Waste water from the North Texas area becomes Houston’s drinking water. Wastewater from the Dallas-Ft. Wroth Metroplex flows downstream 250 miles in the Trinity River and into Lake Livingston, where Houston gets most of its water. Read the details.

The drought in Texas could have worldwide effects.

Residents of South Alamo, TX were warned by the EPA to not eat fish from the Donna Reservoir and Canal.“The principal pollutants in the reservoir are polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). PCBs are a group of synthetic organic chemicals that can cause a number of different harmful effects in humans. The primary risk to human health from PCBs is from suspended sediment in the water and the consumption of contaminated fish. Effects of consumption of contaminated fish may include nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, skin rashes, acne, and cancer.”

Did you know that too much acidity in your body can cause pain, weight gain, fatigue, and other health problems? According to author Michelle Schoffro Cook ( The Ultimate pH Solution), there are many ways to combat excess acidity and to start feeling great. One is “Squeeze the juice of half a lemon into a tall glass of water and drink immediately. This one step will help you to quickly reset your body chemistry.”More information. Consideration that consuming low-pH lemon water can correct an acidic condition in the body casts serious doubt on the belief that humans can thrive only if they drink “alkalized” water from an expensive electrical gadget. “While lemons are acidic they interact with the body’s metabolism to have an alkalizing effect on the bodily fluids helping to restore balance to the body’s pH.”

The Azusa, Texas water treatment plant is being buried in its own sludge. Removing sediment from the water of the San Gabriel River is piling up sludge faster than the city’s water treatment plant can get rid of it.

Although the spectacular BP leak caught the world’s attention, the Gulf of Mexico is continually plagued by persistent, slow but devastating oil leaks that don’t make the news. “Aided by satellite imagery and research conducted by SkyTruth and aerial observation by SouthWings, the Waterkeeper Alliance and its local Waterkeeper organizations learned that an offshore platform and 28 wells belonging to Taylor Energy Company LLC have been quietly leaking oil into the Gulf for years.”

Work crews in Portland,OR replaced a sewer pipe that collapsed and caused a minor cave-in. The ancient cement pipe was installed in 1860. (Who says US infrastructure needs updating?)

Your Old Well Could Be Worth $300,000

“They become conduits, or straws, which draw down potentially hazardous materials into the groundwater,” said Cheryl Wong, a land use program manager with Santa Cruz (CA) County. She is speaking of unused water wells.

According to Ms. Wong, there are some 1000 abandoned wells around Santa Cruz County, “. . .ranging from dozens to hundreds of feet deep, tucked into backyards and agricultural fields throughout the county,” and these pose a significant threat to groundwater. The county is offering grants of up to $300,000 to encourage owners to close off these unused well to protect the county’s water supply. More.

Knoxville’s Aging Sewage System

About 175 miles of Knoxville’s wastewater system has been replaced or rehabilitated in a massive project intended to stop sewage overflows, improve waterways and help the city cope with growth. Cities face a never-ending battle to keep up with the expense of replacing aging piping systems.

In what could prove to be one of the great advances in knowledge of our age, Russian scientists breached Lake Vostok in the Antarctic on February 5. It is the first time one of Antarctica’s subglacial lakes has been penetrated.

For more information on the Lake Vostok project, see“Mysteries of Lake Vostok on brink of discovery.”

Week killer makers, with profits in the billions, expend enormous amounts of money to control press coverage of their products and avoid paying for cleanup of the mess their products leave behind.

The federal government is building a new national center that will improve the forecasting and reporting of droughts, floods and other water crises to improve policy and safety. The $18.8 million National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Water Center will be located on the campus of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa

Residents of a mobile home park in the Great Falls, Montana area have been warned not to drink their tap water because it contains arsenic four times higher than what is considered safe for human consumption. And that isn’t the only problem. The resident in the picture shows what the perpetual sludge in the water does to his sediment filter in only a month. The source of the arsenic at the trailer park is unknown. According to the EPA, “Significant or prolonged exposure to arsenic can cause a thickening or discoloration of the skin, stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, numbness in the hands and feet, partial paralysis and blindness. Arsenic also has been linked to cancer of the bladder, lungs, skin, kidney, nasal passages, liver and prostate.” The recommended limit for arsenic in drinking water is only 15 parts per billion. Reverse osmosis and a variety of specialty filter media can reduce arsenic.

