The Lowdown on Fluoride

http://www.npwa.freeserve.co.uk/dental_fluorosis.html#N_2_

More on flouride; much more 

 
 


DENTAL FLUOROSIS:
Smile, please -
but don't say 'Cheese'

George Glasser and Jane Jones

ABSTRACT
At least THREE MILLION people in England suffer from dental fluorosis. The Government's York Review on water fluoridation showed that about THREE QUARTERS OF A MILLION people have dental fluorosis which is "of concern". No studies have ever been done on the psychological damage caused by fluorosed (stained) teeth. A 1998 survey showed that people with defective teeth are more likely to experience social and employment discrimination. Half of the respondents saw unattractive teeth as a sign of poor personal hygiene. International scientists concur that dental fluorosis is a FORESEEABLE event from fluoridating drinking water, and the victims are at increased risk for psychological and behavioural problems and difficulties. This can be the subject of litigation against those who promote and implement water fluoridation.



Pictures of dental fluorosis

Those involved in the promotion and implementation of water fluoridation are vulnerable to significant legal liability. Reparations for the foreseeable consequence of dental disfigurement are likely to be further compounded by punitive damages which can be awarded for subsequent psychological pain and suffering experienced by the Plaintiff. (1)

"After a handshake, a friendly smile is one of the most important elements in creating a good first impression. However, it's hard to smile if you're self-conscious about teeth that are yellow or stained." (School of Dental Medicine at the University of New York). (2)

A 1998 survey by the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry showed that:

more than 92% of adults agree that an attractive smile is an important social asset;
85% believe that an unattractive smile makes a person less appealing to the opposite sex;
75% believe that an unattractive smile can be detrimental to a person's chances of career success; and
half of the respondents see unattractive teeth as a sign of poor personal hygiene.

Overall, the survey found that people with unattractive smiles are more likely to experience social and employment discrimination.

According to the UK Government's systematic scientific review on water fluoridation, carried out at York University, about forty eight per cent of people living in fluoridated areas are affected by dental fluorosis.

In England, this translates to nearly three million individuals who have fluorosed teeth to some degree. For three quarters of a million people , dental fluorosis is of the "moderate to severe" degree. The condition is characterised by white chalky spots or brown staining and pitting of their teeth. (3)

In 1985, following a review commissioned by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, an independent panel of behavioural scientists found that people with moderate to severe fluorosis are at increased risk of experiencing psychological and behavioural problems. (4) (5)

People afflicted with dental fluorosis are more likely to experience discrimination from an early age. Teachers often prejudge a child's intellect and personality based on appearance alone. These children are more often likely to be considered as troublemakers or non-scholars. Such biassed views reinforce a negative stereotype, with self-fulfilling results. (6)

Thousands of official documents confirm that artificial fluoridation of drinking water can, and does produce the "aesthetically objectionable" effect of moderate to severe dental fluorosis. The psychological damage suffered by millions of victims of dental fluorosis is given little attention.

Moreover, in the persistent drive to extend fluoridation schemes across the country, dental and public health officials dismiss this distressing condition as an acceptable public health trade-off, insisting that "the benefits outweigh the risks."

The Department of Health asserts that water fluoridation is the most cost-effective means of reducing tooth decay. However, the Department turns a blind eye to the huge financial burden on individual patients who require remedial treatment for unsightly fluorosed teeth.

Cosmetic veneers provide an extremely lucrative spin-off for the privatised dental profession. In England, charges range from £150 to £450 per tooth and repeat treatments are required every five or six years throughout the victim's life. People who cannot afford cosmetic veneers, professional bleaching or micro-abrasive treatment have no option but to live with their fluoride-damaged teeth and the attendant social stigma and psychological trauma.

While the York Review panel of experts acknowledged that dental fluorosis affects up to 48% of the British population, they signally failed to address the economic, social and psychological impact on the victims.

However, more perceptive scientists and dentists are sensitive to the social stigma of dental fluorosis.

Irish dental surgeon, Donal McAuley, wrote in the British Medical Journal: "Fifty per cent of our population has dental fluorosis. I see patients daily in my surgery who are damaged by fluoride. They do not smile, they are teased at school, and they are traumatised by having 'rotten' teeth." Drinking water in Ireland is artificially fluoridated. (7)
In 1994, a Kenyan survey noted that between 60 and 84% of respondents viewed dental fluorosis as an important problem because of its unfavourable effects on an individual's personality." (8)
A later Canadian study examined the influence of fluoride exposures on the widespread "aesthetic problems" caused by dental fluorosis. It acknowledged that forty six percent (nearly half) of the participants had dental fluorosis. The effect on personal appearance, as defined by the participants themselves, was more prevalent in the over-11 age group. (9)
The trauma experienced by young people with dental fluorosis is depressingly apparent in a South African study conducted by the NW Province Department of Health: "The psychological effect in terms of the unsightly, brown-stained teeth, has induced the adolescents with fluorosed teeth to demand that these teeth be extracted and replaced with dentures." (10)
"The prevalence of dental fluorosis appears to be on the increase. Although in its mild form the condition is not considered to be of cosmetic significance, the more severe forms can cause great psychological distress to the affected individual." (11) (12)
An Australian Health Department analysed society's perceptions of dental fluorosis, based on over 3,000 responses. Lay and professional observers recognised that higher degrees of fluorosis increasingly embarrass the child. All observers, except the dentists, felt that the more severe fluorosis indicated neglect on the part of the child . (13)
Egyptian researchers observed that friends and relatives ridicule the patient by inferring that these stains are associated with smoking and/or poor oral hygiene. They noted that such personal remarks lead an individual into severe psychological depression. (14)

Parents, too, commonly experience feelings of anguish and guilt over their children's fluorosed teeth.

For thirty years, until she discovered the scientific literature, Anita Knight endured a private agony over her son's lack of self esteem and emotional problems. "I was outraged," she said. "It was immediately obvious to me that so-called scientists and public health officials had arrogantly and callously written off my son as a laboratory rat in their inhuman experiment."

Dental fluorosis is extensively described by toxicologists as the first visible sign of chronic fluoride poisoning . The result of over-exposure to fluoride was well understood by the dental profession until the early 1950s.

Some prominent researchers have pointed out that dentists who knowingly promote treatment which leads to dental fluorosis place themselves at risk of litigation. (15) All researchers and government agencies acknowledge that dental fluorosis is a foreseeable , "objectionable cosmetic effect" that can and does occur following artificial fluoridation.

Despite anti-discrimination laws, the unattractive appearance of people with dental fluorosis can severely limit their academic performance, employment choices and future prospects. Teeth which appear "dirty" can seriously affect an individual's ability to interact and form relationships with members of the opposite sex, leading to exclusion, loneliness and long-term depression. Such conditions can precipitate feelings of frustration and anger which could, in turn, lead to criminal behaviour.

Promoters of water fluoridation are aware of, but do not warn the public about the foreseeable adverse effect of dental fluorosis or the foreseeable psychological damage which can and does occur to subsections of the population. When a plaintiff suffers harm, whether physical or psychological, it is only necessary for him to show the court that the injury was reasonably foreseeable . (1)

Meanwhile, three million English cases of dental fluorosis are officially ignored and three quarters of a million people have been severely, and foreseeably damaged.

