Civil Rights Leaders Call for Halt to Water Fluoridation

/PRNewswire/ -- Because fluoride can disproportionately harm poor citizens and black families, Atlanta civil rights leaders, Andrew Young and Dr. Gerald Durley, have asked Georgia legislators to repeal the state's mandatory water fluoridation law, reports Fluoride Action Network (FAN).

Andrew Young, former U.N. Ambassador and former Atlanta Mayor, along with Reverend Dr. Gerald Durley, Pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Atlanta, both inductees in the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame, expressed concerns about the fairness, safety, and full disclosure regarding fluoridation in letters to the state's minority and majority legislative leaders. (4,5)

Fluoride chemicals, added to 96% of Georgia's public drinking water supplies are meant to prevent tooth decay, especially in the poor. Yet, 61% of low-income Georgia third-graders have tooth decay compared to 51% from higher income families - and 33% and 20%, respectively, have untreated cavities showing a dire need for dental care. (1)

"We also have a cavity epidemic today in our inner cities that have been fluoridated for decades," wrote Ambassador Young.

Studies show that despite fluoridation, tooth decay is higher in blacks (2) along with fluoride overexposure symptoms - dental fluorosis or discolored teeth.(3)

Dr. Durley wrote, "The National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences has designated kidney patients, diabetics, seniors, and babies as 'susceptible subpopulations' that are especially vulnerable to harm from ingested fluorides. Black citizens are disproportionately affected by kidney disease and diabetes, and are therefore more impacted by fluorides."(4)

Ambassador Young wrote, "I am most deeply concerned for poor families who have babies: if they cannot afford unfluoridated water for their babies' milk formula, do their babies not count? Of course they do. This is an issue of fairness, civil rights, and compassion. We must find better ways to prevent cavities, such as helping those most at risk for cavities obtain access to the services of a dentist."(5)

Dr. Durley's letter to the legislators also says, "I support the holding of Fluoridegate hearings at the state and national level so we can learn why we haven't been openly told that fluorides build up in the body over time (and) why our government agencies haven't told the black community openly that fluorides disproportionately harm black Americans…"

An American Association for Justice Newsletter for trial lawyers describes potential fluoride legal actions based on personal injury, consumer fraud, and civil rights harm.(6)

In a letter to their state's Health Commissioner, a bipartisan group of Tennessee legislators expressed their concern about fluoridation's undesirable impact on babies and other groups.(7)

A bipartisan group of New York City Council Members has also introduced legislation to stop fluoridation in NYC. (8)

Daniel G. Stockin of The Lillie Center Inc., a Georgia-based firm working to end the practice of fluoridation says, "You can look for even more leaders and persons harmed by fluoridation to speak out now."

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposes to lower water fluoride levels to alleviate the growing dental fluorosis epidemic. FAN submitted scientific evidence to HHS indicating that fluoridation must stop completely to preserve health, documenting that:

* HHS has failed to consider fluoride's impact on the brain. Fluoride has been linked to lowered IQ in 24 human studies, and over 100 animal studies have reported damage to the brain.
* Infants who are fed formula made with fluoridated tap water will receive up to 175 times more fluoride than breast-fed infants. Infants 0-6 months old, the smallest and most vulnerable in our population, were completely excluded from risk calculations in HHS's proposal.
* African-American children and low-income children suffer from the highest rates of dental fluorosis, including the most severe forms of the condition. The HHS has failed to take any steps to redress this inequity, thereby making fluoridation an Environmental Justice issue.


(Ref: FAN submission to HHS, Feb 4, 2011. http://fluoridealert.org/fan-comments.html)

Young stated, "My father was a dentist. I formerly was a strong believer in the benefits of water fluoridation for preventing cavities. But many things that we began to do 50 or more years ago we now no longer do, because we have learned further information that changes our practices and policies. So it is with fluoridation."

Paul Connett, PhD, Director of FAN says, "Fluoridation is unnecessary, unethical, the benefits wildly exaggerated and the risks minimized."

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UGA to Host Andrew Young Premiere of Civil Rights Documentary

The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia Libraries will host Ambassador Andrew Young as he presents the premiere of his new feature-length civil rights documentary, How We Got Over, at 7 p.m. on Monday, March 30.

The event, in Room 102 of the Miller Learning Center, is free and open to the general public, as well as UGA students, faculty and staff.

How We Got Over uses unique archival footage from the WSB and WALB Newsfilm Collections to re-frame the story of the civil rights struggle. The immediacy of this footage, mostly unseen since the time of its original broadcast in the 1950s and ‘60s, brings our nation’s struggle for racial equality to life.

An abridged version of the documentary was broadcast nationally as an episode of the series Andrew Young Presents. The feature-length version, to be seen here for the first time, includes never-before shown material, including a 2009 interview with Charlayne Hunter-Gault, one of the first African Americans to attend the University of Georgia and an alumna of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Young will introduce the film and answer questions after the screening.

