveniences. We gotta make power somehow and most people will agree with that sentiment. 

But I'm still gonna say that we need to shut down these nuclear plants. And it's not because of the radioactive waste they produce as part of normal operations. It's not because their fuel can be made into bombs by crazy people. And it's not even because they are pretty inefficient and generally require government-provided subsidies and insurance. It's for another reason. In the spirit of full disclosure, I'll mention that I'm from Manitoba, Canada and we have hydroelectric dams producing more nature-friendly (relative term) energy than we know what to do with. This puts me in an armchair warrior position since closing these plants isn't going to cost me a thing. 

But I'm afraid I must insist they be phased out as rapidly as possible for the simple reason that they can go haywire and cause an unstoppable chain-reaction that could potentially make our planet uninhabitable in a way no other type of power plant can. Since the Japanese Fukushima explosion of 2011, some major countries seem to agree. Germany is determined to decommission all of their plants, France has begun attempting to reduce dependence on it, and Switzerland has cancelled plans for new ones and will not replace old ones once their lifespan is up. Despite Japan having few other options for power besides expensive, imported fossil fuel, their country's tectonic troubles and their personal relation to the Fukushima disaster have them planning to phase out all nuclear plants in 30 years at most.

But Adam, you may say, Japan is a unique case and those other countries are just Luddite worry-warts who have other options for power that a lot of countries don't. And in any case, Chernobyl happened and we still seem to be doing okay. Which is true. It did happen. A lot of Soviets sacrificed themselves entombing the sucker and life continued, much the same as before. It was supposed to be a one-time lesson that would result in much stricter and safer practices with fail-safes so it could not happen again. Which, so far, is true. No nuclear plants have exploded due to human error.

But as Fukushima has proven, sometimes things can go wrong even without humans being responsible. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami smashed the Fukushima Daiichi power plant resulting in the second ever event to deserve a 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Although news coverage was intense at first, it waned pretty quickly as no huge die-off occurred due to the released radiation. It seemed that by deliberately disobeying orders from corporate headquarters to stop pumping seawater into the damaged reactor, the plant's supervisor Masao Yoshido allowed humanity to avoid another Chernobyl. Yoshido died of cancer this July and it's safe to say we all owe him a huge debt of gratitude. Even ignoring studies showing increased radiation-linked cancer rates in Japan as well as in the US, I think it is safe to say we have been led to believe we had dodged this particular bullet.

Unfortunately the reality has been that the media have simply not been doing their job. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has been allowed to dictate the narrative of what is occurring with basically no oversight. It turns out that the site was never actually contained and radioactive water has been leaking with "no accurate figures for radiation levels." Still, you may say that since this issue is being reported by all major news organizations now, the media is doing their job albeit in a very tardy fashion.

However, that would be missing the reality that this leaking radiation water is the least of our worries vis-à-vis the plant. Much less reported by the media is what will be required by the clean-up crew to end this whole saga. Reliable old Reuters often provides the on-the-ground breaking scoops that our local media then report to us. Despite their well-deserved reputation, it seems that most media organizations have chosen to ignore their recent scoop about the dangers involved in the clean-up process.

Essentially, Tepco needs to remove 1300 spent fuel rods, containing 14000 times the amount of radiation dropped onto Japan in WWII, from a dilapidated, flooding, and collapsing power plant which still sits in an earthquake-prone location. The whole process will take about 40 years and cost about eleven billion dollars. Each rod weighs 660 pounds, is 15 feet long, and cannot get too close to each other or will trigger a chain-reaction. If exposed to air, they may also trigger a chain-reaction. Usually, when these rods are moved as part of normal operations, a sophisticated robot is used to guide the work and ensure accuracy down to millimeters. Due to the damage caused by the earthquake/tsunami, this is not possible and the cranes will be operated in a poisonously radioactive area by scared human hands with all the limitations this entails. These rods will be removed individually, one-at-a-time, and a mistake on any of them could trigger said unstoppable chain-reaction.

As a religious and apparently gloomy guy, Ronald Reagan said during his presidency that "We may be the generation that sees Armageddon." One media source that ran with the Reuters story, Russia Today, has decided he was just a bit premature and actually prefer the term 'Apocalypse.' Although there are some questions regarding their credibility on certain issues due to their state-owned nature, Russia Today is the second-most watched foreign media organization in the US after the BBC and the Russians have more expertise on nuclear calamities than anybody else. I won't try and steal their thunder since they do an admirable job painting the likely impossibility of this undertaking. Let's just say that when scientists start using terms like "open-air super reactor spectacular," it's probably time to take notice.  

I think most of us respect the efficiency and capabilities of the Japanese people. Coming out of WWII, they became a major power again very rapidly. And simply put, they cannot handle nuclear power. This calls into question whether anyone else can either. The Japanese may be more prone to troubles due to their countries tendency to quake but nuclear plants anywhere can be damaged by other means such as floods, solar flairs, and terrorist attacks. Heck, even a rogue meteor could happen. And unlike other power plants, if things go really bad, people all over the world will pay the price for as long as radioactive elements take to break down. Uranium-235 has a half-life of 700 million years.