References

1. Page v. Smith, House of Lords [1996] 1 AC 155; [1995] 2WLR 655 [1995] 2 All ER 736.

2. University of New York, School of Dental Medicine, Oral Health Letter.

3. McDonagh MS, Whiting PF, Wilson PM, Sutton AJ, Chestnutt I, Cooper J, Misso K, Bradley M, Treasure E, Kleijnen J, Systematic review of water fluoridation. BMJ 2000; 321: 855-9.

4. Drinking Water Regulations; Fluoride. 50 Fed. Reg. 220, 47144 (1985).

5. Welbury, P., Shaw, L. A simple technique for removal of mottling, opacities and pigmentation. Dental Update 1990; 17: 161-3.

6. Tauber, Robert T. Good or Bad, What Teachers Expect from Students They Generally Get! ERIC Digest , 1998-12-00, Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Teaching and Teacher Education Washington DC.

7. Water fluoridation. Letters; BMJ 2001; 322: 1486.

8. Mwaniki DL, Courtney JM, Gaylor JD,. Endemic fluorosis: an analysis of needs and possibilities based on case studies in Kenya. Soc Sci Med 1994; 39: 807-13.

9. Clark DC, Berkowitz J. The influence of various fluoride exposures on the prevalence of esthetic problems resulting from dental fluorosis. J Public Health Dent 1997; 57:144-9.

10. Mothusi, B. Psychological Effects of Dental Fluorosis. Department of Health, North West Province, South Africa.

11. McKnight CB, Levy SM, Cooper SE, Jakobsen JR. A pilot study of esthetic perceptions of dental fluorosis vs. selected other dental conditions. ASDC J Dent Child 1998; 65: 233-8, 229.

12. Rodd and Davidson. The aesthetic management of severe dental fluorosis in the young patient. Dent Update 1997; 24: 408-11.

13. Riordan PJ., Perceptions of dental fluorosis. J Dent Res 1993; 72: 1268-74.

14. Rahmatulla. Clinical evaluation of two different techniques for the removal of fluorosis stains. Egypt Dent J 1995; 41: 1287-94.

15. Whitford, G.M. Physiological and Toxicological Characteristics of Fluoride, Journal of Dental Research 1990; 69, Spec No: 539-49; discussion 556-7.

More on Flouride - much more 

The Flouride Issue

Here is another good article on the flouride conspiracy:

http://www.nexusmagazine.com/fluoridebomb.html 

Fluoride more toxic than lead!

Mullenix is also one more casualty of the fluoride wars. She had nothing to do with the fluoride issue originally, but became involved as part of her work. All she “knew” about fluoride when she started was that it was supposedly good for your teeth. She was not excited about performing the research, but was doing it because she was asked. Her research results were published in Neurotoxicology and Teratology (Vol.17, No. 2, pp.169-177, 1995), the leading scientific journal in the field. Before that paper was published, she presented her findings at the National Institute of Dental Research (NIDR) in Maryland, a division of the National Institute of Health (NIH). When she arrived at the NIDR, in her words, "I had no idea what I was getting into. I walked into the main corridors there and all over the walls was 'The Miracle of Fluoride'. That was my first real kick-in-the-pants as to what was actually going on." She said that the display ridiculed the people against fluoridation. "I thought, 'Oh great!' Here's the main NIH hospital talking about the 'Miracle of Fluoride' and I'm giving a seminar to the NIDR telling them that fluoride is neurotoxic!"[48] After her presentation to the NIDR, she met with toothpaste representatives who asked her if she was saying that their products lowered the IQs of children, and Mullenix responded, “basically, yes.” That marked the end of her career.

When she excitedly announced to her employers that her paper on the

intelligence of rats was being published, three days later she was fired.

Right after she was fired, her former employers asked her which journal was

going to publish her work. By that time, she realized that they wanted to

block its publication, so she did not tell them. Subsequently, funding has

dried up for that kind of research, though immediately after Mullenix was

fired, Colgate gave a $250,000 grant to Forsyth (for a job well done?). The

unique equipment Mullenix developed to test rat intelligence was mysteriously

destroyed before she could recover it.

Dr. Mullenix was then given an unfunded research position at Children's

Hospital in Boston, but with no equipment or money. Mullenix said, "The

people at Children's Hospital, for heaven's sake, came right out and said

they were scared because they knew how important the fluoride issue was…Even

at Forsyth they told me I was endangering funds for the institution if I

published that information."[49]

Mullenix has since applied to the NIH for a research grant to further her

research, and was turned down. The NIH told her that fluoride had no central

nervous system effects, period. How the NIH concluded that, when about the

only published research shows deleterious effects, is curious indeed. The

work Mullenix did, as well as other recent studies[50], has shown that the

fluoride ion is particularly damaging to the brain's hippocampal region,

which is its learning center.

Mullenix’ fate is common, and my work documents many instances of scientists

and others arriving at the “wrong” answers, and having their careers

destroyed. Other scientists who had their careers ruined for coming up with

the “wrong” answer regarding fluoridation include Dr. Allan S. Gray of

British Columbia and Dr. John Colquhon of Auckland, New Zealand.

In light of Hodge’s secret work for the Manhattan Project, and the secret

memos and secret studies that are the tip of the iceberg, every

pro-fluoridation effort that uses Hodge’s name is tainted. It was with

interest that I read Fluoride and Dental Caries. It is a recent book on the

subject, published in 1986. The book is a compendium on fluoridation,

drawing on various experts in the field. Hodge co-wrote a chapter on

fluoride toxicity, and he wrote a chapter dealing with objections to

fluoridation. Reading that book was another enlightening process, when I got

over my anger. The book gives the appearance of looking at fluoridation from

many aspects, but appearance is the operative word. Hodge’s work we already

know is suspect, to put it mildly, and I looked there first.

Hodge’s co-author on the toxicology chapter was another fluoridation

luminary: Frank Smith from the University of Rochester. With that

professional pedigree and affiliation with Hodge, it is nearly certain that

Smith was also deeply involved with the Manhattan Project. I take it for

granted that with that background, I can trust nothing they write. It is

instructive to see the blind spots in their work, and what they are obviously

hiding. When Smith and Hodge stated that “No substantive evidence of ill

health has ever been offered in children or adults as a result of consuming

drinking water containing optimal concentrations of fluoride,”[51] they are

voicing the nuclear establishment’s damage control opinion, because there is

substantial evidence of harm, but they chose to ignore it. When they say,

“Since the Danish experience (in the 1930s) crippling fluorosis in an

industrial setting has never been seen in the United States or Europe,”[52]

take a grain of salt with that statement. With just one declassified study,

out of many that exist and are still secret, definite harm occurred, though

by playing semantics games we could say they were not “crippled,” just

toothless, though the long-term effects are unknown, which might be in

another classified study. People getting violently ill from du Pont’s

fluoride cloud is another invisible event, at least to the public, when Hodge

and Smith wrote their masterpiece of disinformation. The worst air pollution

disaster in U.S. history happened in October 1948 in Donora, Pennsylvania,

when an air inversion layer formed over the town for four days, and fluoride

emissions from U.S. Steel’s zinc and steel facilities killed twenty people

and seriously injured hundreds more. If the inversion layer had lasted one

more day, a thousand people may have died. U.S. Steel and the PHS conspired

to cover-up the disaster, with records missing to this day.[53]

