Forty-three years ago, Stanley Kubrick released Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb. This was a deathly serious farce where a mad general launches a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, and ends up triggering the end of all life on Earth. Here is a scene from Dr. Strangelove, between the mad General Jack D. Ripper and his aide, a very nervous Col. Mandrake who is currently being held at gunpoint by the General and is slowly realizing that the General is mad as a hatter:
Ripper: Water, that's what I'm getting at, water. Mandrake, water is the source of all life. Seven-tenths of this earth's surface is water. Why, do you realize that seventy percent of you is water?
Mandrake: Uh, uh, Good Lord!
Ripper: And as human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids.
Mandrake: Yes. (he begins to chuckle nervously)
Ripper: Are you beginning to understand?
Mandrake: Yes. (more laughter)
Ripper: Mandrake. Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rain water, and only pure-grain alcohol?
Mandrake: Well, it did occur to me, Jack, yes.
Ripper: Have you ever heard of a thing called fluoridation. Fluoridation of water?
Mandrake: Uh? Yes, I-I have heard of that, Jack, yes. Yes.
Ripper: Well, do you know what it is?
Mandrake: No, no I don't know what it is, no.
Ripper: Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?
Here is World Nut Daily from today ( http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63514 ):
Fluoride is toxic waste. It is more toxic than lead and marginally less so than arsenic. This is what the government wants to put in your drinking water.
Errm... okay. These idiots also claim that California requires fluoridation, which isn't true -- e.g., my water here in Santa Clara is not fluoridated. That's just how accurate these idiots are -- i.e., not much.
I might also point out that, every year, people die from an overdose of Dihydrogen Monoxide, especially in summer, when more people are exposed to it. I suppose we could ban DHMO, rather than regulate it to, e.g., prevent young children from being exposed to large quantities of the substance (via gates and fences to keep them away from large bodies of the substance). On the other hand, that would be sorta counter-productive too, since, well, we'd all die...
-- Badtux the Snarky Pengin
Professionals Urge End to Water Fluoridation
ReplyDeleteOver 1,690 professionals signed a statement urging Congress to stop water fluoridation until Congressional hearings are conducted. They cite new scientific evidence that fluoridation, long promoted to fight tooth decay, is ineffective and has serious health risks. See statement: http://www.fluorideaction.org/statement.august.2007.html
Fluoridation is the addition of fluoride chemicals (usually phosphate fertilizer industry's impure waste, silicofluorides) into drinking water ostensibly to prevent cavities in tap water drinkers..
Signers include a Nobel Prize winner, three members of the prestigious 2006 National Research Council (NRC) panel that reported on fluoride’s toxicology, three officers in the Union representing professionals at EPA headquarters, the President of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment, and hundreds of medical, dental, academic, scientific and environmental professionals, worldwide.
Signer Dr. Arvid Carlsson, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize for Medicine, says, “Fluoridation is against all principles of modern pharmacology. It's really obsolete.”
An Online Action Petition to Congress in support of the Professionals' Statement is available on FAN's web site, http://congress.fluorideaction.net and over 11,600 individuals have signed so far. Please join them.
“The NRC report dramatically changed scientific understanding of fluoride's health risks," says Paul Connett, PhD, Executive Director, Fluoride Action Network. "Government officials who continue to promote fluoridation must testify under oath as to why they are ignoring the powerful evidence of harm in the NRC report,” he added.
The Professionals’ Statement also references:
-- The new American Dental Association policy recommending infant formula NOT be prepared with fluoridated water.
-- The CDC’s concession that the predominant benefit of fluoride is topical not systemic.
-- CDC data showing that dental fluorosis, caused by fluoride over-exposure, now impacts one third of American children.
-- Major research indicating little difference in decay rates between fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities.
-- A Harvard study indicating a possible link between fluoridation and bone cancer.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a DC watchdog, revealed that a Harvard professor concealed the fluoridation/bone cancer connection for three years. EWG President Ken Cook states, “It is time for the US to recognize that fluoridation has serious risks that far outweigh any minor benefits, and unlike many other environmental issues, it's as easy to end as turning off a valve at the water plant.”
