Overcoming Chemical Overdoses
The story of Cindy Duehring in your spring issue illustrates the need for environmentalists to tell facts loud and clear. Her poisoning by diazanon and chlopyrifen was avoidable. I was contaminated by diazinon in 1981 and realized what had happened to me because of a short article on chemical hypersensitivity in Environmental Action. The word did not reach the general public in time to save Cindy.

The comment "there is no cure for Multiple Chemical Sensitivity," while technically true, may be overly discouraging to MCS sufferers. Many who are incapacitated for a time can eventually lead normal lives". If one has not suffered the severe organ damage that Cindy endures, avoidance of contaminants, a strict diet, exercise and time can bring about healing.

If someone suggests that you not wear perfume in his or her presence, graciously do as requested.
-- Mary Byrd Davis, director Yggdrassil Institute
Georgetown, Kentucky

Correction: We neglected to credit the cover photo of Cindy Duering on on spring cover. The photo was provided courtesy of the Right Livelihood Award Foundation.

Green Mountain
In your winter 1997-98 article on "green power" you have confused two companies, Green Mountain Power (GMP) and Green Mountain Energy Resources (GMER). GMP is a Vermont utility that supplies Vermont customers with electricity from several sources including Hydro-Quebec. GMP owns 27 percent of GMER, but apart from this relationship, the two companies are entirely separate.

GMER does not buy power from Hydro-Quebec. Our cleanest electricity produce now contains 75 percent renewables and all our products are nuclear and coal-free.

I urge your readers to learn as much as possible about their electricity choices. Sitting on the sideline doing nothing won't bring more renewable plants on-line. Choosing a provider of renewable electricity will.
-- Tom Rawls, Manager of Environmental Affairs
Green Mountain Energy Resources
South Burlington, Vermont

Fluoride Feedback
I cannot resist cluttering your mailbox to compliment you on the articles on fluoridation which appeared in the current and previous issues of the Journal. A quote attributed to Will Rogers may be relevant: "It ain't what I don't know that worries me: It's what I know that ain't so."
-- J. B. Neilands, Professor Emeritus
Department of Biochemistry
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley California

Thanks to Joel Griffiths for the timely article ("Fluoride: Industry's Toxic Coup," Spring '98). We in Santa Cruz are now battling the state over mandatory fluoridation of municipal water. The city council recently went on record to prevent the fluoridation of its water.
-- Don Hoernschemeyer
Santa Cruz, California

Reading the excellent investigative journalism of Griffiths & Bryson ("Fluoride, Teeth & The A-Bomb,: Winter '97-98) brings to mind another problem involving a sister halogen (chlorine) and toothpaste. Colgate-Palmolive's "Total" recently received the first-ever FDA certification for germicidal activity in a toothpaste.

The active ingredient in Total -- and in many other personal care and household cleaning agents -- is Triclosan (aka Irgasan), a two-ringed chlorophenol. These are other chlorophenol disinfectant products are highly contaminated with dioxins and other dangerous organochlorines.

The FDA and EPA have in recent years loosened the regulation of germicides, disinfectants and antimicrobials; thus the flood of ads for "germ killing" cleaners, mouthwashes, soaps, etc. While these products provide little, if any, additional protection from pathogens, they are certainly giving us a high exposure to persistent, bioaccumulative and broad-spectrum toxins.
-- Tony Tweedale
Missoula, Montana

I have followed the pro and con literature as a practicing dentist for 35 years. Joel Griffiths is dead wrong on the efficacy of fluoride in reducing dental disease. He may have found one dentist in Australia who agrees with his point of view, but this is not the majority position. I now question the honesty of all the other articles that I have read and quoted since I first learned of your Journal.
-- Anonymous Dentist
Somewhere, Cyberspace

Note: This ignores the central political and health issues raised in Griffiths' article and focuses only on the last three paragraphs that question fluoride's cavity-fighting abilities. The "one dentist in New Zealand" was New Zealand's former Chief Dental Officer, Dr. John Colquhoun. Agreeing with "the majority position" is not the Journal's definition of responsible journalism.

Fluoride Corrections
Owing to technical difficulties, Darlene Sherrell's article "Rethinking Fluoridation" (Spring '98) went to press before it could be reviewed by the author. Please note the following corrections. A 1991 government study on the combined fluoride exposure to children from food, beverages and dental care products found that exposures could range as high as 0.13 mkd (not 0.31 mkd as we reported); The World Health Organization did not set a 1ppm "safe background level" for naturally occurring water-borne fluoride: It reported that skeletal fluorosis was endemic in areas of India where water supplies contained 1ppm of fluoride. Harold Hodge formally acknowledged his mathematical error on fluoride risks in 1979. The government's estimate of fluoride dosage that risks crippling skeletal fluorosis is equal to 2.5 to 5 mg/day for 40 to 80 years (not just 5 mg/day as we reported). The updated version of Sherrell's article will be posted on our website.

Cutthroat Correction
There was one serious factual error in the edited version of our report, "Call of the Wild for Colorado's Rivers" (Spring '98). Stating that cutthroat trout declined up to 90 percent is not true. The impact of stocking diseased fish was primarily on other, non-native species (rainbow, brook and brown). Cutthroat waters are not routinely stocked with non- natives.

I am certain that the Colorado Department of Wildlife will take strong exception to this error, since it implies that they took an action that had a massive, negative impact on an endangered species. The real problem lies in the fact that there are so few waters currently managed for cutthroat.
-- Brad Lewis, director
Southern Rockies Restoration Project
Boulder, Colorado

A Letter from the Royal Gaol
Many thanks for your reporting on the GANDALF trial (Winter '97-98). It is important to realize that the trial and oppression of the Green Anarchist magazine is all of a piece with other acts of oppression against radical environmental groups.

We constantly find it difficult, if not impossible, to get the state-controlled mass media to report on the rising tide of eco-protest. This is why we need alternative magazines to spread the word.

Censorship is as anachronistic as this Medieval Castle I am locked up inside.
-- Stephen Booth
Her Majesty's Prison, Lancaster Castle
"Disunited Queendom"

Stephen Booth, author of Politics and the Ethical Void and City Death, has since been released from prison and charges against the British activists have been dropped.

Ecotopia or Bust!
What outstanding work! I cannot believe the information content that you are able to cram into each issue. No single periodical keeps me as well informed on the issues that concern me most as yours does.

I'm especially glad to see that you are linking ecological science with topics such as social justice and human rights. I'm surprised more groups haven't made this vital connection. When we do finally create a world of freedom and justice, it will be so for all of life.

I will continue to be a member and supporter of the Earth Island Institute until I expire or until we create ecotopia - whichever comes first!
-- Regan Haulotte Menominee, Michigan