Throughout Fluoride and Dental Caries, there were instances of “looking” at

objections to fluoridation, and the appearance of looking at them was

undertaken. The close relationship between ALCOA, the other fluoride

polluters and the early fluoridation researchers is nowhere mentioned,

although it is well documented and is consistently one of the biggest issues

raised by fluoridation's opponents. A table on the “anti-science” arguments

against fluoridation was even produced on page 130, in a chapter titled

“Legal, Social and Economics Aspects of Fluoridation,” that even mentioned

the “Communist conspiracy” aspect of fluoridation. Nowhere was mentioned

the obvious economic incentives of fluoride polluters to manage the

fluoridation issue, and the well-documented instances of them funding and

influencing the fluoridation research, even when it is merely the smoking gun

of conflict of interest. The authors of that chapter, including the book’s

editor, trotted out the words “pseudoscientist” and “quack” to describe

fluoridation opponents and their “anti-science.” In the chapter purporting

to look at the broad spectrum of issues regarding fluoridation, the ALCOA and

fluoride polluter issue was spectacularly absent.

In Fluoride and Dental Caries, one area caught my interest. In Hodge’s

chapter on fluoridation objections, he presented experimental evidence by a

group of chemists that showed the fluorine ion benign to human chemistry.

The research was used to discredit John Yiamouyiannis, who uses the very same

research to show how the fluorine ion wreaks havoc in the body. Hodge

interpreted the original research, qualifying and minimizing the conclusions,

and then he presented the experimental work of pro-fluoridation pal

Armstrong. Hodge concluded that the research showed that the fluorine ion

was relatively harmless by itself. That part was interesting, because it is

the first time that I have seen Yiamouyiannis' science challenged, beyond his

cancer statistic analyses with Dean Burk. With knowing Hodge’s extreme and

formerly secret bias, I cannot trust his writing, particularly regarding the

fluoride ion and human harm, but it was interesting reading. When anybody is

proven a systematic liar, can you believe anything they say? How do you

separate fact from fiction in those cases? The only way I know is to

entirely reject their work and become your own expert.

Here are some quotes regarding the biological damage the fluorine ion does to

human health, the kind you will not find in pro-fluoridation propaganda like

Fluoride and Dental Caries. Yiamouyiannis’ contentions are herein supported.

 

 

"Fluorides are general protoplasmic poisons, probably because of their

capacity to modify the metabolism of cells by changing the permeability of

the cell membrane and by inhibiting certain enzyme systems. The exact

mechanism of such actions is obscure." - Journal of the American Medical

Association, Sept 18, 1943. (before the propaganda steamroller really got

going in 1947)

"The fluoride ion exerts its toxic effect by inhibiting the action of many

enzyme systems." - Hugo Theorell, M.D., Nobel Prize winner for his research

in the field of enzyme chemistry.

"We ought to go slowly. Everybody knows that fluorine and fluorides are very

poisonous substances and we use them in enzyme chemistry to poison enzymes,

those vital agents in the body. That is the reason things are poisoned;

because enzymes are poisoned, and that is why animals and plants die." -

James B. Sumner, Director of Enzyme Chemistry, Department of Biochemistry and

Nutrition, Cornell University, and a Nobel Prize winner for his work in the

field of enzyme chemistry.

"The data indicated that drinking water with as little as 1 PPM shortened the

life span of mice an average of nine per cent. This was true whether death

was due to cancer or non-cancerous diseases. The only notice proponents of

fluoridation gave to this work was to discredit it as much as possible. ...

In experiments where the drug was added directly to suspensions of cancer

tissue before inoculation into eggs or mice, sodium fluoride stimulated the

growth of cancer tissue in concentrations of one part in more than 20

million. Scientists at Cambridge University (British Medical Journal, Oct

26, 1963) discovered that concentrations of sodium fluoride as low as one

part in ten million inhibited the growth of a culture of human tissue. ...

the growing weight of scientific evidence that water-borne fluorides, even at

1 PPM, have toxic possibilities must finally be recognized." - Alfred

Taylor, Ph.D., Clayton Foundation, Biochemical Institute, University of

Texas, Austin Texas, 1965.

"The terrifying conclusion of the studies was that fluorine greatly induced a

cancer tumor’s growth. If doctors and the public can be made aware of this

catastrophe, fluoridation shall end quickly. It will someday be recognized

as the most lethal and stupid "Health Program" ever conceived by the mind of

man, witch doctors and blood-letters not excepted."

"In 1969 the country of Sweden intended to fluoridate their water supply due

to the strong advice of Professor Yngve Ericsson, a Swedish dentist who was

also the senior representative on the World Health Organization's Expert

Committee on Fluoridation. However, it was then found that Professor

Ericsson coincidentally was the holder of two highly-profitable patents on

fluoride toothpaste!" - Alfred Taylor, June 13, 1970 the Gothenburg Post

(Sweden); August 5, 1970 the News Register (Sweden); and May 1, 1970 Norsk

Folkehelselag (Norway).

"In 1978, the West German Association of Water and Gas Experts rejected

fluoridation for legal reasons, and because ‘the so-called optimal fluoride

concentration of 1mg/liter is close to the dose at which long-term damage to

the human body is to be expected.’" - Chemical and Engineering News, August

1, 1988.

 

All in all, the tremendous blind spots regarding fluoride polluters, diet and

caries, the severe biases regarding the harm done by fluorides, and Hodge’s

secret mission on behalf of the nuclear establishment rendered Fluoride and

Dental Caries virtually worthless, except as an instructive exercise in

propaganda. With the now-known nuclear industry’s very active though secret

management of the fluoridation issue, books like Fluoride and Dental Caries

are examples of “pseudoscience” in the strongest sense.

The situation of industry and government corrupting science is far from

confined to the fluoridation issue. Today, ethyl alcohol, the substance that

every drunkard knows well, is added to American gasoline to increase its

octane rating. It works great. It was also used eighty years ago. In the

1920s, ethyl alcohol was replaced by tetraethyl lead as an octane booster.

Why? As it turns out, nobody could patent ethyl alcohol and make big

monopoly profits from putting it into gasoline. Therefore, General Motors,

Standard Oil and du Pont conspired to make a new, patentable chemical, and

tetraethyl lead was introduced into American gas tanks. Even though even Ben

Franklin remarked on lead’s well-known toxic qualities hundreds of years ago,

and even ancient Romans and Greeks wrote of its toxic properties,

industrially-funded scientists in the 20th century labored mightily to make

lead appear safe to ingest, even though they knew how deadly tetraethyl lead

really was. It is unknown just how many people got sick and died from the

effects of lead being spewed into the air during the era of tetraethyl lead,

but it is certainly not inconsiderable. In 1985, the EPA estimated 5,000

lead-related heart disease deaths per year, prior to the tetraethyl lead

phase out. The lead content of American bloodstreams has fallen

precipitously since tetraethyl lead was outlawed. The most notorious of the

industrial laboratories that produced the lead “research” was Kettering

Laboratories.[54] For generations, Kettering and its industrial sponsors

controlled all the lead research. The “Kettering” of Kettering Laboratories

was Charles Kettering, the inventor and General Motors executive. Kettering

Laboratories is not the only “medical” foundation that he helped bankroll.

