Steve Schlotterbeck, who led drilling company EQT as it expanded to become the nation’s largest producer of natural gas in 2017, arrived at a petrochemical industry conference in Pittsburgh…with a blunt message about shale gas drilling and fracking.
“The shale gas revolution has frankly been an unmitigated disaster for any buy-and-hold investor in the shale gas industry with very few limited exceptions,” Schlotterbeck, who left the helm of EQT last year, continued. “In fact, I’m not aware of another case of a disruptive technological change that has done so much harm to the industry that created the change.”
“While hundreds of billions of dollars of benefits have accrued to hundreds of millions of people, the amount of shareholder value destruction registers in the hundreds of billions of dollars,” he said. “The industry is self-destructive.” [emphasis added]…
“The technological advancements developed by the industry have been the weapon of its own suicide,” Schlotterbeck added, referring to the financial impacts of shale gas drilling on shale gas drillers. “And unfortunately, the industry still has not fully realized how it’s killing itself. Since 2015, there’s been 172 E&P company bankruptcies involving nearly a hundred billion dollars of debt.”
“In a little more than a decade, most of these companies just destroyed a very large percentage of their companies’ value that they had at the beginning of the shale revolution,” he said. “It’s frankly hard to imagine the scope of the value destruction that has occurred. And it continues.”
Our fake president wants to make it easier for this clown show to borrow even more money. When this paper edifice crashes and burns – what do you think will be the effect on the nation’s economy?
Today, environmental and consumer organizations are delivering more than 149,000 public commentsto the Environmental Protection Agency advocating for a banon glyphosate, aka Monsanto’s RoundUp, which is linked to cancer. The EPAis collecting public comments until July 5thfor glyphosate’sproposed interim registration review, which could allow glyphosate to be used in the U.S. foranother 15 years.
“The science is clear about glyphosate. This dangerous herbicide causes serious health risks, including cancer, and threatens our environment,” said Jason Davidson with Friends of the Earth.“EPA must do its joband ban this toxic pesticide instead of prioritizing corporate profits.”
Monsanto (now owned by Bayer (BAYRY), made $4.8 billion in revenue from glyphosate sales in 2015. The EPA claims that glyphosate does not cause cancer, ignoring the United Nations and California’s Office of Health Hazard Assessment, both of which have classified the herbicide as linked to cancer.However, EPA’s Office of Research and Development determined that the Office of Pesticide Programs did not follow proper protocol in its evaluation of glyphosate. EPA includedMonsanto-funded studies in its evaluation of the chemical and has a history of collusion with industry.
“EPA is getting the science wrong on glyphosate, and needs to listen to international agencies and peer-reviewed literature on the dangers posed by widespread use of this herbicide,” said Drew Toher, community resource and policy director at Beyond Pesticides. “While continuing to pressure EPA, we encourage advocates to get active in their community, and work with their local elected officials towards organic policies that stop glyphosate and other toxic pesticides like it.”
“No company’s profits are more important than children’s health and the health of our fragile ecosystems. The EPA must uphold its mission and ban glyphosate,” said Brandy Doyle with CREDO Action.
“It’s time for the EPA to acknowledge that glyphosate, which is never used alone, if reapproved, will continue in the form of glyphosate herbicides, to contaminate our tap water, breast milk, baby food, formulas, cereals, thousands of food types, and cotton products,” said Zen Honeycutt, executive director, Moms Across America […]
According to a new poll from Reuters and Ipsos, almost 70 percent of Americans want climate change to be addressed with aggressive action.
But the poll found that people in the US don’t want the decades of corporate greed and malfeasance to be a burden put on the backs of the poor and working class. They don’t want regressive “green” taxes that put the onus on the poor instead of corporate oligarchs. The French government tried that plan and the people rose up as the yellow vest movement. Americans, like the French, are willing to make personal sacrifices to improve the planet, but they do not want to pay for the greed of others.
The poll did not mention people’s opinions on the importance of seizing power and control of the means of production and automation.
The results of the recent poll underscore a crucial challenge for the authoritarian overlords to make a convincing argument that the working poor and not the rich must shoulder the bill to save the planet.
The majority of the people polled want the US to move to 100% clean energy in the next ten years and they want that industry to “create new jobs and growth” and they don’t want clean energy to “hurt jobs and the economy.”