National Drinking Water Week is only 3 months away!

The former owner of a southwestern Pennsylvania wastewater firm has pleaded guilty to dumping millions of gallons of water containing natural gas drilling wastewater, sewage sludge and restaurant grease into streams and mine shafts in a six-county area.

The EPA says that more testing needs to be done on Marcellus Shale fracking operation discharge into rivers.See video. 

A grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will help improve the drinking water treatment system in Andrews, Texas. The grant for $388,000 will be used by the city to install a filtration and reverse osmosis system to reduce arsenic and fluoride levels in drinking water provided to municipal customers. Exposure to high levels of arsenic can result in kidney disease as well as lung and liver cancer, and excessive levels of fluoride in drinking water can result in abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting.

Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn hosted a free guided tour for couples that was billed by the city as an “unforgettable” way to celebrate Valentine’s Day. The complex is the largest of New York City’s 14 sewage treatment plants, processing 1.5 million gallons of waste every day.

The Environmental Protection Agency posted the final health assessment for tetrachloroethylene — also known as perchloroethylene, or perc — to EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) database. Perc is a chemical solvent widely used in the dry cleaning industry as well as in the cleaning of metal machinery and the manufacturing of some consumer products and other chemicals

An issue to ponder– 

Banning the Bottle

by Kate Cline, Editor of Water Quality Products magazine.

Several bottled water bans have made it into the headlines in the last few weeks—first, the National Park Service announced it would ban sales of bottled water at Grand Canyon National Park, then the University of Vermont announced it would ban sales of bottled water on its campus. Both organizations cited the environment as the reason behind the bans. Both also will sell cheap reusable bottles and offer bottle filling stations instead.

As with past bottled water bans, the International Bottled Water Assn. quickly responded in opposition, citing EPA statistics that bottles make up a miniscule portion of U.S. waste, and that in the absence of bottled water, consumers are likely to opt for bottled sodas or sports drinks rather than carrying and refilling reusable water bottles.

Do you think these bans are justified? Is there a way for bottled water to peacefully coexist alongside tap water or filtered water?

Occasional Comment: Bottled water is another of those thorny many-sided issues. First, there’s the rights angle, and it seems to us that banning anything usually isn’t a very good idea. Then there is the “lesser evil” consideration, unless the U. of Vermont is also banning sugar/chemical drink machines from its campus. We would certainly not want students to waste money on mere water when for the same price they could be making themselves fat and unhealthy with Pepsi. It isn’t often that the International Bottled Water Association says something sensible, but here’s a video where they make some interesting points.–Hardly Waite, Pure Water Gazette.

Trash-dumping citizens in Edmond, OK are damaging the area’s drinking water. See Video and Pictures.

After the amazing participation of  300,000 persons worldwide in 2011, Water Monitoring Day is being launched for 2012 with high hopes.

Winners of the 2012 Water Prize have been announced, and again we were bitterly disappointed at being passed over.

The EPA  plans to install 30 wells in the Glendale-Burbank, CA area in March to monitor levels of chromium 6 in underground water in order to get a fuller picture of how extensive the contamination is.

An Italian woman died of Legionnaires’ Disease contracted in a dental office.

The foul smell in Eight Mile, AL may be coming from the water.

THMs High In A Florida Town’s Water Supply

The water supply system at Mims (Brevard County) FL has struggled for some time to meet EPA standards for THMs (trihalomethanes) in its drinking water. Trihalomethanes and other byproducts form when disinfecting chemicals such as chlorine are added to kill the much more acute health threat from viruses, bacteria and other microbes.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates drinking a half-gallon of water containing 100 parts per billion of trihalomethanes daily for 70 years could result in three more cases of cancer per 10,000 people.

The EPA requires community water plants to limit TTHMs to 80 parts per billion, as measured by the running annual average of periodic tests.

The average result for the Mims plant in 2010 was 190.25 parts per billion. One test last year reached as high as 536 parts per billion.

In December, TTHMs measured at 34 parts per billion, bringing the running average to 95 parts per billion. Full Story.

Why is the CDC Covering Up a Fifty Year Old Mistake?

See Gazette Fair Use Policy

Water and Human Metabolism

Water acts as a healing agent in our body. Around 70% of our body weight is due to water. The quantity is high in organs such as lungs and brain and fluids such as blood, lymph, saliva and secretions by the organs of the digestive system.