The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the leading cancer research

institute in the world, is named after Kettering and his buddy, General

Motors CEO Alfred Sloan, another noted “philanthropist.” Kettering

Laboratories also was instrumental in making aluminum appear to be a benign

substance, and Kettering’s efforts on the fluoridation issue are well known.

http://home1.gte.net/res0k62m/fluoride.htm#conclusion

There's more - this'll knock your socks off

Shocking News About Fluoride

Fluoride more toxic than lead!!!

The following article exposes the biggest on-going medical experiment ever carried out by the United States Government on an unsuspecting population.

Fluoride, Teeth, and the Atomic Bomb by Joel Griffiths and Chris Bryson © July 1997

Some fifty years after the United States began adding fluoride to public water supplies to reduce cavities in children’s teeth, declassified government documents are shedding new light on the roots of that still controversial public health measure, revealing a surprising connection between fluoride and the dawning of the nuclear age.

Today, two thirds of U.S. public drinking water is fluoridated. Many municipalities still resist the practice, disbelieving the government’s assurances of safety .

Since the days of World War II, when this nation prevailed by building the world’s first

atomic bomb, U.S. public health leaders have maintained that low doses of fluoride are safe for people, and good for children’s teeth.

That safety verdict should now be re-examined in the light of hundreds of once-secret

World War II documents obtained by Griffiths and Bryson—including declassified papers of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. military group that built the atomic bomb.

Fluoride was the key chemical in atomic bomb production, according to the documents.

Massive quantities of fluoride—millions of tons—were essential for the manufacture of

bomb-grade uranium and plutonium for nuclear weapons throughout the Cold War. One of the most toxic chemicals known, fluoride rapidly emerged as the leading chemical health hazard of the U.S. atomic bomb program—both for workers and for nearby communities, the documents reveal.

Other revelations include:

Much of the original proof that fluoride is safe for humans in low doses was generated by A-bomb program scientists, who had been secretly ordered to provide "evidence useful in litigation" against defense contractors for fluoride injury to citizens. The first lawsuits against the U.S. A-bomb program were not over radiation, but over fluoride damage, the documents show.

Human studies were required. Bomb program researchers played a leading role in the design and implementation of the most extensive U.S. study of the health effects of fluoridating public drinking water—conducted in Newburgh, New York from 1945 to 1956. Then, in a classified operation code-named "Program F," they secretly gathered and analysed blood and tissue samples from Newburgh citizens, with the cooperation of State Health Department personnel.

The original secret version—obtained by these reporters—of a 1948 study published by Program F scientists in the Journal of the American Dental Association shows that evidence of adverse health effects from fluoride was censored by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) -- considered the most powerful of Cold War agencies—for reasons of national security.

The bomb program’s fluoride safety studies were conducted at the University of

Rochester, site of one of the most notorious human radiation experiments of the Cold War, in which unsuspecting hospital patients were injected with toxic doses of radioactive plutonium.

The fluoride studies were conducted with the same ethical mind-set, in which "national security" was paramount.

The U.S. government’s conflict of interest—and its motive to prove fluoride "safe"—has not until now been made clear to the general public in the furious debate over water fluoridation since the 1950’s, nor to civilian researchers and health professionals, or journalists.

The declassified documents resonate with a growing body of scientific evidence, and a chorus of questions, about the health effects of fluoride in the environment.

Human exposure to fluoride has mushroomed since World War II, due not only to fluoridated water and toothpaste, but to environmental pollution by major industries from aluminum to pesticides: Fluoride is a critical industrial chemical.

The impact can be seen, literally, in the smiles of our children. Large numbers of U.S. young people—up to 80 percent in some cities—now have dental fluorosis, the first visible sign of excessive fluoride exposure, according to the U.S. National Research Council. (The signs are whitish flecks or spots, particularly on the front teeth, or dark spots or stripes in more severe cases.)

Less-known to the public is that fluoride also accumulates in bones—"The teeth are windows to what’s happening in the bones," explains Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry at

St. Lawrence (N.Y.) University. In recent years, pediatric bone specialists have expressed alarm about an increase in stress fractures among U.S. young people. Connett and other scientists are concerned that fluoride—linked to bone damage by studies since the 1930’s -- may be a contributing factor. The declassified documents add urgency: Much of the original proof that low-dose fluoride is safe for children’s bones came from U.S. bomb program scientists, according to this investigation.

Now, researchers who have reviewed these declassified documents fear that Cold War

national security considerations may have prevented objective scientific evaluation of vital public health questions concerning fluoride.

Information was buried," concludes Dr. Phyllis Mullenix, former head of toxicology at

Forsyth Dental Center in Boston, and now a critic of fluoridation. Animal studies Mullenix and co-workers conducted at Forsyth in the early 1990’s indicated that fluoride was a powerful central nervous system (CNS) toxin, and might adversely affect human brain functioning,

even at low doses. (New epidemiological evidence from China adds support, showing a correlation between low-dose fluoride exposure and diminished I.Q. in children.) Mullenix’s results were published in 1995, in a reputable peer-reviewed scientific journal.

During her investigation, Mullenix was astonished to discover there had been virtually no previous U.S. studies of fluoride’s effects on the human brain. Then, her application for a grant to continue her CNS research was turned down by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), where an NIH panel, she says, flatly told her that "fluoride does not have central nervous system effects."

Declassified documents of the U.S. atomic-bomb program indicate otherwise. An April 29, 1944 Manhattan Project memo reports: "Clinical evidence suggests that uranium hexafluoride may have a rather marked central nervous system effect.... It seems most likely that the F [code for fluoride] component rather than the T [code for uranium] is the causative factor."

The memo—stamped "secret"—is addressed to the head of the Manhattan Project’s Medical Section, Col. Stafford Warren. Colonel Warren is asked to approve a program of animal research on CNS effects: "Since work with these compounds is essential, it will be necessary to know in advance what mental effects may occur after exposure... This is important not only to protect a given individual, but also to prevent a confused workman from injuring others by improperly performing his duties."

On the same day, Colonel Warren approved the CNS research program. This was in 1944, at the height of the Second World War and the nation’s race to build the world’s first atomic bomb. For research on fluoride’s CNS effects to be approved at such a momentous time, the supporting evidence set forth in the proposal forwarded along with the memo must have been persuasive.

The proposal, however, is missing from the files of the U.S. National Archives. "If you find the memos, but the document they refer to is missing, it’s probably still classified," said Charles Reeves, chief librarian at the Atlanta branch of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, where the memos were found. Similarly, no results of the Manhattan Project’s fluoride CNS research could be found in the files.

After reviewing the memos, Mullenix declared herself "flabbergasted." She went on, "How could I be told by NIH that fluoride has no central nervous system effects when these documents were sitting there all the time?" She reasons that the Manhattan Project did do fluoride CNS studies—"that kind of warning, that fluoride workers might be a danger to the bomb program by improperly performing their duties—I can’t imagine that would be ignored—but that the results were buried because they might create a difficult legal and public relations problem for the government."