I don't think that's a price we should be considering paying.

AS

Marijuana on the Move

“Federal and state laws (should) be changed to no longer make it a crime to possess marijuana for private use.”
-Richard M. Nixon

Marijuana has been hitting the papers pretty hard for the last little while. I've personally always been of the impression that you have to be over a certain age to believe that criminal charges are a useful response to the acts of smoking or possessing relatively small amounts of cannabis. The War on Drugs has been a horrendous failure by everyone's admission whose job doesn't rely on it and no where more so than in regards to pot policy. The logic of allowing unregulated criminal organizations to profit from the production and distribution of marijuana instead of legitimate businessmen who pay taxes and will have quality controls has always been lost on me. Add to that the concurrent demonization of hemp, which is ridiculously nutritious and commercially useful, and you wind up with what I like to call, very poor policy choices.

Fortunately, sanity seems to be returning as all those old people who were alive and misinformed during the days of Reefer Madness begin their die off. It's a sad fact but sometimes necessary change only comes when those old voters whose brains have crystallized around outdated notions finally pass away. Now this is not to say I'm a total advocate for legalizing and allowing for all ages. It should be sold in the same way cigarettes are, in stores where taxes can be applied and ID's are shown to demonstrate you are over 18. As someone who saw a lot of young people getting stupidly baked during their formative years, I realize there is a danger here. To quote Helen Lovejoy, won't somebody please think of the children?

Studies have long proven that it doesn't cause brain damage (unlike alcohol), that it is not carcinogenic (unlike tobacco and alcohol), and that overdose on it is impossible (unlike alcohol, most pharmaceuticals, and most illegal drugs). In fact, this website lists 20 studies from reputable sources that cannabis is a cure for cancer, not even mentioning its ability to treat painful symptoms or provide an appetite to the sick. This has caused people like long-time marijuana critic Dr. Sanjay Gupta to come out in its favor after finally fairly reviewing the data. Still, I know from personal experience that it is capable of making people lazy as hell. South Park described it well in one episode where they say that it makes people okay with being bored when those boring periods are the times you are supposed to be out gaining new skills and having new experiences. Excessive laziness during your developing years can and likely will have repercussions on your later lifestyle and ability to contribute to society. Not for everyone but for many. Of course, for anyone suggesting this reason is enough to not legalize and regulate it, let me remind you it's been illegal during these formative years which made it actually the only substance most kids could get. It was always much harder to get alcohol or cigarettes in high school for those who wanted them.

Either way, the move away from it being criminal seems to be gaining speed. Colorado and Washington state have both legalized it. US president Obama, a self-admitted toker in his youth, has had US attorney general Eric Holder come out and say they will be trying to get rid of minimum sentencing for things like small amounts of drug possession. In Canada, our police chiefs from all over the country have met in my beloved hometown of Winnipeg and made it clear that they support giving out fines instead of laying criminal charges for possession under an ounce. This is under the logic that at the moment, cops are forced to stop whatever important business they are currently engaged in and go through a bunch of paperwork if they want to punish a small-timer caught with grass. This results in expensive court proceedings and may wind up in criminal charges that can have serious consequences regarding employment and the ability to travel for people who harmed no one else. Currently, it's either that or simply give a warning and let them go. It seems to me that this type of arbitrary and luck-based punishment system is pretty unfair to those who get the charged-and-convicted end of the stick just because the police officer was in a bad mood that day.

Canada's federal Liberal Party under Justin Trudeau has made legalizing it a hip, new part of their electoral platform. Justin has taken that a step further and recently admitted to having used it himself since becoming an MP. Although I agree with this policy direction and his honesty, this is painfully hypocritical considering that he and the Lib caucus voted in favor of Bill C-15, a bill which contained minimum sentencing laws and increased maximum sentences for fairly small-scale marijuana growers. It's probably worth mentioning that this may just be a cynical ploy by Trudeau to attract younger voters and force Harper to look like a boring, old, repressed curmudgeon. This is made seemingly more likely considering that in 2003, the Liberals under Chretien tried to be cool on marijuana and said they planned to fight for its decriminalization but then gave up basically right away.

Of course, Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper is still against even decriminalizing it and has denied ever trying the stuff. Knowing his supporters tend to be older, he appears to be hoping to use Trudeau's admittance as ammo to convince these older voters that Justin is as crazy and drug-addled as his mama was. Personally, I'm interested in hearing how Harper's decision to disregard the advice of the police chiefs plays out with fiscal conservatives, who realize charging marijuana users is expensive, and with law-and-order types, who tend to feel the police on the ground may actually know what they are talking about. And that's in addition to any small-government libertarians who realize the War on Drugs is a painful and authoritarian example of big government.

Possibly worth noting that Thomas Mulcair, the head of the official opposition and leader of the NDP, has also admitted to indulging with it before. He still seems pretty high-strung so must not have liked it too much.