Metabolism can be defined as the sum of the chemical reactions that take place within each cell of a living organism and that provide energy for vital processes and for synthesizing new organic material. Energy obtained from the metabolic nutrients is utilized for various growth and other maintenance processes.

Water is the medium for various enzymatic & chemical reactions in the body. It moves nutrients, hormones, antibodies and oxygen through the blood stream and lymphatic system. The proteins and enzymes in our body function more efficiently in solutions of low viscosity. Water is the solvent of the body and it regulates all functions, including the activity of everything it dissolves & circulates.

Living organisms are unique in that they can extract energy from their environments and use it to carry out activities such as movement, growth and development and reproduction.

The carrier of chemical energy

At any given time, a neutral molecule of water dissociates into a hydrogen ion (H+) and a hydroxide ion (OH-). Under normal conditions (neutrality), the concentration of hydrogen ions (acidic ions) is equal to that of the hydroxide ions (basic ions); each are at a concentration of 10-7 moles per litre, which is described as a pH of 7.

In case of shortage of water in our house, we try to prioritize the use of water for essential purposes. Similarly, when the body receives less water, histamine – a chemical compound present in all cells – initiates a system of water regulation. Histamine directs some neurotransmitters to operate sub-systems to regulate water intake. The ratio of the water content in and outside the cells of the various organs is very important. As age advances, water content in the cells decreases. Since the water content in each cell plays a vital role in maintaining its normal function, inadequate water can lead to loss of some functions resulting in specific symptoms.

The waste products of metabolism and surplus salts get removed from your body through urine. The human kidneys normally produce 0.9-1.5 litres of urine per day, containing some 50-70 g of solids – mostly urea, uric acid, and inorganic salts. Thus water plays a crucial role in our metabolic reactions.

Editor’s Note:  The article above is from an excellent website called Everything About Water.  Unfortunately, the website has been taken down.  See our Fair Use Policy.

How Siphon Filters Work

Siphon filters rely on the simple natural force of gravity to purify water.

The filter above is capable of making safe water from water contaminated with bacteria. It does this without the need of any external energy source or chemical additives.

The filter itself is a ceramic candle. It is attached to a simple adapter made of plastic tubing.

The filter is placed in the upper container, which is filled with contaminated water. The user sucks on the end of the tube until a flow is established, then quickly lowers the tube to a position lower than the container. From that point the siphoning action pulls water through the tube. The end of the tube is placed into a second container to catch the product water. The filter will continue to produce water until the upper container is empty.

More about siphon filters

Siphon filter make excellent emergency filters because they operate without an outside energy source and without water pressure. No elaborate equipment is needed.

They can also be used as camping or hiking filters, to purify water from a lake or stream, and even as everyday water filters. They work best with ceramic cartridges, which remove bacteria and cysts, or with certain carbon filters, which remove chemicals.

The simple filter shown above can treat up to 70 gallons a day if the water is warm, or less than half that if the water is cold. In terms of volume, it easily outperforms expensive canister-style pour-through filters.

Siphon filters are among the least expensive water filters to purchase and to operate.

Here is more information, and an excellent emergency siphon filter to examine.

Simplify, simplify!–Henry David Thoreau.

Humming is Good For You

 by Hardly Waite, Gazette Senior News Analyst

What Are the Odds of Dying?

The table below was prepared in response to frequent inquiries, especially from the media, asking questions such as, “What are the odds of being killed by lightning?” or “What are the chances of dying in a plane crash?”

The table has four columns. The first column gives the manner of injury such as motor-vehicle crash, fall, fire, etc. The second column gives the total number of deaths nationwide due to the manner of injury in 1999 (the latest year for which data are available). The third column gives the odds of dying in one year due to the manner of injury. The fourth column gives the lifetime odds of dying from the manner of injury. Statements about the odds or chances of dying from a given cause of death may be made as follows:

• The odds of dying from (manner of injury) in 1999 were 1 in (value given in the one-year odds column).
• The life-time odds of dying from (manner of injury) for a person born in 1999 were 1 in (value given in the lifetime odds column).

For example, referring to the first line of the table below:

• The odds of dying from an injury in 1999 were 1 in 1,805.
• The lifetime odds of dying from an injury for a person born in 1999 were 1 in 24.