The author of the 1944 CNS research proposal was Dr. Harold C. Hodge, at the time chief of fluoride toxicology studies for the University of Rochester division of the Manhattan Project. Nearly fifty years later at the Forsyth Dental Center in Boston, Dr. Mullenix was introduced to a gently ambling elderly man brought in to serve as a consultant on her CNS research Harold C. Hodge. By then Hodge had achieved status emeritus as a world authority on fluoride safety.

"But even though he was supposed to be helping me," says Mullenix, "he never once mentioned the CNS work he had done for the Manhattan Project."

The "black hole" in fluoride CNS research since the days of the Manhattan Project is unacceptable to Mullenix, who refuses to abandon the issue. "There is so much fluoride exposure now, and we simply do not know what it is doing," she says. "You can’t just walk away from this."

Dr. Antonio Noronha, an NIH scientific review advisor familiar with Dr. Mullenix’s grant request, says her proposal was rejected by a scientific peer-review group. He terms her claim of institutional bias against fluoride CNS research "farfetched." He adds, "We strive very hard at NIH to make sure politics does not enter the picture."

Fluoride and National Security

A massive Manhattan Project pollution incident in New Jersey sparks secret wartime U.S. research on fluoride safety.

The documentary trail begins at the height of World War II, in 1944, when a severe pollution incident occurred downwind of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours Company chemical factory in Deepwater, New Jersey. The factory was then producing millions of pounds of fluoride for the Manhattan Project, the ultra-secret U.S. military program racing to produce the world’s first atomic bomb.

The farms downwind in Gloucester and Salem counties were famous for their high quality produce—their peaches went directly to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Their tomatoes were bought up by Campbell’s Soup. But in the summer of 1943, the farmers began to report that their crops were blighted, and that "something is burning up the peach crops around here."

Poultry died after an all-night thunderstorm, they reported. Farm workers who ate the produce they had picked sometimes vomited all night and into the next day. "I remember our horses looked sick and were too stiff to work," these reporters were told by Mildred Giordano, who was a teenager at the time. Some cows were so crippled that they could not stand up, and grazed by crawling on their bellies.

The account was confirmed in taped interviews, shortly before he died, with Philip Sadtler of Sadtler Laboratories of Philadelphia, one of the nation’s oldest chemical consulting firms.

Sadtler had personally conducted the initial investigation of the damage.

Although the farmers did not know it, according to once-secret documents obtained by

these reporters, the attention of the Manhattan Project and the federal government was riveted on the New Jersey incident. After the war’s end, in a secret Manhattan Project memo dated March 1, 1946, the Project’s chief of fluoride toxicology studies, Harold C.

Hodge, worriedly wrote to his boss, Colonel Stafford L. Warren, Chief of the Medical Division, about "problems associated with the question of fluoride contamination of the atmosphere in a certain section of New Jersey. There seem to be four distinct (though related) problems," continued Hodge;

"1. A question of injury of the peach crop in 1944.

"2. A report of extraordinary fluoride content of vegetables grown in this area.

"3. A report of abnormally high fluoride content in the blood of human individuals residing in this area.

"4. A report raising the question of serious poisoning of horses and cattle in this area." The New Jersey farmers waited until the war was over, then sued du Pont and the Manhattan Project for fluoride damage—reportedly the first lawsuits against the U.S. A-bomb program.

Although seemingly trivial, the lawsuits shook the government, the secret documents reveal.

Under the personal direction of Manhattan Project chief Major General Leslie R. Groves, secret meetings were convened in Washington, with compulsory attendance by scores of scientists and officials from the U.S. War Department, the Manhattan Project, the Food and Drug Administration, the Agriculture and Justice Departments, the U.S Army’s Chemical Warfare Service and Edgewood Arsenal, the Bureau of Standards, and du Pont lawyers.

Declassified memos of the meetings reveal a secret mobilization of the full forces of the government to defeat the New Jersey farmers:

These agencies "are making scientific investigations to obtain evidence which may be used to protect the interest of the Government at the trial of the suits brought by owners of peach orchards in ... New Jersey," stated Manhattan Project Lieutenant Colonel Cooper B. Rhodes, in a memo c.c.’d to General Groves. "27 August 1945

"Subject: Investigation of Crop Damage at Lower Penns Neck, New Jersey "To: The Commanding General, Army Service Forces, Pentagon Building, Washington D.C. "At the request of the Secretary of War the Department of Agriculture has agreed to cooperate in investigating complaints of crop damage attributed... to fumes from a plant operated in connection with the Manhattan Project."

Signed, L.R. Groves, Major General, U.S. Army

"The Department of Justice is cooperating in the defense of these suits," wrote General Groves in a February 28, 1946 memo to the Chairman of the U. S. Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy.

Why the national-security emergency over a few lawsuits by New Jersey farmers? In 1946 the United States had begun full-scale production of atomic bombs. No other nation had yet tested a nuclear weapon, and the A-bomb was seen as crucial for U.S leadership of the postwar world. The New Jersey fluoride lawsuits were a serious roadblock to that strategy.

"The specter of endless lawsuits haunted the military," writes Lansing Lamont in his acclaimed book about the first atomic bomb test, "Day of Trinity,"

In the case of fluoride, "If the farmers won, it would open the door to further suits, which might impede the bomb program’s ability to use fluoride," said Jacqueline Kittrell, a Tennessee public interest lawyer specializing in nuclear cases, who examined the declassified fluoride documents. (Kittrell has represented plaintiffs in several human radiation experiment cases.) She added, "The reports of human injury were especially threatening, because of the potential for enormous settlements—not to mention the PR problem."

Indeed, du Pont was particularly concerned about the "possible psychologic reaction" to the New Jersey pollution incident, according to a secret 1946 Manhattan Project memo. Facing a threat from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to embargo the region’s produce because of "high fluoride content," du Pont dispatched its lawyers to the FDA offices in Washington, where an agitated meeting ensued. According to a memo sent next day to General Groves, Du Pont’s lawyer argued "that in view of the pending suits... any action by the Food and Drug Administration... would have a serious effect on the du Pont Company and would create a bad public relations situation." After the meeting adjourned, Manhattan project Captain John Davies approached the FDA’s Food Division chief and "impressed upon Dr. White the substantial interest which the Government had in claims which might arise as a result of action which might be taken by the Food and Drug Administration."

There was no embargo. Instead, new tests for fluoride in the New Jersey area would be conducted—not by the Department of Agriculture—but by the Chemical Warfare Service -- because "work done by the U. S. Army’s Chemical Warfare Service would carry the greatest weight as evidence if... lawsuits are started by the complainants." The memo was signed by General Groves.

Meanwhile, the public relations problem remained unresolved—local citizens were in a panic about fluoride.

The farmer’s spokesman, Willard B. Kille, was personally invited to dine with General Groves -- then known as "the man who built the atomic bomb"—at his office at the War Department on March 26, 1946. Although he had been diagnosed with fluoride poisoning by his doctor, Kille departed the luncheon convinced of the government’s good faith. The next day he wrote to the general, wishing the other farmers could have been present, he said, so "they too could come away with the feeling that their interests in this particular matter were being safeguarded by men of the very highest type whose integrity they could not question."

