king
04-08-2007, 07:41 AM
this is a great book by Jonathan Eisen on Suppressed Inventions.
I am posting here the whole chapter on history of fluoridation as i really
think that I need to share this information with you.
This is an absolute must read and must save (in your archives)
-- if you do not have the book. A really great thing about this chapter on
fluoridation is that it does not sound that it was written by some conspiracy
nut, but it is very factual, with tons of source references (I will post them in
next post due to message size)
so, it is all facts, provable facts.
here it goes:
The Great
Fluoridation
Hoax; Fact or
Fiction?
Dr. Ronald S. Laura and John F. Ashton
DOES IT BENEFIT YOU? OR BIG BUSINESS!
The controversy surrounding fluoridation raises a number of important
socio-ethical issues which cannot be overlooked. One of the most burning
questions is whether the fluoridation programme represents a milestone in
the advancement of community health or the opportunistic outcome of a
powerful lobby concerned largely to advance its own vested interests at
the expense of the interests of the public. The historical origins of fluoridation
are revealing, though we shall for obvious reasons in what follows
not interpret the revelation itself, but rather tease out a few of the truly
remarkable coincidences which make those origins revelatory.
In a more direct approach to a related issue, however, we shall argue that
the potential and actual health risks associated with fluoridation have not
been sufficiently appreciated by those in favor of fluoridation. The intentional
introduction of fluorides in drinking water has certainly not received
the rigorous scrutiny and testing properly brought to bear on the wide array
of available medical drugs, many of which can be bought without prescription.
Finally, we urge that even if it were determined that the addition of a
minimal amount of fluoride to our water supply was both safe and effective
in the reduction of caries in the teeth of children, the relevant dosage of
fluorides could not be satisfactorily restricted to ensure that the harmful
effects of fluoride did not outweigh the alleged beneficial effects.
THE GENESIS OE FLUORIDATION
Many readers will be surprised to hear that fluorides have been in use for
a long time, but not in the prevention of tooth decay. The fluorides we
now, in the name of health, add to our drinking water were for nearly four
decades used as stomach poison, insecticides and rodenticides. Fluorides
are believed to exert their toxic action on pests by combining with and
inhibiting many enzymes that contain elements such as iron, calcium and
magnesium. For similar reasons fluorides are also highly toxic to plants,
disrupting the delicate biochemical balance in respect of which photosynthesis
takes place. Nor is there any reason to suspect that humans are
immune from the effects of this potent poison. Even a quick perusal of the
indexes of most reference manuals on industrial toxicology list a section
on the hazards of handling fluoride compounds. In assessing the toxicity
levels of fluorides Sax confirms that doses of 25 to 50 mg must be regarded
as "highly toxic" and can cause severe vomiting, diarrhea and CNS
manifestations.
It is crucial to recognise from the outset that fluoride is a highly toxic
substance. Appreciation of this simple point makes it easier to understand
the natural reluctance on the part of some to accept without question the
compulsory ingestion of a poison to obtain partial control of what would
generally be regarded as a noncommunicable disease. The potent toxicity
of fluoride and the narrow limits of human tolerance (between 1-5 ppm)
make the question of optimum concentration of paramount importance.
FLUORINE WASTES-A MAJOR POLLUTANT
The fluoridation controversy becomes even more interesting when we
realise that industrial fluorine wastes have since the early 1900s been one
of the main pollutants of our lakes, streams and acquifers, causing untold
losses to farmers in regard to the poisoning of stock and crops.
Fluorides such as hydrogen fluoride and silicon tetrafluoride are emitted
by phosphate fertilizer manufacturing plants (phosphate rock can typically
contain 3 percent fluoride). The industrial process of steel production,
certain chemical processing and particularly aluminium production
which involves the electrolysis of alumina in a bath of molten cryolite
(sodium aluminium hexafluoride) all release considerable quantities of
fluorides into the environment. The fluorides emitted are readily absorbed
by vegetation and are known to cause substantial leaf injury. Even in concentrations
as low as 0.1 ppb (parts per billion), fluorides significantly
reduce both the growth and yield of crops. Livestock have also fallen victim
to fluoride poisoning caused primarily by ingesting contaminated vegetation.