People don’t support climate action plans that place the burden on them rather than corporate oligarchs who are causing the most damage to the environment—and have the money and the means of production and automation […]
There are monsters among us. Every day I read about an American “plan” to either invade some place new or to otherwise inflict pain to convince a “non-compliant” foreign government how to behave. Last week it was Iran but next week it could just as easily again be Lebanon, Syria or Venezuela. Or even Russia or China, both of whom are seen as “threats” even though American soldiers, sailors and marines sit on their borders and not vice versa. The United States is perhaps unique in the history of the world in that it sees threats everywhere even though it is not, in fact, threatened by anyone.
Just as often, one learns about a new atrocity by Israelis inflicted on the defenseless Arabs just because they have the power to do so. Last Friday in Gaza the Israeli army shot and killed four unarmed demonstrators and injured 300 more while the Jewish state’s police invaded a Palestinian orphanage school in occupied Jerusalem and shut it down because the students were celebrating a “Yes to peace, no to war” poetry festival. Peace is not in the Israeli authorized curriculum.
And then there are the Saudis, publicly chopping the heads off of 37 “dissidents” in a mass display of barbarity, and also murdering and dismembering a hapless journalist. And let’s not forget the bombing and deliberate starving of hundreds of thousands innocent civilians in Yemen […]
The main purpose of this book is to challenge the prevailing notion that the Middle Ages was a period totally devoid of intellectual, technological, political or social advances. Focusing primarily on England, the authors cover the period between the 1066 Norman invasion and Henry VIII’s confiscation of the monasteries.
According to Jones and Ereira, among the substantive changes occurring in the Middle Ages are a massive increase in urbanization (in 1066 only 10% of the English population lived in towns or villages) and literacy (prior to 1066 only monks and priests were literate).
Prior to reading this book, I had no idea that despite taxes residents paid to the king and local monasteries, most medieval villages were totally self-governing. I was also surprised to learn that most medieval discoveries were made by monks, including Roger Bacon, a man who was 500 years ahead of Newton in discovering the refraction of white light into colors. Other medieval inventions include time standardization into a 24-hour day, the first mechanical clock, anesthesia, and strong acids, such as hydrochloric and sulfuric acid.
Women enjoyed more rights and had more careers open to them between 1066 and 1400 than they did 500 years later during the Victorian era.
For me, the most significant development in the period described was the codification of “common law” and “juries.” Initially juries were members of the local community required to assist in prosecuting criminals by compiling evidence. Henry I (1068-1135) was the first monarch to grant his magistrates the authority to judge civil matters in the name of the Crown. Prior to his reign, victims of kidnappings, rapes, thefts and murders (ie their surviving families) could only file suit in royal courts against perpetrators in courts run by royal magistrates.
Henry I also introduced trial by jury, in which local juries gained the authority to determine innocence or guilt, in addition to assembling evidence.
No one is talking about it openly, but, let us face it: those U.S.-made planes are crashing; the performance of Apple phones and computers is falling far behind those made by Huawei and other Chinese companies. Lenovo took over IBM and is doing extremely well. NASA is absolutely incapable of building decent rockets that would be able to deliver people or even satellites to space, cheaply and safely.
In the field of electric automobiles, China is far, far ahead. In fact, anyone who visits a major or secondary Chinese city, would be shocked to see that the implementation of ‘zero emission’ vehicles there is not something that is in the planning stage, it has for several years been a dream come true, reality: dozens of Chinese cities already have an excellent network of metro trains, of ecological electric buses, and of enormous public sidewalks that encourage people to stroll and remain healthy. Even police cars in China are electric.
Russia is doing extremely well, in several fields. In fact, it is at the vanguard, when it comes to such grounds as science and culture. Those days of ‘humiliation’ of the Gorbachev and Yeltsin era are far back, when Moscow naively believed Thatcherites and Reaganites! Russia is rolling: now producing and exporting excellent, often organic food. Its icebreakers are opening new paths for both people and goods. Russian space rockets are second to none, and its passenger airplanes are back in the skies. Nuclear and other power plants are helping to supply energy to many countries, all over the world.
You name it; China and Russia are producing it, developing it, helping to create it! Both nations are cooperating, scientifically, working for people, not just for business.
Citizens in both countries are enthusiastic, optimistic, full of hope. Their lives are improving, and there is so much to look forward to! They are building their nations, and helping the world to survive, to move forward. It can be called Communism or socialism with Chinese characteristics. Or it can be called nothing in particular in Russia (according to surveys, most of the citizens there want both the Soviet Union and Communism back, and the government is attentively listening, steering the country into the right direction). Perhaps, soon, the definition will be ‘socialism Russian-style’, without huge posters, but with plenty to show, and to celebrate.
