On August 13, 2007, the Lillie Center announced it had delivered a formal ethics complaint last week to an Ethics Subcommittee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The complaint charged that the CDC’s Oral Health Division and CDC’s director Julie Gerberding had failed to follow the CDC’s own ethical code which it promotes around the country. According to the complaint, CDC has:

• Elected to omit vital information in its communications to the public concerning vulnerable population groups that are particularly susceptible to harm from fluoride;

• Chosen to ignore its own data showing disproportionate harm by dental fluorosis in minority populations and has not actively provided this information to these groups;

• Demonstrated a severe ethical lapse in failing to appropriately disseminate its own change in policy that parents of infants be aware of the risk of dental fluorosis in their children and may wish to use unfluoridated water to mix their babies’ powdered milk formula;

• Justified fluoridation in terms that mislead Americans into confusing the fundamental concepts of concentration versus dose. This had led citizens to believe that a low concentration of fluoride in water cannot result in a harmful dose of the chemical, regardless of volume of water consumed and other sources of fluoride -- and in this context CDC has also failed to appropriately disclose that fluoride can accumulate harmfully in the body over time; and

• Misled the public concerning the results of studies about harm from ingested fluoride.

SEE:

• Formal Ethics Complaint & Request for Investigation. August 9, 2007
• Press Release. August 13, 2007

LINKS TO SOME REPORTS CITED IN COMPLAINT:

• National Research Council of the National Academies (NRC). 2006. Fluoride in drinking water: a scientific review of EPA's standards. The National Academies Press. Washington D.C.

• Professionals' Statement Calling for an End to Fluoridation. August 9, 2007.

• USDA National Fluoride Database of Selected Beverages and Foods. October 2004. U.S. Department of Agriculture.

• The Ethics Subcommittee provides counsel to the CDC's Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) regarding a broad range of public health ethics questions and issues arising from programs, scientists, and practitioners.

Members of the Ethics Subcommittee:

John D. Arras, Ph.D.
Porterfield Professor of Biomedical Ethics, Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia
Term: 5/18/05 – 12/31/08

Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP (ACD Member)
Executive Director, American Public Health Association, Washington, DC
Term : 1/6/04 - 6/30/08

Vanessa Northington Gamble, M.D., Ph.D.
Director, Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care, Tuskegee University, Alabama
Term: 5-/7/06 - 12/31/08

Thomas G. Hooyman, Ph.D.
President, Ethically SpeakingTM, Denver, Colorado
Term: 6/1/05 - 12/31/08

Bruce Jennings, MA
Director, Centers for Humans and Nature, New York, New York
Term: 5/3/05 - 12/31/08

desVignes-Kendrick, Mary, MD, MPH (ACD Member)
Professor, Management, Policy and Community Health, Deputy Director, Center for Biosecurity and Public Health Preparedness, Health Science Center at Houston, University of Texas School of Public Health, Houston, Texas
Term: 1/16/04 – 6/30/08

Barbara Ann Koenig, Ph.D.
Consultant and Professor of Biomedical Ethics, Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry, Mayo Clinic Foundation/Mayo College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota
Term: 5/4/05 - 12/31/07

Kathy Kinlaw, MDiv.
Associate Director and Program Director in Health Sciences Ethics, Center for Ethics, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
Term: 5/3/05 - 12/31/08

Robert J. Levine, M.D.
Professor of Medicine and Lecturer in Pharmacology, Co-Director, Yale University Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Director, Law, Policy and Ethics Core, Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, Yale University
Term: 5/6/05 - 12/31/07

Ruth Macklin, Ph.D.
Head, Division of Philosophy and History of Medicine, Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York
Term: 5/4/05 - 12/31/07

James Conley Thomas, M.P.H., Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Director, Program in Public Health Ethics, Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. North Carolina
Term: 5/10/05 - 12/31/07

Members of the Advisory Committee to the CDC Director:

R Palmer Beasley, M.D.
Dean and Ashbel Smith Professor, The University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, Houston, TX
Term: 5/22/2005 - 6/30/2008

Joel Reed Bender, M.D., Ph.D.
Corporate Medical Director, General Motors Corporation, Pontiac, MI
Term: 1/22/2004 - 6/30/2007

Georges C Benjamin, M.D., F.A.C.P.
Executive Director, American Public Health Association, Washington, DC
Term: 1/16/2004 - 6/30/2007

Mary desVignes-Kendrick, M.D., M.P.H.
Professor, Management, Policy & Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Texas Health Science Center - Houston, TX
Term: 1/16/2004 - 6/30/2007

Jay Irwin Goodman, Ph.D.
ProfessorDepartment of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
Term: 5/17/2005 - 6/30/2008

Debra R Lappin, J.D.
Senior Vice President, B&D Consulting, Washington, DC
Term: 1/16/2004 - 6/30/2007

• Notice of August 9, 2007, meething of the CDC Ethics Committee, Advisory Committee to the Director. Federal Register. July 12, 2007.