SUSHEELA, DR A.K.

The Hon. A. BRESSINGTON (16:32): I move:

That this council recognises the research and treatment delivered by Dr A.K. Susheela PhD, in the area of fluoride toxicity and fluorosis and urges the minister to facilitate Dr Susheela coming to Adelaide for a seminar to train medical practitioners, gynaecologists and obstetricians in the early detection of fluoride poisoning.

I would like this council to acknowledge the research and the 35 years of hands-on treatment that Dr A.K. Susheela has delivered to people who have been diagnosed with fluoride poisoning. Dr Susheela has a clinic in India and she is actually the first medical professional to develop a test that will identify fluoride poisoning at an early stage before it goes on to become a serious health issue.

Dr Susheela's treatments have not been done on people who have only been consuming water that has a high natural content of fluoride. In many of her case studies, she has been treating people who have been consuming only one part per million of fluoridated water. Dr Susheela has identified and has written, I might add, 80 scientific publications in leading western and Indian journals on the topic of the harms of fluoride.

She has been doing this, as I said, for around 35 years now and has spoken at scientific meetings in Japan, Denmark, Switzerland, Kenya, the United States and Hungary. She was actually invited to the UK for 10 days back in 1998, I think it was, when they were planning on extending the fluoridation program in the UK from Birmingham to, I think, Brackenshire. She went over there and spent 10 days speaking with health ministers, which is more than she can get in SA, by the way. That fluoridation program was suspended indefinitely, and still has not been forwarded to this day, because of the evidence that Dr Susheela provided to health officials and to the minister for health and the shadow minister, on what she had found in her scientific studies.

Dr Susheela is not just known in India: she has studied at Harvard University and has also done post-doctoral training under Lord Walton, a neurologist in the UK, and Dr Ade Milhorut of the Muscle Institute, New York, USA. She is also a visiting professor at the Allan Hancock Fraternity at the University of Southern California.

She has quite an extensive eminent history as both a scientist and a treating physician, and she has seen the link now between the ingestion of fluoride and what they call skeletal fluorosis. Of course, it stands to reason that in highly fluoridated areas in India skeletal fluorosis is much more prominent but, as I said earlier, it is still being detected in areas where water fluoridation is reading at only one part per million.

One of the most disturbing findings that Dr Susheela has found, and it lines up with other studies as well, is the harm to unborn babies and the cause of stillbirths—these are full-term babies that are stillborn. Over 85 per cent of stillbirths at Dr Susheela's clinic, she claims, and scientific studies prove, are linked to fluoride intake at one part per million or 1.2 parts per million.

We all have to understand that our fluoride intake in the water we have at one part per million, or 0.9 parts per million, leaves absolutely no room to move. That is the absolute total amount that a person should be taking in on a daily basis. We are not allowing for the fact, as they did not in India, that if you eat a can of tuna you are ingesting fluoride at about 0.6 parts per million; if your kids like to eat Froot Loops for breakfast they are ingesting 0.8 parts per million of fluoride; if they are drinking milk that is taken from cows that are drinking fluoridated water, it can be up to 0.3 parts per million that they are ingesting—or if they are eating baked beans, which are a very popular kids' meal or snack, or even Heinz baby food, which contains fluoride at high levels. The recommended dose for children under five, set by the EPA safety guidelines in America, is zero.

Dr Susheela was being referred many patients from gynaecologists and obstetricians in India—patients who were carrying very underweight babies, and this was not because of poverty or poor nutrition. The gynaecologists and obstetricians could not work out why these women's babies were so small and had a very small chance of survival at birth, even though they were going to full term.

The doctors decided that it must be poor nutrition, so they started giving these women iodine tablets and fish oil tablets to try to boost their immune system and get better nutrition to the babies, but it was making no difference. The conclusion these doctors came to was that the women were not taking their tablets. So, they referred about 30 women, at first, to Dr Susheela's clinic. She monitored that these women were taking their iodine and fish oil tablets but it was making absolutely no difference at all. They were complaining of skin rashes, nausea, loss of appetite, being tired or fatigued, and she recognised the early signs of fluoride poisoning and tested them. They had accumulated only one part per million in their urine and they were fluoride toxic.

When she removed the fluoride from the women's diets, identified in the food intake as well as water and fruit and vegetables that they were eating that were sprayed with pesticides that contained sodium fluoride, the babies started to gain weight and the women started to feel better. She continued on with those studies until she was able to actually write a couple of scientific papers about the harms that fluoride does. Also, autopsies done on stillborn babies showed that their blood levels of fluoride were off the charts, and that was why the stillbirth occurred.