But whatever it really is, it is working; working very well. Standards of living are growing. Health is improving. The environment is improving. Culture is everywhere. People are ecstatic.
*
And the West? The United States of A?
No, really! Honestly. Recently I spoke at several universities in Canada and Europe; I worked on two books in California. What a depressing experience!
Everyone bitching about everything; no optimism, and no spirit of building the motherland or improving the world. Cynicism, nihilism, bad moods on every corner. Nothing is ‘sacred’.
People shackled by debts and loans, scared of leaving the insane rat race.
In the US of A, there is a horror of getting sick and ending up on the street. And those bizarre, truly repulsive student loans: the regime forces you to study in order to get brainwashed, becoming a reliable lackey, and then slams you with tens of thousands of dollars in basically unserviceable debts. And where does it all lead to? To some tremendous scientific breakthroughs? To groundbreaking works of art? To pushing the boundaries with new, magnificent works of philosophy? No way! It only leads to the printing of new and newer diplomas, of PhD. certificates, each costing tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars. And those desperate research labs in the USA (most of them private, anyway) are importing scientists from India and China, trying to brain-drain the nations who are educating their people for free or cheaply. While concert halls in New York and London are begging the Chinese, Korean, Argentinean, Russian and Japanese pianists to come and play, even Western classical music […]
I recall, as probably most people don’t, that the Central Intelligence Agency, with assistance from some of China’s neighbors, put $30 million into the destabilization of Tibet and basically financed and trained the participants in the Khampa rebellion and ultimately sought to remove the Dalai Lama from Tibet–which they did. They escorted him out of Tibet to Dharamsala.There were similar efforts made with the Uyghurs during the Cold War that never really got off the ground. In both cases you had religion waved as a banner in support of a desire for independence or autonomy which, of course, is anathema to any state. —US Ambassador Chas. H. Freeman.
Since our media have confined themselves to unsupported allegations, I’ve collected several first-hand accounts of happenings in Xinjiang, an area of China I myself have never visited.
Many Chinese consider Uyghurs the descendants of a marooned, white imperialist army living on land that was China’s long before they arrived. Edgar Snow1 visited Xinjiang in 1937 and reported, “Especially in the ninth century, when vast hordes of Ouigour Turks (whose great leader Seljuk had not yet been born) were summoned to the aid of the T’ang Court to suppress rebellion, Islamism entrenched itself in China. Following their success, many of the Ouigours were rewarded with titles and great estates and settled in the Northwest and in Szechuan and Yunnan. Over a period of centuries the Mohammedans stoutly resisted Chinese absorption but gradually lost their Turkish culture, adopted much that was Chinese, and became more or less submissive to Chinese law. Yet in the nineteenth century they were still powerful enough to make two great bids for power: one when Tu Wei-hsiu for a time set up a kingdom in Yunnan and proclaimed himself Sultan Suleiman; and the last, in 1864, when Mohammedans seized control of all the Northwest and even invaded Hupeh.”
Islam is neither the Uyghurs’ native religion nor their only one but, in its Wahabbi form, it has caused problems around the world, for which we can thank to two fervent Christians, Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski,2who considered a united Eurasia, “The only possible challenge to American hegemony.”
In 1979, months before the Soviet entry into Afghanistan, Brzezinski drafted and Carter signed a top-secret Presidential Order authorizing the CIA to train fundamentalist Muslims to wage Jihad against the Soviet Communist infidels and all unbelievers of conservative Sunni Islam and the Mujahideen terror war against Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan became the largest covert action in CIA history.[2] Brzezinski’s ‘Arc of Crisis’ strategy inflamed Muslims in Central Asia to destabilize the USSR during its economic crisis and, when Le Nouvel Observateur later asked if he had any regrets, Brzezinski snapped, “What is most important to the history of the world? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe?”