The odds given below are statistical averages over the whole U.S. population and do not necessarily reflect the chances of death for a particular person from a particular external cause. Any individual’s odds of dying from various external causes are affected by the activities in which they participate, where they live and drive, what kind of work they do, and other factors.

Source: National Safety Council estimates based on data from National Center for Health Statistics and U.S. Census Bureau. Deaths are classified on the basis of the Tenth Revision of the World Health Organization’s “The International Classification of Diseases” (ICD). Numbers following titles refer to External Cause of Morbidity and Mortality classifications in ICD-10. One year odds are approximated by dividing the 1999 population (272,820,000) by the number of deaths. Lifetime odds are approximated by dividing the one-year odds by the life expectancy of a person born in 1999 (76.7 years).

Odds of Death Due to Injury, United States, 1999

Go here to see the extensive table of death statistics:

Fifty years after it was introduced to prevent tooth decay

Is Fluoride in our Water a Mistake?

by Philip Frazer

White splotches, most noticeable on the front teeth, the enamel sometimes pitted or striped as if with flat white paint. Sometimes the discoloration is brown. If you haven’t seen this on people’s teeth in your neighborhood, your water is probably not fluoridated.

It’s called dental fluorosis and it’s caused by ingesting too many fluoride compounds (usually called simply “fluoride”) while the teeth develop. Someone with this mottling of the enamel could also have suffered bone damage or skeletal fluorosis And a child with these problems will have them forever because fluorosis is irreversible.

How could it be that after fluoride has been promoted for 50 years as a benefit to every one of us, it turns out to be a bad idea? Haven’t the people who question fluoridation been cranks and paranoids?

Today, those lining up against fluoride in tap water and toothpaste include reputable medical and dental researchers and doctors, dentists, public health officials and the governments of most European countries including Sweden, the Netherlands, France and Germany.

Of the nearly 250 million people worldwide who drink fluoridated water, about 130 million are Americans. Out of our 50 largest cities, 41 have fluoridated water.

Does It Work?

Having kids drink fluoridated water was supposed to cut the incidence of dental cavities.Most researchers, politicians and dental professionals say it does just that, but equally qualified people are questioning that conclusion as well as the data gathered over the past 50 years (see, for example, the Health Canada Protective Branch Report, July 2, 1994). While conspiracy theories persist, most critics are raising serious questions such as, whether reduced cavities are due to fluoride or other things, like better education about tooth care.

The establishment and the critics throw epidemiological studies at each other. Fluoride proponents have many more studies, going back to the 1940s, but many reputable scientists have revisited the classic fluoride studies and concluded that they were fatally flawed.

News on Earth does not pretend to have reviewed all the studies, but we believe the fast-rising epidemic of dental fluorosis, coupled with the fact that most countries on Earth have decided against fluoridation, means it’s high time to reconsider fluoridation. Certainly we shouldn’t increase the percentage of Americans getting compulsory fluoridation via tap water from 62% now to 75% by 2000, a stated goal of the Clinton administration.

Though the administration parrots the reassurances of the dental establishment, we found more critical and independent thought coming from the government of a town just outside of Boston.

Last year the town of Natick, Mass. put together a panel of experts with no axes to grind to decide whether the community should add fluoride to its water. Chairman Norman Mancuso, Ph.D., has been a chemical engineer, a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a project scientist at NASA on the Apollo Program. The other four panelists all had advanced degrees and extensive experience in chemical risk assessment, in three cases, with the US Army.

Their report concluded “unanimously and emphatically” that fluoridation was a bad idea, in part because “there is little or no difference between . . . the incidence of cavities in children [in] fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities.”

Worldwide research suggests that tooth decay rates have gone down just as much where there is no fluoridation. Some examples:

British Columbia, with 11% of its population drinking fluoridated water, compared with 40-70% in other Canadian regions, has the lowest rate of tooth decay in Canada.

Many recent studies published in Caries Research and the Journal of Dental Research conclude that dental decay rates in Western Europe, which is 98% unfluoridated, have declined as much as or more than they have in the US. In 1986-87, the National Institute of Dental Research conducted the largest study on fluoridation and tooth decay ever, tracking 39,000 US schoolchildren between the ages of 5 and 17. A third lived in fluoridated areas, a third were partially fluoridated, and a third were unfluoridated. The study, concludes the Natick report, showed no statistically significant differences in dental decay between fluoridated and unfluorfidated areas.