2 It is reported that the Aluminum Corporation of America
(ALCOA) was confronted by annual claims for millions to compensate
for the havoc wreaked by their fluorine wastes. It was in 1933 that the
United States Public Health Service (PHS) became particularly concerned
about the poisoning effect of fluoride on teeth determining that dental flu
orosis (teeth mottled with yellow, brown and even black stains) occurred
amongst 25-30 percent of children when just over 1 ppm of fluoride was
present in drinking water.3 By 1942 the PHS, largely under the guidance
of Dr. H. Trendley Dean, legislated that drinking water containing up to 1
ppm of fluoride was acceptable. The PHS was not at this stage introducing
fluoridation—it was concerned mainly to define the maximum allowable
limit beyond which fluoride concentrations should be regarded as
contaminating public water supplies. Dean's research investigations also
indicated that although 1 ppm fluoride concentration caused enamel fluorosis
or mottling in a small percentage of children (up to 10 percent), it
also served to provide partial protection against dental decay.4
HOW IT ALL STARTED
Dean was also well aware that fluoride concentrations of as little as 2 ppm
could constitute a public health concern, causing severe dental fluorosis.
Coincidentally, the U.S. PHS was at the time sponsored under the Department
of the Treasury, the chief officer of which was Andrew Mellon,
owner of ALCOA. In 1939 The Mellon Institute (established and controlled
by the family of Andrew Mellon), employed a scientist, Dr. Gerald
Cox, to find a viable market for the industrial fluoride wastes associated
with the production of aluminium. Of this intriguing series of connections
between the interests of ALCOA and the story of fluoridation Walker
writes:
In 1939, Gerald Cox, a biochemist employed by the University of
Pittsburgh, was undertaking contract work for the Mellon Institute.
At a meeting of water engineers at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, he first
put forward his idea to add fluoride to public water supplies.
By 1940, Cox had become a member of the Food and Nutrition Board
of the National Research Council, and he prepared for this illustrious
body a series of submissions strongly promoting the idea of artificial fluoridation.
Dennis Stevenson also comments about this connection between Dr.
Cox, ALCOA and fluoridation but somewhat more cynically. He writes:
Dr. Cox then proposed artificial water fluoridation as a means of reducing
tooth decay. What better way to solve the huge and costly problem
of disposing of toxic waste from aluminum manufacturers than getting
paid to put it in the drinking water? What an incredible coincidence—
ALCOA and the original fluoridation proposal.
Nor do the chain of seeming coincidences end here.
Caldwell refers to the very interesting testimony of Miss Florence
Birmingham on May 25-27, 1954, before the Committee on Interstate and
Foreign Commerce, which had organised a series of hearings on the
fluoridation issue. As President of the Massachusetts Women's Political Club,
Miss Birmingham was on the occasion representing some 50,000 women.
She is recorded as saying:
In 1944 Oscar Ewing was put on the payroll of the Aluminum Company
of America [ALCOA], as attorney; at an annual salary of $750,000. This
fact was established at a Senate hearing and became part of the
Congressional Record. Since the aluminum company had no big litigation
pending at the time, the question might logically be asked, why such
a large fee? A few months later Mr. Ewing was made Federal Security
Administrator with the announcement that he was taking a big salary cut
in order to serve his country. As head of the Federal Security Agency
(now the Department of Health, Education and Welfare), he immediately
started the ball rolling to sell "rat poison" by the ton instead of in dime
packages ... sodium fluoride was dangerous waste product of the aluminum
company. They were not permitted to dump it into rivers or fields
where it would poison fish, cattle, etc. Apparently someone conceived
the brilliant idea of taking advantage of the erroneous conclusions
drawn from Deaf Smith County, Texas.* The Aluminum Company of
America then began selling sodium fluoride to put in the drinking water.
Facts About Fluoride
TOOTH DECAY IS NOT REDUCED
BY WATER FLUORIDATION!
A computer analysis of the data from the largest dental survey
ever done—of nearly 40,000 school children—by the National
Institutes of Dental Research revealed no correlation between
tooth decay and fluoridation. In fact, many of the non-fluoridated
cities had better tooth decay rates than fluoridated cities. The city
with the lowest rate of tooth decay was not fluoridated. Of the
three with the highest rate of decay, two were partially fluoridated.
The Missouri State Bureau of Dental Health had conducted
a survey of more than 6,500 lifelong resident second- and
sixth-grade children in various parts of Missouri and found that
overall . . . there were no significant differences between
children drinking optimally fluoridated water and children
drinking suboptimally fluoridated water.
—Albertt W. Burgstahler, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry, University of Kansas
. . . school districts reporting the highest caries-free rates, were
totally unfluoridated. How does one explain this?
—A. S. Gray, D.D.S.
Journal of the Canadian Dental Association, 1987
all surveys both here and in Western Europe show that
the reduction in [dental] caries over the past 20 years is just
as great in unfluoridated as in fluoridated communities.
—John R. Lee, M.D.
Even the Journal of the American Dental Association [states]
that "the current reported decline in caries in the U.S. and other
Western industrialised countries has been observed in both fluoridated
and nonfluoridated communities, with percentage reductions
in each community apparently about the same."