In a subsequent secret Manhattan Project memo, a broader solution to the public relations problem was suggested by chief fluoride toxicologist Harold C. Hodge. He wrote to the Medical Section chief, Colonel Warren: "Would there be any use in making attempts to counteract the local fear of fluoride on the part of residents of Salem and Gloucester counties through lectures on F toxicology and perhaps the usefulness of F in tooth health?"

Such lectures were indeed given, not only to New Jersey citizens but to the rest of the nation throughout the Cold War.

The New Jersey farmers’ lawsuits were ultimately stymied by the government’s refusal to reveal the key piece of information that would have settled the case—how much fluoride du Pont had vented into the atmosphere during the war. "Disclosure... would be injurious to the military security of the United States," wrote Manhattan Project Major C.A. Taney, Jr. The farmers were pacified with token financial settlements, according to interviews with descendants still living in the area.

"All we knew is that du Pont released some chemical that burned up all the peach trees around here," recalls Angelo Giordano, whose father James was one of the original plaintiffs.

"The trees were no good after that, so we had to give up on the peaches." Their horses and cows, too, acted stiff and walked stiff, recalls his sister Mildred. "Could any of that have been the fluoride?" she asked. (The symptoms she detailed to the authors are cardinal signs of fluoride toxicity, according to veterinary toxicologists.)

The Giordano family, too, has been plagued by bone and joint problems, Mildred adds.

Recalling the settlement received by the Giordanos, Angelo told these reporters "my father said he got about $200."

The farmers were stonewalled in their search for information, and their complaints have long since been forgotten. But they unknowingly left their imprint on history—their claims of injury to their health reverberated through the corridors of power in Washington, and triggered intensive secret bomb-program research on the health effects of fluoride. A secret 1945 memo from Manhattan Project Lt. Colonel Rhodes to General Groves stated:

"Because of complaints that animals and humans have been injured by hydrogen fluoride fumes in [the New Jersey] area, although there are no pending suits involving such claims, the University of Rochester is conducting experiments to determine the toxic effect of fluoride."

Much of the proof of fluoride’s safety in low doses rests on the postwar work performed by the University of Rochester, in anticipation of lawsuits against the bomb program for human injury.

Fluoride and the Cold War

Delegating fluoride safety studies to the University of Rochester was not surprising. During World War II the federal government had become involved, for the first time, in large scale funding of scientific research at government-owned labs and private colleges. Those early spending priorities were shaped by the nation’s often-secret military needs.

The prestigious upstate New York college, in particular, had housed a key wartime division of the Manhattan Project, studying the health effects of the new "special materials," such as uranium, plutonium, beryllium and fluoride, being used to make the atomic bomb. That work continued after the war, with millions of dollars flowing from the Manhattan Project and its successor organization, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). (Indeed, the bomb left an indelible imprint on all of U.S. science in the late 1940’s and 50’s. Up to 90% of federal funds for university research came from either the Defense Department or the AEC in this period, according to Noam Chomsky’s 1996 book "The Cold War and the University.")

The University of Rochester medical school became a revolving door for senior bomb program scientists. Postwar faculty included Stafford Warren, the top medical officer of the Manhattan Project, and Harold Hodge, chief of fluoride research for the bomb program.

But this marriage of military secrecy and medical science bore deformed offspring. The University of Rochester’s classified fluoride studies—code-named Program F—were conducted at its Atomic Energy Project (AEP), a top-secret facility funded by the AEC and housed in Strong Memorial Hospital. It was there that one of the most notorious human radiation experiments of the Cold War took place, in which unsuspecting hospital patients were injected with toxic doses of radioactive plutonium. Revelation of this experiment in a Pulitzer prize-winning account by Eileen Wellsome led to a 1995 U.S. Presidential investigation, and a multimillion-dollar cash settlement for victims.

Program F was not about children’s teeth. It grew directly out of litigation against the bomb program and its main purpose was to furnish scientific ammunition which the government and its nuclear contractors could use to defeat lawsuits for human injury.

Program F’s director was none other than Harold C. Hodge, who had led the Manhattan Project investigation of alleged human injury in the New Jersey fluoride-pollution incident.

Program F’s purpose is spelled out in a classified 1948 report. It reads: "To supply evidence useful in the litigation arising from an alleged loss of a fruit crop several years ago, a number of problems have been opened. Since excessive blood fluoride levels were reported in human residents of the same area, our principal effort has been devoted to describing the relationship of blood fluorides to toxic effects."

The litigation referred to, of course, and the claims of human injury were against the bomb program and its contractors. Thus, the purpose of Program F was to obtain evidence useful in litigation against the bomb program. The research was being conducted by the defendants.

The potential conflict of interest is clear. If lower dose ranges were found hazardous by Program F, it might have opened the bomb program and its contractors to lawsuits for injury to human health, as well as public outcry.

Comments lawyer Kittrell: "This and other documents indicate that the University of Rochester’s fluoride research grew out of the New Jersey lawsuits and was performed in anticipation of lawsuits against the bomb program for human injury. Studies undertaken for litigation purposes by the defendants would not be considered scientifically acceptable today," adds Kittrell, "because of their inherent bias to prove the chemical safe."

Unfortunately, much of the proof of fluoride’s safety rests on the work performed by Program F Scientists at the University of Rochester. During the postwar period that university emerged as the leading academic center for establishing the safety of fluoride, as well as its effectiveness in reducing tooth decay, according to Dental School spokesperson William H. Bowen, M.D. The key figure in this research, Bowen said, was Harold C. Hodge—who also became a leading national proponent of fluoridating public drinking water.

Program F’s interest in water fluoridation was not just "to counteract the local fear of fluoride on the part of residents," as Hodge had earlier written. The bomb program needed human studies, as they had needed human studies for plutonium, and adding fluoride to public water supplies provided one opportunity.

The A Bomb Program and Water Fluoridation

Bomb-program scientists played a prominent if unpublicized role in the nation’s first-planned water fluoridation experiment, in Newburgh, New York. The Newburgh Demonstration Project is considered the most extensive study of the health effects of fluoridation, supplying much of the evidence that low doses are safe for children’s bones, and good for their teeth.

Planning began in 1943 with the appointment of a special New York State Health Department committee to study the advisability of adding fluoride to Newburgh’s drinking water. The chairman of the committee was Dr. Hodge, then chief of fluoride toxicity studies for the Manhattan Project.

Subsequent members included Henry L. Barnett, a captain in the Project’s Medical section, and John W. Fertig, in 1944 with the office of Scientific Research and Development, the Pentagon group which sired the Manhattan Project. Their military affiliations were kept secret: Hodge was described as a pharmacologist, Barnett as a pediatrician. Placed in charge of the Newburgh project was David B. Ast, chief dental officer of the State Health Department. Ast had participated in a key secret wartime conference on fluoride held by the Manhattan Project, and later worked with Dr. Hodge on the Project’s investigation of human injury in the New Jersey incident, according to once-secret memos.