This study is also backed up by another study done in the United States by Dr Blaylock, who has been a neurosurgeon for some 24 years. He conducted studies on 'Fluoride neurotoxicity and excitotoxicity/microglial activation: critical need for more research'. That was his preliminary paper and he went on to do a study. This is what Dr Blaylock had to say about the findings:

Since baby animals exposed to fluoride develop high levels of free radicals in their brains, it makes one wonder what happens to human babies. Unfortunately, it is the same damage. Researchers examined the brains of aborted babies five to eight months into a pregnancy who were from areas having naturally high fluoride levels in the drinking water. What researchers found was alarming.

The brain cells of the babies were grossly abnormal and nerve fibres were not even compatible with typical human nerve fibres. The brain cells in the babies were grossly abnormal and the nerve fibres were misplaced and swollen. These brains were mis-wired.

It said earlier 'naturally high fluoride' but it then states:

Keep in mind the fluoride levels in the drinking water were within the 'safety guidelines' established by the EPA—

which is one part per million—

and no other causes for this damage were found

So 23 scientific studies have been done since Dr A.K. Susheela's initial research on the harms of fluoride to our children and to our unborn babies.

Dr Susheela also did an affidavit for a lawsuit in the state of Wisconsin where she lists 63 known effects of fluoride on the human body and the effects it has on children. I am not going to go into all of that today. I am waiting patiently for the Hon. Mr Wortley's response to my last motion on fluoride.

What I would like to tell members is that Dr Susheela is here tomorrow. She is making herself available for one hour at the building over the road. I think my personal assistant has circulated an email. She is very keen to see that South Australian members of parliament are interested to hear the science and the medicine on fluoride that is quite different to the information that we are getting from our health department, which was the same as she faced in India 20 years ago when she started her fight to get their water defluoridated.

She feels it is very important that members of parliament be well informed and she has kindly offered her time tomorrow to share the information of her research and her practice with members of parliament. I hope that there will be some interest shown in this because, I promise you, this fluoride issue is not going to go away.

Regardless of what Dr Cunliffe and his lackeys in the health department want to put in the name of the minister, there is now ample science and ample research to show that we have this wrong. We have this wrong and there is only one worse than making a mistake and that is not having the courage to stand up and admit that, 40 years ago when we fluoridated South Australia's water supply, we only knew what we knew.

However, now, and especially since 1995, the research has been rolling in and there are some 3,175 healthcare professionals who have signed a petition, as I mentioned in my last speech, to ban water fluoridation. These are not lackeys. There are: 543 registered nurses; 454 doctors of chiropractic, which includes masters of chiropractic; 408 PhDs, including doctors of science, doctors of education and doctors of public health; 353 MDs and surgeons; 284 dentists; 138 naturopathic practitioners, which I know would probably be scoffed at by some in here; 73 lawyers; 70 registered dental hygienists; 70 pharmacists; 51 acupuncturists; and 30 doctors of osteopathic medicine, just to mention a few.

These people have all participated in research studies of one kind or another that are showing skeletal and brain damage and fluoride to be the cause of many cancers, including bone cancer in young boys especially, and the early onset of puberty in young girls, because of the calcification of the pineal gland, which prevents the production of serotonin and melatonin and disrupts our endocrine system. I am asking all members to look at this with an open mind. I do not expect that I will be believed just because I am saying this; there is plenty of research out there.

However, when we have a world-class expert in our midst who is making herself available to share the knowledge and the science that she has accumulated over 35 years, which is verified by the scientists, researchers and healthcare professionals that I mentioned, we should not allow ourselves to pass up that opportunity, because, as many pro-fluoridationists who have gone over to the other side and spoken out against fluoridation—and there are many—say, water fluoridation is almost treated as a religion within the dentist and medical associations. They know now it is because it is big money.

When they were able to go in and do their own research and find out about the research and the toxicity of fluoride to the human body—because, let us face it, we are more than our smiles—they were horrified, and they have spoken out publicly on why they have changed their mind on fluoride. All this information is available, and not because it is tacky internet information either, because these guys have made sure that this information is widely available and easily accessible by anyone who would care to look into this issue and take an interest in it.

I have been communicating with all of these healthcare professionals for the last three months, and they are what they are. Some of them are the head of a preventive dentistry institution in their own country. Some of them are not just ordinary, everyday dentists: they are head of their field, and they are saying we have it wrong. So, I am asking members to make themselves available tomorrow at 12 o'clock to hear what Dr Susheela has to say and to consider whether perhaps it is time that we review our policy on water fluoridation in South Australia.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. R.P. Wortley.