Recently, fluoride proponents have revised their claims: Since 1988, the American Dental Association (ADA) has asserted that fluoridation can only reduce cavities by 18-25%, which is down from its previous claim of 40-60%.

The Natick report cites new research suggesting that any cavity-preventive action of fluoride comes from it being in saliva and not by hardening enamel as was long theorized. That would mean that it should be applied directly to the mouth, not pumped into the body via tap water.

Fluorides Are a Major Industrial Waste Product

Fluoride is a toxic pollutant. It’s part of the smokestack emissions from the manufacture of iron, steel, aluminum, copper, lead, and zinc. It’s released in the production of phosphates (used in all agricultural fertilizers); plastics; gasoline; brick, cement, glass, ceramics and the many other products made from clay. It’s emitted by coal-burning electrical power plants and uranium processing facilities. And fluoride is dumped into waterways by factories producing and processing glass, pesticides, fertilizers, chemicals and metals.

All these industries would have trouble disposing of their waste fluoride if they were not able to dump it or sell it to municipalities for adding to tap water.

The EPA’s 1989 estimate was that at least 155,000 tons a year are released into the air by US industrial plants, and as much as 500,000 tons a year are released into lakes, rivers and oceans. And because fluoride compounds are not biodegradable, they gradually accumulate in the environment, in the food chain and in people’s bones and teeth.

Even so, the EPA still says fluoridation is “an ideal environmental solution to a longstanding problem.” The “problem” is not so much tooth decay, but the huge amount of fluoride compounds produced as waste in industry. “By recovering by-product fluosilicic acid from fertilizer manufacturing, water and air pollution are minimized and water utilities have a low-cost source of fluoride available to them,” enthuses the EPA.

Fluoride Poisoning

What damage can fluoride do? In the worst case, fluoride poisoning can be fatal:

• In May 1992, 260 people were poisoned, and one man died, in Hooper Bay, Alaska, after drinking water contaminated with 150 ppm [parts per million] of fluoride. The accident was attributed to poor equipment and an unqualified operator at the fluoridation plant.
• In July 1993, three dialysis patients in Chicago died and five experienced toxic reactions to the fluoridated water used in the treatment process.

But these accidents are extreme cases. People at high risk from lower levels of fluoride poisoning include children, the elderly, people with impaired kidney function (including many people with AIDS), people with immunodeficiencies, diabetes and heart ailments, as well as anyone with calcium, magnesium and vitamin C deficiencies.

In nature, fluoride mostly occurs as calcium fluoride while what’s added to water supplies is mostly sodium fluoride or sodium silicofluoride (hydrofluorisic acid). Sodium fluoride is lethal in doses 50 times smaller than naturally-occurring fluoride.

Fluorosis

The ADA and the government consider dental fluorosis only a cosmetic problem. That’s no consolation to people whose teeth are blemished forever. But by designating it merely “cosmetic,” the feds are propping up the fluoridation enterprise. If fluorosis were redefined as an “adverse effect,” as many dental and medical professionals urge, the EPA would have to cut in half the admissible levels and that would radically reduce tap water fluoridation.

Furthermore, the American Journal of Public Health says that “brittleness of moderately and severely mottled teeth may be associated with elevated caries [cavities] levels.” in other words, fluoride can cause the exact problem it’s supposed to prevent.

What it does to bones

About half of the fluoride you drink or eat is absorbed in calcified tissues, like bones and teeth. The National Academy of Sciences and other authorities agree that a lifetime’s accumulation from large daily doses of fluoride can produce crippling skeletal fluorosis. This bone damage is widespread among older people in parts of the world where there are high concentrations of naturally occurring fluorides in the water, but few cases of skeletal fluorosis have been reported in the US. Critics claim we are missing diagnoses of skeletal fluorosis because most doctors in the US have not studied the disease.

The Natick report, several articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and EPA scientists all agree that fluoride increases the rate of hip fracture in people aged 65 or older.

Fluoride makes bones denser, which is why it is used in the treatment of osteoporosis, but it also makes bones more brittle (osteosclerosis).

Cancer

Recent research links fluoridation to a variety of cancers.

In 1977 Congress instructed the National Toxicology Program to investigate fluoride’s effects on lab animals.

