2011/10/05 Council Agenda Packet

October 12, 2011 Dear Everett City Councilmembers: My adult autistic son has severe chemical sensitivities, a long painful discovery about 12 years ago. After changing his diet and environment to eliminate chemicals in 1999, his medical conditions improved but he still had chronic pain and headaches. When, at a friend's suggestion, I finally eliminated all fluoridated water for drinking and cooking in 2000,the pain faded away in days. Life and health was relatively good for the next several years, as long as I was diligent in keeping chemicals away. But as the years went by, his ability to detoxify decreased and his reactivity to chemicals increased. In 2008, he was experiencing severe headaches again, often migraines, but oddly they happened mostly in the mornings, after he got out of bed but before going to work. I tried all kinds of things in an attempt to stop the pain, unsuccessfully. One day another mom of an autistic teen told me about their reactions to bathing in fluoridated water. I was dumbfounded that I hadn't even thought of transdermal exposure from my son's morning shower! We had a chlorine filter on the showerhead, but it didn't take the fluoride out. I switched his shower to the evening the next day. A headache was pounding soon after and he was awake until 2am, screaming, sweating and bed-pounding. I remembered all the times he had had these late night episodes years prior when he took epsom salt baths for pain---it helped tremendously at first, but the pain hit full force when he went to bed. I hadn't connected the dots then and if it hadn't been for the other mom, my son would have suffered much longer needlessly. I've tested various waters, including chlorinated-only, and the common pain denominator is consistently fluoridated water. How many suffer like him, needlessly? Audrey Adams 10939 SE 183rd Ct Renton WA 98055 425-271-2229