Further, researchers reporting in the Oct 6 2007 British Medical Journal indicate that fluoridation, touted as a safe cavity preventive, never was proven safe or effective and may be unethical. (1)
Other notable signers:
• Lois Gibbs, Executive Director, Center for Health, Environment, and Justice, Goldman Prize Winner (1990), Falls Church, VA
• Stephen Lester, Science Director, Center for Health, Environment, and Justice
• Raul Montenegro, PhD, Right Livelihood Award 2004 (known as the Alternative Nobel Prize), President of FUNAM, Professor of Evolutionary Biology, National University of Cordoba, Argentina
• The current President and six past Presidents of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology
• The Board of Directors, American Academy of Environmental Medicine
• Two advisory board members of the UK government sponsored “York Review”
• Theo Colborn, PhD, co-author, Our Stolen Future
• Chris Bryson, author, The Fluoride Deception
• Ken Cook and Richard Wiles, President and Executive Director, Environmental Working Group (EWG)
• Vyvyan Howard, MD, PhD, newly elected President, International Society of Doctors for the Environment (ISDE)
• Magda Aelvoet, MD, Former Minister of Public Health, Leuven, BELGIUM
• Peter Montague, PhD, Director of Environmental Health Foundation
• Ted Schettler, MD, Science Director, Science and Environmental Health Network
• Pat Costner, retired Senior Scientist, Greenpeace International
• Joseph Mercola, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, mercola.com, Chicago, IL
• Sam Epstein, MD, author, “Politics of Cancer” and Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition
• Jay Feldman, Executive Director, Beyond Pesticides
• Prominent members of the Collegios Medicos, Puerto Rico
• FIVE Goldman Prize winners (2006, 2003, 1997, 1995, 1990)
• Lynn Margulis, PhD, a recipient of the National Medal of Science
• Doug Everingham, former Federal Health Minister (1972-75), Australia
. Dr. Andrew Harms, former President of the Australian Dental Association
SOURCE: Fluoride Action Network http://www.FluorideAction.Net
References:
(1) "Adding fluoride to water supplies," British Medical Journal, KK Cheng, Iain Chalmers, Trevor A. Sheldon, October 6, 2007
DHMO ruins good whiskey.
ReplyDeleteNext up, over 1,000 professionals sign a statement saying that cigarette smoking is *good* for you. Reports that they are all in the pay of the cigarette companies are a dirty lie.
ReplyDeleteAnd remember, the John Birch Society is right, fluoridation is bad for you and is a Commie plot to contaminate the purity of our precious bodily fluids. And oh, by the way, vitamins are bad for you. Dihydrogen monoxide is bad for you. Heck, FOOD is bad for you. In excessive quantities, anyhow.
I don't live in a city that fluoridates its water supply, but this is a decision that I prefer to let science, rather than politicians, make. And science simply doesn't work on a basis of a few scientists out of millions signing petitions. It works based on published research in scientific journals causing a change in the general scientific consensus. One or two or even a half dozen studies aren't enough to do that, if they are contradicted by hundreds of other studies of similar experimental design. Replicability is the key. If you can't replicate, it's just a buncha words in a journal.
But of course, we live in an Idiocracy, where nobody understands science, so... (shrug). So the General Jack D. Rippers of the U.S. are in charge now. Yay, U S A! U S A! We're crazier than, like, everybody!
- Badtux the Scientific Penguin
PS: being a Nobel Prize winner doesn't make you an expert in things outside your area of expertise. See, for example, Nobel Prize winner James Watson's opinions of black people, where he says blacks are oversexed and stupid. In science, all that having a prize means is that, well, you have a prize. It is published peer-reviewed research that is king in science, not shiny medals.
ReplyDeleteI'll call your James Watson and raise you a William Shockley. ;-)
ReplyDeleteDave