But when its report was released in 1990, Dr. Robert Carton of the EPA’s Toxic Substances Division cried foul: “Four years ago, NFFE Local 2050, which represents all 1,100 professionals at EPA headquarters [said] that the scientific support documents for the fluoride in drinking water standard were fatally flawed…. The fluoride juggernaut proceeded as it apparently had for the last 40 years—without any regard for the facts or concern for public health.

“[The] EPA raised the allowed level of fluoride before the results of the rat/mouse study ordered by Congress in 1977 [were] complete….

“[The] currently existing data . . . show fluoride causes genetic effects, promotes the growth of cancerous tissue, and is likely to cause cancer in humans.”

The Natick report concluded that most studies of fluoride and cancer are flawed. . “Given the widespread deliberate exposure of. humans to water fluoridation and the suggestive animal data regarding cancer, especially osteosarcoma, it is incomprehensible why a large case-control epidemiological study. . . has not been initiated.”

Lead and arsenic

Meanwhile, other research has examined fluoride by-products from aluminum and phosphate (fertilizer) production, since the fluoride gets contaminated by lead and arsenic.

On top of that, fluorides in the water supply eat away the protective hydroxide coating in lead pipes in older homes, and then the pipes can and do leach lead.

Today one in nine children in the US under the age of 6 has unacceptably high blood lead levels, which some researchers believe may come from lead contamination in fluoride added to tap water consumed by pregnant women and passed on to their developing fetuses.

The EPA concedes that 10-20% of the lead in children comes from tap water, but that, they say, is too small to be of regulatory concern. Critics again point to its concentration over time in body tissue and the fact that we consume additional fluoride from products processed with fluoridated water.

Enzymes, brains and Alzheimer’s

The Natick report found that fluoride can “seriously disturb the balance of enzymatically activated biochemical reactions,” for example, “the metabolism of a number of common oral bacteria (e.g., Streptococcus mutans)….” The Natick panelists saw this as an area needing new study.

Another such area is damage to the brain or the central nervous system. In a recent article in the peer-reviewed journal Brain Research on the effects of aluminum on brain tissue, researchers reported that it was not aluminum but low levels of fluoride that caused damage to the tissue of the brain similar to the damage found in humans with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

An earlier study by Mullenix et al., reported in Nevrotoxicology and Teratology, in 1995, found that animals exposed to fluoride at various stages of gestation suffered either permanent hyperactivity if exposed prenatally, or became “the rat version of couch potato” if exposed after birth, though there was no elaboration of exactly what that is.

The Natick folks say “there is good evidence that fluoride . . . affects the IQ and behavioral patterns of the developing fetus at doses that are not toxic to the mother.”

The International Society for Fluoride Research has also reported studies implicating fluoride in the rising rates of Down’s syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome and sleep disorders.

How much are YOU Consuming

Even though no “optimal” fluoride intake has ever been established, the EPA set a maximum contaminant level (MCL) for fluoride in 1986, at 4 mg per liter of tap water. The recommended doses for kids were revised in 1995, downward to 2 mg., and less for infants, to prevent fluorosis. It’s estimated that the average person consumes between 5 and 7 mg. per day in “optimally fluoridated” areas, from drinking water, dental products, and food and beverages made with fluoridated water. But a heavy coffee and tap water drinker, drinking 4 liters a day, is at risk for crippling bone fluorosis after 10 years, according to National Academy of Science figures, or 20 years, says the US Public Health Service.

Children can consume enough to develop fluorosis if their tap water is fluoridated and they drink reconstituted juices. Grape juice, for example, has been tested at almost 6.8 mg. of fluoride per liter..

The Natick report concluded that, if their town water was fluoridated, children under 3 would be likely to ingest “between 2 and 3.5 times as much fluoride as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Dental Association and the American Academy of Family Physicians.”

Cooking with tap water can greatly increase a food’s fluoride content, and Teflon- and Tefal- coated items (such as frying pans) transmit very small amounts of fluoride into food.

Today, fluoride levels in toothpaste have risen to 4,000 ppm, and the warnings on the tubes are back, much to the annoyance of the ADA.

Children and adults commonly ingest up to 0.5 mg. of fluoride a day from toothpaste. Small children are now told to use no more than a pea-size amount, but young kids have less control over swallowing, and how many are sticking to the pea rule is impossible to say, especially when they’re enticed by bubble-gum-flavored brands.

Fluoride treatments commonly administered in the dentist’s chair contain between 10,000 to 20,000 ppm and there is no regulated dose requirement. In recent years, several deaths have been attributed to dental office treatments.