The committee recommended that Newburgh be fluoridated. It also selected the types of medical studies to be done, and "provided expert guidance" for the duration of the experiment. The key question to be answered was: "Are there any cumulative effects— beneficial or otherwise, on tissues and organs other than the teeth—of long-continued ingestion of such small concentrations...?" According to the declassified documents, this was also key information sought by the bomb program, which would require long-continued exposure of workers and communities to fluoride throughout the Cold War.

In May 1945, Newburgh’s water was fluoridated, and over the next ten years its residents were studied by the State Health Department. In tandem, Program F conducted its own secret studies, focusing on the amounts of fluoride Newburgh citizens retained in their blood and tissues—key information sought by the bomb program: "Possible toxic effects of fluoride were in the forefront of consideration," the advisory committee stated. Health Department personnel cooperated, shipping blood and placenta samples to the Program F team at the University of Rochester. The samples were collected by Dr. David B. Overton, the Department’s chief of pediatric studies at Newburgh.

The final report of the Newburgh Demonstration Project, published in 1956 in the Journal of the American Dental Association, concluded that "small concentrations" of fluoride were safe for U.S. citizens. The biological proof—"based on work performed ... at the University of Rochester Atomic Energy Project"—was delivered by Dr. Hodge.

Today, news that scientists from the atomic bomb program secretly shaped and guided the Newburgh fluoridation experiment, and studied the citizen’s blood and tissue samples, is greeted with incredulity.

"I’m shocked—beyond words," said present-day Newburgh Mayor Audrey Carey, commenting on these reporters’ findings. "It reminds me of the Tuskeegee experiment that was done on syphilis patients down in Alabama."

As a child in the early 1950’s, Mayor Carey was taken to the old firehouse on Broadway in Newburgh, which housed the Public Health clinic. There, doctors from the Newburgh fluoridation project studied her teeth, and a peculiar fusion of two finger bones on her left hand she had been born with. Today, adds Carey, her granddaughter has white dental-fluorosis marks on her front teeth.

Mayor Carey wants answers from the government about the secret history of fluoride, and the Newburgh fluoridation experiment. "I absolutely want to pursue it," she said. "It is appalling to do any kind of experimentation and study without people’s knowledge and permission."

Contacted by these reporters, the director of the Newburgh experiment, David B. Ast, says he was unaware Manhattan Project scientists were involved. "If I had known, I would have been certainly investigating why, and what the connection was," he said. Did he know that blood and placenta samples from Newburgh were being sent to bomb program researchers at the University of Rochester? "I was not aware of it," Ast replied. Did he recall participating in the Manhattan Project’s secret wartime conference on fluoride in January 1944, or going to New Jersey with Dr. Hodge to investigate human injury in the du Pont cases as secret memos state? He said he had no recollection of these events.

A spokesperson for the University of Rochester Medical Center, Bob Loeb, confirmed that blood and tissue samples from Newburgh had been tested by the University’s Dr. Hodge.

On the ethics of secretly studying U.S. citizens to obtain information useful in litigation against the A-bomb program, he said, "that’s a question we cannot answer." He referred inquiries to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), successor to the Atomic Energy Commission.

A spokesperson for the DOE in Washington, Jayne Brody, confirmed that a review of DOE files indicated that a "significant reason" for fluoride experiments conducted at the University of Rochester after the war was "impending litigation between the du Pont company and residents of New Jersey areas." However, she added, "DOE has found no documents to indicate that fluoride research was done to protect the Manhattan Project or its contractors from lawsuits."

On Manhattan Project involvement in Newburgh, the spokesperson stated, "Nothing that we have suggests that the DOE or predecessor agencies—especially the Manhattan Project— authorized fluoride experiments to be performed on children in the 1940’s."

When told that the reporters had several documents that directly tied the Manhattan Project’s successor agency at the University of Rochester, the AEP, to the Newburgh experiment, the DOE spokesperson conceded her study was confined to "the available universe" of documents. Two days later spokesperson Jayne Brody faxed a statement for clarification: "My search only involved the documents that we collected as part of our human radiation experiments project—fluoride was not part of our research effort."

"Most significantly," the statement continued, "relevant documents may be in a classified collection at the DOE Oak Ridge National Laboratory known as the Records Holding Task Group. "This collection consists entirely of classified documents removed from other files for the purpose of classified document accountability many years ago," and was "a rich source of documents for the human radiation experiments project," she said.

The crucial question arising from this investigation is: Were adverse health findings from Newburgh and other bomb-program fluoride studies suppressed?

All AEC funded studies had to be declassified before publication in civilian medical and dental journals. Where are the original classified versions? The transcript of one of the major secret scientific conferences of World War II - on "fluoride metabolism"—is missing from the files of the U.S. National Archives. Participants in the conference included key figures who promoted the safety of fluoride and water fluoridation to the public after the war—Harold Hodge of the Manhattan Project, David B. Ast of the Newburgh Project, and U.S. Public Health Service dentist H.Trendley Dean, popularly known as the "father of fluoridation." "If it is missing from the files, it is probably still classified," National Archives librarians said.

A 1944 World War II Manhattan Project classified report on water fluoridation is missing from the files of the University of Rochester Atomic Energy Project, the U.S. National Archives, and the Nuclear Repository at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The next four numerically consecutive documents are also missing, while the remainder of the "MP-1500 series" is present. "Either those documents are still classified, or they’ve been "disappeared" by the government," says Clifford Honicker, Executive Director of the American Environmental Health Studies Project in Knoxville, Tennessee, which provided key evidence in the public exposure and prosecution of U.S. human radiation experiments.

Seven pages have been cut out of a 1947 Rochester bomb-project notebook entitled "Du Pont litigation." "Most unusual," commented chief medical school archivist Chris Hoolihan.

Similarly, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by these authors over a year ago with the DOE for hundreds of classified fluoride reports have failed to dislodge any.

"We’re behind," explained Amy Rothrock, chief FOIA officer at Oak Ridge National Laboratories.

Was information suppressed? These reporters made what appears to be the first discovery of the original classified version of a fluoride safety study by bomb program scientists. A censored version of this study was later published in the August 1948 Journal of the American Dental Association. Comparison of the secret with the published version indicates that the U.S. AEC did censor damaging information on fluoride, to the point of tragicomedy.

This was a study of the dental and physical health of workers in a factory producing fluoride for the A-bomb program, conducted by a team of dentists from the Manhattan Project.

The secret version reports that most of the men had no teeth left. The published version reports only that the men had fewer cavities.

The secret version says the men had to wear rubber boots because the fluoride fumes disintegrated the nails in their shoes. The published version does not mention this.

The secret version says the fluoride may have acted similarly on the men’s teeth, contributing to their toothlessness. The published version omits this statement.

The published version concludes that "the men were unusually healthy, judged from both a medical and dental point of view."

Asked for comment on the early links of the Manhattan Project to water fluoridation, Dr. Harold Slavkin, Director of the National Institute for Dental Research, the U.S. agency which today funds fluoride research, said, "I wasn’t aware of any input from the Atomic Energy Commission," Nevertheless, he insisted, fluoride’s efficacy and safety in the prevention of dental cavities over the last fifty years is well-proved. "The motivation of a scientist is often different from the outcome," he reflected. "I do not hold a prejudice about where the knowledge comes from."