The Uyghurs had collaborated with the Japanese in WWII and Rebiya Kadeer, ‘Mother of the Uyghurs’ and a US Government client, after kissing the ground at Yasukuni Shrine, called Xinjiang’s postwar reversion to Chinese administration a ‘reconquest.’ Ms Kadeer’s connections are interesting. In the late 1990s Hasan Mahsum, founder of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, ETIM, moved its headquarters to Kabul and met with Osama bin Laden and the CIA-trained Taliban to coordinate action across Central Asia. In 1995 Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then mayor of Istanbul declared, “Eastern Turkestan [Xinjiang] is not only the home of the Turkic peoples but also the cradle of Turkic history, civilization and culture. To forget that would lead to the ignorance of our own history, civilization and culture. The martyrs of Eastern Turkestan are our martyrs.” Under Erdogan Turkey became the transit point for international terrorists destined for Syria and Turkish airports were filled with Uyghurs traveling on Turkish passports.
Twenty years later, in 1999, the CIA’s Islam strategist, Graham E. Fuller, announced, “The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Russians. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia.”3
We will return to Mr. Fuller anon but, first, some background from F. William Engdahl, “Today the West–and especially Washington–is engaged in full-scale irregular war against the stability of China. In recent months Western media and the Washington Administration have begun to raise a hue and cry over alleged mass internment camps in China’s northwestern Xinjiang where supposedly up to one million ethnic Uyghur Chinese are being detained and submitted to various forms of ‘re-education.’ Several things about the charges are notable, not the least that all originate from Western media and ‘democracy’ NGOs like Human Rights Watch, whose record for veracity leaves something to be desired” […]
Once again, the Central Intelligence Agency has been caught financing a group of grifters and fraudsters at the expense of the American taxpayers. In the latest case, just another in the agency’s 72-year history, the Trump administration-appointed ad hoc board of CITGO, the US subsidiary of the state-owned Venezuelan oil company, PDVSA, stands accused of steering $70 million of escrowed funds, earmarked for PDVSA’s fiscal year 2020 bond, to the pockets of CIA-supported officials of the Venezuelan opposition “Popular Will” party headed by the so-called “interim president” of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó.
In addition to Guaidó, who is accused by the legitimate Venezuelan government of money laundering, treason, and corruption, other Popular Will leaders under investigation by both the Venezuelan Attorney General and the US Justice Department include Carlos Vecchio, Guaidó’s envoy in Washington; Rossana Barrera and Kevin Rojas, Guaidó’s emissaries in Cucuta, a Colombian-Venezuelan border town; Sergio Vargara, Barrera’s brother-in-law and a Member of the Venezuelan Congress; Guaidó’s “ambassador” to Colombia, Humberto Calderon Berti, opposition businessman Miguel Sabal; and Guaidó’s chief of staff, Roberto Marrero. Over two dozen other Popular Will leaders are also under investigation for fraud involving money earmarked by the Trump administration, particularly Iran-Contra scandal felon and current Trump special envoy for regime change in Venezuela, Elliot Abrams.
Barrera and Rojas are accused of spending money given to the Popular Will by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a longtime CIA financial pass-through, for “humanitarian relief” for alleged massive numbers of Venezuelan refugees in Colombia. The Popular Will grifters reportedly used the aid money, including that which was raised by Virgin Group’s billionaire founder and obvious CIA dupe Richard Branson, for expensive hotels, fancy restaurants, nightclubs, prostitutes, and clothing.
It comes as little surprise that Abrams, with his history of “sticky fingers” around US and foreign assistance money, has played a hand in the Venezuelan opposition fraud. As Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs during the Ronald Reagan administration Abrams was involved in the illegal raising of funds for the CIA-supported right-wing Contras fighting against the socialist Sandinista government of Nicaragua. In 1991, facing a felony perjury conviction for lying to Congress, Abrams pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information to Congress about his fundraising activities for the Contras. In 1992, Abrams and other Iran-Contra criminals were pardoned by President George H. W. Bush, one of the unindicted Iran-Contra co-conspirators. Abrams surfaced again in 2001 in the George W. Bush administration. He was involved in the abortive 2002 CIA coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as well as in cooking US intelligence to justify the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Abrams’s involvement in any US covert activities in always an indication of massive fraud. Abrams’s backing of Guaidó and his operatives and recent reports of fraud are not much different than the notorious Republican Party neo-con’s sordid record with such Contra leaders as Adolfo Calero, the president of the Nicaraguan Democratic Forces (FDN); Arturo Cruz; Alfonso Robelo; Edén Pastora; and Enrique Bermúdez.