Young, former congressman, United Nations Ambassador and mayor of Atlanta, was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement. According to Robert A. Pratt, professor and head of the UGA department of history, “as one of Dr. Martin Luther King’s closest advisors and confidants during the 1960s, Young brings a unique perspective to the tragedies and triumphs that reflected at once the worst and the best of American society as it struggled to make good on the promises of freedom and equality for all. Those of this current generation who believe that the election of President Barack Obama has ushered in a new ‘post racial’ order will most surely have their eyes opened as they reflect upon the sacrifices made to get us to this point.”

How We Got Over draws on raw news footage from WSB-TV in Atlanta and WALB-TV in Albany. Held by the UGA Libraries’ Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, the moving images—about 450 clips—cover a broad range of key civil rights events. The clips also provide the foundation for UGA’s Civil Rights Digital Library.

“The video archive covers both national figures and local leaders,” according to Ruta Abolins, director of the Brown archives. “There is more than two hours of film related to Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King’s role in the Albany movement is documented extensively, including clips of speeches at mass meetings, his arrest by local police, press conferences, and his visit to a pool hall to urge local African Americans to adopt non-violence in achieving change in Albany.”

For more information see www.andrewyoung.org or http://crdl.usg.edu.

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Andrew Young School Forum Will Examine State, Regional Trauma Systems

During the second of three scheduled forums on trauma care hosted by the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University, the focus will move outside of Georgia.
As policy makers grapple with how to coordinate and fund a statewide trauma network, the Andrew Young School forum will feature presentations by trauma experts from Maryland and Richmond, Va., where coordinated services are already in place.

The forum is scheduled from 7 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Aug. 6 at the Andrew Young School, 14 Marietta Street.

Expected attendees include health care professionals and advocates as well as state lawmakers.
“We want to make sure we give them information that’s relevant and facilitates discussion among the various groups,” said Tom Wade, director of program development for the Public Performance and Management Group of the Andrew Young School, who chairs the steering committee organizing the forums.

Scheduled presenters include Mary Beachley, the chief of the Health Facilities and Special Programs division of the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems; and Jerry Overton, the CEO of the Richmond Ambulance Authority in Richmond, Va.

Also scheduled to speak are Dennis Ashley, the chairman of the Georgia Trauma Care Network Commission; state Rep. Sharon Cooper (R-Marietta), the chairwoman of the House Health and Human Services committee; Gage Ochsner, the chief of trauma services at Memorial Medical Center in Savannah, and Dan Miears, a trauma survivor and advocate.

The Trauma Care Network Commission, which was established to oversee the coordination of trauma care efforts, recently doled out a one-time appropriation from the General Assembly of about $57 million. It’s expected that lawmakers will continue looking for a permanent funding source for the trauma network when they convene next year.

“I do think that it is a mistake to say we don’t have a [trauma] system,” Patrick O’Neal, the director of preparedness for the Georgia Division of Public Health, told the group at the first forum in June. “We do have somewhat of a system, but it’s anything but what we need in terms of an optimal system.”

Health advocates say a permanent funding source is needed to ensure cohesion and coordination in the network, and the Institute of Medicine, in a series of reports issued earlier this year, recommended a coordinated and regionalized trauma system.

In a brief prepared for the Georgia Health Policy Center, Patricia Ketsche, an associate professor of health administration at the J. Mack Robinson College of Business, discussed the Institute of Medicine recommendations.

“In many regions of the country and in Georgia, a variety of agencies and organizations comprise the trauma system,” she wrote. “These distinct organizations lack a formal mechanism to ensure the exchange of information between those who receive the initial call, providers of EMS care and transportation, hospital emergency departments and trauma centers, and public health agencies.”

A 2007 report by a joint House-Senate study committee on trauma care in Georgia noted that only 30 percent of trauma cases are treated in designated trauma centers, contributing to a trauma-related death rate 20 percent above the national average. Meeting the national average, the report said, would save 700 or more lives every year.

Fifteen of the state’s 152 acute care hospitals are trauma centers, and only four of those – facilities in Atlanta, Augusta, Macon and Savannah – are Level 1 centers able to provide the highest level of care.

“In 2003, American hospitals told a half-million in-bound ambulances, ‘don’t go to me, go someplace else.’ They were diverted,” Arthur Kellermann, associate dean for health policy at Emory School of Medicine and a Grady doctor, told the first forum. “The reason is a mismatch of supply and demand,” he said.

Kellermann compared a scarcity of bed space and bursting-at-the-seams emergency departments to the proposition of parking planes on the runways of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and diverting all incoming flights.

“That’s what we do when we pack people in the ER. We’re the runway of the hospital,” he said.
The third and final forum in the series will be scheduled this fall, and delve into the financing of a statewide trauma network and making such a network accountable for dollars spent.