Why the juggernaut?

The scientific establishment in the US is largely united in support of fluoridation, but this show of unanimity may come in part from reluctance to admit to a gigantic mistake (the “whoops factor”), and it sometimes comes at a cost to scientific accuracy.

Dr. William Marcus, the dissenting senior science advisor in the EPA’s Office of Drinking Water, says that when the rat studies were released, “every one of the cancers reported by the contractor (Botel Northwest) had been downgraded by the National Toxicology Program.” A congressional investigation found that NTP scientists were coerced by their superiors to change their findings.

Anti-fluoride crusader John Yiamouyiannis believes that government policy is designed, above all, to protect industry, and that the motivating force behind fluoride use is the need of certain businesses to dump their toxic waste products somewhere. “As is normal, the solution to pollution is dilution. You poison everyone a little bit rather than poison a few people a lot. This way, people don’t know what’s going on,” he said in the journal Fluoride.

It would cost companies such as Exxon, US Steel and Alcoa many millions, perhaps billions, of dollars to handle fluoride properly. Marcus says that “it would require a class-one landfill [which] would cost …. about $7,000-plus per 5,000- to 6,000-gallon truckload to dispose of it. It’s highly corrosive.”

As Ralph Nader once said, if they admit they’re wrong on fluoridation, people would ask, and legitimately so, “What else have they not told us right?”

How to avoid it, how to get it out of your system

Public pressure has got fluoride out of the water throughout Europe, as well as in Los Angeles, Newark, Jersey City, and Bedford, Mass.

You can get some of the fluoride out of your tap with either reverse osmosis filters or water ionizers. Check toothpaste labels for fluoride. Dabur, Natures Gate, Weleda and Higher Ideals make fluoride-free toothpaste.

Mottled teeth cannot be repaired except by cosmetic dentistry, but fluoride damage to the soft tissues, such as liver, kidneys and reproductive organs, is reversible with vitamins. When lab mice who had reproductive-organ damage induced by fluoride were given vitamin C and calcium (and no more fluoride), they recovered significantly. In another experiment with mice, vitamins E and D repaired the damage that fluoride did to liver and kidneys.

To see the full Natick Report, go to http://www.cadvision.com/fluoride.

Editor’s Note:  The article below was written during the dark days following the World Trade Center tragedy. It is reprinted now, March of 2012,  on the occasion of Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday.–-Hardly Waite.

A. J. and Munro

by Gene Franks

When I was young,
They packed me off to school
And taught me how not to play the game.

–Jethro Tull.

Back in the dark, dark days of World War II when I started to first grade in Okemah, Oklahoma, the town where Woody Guthrie had started to school two and a half decades before me,  I had to make a hard decision on the first day.  On the playground I was told that at Lincoln School  you had to be in A.J.’s gang or in Munro’s gang.  There was no in between.  You were with A. J. or you were with Munro.

The gangs rode imaginary horses,  chased each other around the red brick school building,  and shot at each other from ambush with imaginary guns.  Those were the old, uncomplicated days when a kid could point a finger at another kid and say bang without being turned over to a policeman or a psychiatrist.

Being a greenhorn, I did not personally know either A.J. or Munro, but I learned quickly that A.J.’s gang were the good guys and Munro’s gang were the undesirables.  Of course, I quickly said that I was in A. J.’s gang.   Whenever asked, I said proudly that I was in A. J.’s gang.

I did not know how A. J. got to be leader of the gang, because he was a pretty ordinary kid. But I was proud to be in his gang.

In the ensuing weeks, I caught only an occasional glimpse of Munro.  I was not even sure that the person I saw was Munro.  But I was sure that Munro was dirty and had long,  greasy hair and crooked teeth.   He needed a haircut.  We guys in A.J.’s gang were in the majority.  The big majority.  We had haircuts from the barber shop and good clothes. Our moms made us comb our hair.  Probably Munro did not have a mom, or she did not love him or make him comb his hair. I did not want anyone ever to think that I was in Munro’s gang.

By the time I graduated  from 4th grade at Lincoln School, I was no longer so intent on belonging to A. J.’s gang.  In fact, A. J. and Munro were  gone and a new generation of leaders had replaced them.  The Munros by that time did not look so dark and scary, nor did the A.J.s look so gallant.  As I got older, it got harder and harder to tell the A.J.s from the Munros.