CIA funds directed to the Contras for the purchase of weapons soon found their way into the hands of Colombian drug lords, including Pablo Escobar and Carlos Lehder of the Medellin Cartel. An elaborate scheme was worked out that saw the Contras buying, with CIA funds, weapons and cocaine, with the former ending up in the hands of the Medellin Cartel and the latter being shipped to the United States with a very handsome financial return. Everyone made out nicely, including Contra leaders who spent much of their time in Miami donating funds to Republican coffers through the offices of top Cuban-American leaders like Jorge Mas Canosa [. . .]
I know, you may think I am deluded. How could life in an Embassy with a cat and a skateboard ever amount to torture? That’s exactly what I thought, too, when Assange first appealed to my office for protection. Like most of the public, I had been subconsciously poisoned by the relentless smear campaign, which had been disseminated over the years. So it took a second knock on my door to get my reluctant attention. But once I looked into the facts of this case, what I found filled me with repulsion and disbelief.
Surely, I thought, Assange must be a rapist! But what I found is that he has never been charged with a sexual offence. True, soon after the US had encouraged allies to find reasons to prosecute Assange, two women made the headlines in Sweden. One of them claimed he had ripped a condom, and the other that he had failed to wear one, in both cases during consensual intercourse — not exactly scenarios that have the ring of ‘rape’ in any language other than Swedish. Mind you, each woman even submitted a condom as evidence.
The first one, supposedly worn and torn by Assange, revealed no DNA whatsoever — neither his, nor hers, nor anybody else’s. Go figure. The second one, used but intact, supposedly proved ‘unprotected’ intercourse. Go figure, again. The women even texted that they never intended to report a crime but were ‘railroaded’ into doing so by zealous Swedish police. Go figure, once more. Ever since, both Sweden and Britain have done everything to prevent Assange from confronting these allegations without simultaneously having to expose himself to US extradition and, thus, to a show-trial followed by life in jail. His last refuge had been the Ecuadorian Embassy.
Alright, I thought, but surely Assange must be a hacker! But what I found is that all his disclosures had been freely leaked to him, and that no one accuses him of having hacked a single computer. In fact, the only arguable hacking-charge against him relates to his alleged unsuccessful attempt to help breaking a password which, had it been successful, might have helped his source to cover her tracks. In short: a rather isolated, speculative, and inconsequential chain of events; a bit like trying to prosecute a driver who unsuccessfully attempted to exceed the speed-limit, but failed because their car was too weak.
Nils Melzer
Well then, I thought, at least we know for sure that Assange is a Russian spy, has interfered with US elections, and negligently caused people’s deaths! But all I found is that he consistently published true information of inherent public interest without any breach of trust, duty or allegiance. Yes, he exposed war crimes, corruption and abuse, but let’s not confuse national security with governmenal impunity. Yes, the facts he disclosed empowered US voters to take more informed decisions, but isn’t that simply democracy? Yes, there are ethical discussions to be had regarding the legitimacy of unredacted disclosures. But if actual harm had really been caused, how come neither Assange nor Wikileaks ever faced related criminal charges or civil lawsuits for just compensation?
But surely, I found myself pleading, Assange must be a selfish narcissist, skateboarding through the Ecuadorian Embassy and smearing feces on the walls? Well, all I heard from Embassy staff is that the inevitable inconveniences of his accommodation at their offices were handled with mutual respect and consideration. This changed only after the election of President Moreno, when they were suddenly instructed to find smears against Assange and, when they didn’t, they were soon replaced. The President even took it upon himself to bless the world with his gossip, and to personally strip Assange of his asylum and citizenship without any due process of law [. . .]
Fluoridation is the addition of an industrial compound to the public drinking water for the purpose of altering the consumer’s oral health. Municipalities that add fluoride to their water supplies do so based on a “one dose fits all” approach. This blanket approach fails to address the smaller size of infants and children and the larger proportions of water and other fluoridated beverages they drink. Significantly, a formula-fed infant drinks its weight in water every three to four days, resulting in the most vulnerable members of the population consuming by far the largest dose of fluoride.
Fluoridation advocates have acknowledged that fluoride’s predominant effects for growing decay-resistant, harder teeth come from topical use (i.e., applying it directly onto teeth) as opposed to systemic exposure (i.e., drinking or ingesting fluoride through water or other means). However, research also has indicated that fluoride does not aid in preventing pit and fissure decay (the most prevalent form of tooth decay in the U.S.) or in preventing baby bottle tooth decay (prevalent in less affluent communities). In malnourished children and individuals of lower socioeconomic status, fluoride may actually increase the risk of dental caries due to calcium depletion and other circumstances. Given this body of research—and Harvard experts’ warning that fluoride is one of 12 industrial chemicals known to cause developmental neurotoxicity in human beings—why do public health officials persist in claiming that water fluoridation is either necessary or safe?