Either way, even if this only is cynical politicing, at the end of the day it's nice that there is finally a real debate going on regarding the stuff. Maybe the youth can actually hear factual statements about whether or not it's worth smoking instead of the traditional propaganda shoved down their throats that leaves them thinking people in authority are habitual liars and that since weed isn't as bad as they've always been told, maybe cocaine and heroine aren't either.

AS

Shooting the Messenger

"I don't accept at all the quite popular argument that the press is responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. The monarchy's responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. To blame the press is the old thing of blaming the messenger for the message."
-Anthony Holden

In the continuing wacky saga of Edward Snowden's embarrassing leaks about the NSA's mass-spy program, the United States has decided to fire back albeit in a petty and ineffective way. Since they can't touch Snowden who is safely tucked away in Russian asylum for at least a year, they have decided to target the Guardian and Glenn Greenwald, the UK-based newspaper and its journalist to which Snowden leaked the NSA documents to and whom would reveal them to the world.

Several weeks ago, UK authorities "threatened legal action" against the Guardian if the documents received from Snowden were not destroyed or given over to the authorities. Government officials went into the basement of the newspaper's building with Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and watched the computers holding the files be physically pulverized. Of course, it's probably worth mentioning that since we have the internet these days, the files were not only located on these computers and are safely stored elsewhere, making these anti-free media actions pointless in addition to authoritarian. Although there is no evidence I've seen that the United States forced the UK authorities to engage in this intimidation, the other recent action taken against the Guardian seem to suggest it's likely.

This was the act of having British authorities take Greenwald's partner David Miranda into custody using schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act. Although the act was not actually applicable to Miranda, he was held for 9 hours and had all of his electronics confiscated and searched despite there never being any suggestion that he was involved in any form of terrorism or planning to help terrorists. The sad fact here is that even if he did hold information the state wouldn't like revealed, the act provided no legal cover to hold or search him. As Miranda is a Brazilian citizen, Brazil's government was understandably annoyed with this treatment of one of their people.

Washington has claimed they were not responsible for this detainment but this has been somewhat contradicted by a Reuters report which has stated that a US security official said "that one of the main purposes of the British government's detention and questioning of Miranda was to send a message to recipients of Snowden's materials, including the Guardian, that the British government was serious about trying to shut down the leaks." If US officials are stating what the reasons for the forced custody were then it seems likely they were involved in deciding to do it, especially because Snowden's embarrassing leak was about the United States surveillance program, not Britain's. A quick look back at the undiplomatic treatment given to Bolivian president Evo Morales by Washington's European allies also demonstrates that the US can force its friendly satellites to behave quite shamefully when it perceives it to be in the interests of Washington.

However, what this report really seemed to remind me of is how petty US presidents are capable of acting when they feel embarrassed. It seems unlikely that Obama was unaware of these operations and the tantrums he's been throwing in regards to Russia's decision to grant Snowden temporary asylum shows that he's taking this very personally. George W. Bush also once had such a moment where he felt attacking the spouse of a political opponent was just what the doctor ordered. Like David Miranda was harassed because of the journalistic actions of his partner, I remember one Valerie Plame being illegally ousted as a CIA agent to the media because her husband, Joe Wilson, reported something embarrassing to the Bush administration. This was that the Iraq-buying-yellowcake-uranium-from-Niger story that had been drummed up to support war with Iraq was pure fiction. Emperor Palpatine's clone-brother Dick Cheney would blame it on his Chief of Staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who would officially  take the fall but be promptly pardoned by Bush to avoid any jail time because the rule of law is funny that way.

Although harassing a guy at an airport for nine hours and confiscating his gear out of spite is perhaps not as serious as risking the life and ruining the career of a CIA asset, it is simply a matter of degree and both actions result from the same motive; government desire for secrecy from the press, that irritatingly persistent fourth pillar of democracy.

Somewhat ironically, the NSA's actions that the Guardian reported on are even more threatening to journalistic freedom than these blatant attempts at intimidation. The NSA's ability to record all communications on phones and email will open all journalists everywhere to blackmail and the threat of having their informants revealed which could discredit them as people that sources feel safe anonymously confiding information to.. Simply put, the NSA's powers and freedom must be scaled back if that fourth pillar of democracy isn't to crumble, leaving the public totally helpless without a place for whistleblowers to blow.

And this is not strictly a US issue that doesn't affect Canadians. It's worth noting that the report produced by retired judge Robert Decary suggests that there may have been illegal spying on Canadians by Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC). Let's make it clear that CSEC's mandate makes it totally forbidden to spy on Canadian citizens. However, the actual legal language surrounding what CSEC is able to do is unfortunately kind of ambiguous and really needs to be updated. Write to your local MP's that we take our privacy seriously in Canada and we need to be assured that we are not being arbitrarily spied upon by those whose jobs are paid for with our taxes. Saying you have nothing to hide from your government is just not a good enough answer. Journalists and people in or attempting to be in positions of authority often do have things to hide that would leave them open to undemocratic blackmail when only a small number of government agents know of it.

AS