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Statement Of Vivianne Gardner
Environmental Protection Agency
Aging Initiative Public Listening Session
San Antonio, Texas
April 8, 2003
I'm glad you are here and glad that I am allowed to speak. I'm concerned about healthful living for senior citizens. I've been on this planet three-fourths of a century. I've watched media tell us what to eat, how to think and everything else. I call this Healthy Living for Senior Citizens. Number one: be happy. Live and enjoy the present moment. Sharpen your sense of humor and read the comics. Number two: learn new things. Keep your mind sharp by working word puzzles or taking up a hobby. Number three: exercise your body every day. Walk, job, swim or do anything of an aerobic nature. Start slow and build up gradually to your peak performance. Enjoy it as a recreational sport. Number four: this is very important. nourish your wonderful body with the very best foods. The more raw and organic foods you eat, the healthier you will be. Processed white sugar and white flour products cause us to starve to death with full stomachs.
A vegetarian diet intake is healthy. Vegan vegetarian - no animal products at all - no milk, butter, eggs and cheese is healthiest of all for you and the planet. Then you won't get mercury from fish either. Number five: do not drink the water. That is, from your faucet, but do drink plenty of pure, clean water every day. It is your civic duty to find out what is in your water. When you put the fluoride in, they didn't tell us anything but it saves kids' teeth. Great big billboards saying "Saves Kids' Teeth." Not one thing about where fluoride comes from or what it is or what it is composed of. It's toxic waste, like sodium fluoride, which we know it is. It's a former component of rat poison, this we were not told. I checked with an elderly gentleman, who has been in the hardware business, selling rat poison for more than half a century. He said it used to say that on the carton. He took me over to look at the rat poison. It shows all kinds of chemical terms he couldn't understand. He said that it is probably a derivative {of sodium fluoride} but they don't want you to know that it still is rat poison. That's his assumption. Join our effort to get this removed. When they say that over half of the public here in San Antonio voted it in, they only voted it in for tooth decay for children. (I'm not a resident of San Antonio so I didn't vote on that). They didn't realize what fluoride was doing for the senior citizens and their bones. I've been lucky enough to realize that faucet water is not good for you, even without fluoride, but with it, water is a deadly poison. These things need to be done in order to have optimum health. Take time off to relax, meditate, and pray. May the rest of your life be the best of your life. I care.
There's a point that has never been brought out. It relates to an experience I had in Athens, Ohio. I was with my mother. She never ever was sick. It was about a Tuesday. She said, "I don't understand it. I don't feel good." Then she called half a dozen of her church friends. Everyone of them said that they did not feel well either. Then, on Wednesday, they became more ill. As the week went on, by Sunday, they were practically bedridden. They could not figure out what this problem was. Then, on Monday morning, a big headline appeared in the "Athens Beacon-Journal." Surprise, you have been drinking fluoridated water for a week. This shows that it is not psychological because none of them knew that they were taking this poison into their systems. I was drinking bottled water at that time but mother didn't follow my lead. So I was lucky and didn't get ill. They should have not pushed it in. They don't tell you anything except that it helps children's teeth. They don't tell you how it makes your bones fracture, makes them brittle. Now I have another very sad thing to relate. I have the most beautiful granddaughter. She is in her mid-twenties and she could be a model except that she has mottled teeth from fluoride.