Overexposure and Dental Fluorosis
Exposure to excess fluoride in children is known to result in dental fluorosis, a condition in which the tooth enamel becomes irreversibly damaged and the teeth become permanently discolored, displaying a white or brown mottling pattern and forming brittle teeth that break and stain easily. Dental researchers have identified dental fluorosis as a first sign of fluoride toxicity.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released in 2010, 41% of children aged 12-15 exhibit fluorosis to some degree, up from 23% of 12-15-year-olds in 1986 (see figure below). These increases in rates of dental fluorosis were a factor in the U.S. Public Health Service’s 2015 decision to dramatically lower its water fluoridation level recommendations, from a high of 1.2 milligrams per liter (mg/L) down to 0.7 mg/L.
The downward revision of the Public Health Service’s recommendations for fluoride concentrations in drinking water fails to account for the fact that children are exposed to many different sources of fluoride on a daily basis. Exposure to these diverse sources has drastically increased since community water fluoridation began in the U.S. in the 1940s. In addition to water and other beverages, fluoride exposure occurs through food, air, soil, dental products used at home and in the dental office, and through an array of other sources.
Several studies conducted in the United States have offered data about children’s exposure to multiple sources of fluoride, as well as warnings about the situation. Markedly, a study published in 2015 by researchers at the University of Iowa considered exposure from water, toothpaste, fluoride “supplements” and foods. The researchers found that there was considerable individual variation in exposure levels and offered data showing that some children exceed the alleged “optimal” range. Highlighting the problematic nature of issuing recommendations about fluoride intake, the authors concluded:
A similar 2005 study by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago evaluated children’s fluoride exposure from drinking water, beverages, cow’s milk, foods, fluoride “supplements,” toothpaste swallowing and soil ingestion. They found that the reasonable maximum exposure estimates exceeded the upper tolerable intake and concluded that “some children may be at risk for fluorosis.”
Pediatric Cancers and Fluoride
In 2006, the National Research Council (NRC) issued a report discussing the potential link between fluoride exposure and osteosarcoma. This type of bone cancer is one of the most common groups of malignant tumors in children and adolescents. The NRC stated that while the evidence was as of yet tentative, fluoride appeared to have the potential to promote bone cancers; the authors also cited biological plausibility due to “fluoride’s deposition into bone and its mitogenic effects on bone cells.” A mitogen is a chemical substance that triggers cell division (mitosis)—and cancer represents mitosis that has run amok.
While some epidemiological studies have failed to find an association between fluoride and osteosarcoma, research completed by Dr. Elise Bassin while at Harvard School of Dental Medicine showed that exposure to fluoride at “recommended” levels correlated with a seven-fold increase in osteosarcoma in boys who had been exposed between the ages of five and seven. Bassin’s research, published in 2006, is the only study about osteosarcoma that has taken age- and sex-specific risks into account.
Other Adverse Impacts
A large number of studies associate fluoride with loss of IQ. For example, a landmark study published in 2017 (funded by the National Institutes of Health) found that prenatal fluoride exposure was strongly associated with lower scores on tests of cognitive function in the offspring. Interestingly, silicofluoride—the fluoride compound used in the vast majority of water fluoridation schemes—has been associated with higher blood lead levels in children, and lead is known to lower IQ. Lead has also been linked to violent behavior, and research likewise supports the potential association of silicofluoride with violence.
Meanwhile, discussion has ensued as a result of several research studies published in 2018 that linked fluoride to underactive thyroid, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and other adverse impacts on health and behavior.
Protect our Children, Protect our Water
While adding a developmental neurotoxin to the water supply endangers everyone in the community, infants and children are obviously at highest risk for harmful effects. In addition to the potential adverse outcomes for this susceptible population discussed above (cancer, IQ loss and thyroid dysfunction), water fluoridation poses other health risks such as arthritis, bone fractures and learning disorders. We need to protect our children—and protect our water—by learning the facts and demanding policies that reduce and eliminate avoidable sources of fluoride, including artificial water fluoridation.
The Most Revolutionary Act 