I never saw Woody Guthrie.  He had left Okemah and was in California  writing and singing about the Depression before I was born. Woody Guthrie was hated in Okemah, my hometown and his.

My favorite song in my early years was “The Oklahoma Hills Where I Was Born.”  The man who wrote this passionate love song about a state that never treated him very well, Woody Guthrie, the great balladeer of the Depression,  was openly scorned and ridiculed.  I heard ugly, smutty stories about his family. The man who wrote

This land is your land, this land is my land,
From California to the New York Island,
From the redwood forest to the gulfstream waters,
This land was made for you and me

was accused by his country of being a Communist and so was hated in his hometown. In Okemah, the Communists were as feared and as hated as the Jews and the Catholics. Woody had been cast into Munro’s gang, and I caught on that I no longer could stomach being part of A.J.’s.

Now that I am older and the line between the good guys and the bad is blurred,  I am again being told that I have to be in one gang or the other.  In the same words and with the same bravado that were used by the schoolground bullies in 1945,  the President is telling us: You are with us or you are against us.  We are good, they are evil.  If you’re not with us, you are against us.

The problem is, no one seems to know who “we” are or or who “they” are.  We are told that we are at war against “the terrorists.”  Who are the terrorists that I am told that I hate? Are they dark men with crooked teeth whose mothers do not love them?  Am I being told to hate  the Irish terrorists or just the dark-skinned terrorists?   Are we going to hunt down Henry Kissinger?  The Chileans are anxious to “bring him to justice”  for his many and considerable acts of terrorism against their country.  Will we hunt down the killers of the 600,000 Iraqi children under five who have been taken from mothers who loved them by U.S. bombs and sanctions?  If so, will we start chronologically with the President’s father, or work backward from  Madeline Albright and Colin Powell?   Madeline Albright said that killing a half million Iraqi children was “worth it.”   Can anything possibly be “worth” killing half a million children?  Half a million is 150 times the number of people who died on Sept. 11, 2001. Imagine the anguish of the mothers of Iraq.

Now, in October, 2001, people are putting American flags on their homes and their vehicles to tell the world that they belong to A.J.’s gang. I do not have an American flag on my home or my truck. It is not because I do not love America but because I do not want my flag to be mistaken for a vote for vengeance on an ill-defined enemy.

Once, after an act of great violence had killed innocent people,  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. heard the outcry for vengeance and retaliation. He said in a speech: “To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate.”

Dr. King was a great Christian. Our President does not seem like a Christian to me. He seems more like the bully, bragging in the schoolyard.  “You are with us or against us. We are good, they are bad. We will win. They cannot hide from us.”

The fate of our country may well be decided by how many of us “have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate” and  stand in the middle ground of reason.

This land is your land, this land is my land.

This land does not belong only to the members of A. J.’s gang.

This is Woody. Not Me.

Where is Dick Cheney, now that We Really, Really

Need Him?

The Oil Crisis in the Gulf Rages On. 

    “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
    A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”

Editor’s Note:  Tiger Tom wrote this piece smack in the middle of the BP Oil Dilemma in the Gulf.

Dick Cheney has always been there when America needed him.

When we needed someone tortured, Dick Cheney was there.  When we needed to protect our rich from taxation, Dick Cheney was there.  When we needed someone to look after corporate interests and assure that our elite were never inconvenienced by government interference, Dick Cheney was there for us.  Whenever we needed a country bombed, a village torched, or a democratically elected government in a Third World country overthrown, Dick was there to get the job done.

But now, when we have a hole in the Gulf floor that’s spewing oil with the fury of ten thousand galloping horses, Dick Cheney has dropped out of sight.

I, Tiger Tom, ask you if it is reasonable to expect Barack Obama to fix an oil leak.  What does Barack Obama know about oil leaks?

But Dick Cheney has been an oil man all his life.  He was director of Halliburton,  the biggest oil well fixer on earth.  If Dick Cheney can’t fix a leaky oil well, who can?

It is time for America’s hero to do his stuff.

Dick Cheney Facing The Hole

So I, Tiger Tom, propose that Dick Cheney be flushed out of his hiding place and encouraged by a red-hot poker applied to his slimy ass to dive to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, plunge his snarling puss into the hole in the pipe, and plug the leak with his head.

That’s my plan for fixing the leak.  Do you have a better one?