After comparing the secret and published versions of the censored study, toxicologist Phyllis Mullenix commented, "This makes me ashamed to be a scientist." Of other Cold War-era fluoride safety studies, she asks, "Were they all done like this?"

Archival research by Clifford Honicker

 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Joel Griffiths lives in New York City. Author of a book on radiation hazards, he has contributed numerous articles to medical and popular publications. Chris Bryson, who holds a masters degree in Journalism, is an independent reporter with ten years’ professional experience. He has worked with BBC Radio and Public Television in New York, plus numerous publications, including the Christian Science Monitor and the Mansfield Guardian.

 

Additional notes: Harold C. Hodge and the U.S. Army

Dr. Hodge is deceased. However, in 1979 his chapter in a book titled "Continuing Evaluation of the Use of Fluorides" set the record straight. With regard to the "safe" dosage of fluoride for children, Hodge wrote: "The most important and widely disregarded fact about dental fluorosis is this: no safe established daily intake exists, i.e., the maximal amount in mg fluoride which consumed daily does NOT produce cosmetically damaging extensive white areas or brown stain in some individuals has not been fixed."

In the same publication, Dr. Hodge also corrected his figures for crippling skeletal fluorosis.

In his calculations made during the early 1950s it appears, although not spelled out, that Hodge had neglected to convert pounds to kilograms. As a result, most reviews which contain the "crippling daily dose of fluoride," including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 1991 document, Review of Fluoride: Benefits and Risks, as well as the current Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) and the new Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI) -- another document from the Institute of Medicine—use 20-80 mg/day figures. (Although these documents refer to Hodge, they completely ignore Hodge’s 1979 correction of the older erroneous figures.)

Sandra Schlicker, study director for the DRI, has acknowledged her understanding of Hodge’s error, as well as the correction in 1979; yet, offers no explanation for using the older erroneous figures. In addition, this latest report dismisses the correction made by another NAS/NRC panel in 1993, falsely claiming the corrected figures for "Crippling" were meant to apply only to the earlier non-crippling stages of the disease.

The bottom line is this: At currently reported intake levels, excess fluoride from multiple sources has surpassed the quantity known to cause serious adverse health effects within about forty years. (i.e., 5 mg/day will cause crippling deformities of the spine and major joints) Within about twenty years, with a daily intake of 5 mg, the symptoms to be expected include chronic joint pain as well as brittle bones.

Knowing full well that five milligrams of fluoride daily would be expected to produce phase 3 crippling skeletal fluorosis in the average individual after about 40 years, the committee has determined that 10 milligrams of fluoride daily is "tolerable." The question, "Tolerable to whom?" remains unanswered.

 

More about the Army

Although facilities had been constructed to provide fluoride in the drinking water system at Ft. Detrick, key components corroded to the point that the system was shut down.

Reinstating fluoridation became subject to regulations involving an environmental assessment.

On 11 December 1996 Commander, Colonel Henry O. Tuell, III, wrote to U.S. Army Medical Command, Fort Sam Houston, Texas. In this memo Colonel Tuell states: "...recent research and findings regarding efficacy of fluoridation and the adverse health effects, could be serious."

In other words, drinking fluoridated water may be unsafe.

As yet, the Army post at Fort Detrick, (Frederick, Maryland) remains unfluoridated.
--------------------------------

What Is Fluoride?

WHAT IS FLUORIDE?

Fluoride is any combination of elements containing the fluoride ion. In its elemental form, fluorine is a pale yellow, highly toxic and corrosive gas. In nature, fluorine is found combined with minerals as fluorides. It is the most chemically active nonmetallic element of all the elements and also has the most reactive electro-negative ion. Because of this extreme reactivity, fluorine is never found in nature as an uncombined element.

Fluorine is a member of group VIIa of the periodic table. It readily displaces other halogens—such as chlorine, bromine and iodine—from their mineral salts. With hydrogen it forms hydrogen fluoride gas which, in a water solution, becomes hydrofluoric acid.

There was no US commercial production of fluorine before World War II. A requirement for fluorine in the processing of uranium ores, needed for the atomic bomb, prompted its manufacture.(6)

Fluorine compounds or fluorides are listed by the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) as among the top 20 of 275 substances that pose the most significant threat to human health.(7) In Australia, the National Pollutant Inventory (NPI) recently considered 400 substances for inclusion on the NPI reporting list. A risk ranking was given based on health and environmental hazard identification and human and environmental exposure to the substance. Some substances were grouped together at the same rank to give a total of 208 ranks. Fluoride compounds were ranked 27th out of the 208 ranks.(8)

Fluorides, hydrogen fluoride and fluorine have been found in at least 130, 19, and 28 sites, respectively, of 1,334 National Priorities List sites identified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).9 Consequently, under the provisions of the Superfund Act (CRECLA, 1986), a compilation of information about fluorides, hydrogen fluoride and fluorine and their effects on health was required. This publication appeared in 1993.(9)

Fluorides are cumulative toxins. The fact that fluorides accumulate in the body is the reason that US law requires the Surgeon General to set a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for fluoride content in public water supplies as determined by the EPA. This requirement is specifically aimed at avoiding a condition known as Crippling Skeletal Fluorosis (CSF), a disease thought to progress through three stages. The MCL, designed to prevent only the third and crippling stage of this disease, is set at 4ppm or 4mg per liter. It is assumed that people will retain half of this amount (2mg), and therefore 4mg per liter is deemed ``safe." Yet a daily dose of 2-8mg is known to cause the third crippling stage of CSF.(10,11)

In 1998 EPA scientists, whose job and legal duty it is to set the Maximum Contaminant Level, declared that this 4ppm level was set fraudulently by outside forces in a decision that omitted 90 percent of the data showing the mutagenic properties of fluoride.(12)

The Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products, 5th Edition (1984) gives lead a toxicity rating of 3 to 4 (3 = moderately toxic, 4 = very toxic) and the EPA has set 0.015 ppm as the MCL for lead in drinking water—with a goal of 0.0ppm. The toxicity rating for fluoride is 4, yet the MCL for fluoride is currently set at 4.0ppm, over 250 times the permissable level for lead

====================================

50 Reasons to Oppose Fluoridation
http://www.fluoridealert.org/50reasons.htm  


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: A Million Thanks and Congradulations !!!
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 18:18:51 -0400
From: Jean Francois Milette <nenki@sympatico.ca>
Reply-To: nenki@sympatico.ca
To: apfn@apfn.org

Thank you so much for having such a page on the research on
Fluorides...Here in Quebec not much exists on it espescially in French
...So...some of my work will be to translate some of this important
material into french and spread it around on the Web and in my
conferences. Of course I have already given your URL to all of my
E-Group and will refer it to everyone I can..in France also. It is a
world wide plaigue. So... good luck with your goals and keep up the
mission...In support and frienship, Francois Pierre Milette aka Nenki.
--------------

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Why All Americans Are SHEEPLES
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Fluoride Is Good For Us Says Government
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Fluoride
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WATER
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Focus: Fluoride
HTTP://www.hearstnp.com/san_antonio/bea/news
/stories/san/storypage.cfm?xlc=115955&xla=saen


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http://www.fightfluoride.com/main.html

Fluoride News Tracker
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Population Control
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