AUDREY ADAMS, BOARD MEMBER
Washington Action for Safe Water
June 5, 2012
Everett City Council
2930 Wetmore Ave
Everett, WA 98201
RE: Fluoridation
Dear Everett City Council members,
Thank you sincerely for listening to all sides of the debate regarding water fluoridation. Your open-mindedness is refreshing and encouraging.
When I testified at the March 21 meeting, I said I was speaking to protect the health of your children and grandchildren, not mine, since I live in Renton. I stand corrected. My daughter and her husband have just bought a house in unincorporated Bothell, which we’ve discovered receives Everett’s water.
Myself, my daughter and my autistic son all have physical reactions to the chemicals in fluoridated water. My husband is spared. My son is by far the most affected, suffering headaches, migraines and other pain after drinking or bathing in water treated with fluoridation chemicals. My son’s pain from one fluoridated shower can onset within minutes and last many hours.
My son does not experience this type or level of pain from non-fluoridated water, even if it contains chlorine. We have confirmed this countless times when staying overnight in many dozens of different unfluoridated areas, where he can shower without pain and without red eyes, another side effect.
My daughter often provides care for her autistic brother in her home. He suffers medically confirmed multiple chemical sensitivities and, specifically, severe reactivity to fluoridated water. He requires expensive specialized water filtration because fluoride is not removed by common household filters.
Water utilities and public health authorities do not make any accommodations for people who cannot tolerate the fluoridation drugs added to public water. There isn’t a drug on earth that is 100% safe, effective and advisable for 100% of the population.
The fluoridation chemicals Everett uses meets the federal and state definitions of both a drug and a poison. The Washington State Board of Health has confirmed that it regards fluoride added to water as a drug. This means that hyper-sensitive people like my son are forced to take a poisonous drug that medically and physically harms them, or pay the exorbitant cost to avoid it.
Using water free of fluoride is not a choice for my son, it’s a necessity. Access to drinkable water is a basic human right. Could this right fall under the protection of the ADA? Who should pay for specialized water filtration for people who require water free of fluoridation chemicals for all uses and locations?
Everett or the Dept of Health could reimburse them, but hyper-sensitive people also need fluoride-free water in the community, such as restaurants, parks and schools. Water is my son’s only beverage so he must always take safe water with him everywhere he goes. This is an enormous burden.
Many haven’t yet discovered that their reactions, or their children’s reactions, are caused by the fluoridation chemicals in the water. It has taken me almost two decades to fully understand the scope of the pain my autistic son was suffering because of fluoridated water. It was during this long journey that I discovered my own entirely different minor but annoying side effect, itchy rashes.
Who is ensuring that fluoride drug “treatment” is medically appropriate for every consumer “patient”?
Who is monitoring the medical needs and health consequences to people like my son when you medically treat people through water? Nobody—no doctor, no dentist, no public health agency.
What public health measures are taken by the City of Everett or the Snohomish County Health District to protect hyper-sensitive people? What public health actions have been taken specifically to protect infants and young children whose hyper-sensitivity could not yet have been diagnosed and who would be harmed the most? Absolutely none.
Drugs, intended to treat any portion of the population, don’t belong in the water. Fluoride is a drug, a medical treatment, and should not be forced on anyone. Medical treatments, which always affect different people differently, should never be decided by a vote–not by the people, not by a board and not by a city council. Drugs and medical treatments must be between the patient and the doctor or dentist of their choosing because they must be tailored to the needs of the individual patient.
Thank you for listening. Thank you more for questioning. Thank you most for thinking.
Sincerely,
Audrey Adams 10939 SE 183rd Ct, Renton, WA 98055 audrey55@comcast.net
Jim,
I am sorry you have had such a terrible struggle in Daytona Beach. You have done all this, I assume, all the while not even able to drink your city’s water. You are doing a great service to others, especially those like my son, for continuing to speak up. I am extremely worried about low income children and children of color as the affect of fluoride is so much worse while at the same time they have less ability to avoid fluoridated water.
A lot has changed in the last 5 years. Maybe Daytona Beach will open their minds. I feel very grateful that many of our city councils in Washington actually listen to us, even if they don’t agree with us or feel that their hands are tied because “the voters voted for it”. Our children are at severe risk. We have to believe that there is light at the end of this tunnel.
Back in Jan 2006 I got a response from Daytona Beach Fl Utilities Manager Mitt Tidwell. He claimed sensitive to fluoride individuals should perhaps after confirming with their medical professionals use bottle water or point of use filtration. He started off by claiming we were not protected by the Safe Drinking Water act as it was not intented to protect all. ( This by the way is false as it is intended to protect even the most sensitive from even risk of harm ,just not enforced.) He also went on to say the same is true for all the chemicals added to the water. The city also has refused to follow the lead of Ormond Beach Dentist Mayor and at least warn of the ADA Nov 9 2006 alert to dentists that infants (under 12 months) should not receive fluoridated water in formula if dental fluorosis was of concern. This warning went out in a city newsletter ,city website warning which still is on the website. Then a year later a notice on bright house Cable on two channels to the entire county at my request. This was also on city letter head and seal as a offical warning. Then I was banned from speaking on the topic ever again at the city commission meetings. That ban was recently lifted and I am now speaking again. Once commissioner has publicly stated I was right and they were wrong but can receive no second to discuss the issue on the agenda. By the way Daytona Beach has flat refused to warn anyone and one commissioner even stated he protected his kids when they were born but all doctors warn of this risk and thus no further warning is needed. He firmly stated no warning should be made and even said the free notices would cost too much. They turned down the free website notice free cable ,TV notice, Free offical commission admission and very low cost water bill notice. Daytona Beach has a very at risk 40% black population and midtown 32114 is the center of a public health disaster receiving many grants to study and attempt to reduce the human toll. The city does their part by providing fluoridation with no warning of risk. Even the risk the utility manager admits quietly only to those that ask. Don’t ask,don’t tell is their motto. Daytona voted 6-1 to keep fluoridation in Feb 2007.
Daytona did move3 their public comments to before the commission meeting and do not video the comments to a near empty room. Sometimes not one commissioner is in the room. Then they switched after public concern of their lack of interest in the public comments to allow them to speak at the end of the meeting to a near empty room to a impatient commission all to ready to go home. You never know what time you chance to speak will happen now. Sometimes you can not wait to the bitter end.