From: Jeff Green - jgreen@abac.com
Subject: Santa Cruz qualifies
Congratulations to the people in Santa Cruz who kept this alive and did the serious and arduous work.
SANTA CRUZ, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--Oct. 5, 1998--In yet another
step defying an unfunded law requiring fluoridation of the entire
state passed by the California Legislature in 1995, on Oct. 5, 1998,
members of Santa Cruz Citizens for Safe Drinking Water submitted their
initiative petition to the City Clerk with more than double the number
of signatures necessary to qualify the Safe Drinking Water Initiative
for special election.
Upon validation of signatures from 15% of voters registered in
the city of Santa Cruz, a special election will be scheduled for early
to mid 1999.
This initiative follows the enactment of an ordinance prohibiting
fluoridation without a vote of the people, passed by the Santa Cruz
City Council in March, 1998. The new ballot measure will further amend
the Santa Cruz municipal code by prohibiting the use of the City's
water supply to deliver any products or substances intended to affect
the physical or mental functions of people consuming the public water,
including fluoride, and once enacted by the voters can not be reversed
by the City Council.
"This initiative is not just about fluoride. The proponents of
fluoridation have always attempted to characterize the issue of adding
a contaminate to our water as a dental issue, when in fact it is about
the appropriate use of our water supply. To convert our most precious
resource into a delivery system for anything less essential to life is
an abuse that we will not accept," said Lois Kirby, a committee member
and one of the groups most ardent signature gatherers.
"My vision of America, and Santa Cruz, does not include any
government agency forcing me, my family, or my neighbors, to eat or
drink anything for the rest of our lives without our individual
consent, and the more than ten thousand people in this small community
who signed this petition and the 98% of Europe that is now
fluoridation-free certainly agree with me."
"We were fortunate," said Jean Mauregard, another active member
of the ballot measure committee, "that our City Council, lead by
(Mayor) Celia Scott, passed an ordinance that at least temporarily
protects us from the State usurping our right to choose what we eat
and drink, but the discussion by some of the city council members at
that time made it clear that they felt that what they could give us,
they could just as easily take away, given the right political
incentive.
"I, for one, was not willing to let some backdoor campaign
contribution decide whether we had access to unadulterated public
drinking water."
Francis Markovic, another member of the executive committee
related, "We've followed this issue in other cities like Mountain View
and Yuba City, and even Sacramento, and not once would any of their
city council members address the simplest of questions: How much total
fluoride exposure from all sources are individual communities already
receiving? No competent purchasing agent or household consumer would
spend hard earned money without first checking to see if they already
had enough.
"Independent laboratory reports show regularly consumed products
such as Classic Coca Cola, Minute Maid orange juice, and Lucerne's 2%
milk, contain more than the amount of fluoride they intend to put in
our water; with Froot Loops, Gerber's baby juices, and almost every
product with white grape juice, containing two, three, and four times
the concentration due to fluoride-based pesticide residue and/or
processing with fluoridated water. Fluoride can not be removed by
filtration because the fluoride ion is smaller than the water
molecule, and without any labeling requirements, most people are going
to continue to be overdosed without ever knowing, even without it
being put in our water."
"This was a lot of work," said Linda Mauregard, a committee
organizer, "but what kept me going was the need to let people know
that they weren't getting the whole truth about fluoride, or the use
of our water supply. Iodine was put in the water in the 1920s. People
protested. And they really couldn't control dosage of iodine in the
water any more than they can with fluoride. So universal access to
iodine was created by adding it to salt.
"If the U.S. Public Health Service could honestly produce science
that would pass unbiased public scrutiny, they could have been
delivering fluoride to every person in America for more than fifty
years, just like they do iodine. So why haven't they? Because the
fluoride that they put in our water is an industrial hazardous waste
that comes straight from the scrubbers of the phosphate fertilizer
industry, that if not intended for our water supply would cost the
industry approximately $1.40/gallon to be treated at the highest rated
hazardous waste facility.
"Ninety-nine percent (99%) of the water fluoridated never touches
human lips. It ends up in exactly the places that these industrial
wastes, by law, can not be dumped. I am not willing to drink
industry's hazardous waste. Are you?"
On July 2, 1997, National Federation of Federal Employees, Local
2050, the union that consists of and represents all of the
toxicologists, chemists, biologists and other professionals at EPA
headquarters, Washington, D.C., voted unanimously to co-sponsor the
California Safe Drinking Water Initiative, citing, "Our members'
review of the body of evidence over the last eleven years, including
animal and human epidemiology studies, indicate a causal link between
fluoride/fluoridation and cancer, genetic damage, neurological
impairment, and bone pathology. Of particular concern are recent
epidemiology studies linking fluoride exposure to lowered IQ in
children.
"As the professionals who are charged with assessing the safety
of drinking water, we conclude that the health and welfare of the
public is not served by the addition of this substance to the public
water supply."
Safe Drinking Water Initiative
Ballot Measure: Amendment to the Municipal Code
Prohibiting the Use of the City's Water Supply to
Deliver Products or Substances Intended to Affect
the Physical or Mental Functions of Persons
Consuming Such Water
Whereas water is essential to all and the public water supply should
be safe for all to drink; and
Whereas individuals vary in their susceptibility and responses to
various substances as well as in the amounts of water they consume;
and
Whereas alternative methods of delivery for all substances exist; and
Whereas increased risk of hip fracture, cancer, neurological
impairment, dental fluorosis and other harmful effects have been
linked to fluoride in the scientific literature; and
Whereas data from the U.S. Public Health Service and the State of
California show no significant difference in decay rates of permanent
teeth and dental costs in fluoridated and non fluoridated areas in
California; and
Whereas each individual possesses the inalienable right to choose or
reject what he or she consumes;
The public water supply shall not be used to deliver any product,
substance, device, element, medicine or preventative agent with the
intent or for the purpose of affecting the physical or mental
functions of the body of any person consuming such water.
No fluoride or fluorine-containing substance may be added to public
water systems. All laws to the contrary are hereby repealed.
Want more scientific information? Go to:
http://www.cadvision.com/fluoride
http://www.fluoride-journal.com
http://www.sonic.net/~kryptox/fluoride.htm
http://www.saveteeth.org