A new book by Paul Connett is out - that is the same Paul Connett who is helping us fight the plans for an incinerator in Gloucestershire - See FoE email campaign here against incineration and my report re the Paul Connett evening here. A member of our Glos Safe Water Campaign also recently went down to hear Paul talk in Southampton (see left). You can see a video of that talk here. Anyway to the new book....For the past 60 years, millions of people have unwittingly participated in a public health experiment using water fluoridation to reduce dental disease. But in a recently published book, this experiment is declared a failure. The Case Against Fluoride: how hazardous waste ended up in our drinking water and the bad science and powerful politics that keep it there , Professors Connett, Beck and Micklem summarise the historical, political, ethical, toxicological, and epidemiological scientific data behind water fluoridation. The book concludes that, if proposed today, fluoridation of drinking water to prevent tooth decay would stand virtually no chance of being adopted, given the current status of scientific knowledge.
The Case Against Fluoride is an incisive, research-driven indictment of the government-sponsored practice of adding toxic chemicals to public drinking supplies. The authors examine mounting evidence that fluoridated water is unsafe to drink, wreaking havoc on the human body – affecting the brain, endocrine system, bones and kidneys.
The book reexamines the justifications for fluoride and finds a shocking lack of evidence that fluori- dated water has any proven dental or health benefits. After concluding that the risks far outweigh the benefits, the authors turn their attention to why this practice continues. Their investigation leads them – not surprisingly – to powerful corporate interests benefiting from these programs and professional organisations unwilling to change past endorsements. The book is very readable and packed with detailed information about the evidence on water fluoridation and the politics of fluoridation policy. While mainly focused on the USA, there are references to Southampton and the current fight locally to keep fluoride out of our water.
The authors:
Dr Paul Connett is the Director of the Fluoride Action Network. He holds a BS (Honours) degree from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in chemistry from Dartmouth College and is an Emeritus Profes- sor of Chemistry at St Lawrence University, Canton, NY, where his areas of expertise were environmental chemistry and toxicology.
Dr James S Beck is a Professor Emeritus of Medi- cal Biophysics at the University of Calgary and holds doctorates in medicine from Washington University School of Medicine and biophysics from the Univer- sity of California, Berkeley.
Dr H Spedding Micklem is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. He holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford.
Order your copy from OCTOBER BOOKS 243 Portswood Road, Southampton, SO17 2NG
Telephone: 023 8058 1030 Web www.octoberbooks.org Email info@octoberbooks.org