—Chemical & Engineering News, 1 August 1988
INFANT MORTALITY RATES ARE HIGHEST
IN FLUORIDATED CITIES
Figures released by the National Centre for Health Statistics
reveal that infant mortality is a big problem in the United States.
The data shows that the ten cities with the worst rate of infant
mortality have all been artificially fluoridated at least seventeen
years or longer!
After the first full year of fluoridation Kansas City, Missouri's
infant mortality increased 13 percent.
—The Kansas City Star, 21 November 1982
After the fifth year of fluoridation in Kansas City, infant mortality
increased 36 percent.
—The Kansas City Star, 26 February 1987
The series of events which thereafter led to the apparently inevitable
implementation of fluoridation deserve also to be reviewed. In 1945
Grand Rapids, Michigan was selected as the site of the first major longitudinal
study of the effects of fluoridation on the public at large.
Comparisons were to be made with the city of Muskegon, Michigan
which remained unfluoridated so that it could be used as a control.9
Although the experiment was supposed to be undertaken over the
course of ten years to determine any cumulative side-effects which might
result from the fluoridation of municipal water, Ewing intervened after
only five years to declare the success of the study in showing fluoridation
to be safe. As Walker puts it:
In June, 1950, half-way through the experiment, the U.S. PHS under its
Chief, Oscar Ewing, "endorsed" the safety and effectiveness of artificial
fluoridation; and encouraged its immediate adoption through the
States.10
One year later Ewing was able to convince the American Congress that
fluoridation was a necessity, and a total of two million U.S. dollars (an
enormous sum of money in those days) was immediately directed to promote
the fluoridation program throughout the USA.11
While the circumstances surrounding Ewing's achievement were
revealing, an even more intriguing set of interconnections was yet to be
revealed. Miss Birmingham's testimony had included a statement that
"Mr. Ewing's propaganda expert was Edward L. Bernays."1 Her testimony
continued:
We quote from Dr. Paul Manning's article: 'The Federal Engineering of
Consent." Nephew of Sigmund Freud, the Vienna born Mr. Bernays is well
documented in the Faxon book published in 1951 (Rumford Press,
Concord, N.H.); Public Relations: Edward L. Bernays and the American
Scene. The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits
and opinions of the masses must be done by experts, the public relations
counsels (Bernays invented the term); "they are the invisible rulers who
control the destinies of millions . . . the most direct way to reach the herd
is through the leaders. For, if the group they dominate will respond ... all
this must be planned . . . indoctrination must be subtle. It should be
worked into the everyday life of the people—24 hours a day in hundreds
of ways ... A redefinition of ethics is necessary ... the subject matter of
the propaganda need not necessarily be true," says Bernays.
If the socio-ethical attitudes expressed in this testimony are associated
with the fluoridation programme, it is clear that we have more than just
health reasons to be concerned about fluoridation.
In 1979 Chemical & Engineering News13 published a review of a well
documented anti-fluoridation book by Waldbott.14 The unashamedly profluoridation
review prompted a spate of letters criticising the tenor and
content of the review, and re-asserted Waldbott's persuasive case against
fluoridation. One letter complained that the reviewer was in fact explicitly
urging readers not to take seriously the various reports of fluoride poisoning.
15 Another letter writer drew attention to another aspect of the
review, saying:
Waldbott does not base his objection to fluoridation merely on dental fluorosis
but on the broader issue of individual clinical toxicity. Those of us
in clinical practice (and our patients as well) have much to be grateful to
Waldbott for in our attention to this aspect of fluoridation problems. The
alert clinician who goes beyond the orthodox practice of making diagnoses
keyed to organicity and providing symptomatic treatment will find
in his practice those individuals who are being made ill by fluoridation. It
is this insight that is Waldbott's greatest contribution . . .
A second major point bypassed in the book review is the fact of dramatically
increased dietary fluoride exposure, as confirmed by the data of
Rose and Marier (Canadian National Research Council), Herta Spencer,
Wiatroski, and others, including my own food fluoride study ... It boggles
the mind to argue, as the U.S. Public Health Service does, that "optimal"
water fluoridation levels should be the same in 1979 as they were in
1943 when food fluoride was essentially negligible.
It is ironic that if fluoridation were to be raised as new concept for the prevention
of tooth decay today, the same government agencies that might
employ reviewer Burt would reject the proposal without a second thought. It
is only an accident of historical scientific naivete that fluoridation became an
entrenched public policy. The fact that 100 million Americans (and a large
percentage of them against their expressed desire) are subject to the unnecessary
ecologic burden of water fluoridation does not make it right...
Mandatory medication by fluoridation was not of course peculiar to the
United States. Australians have for more than three decades been subjected
to forced fluoridation of their drinking water. In 1953 the National
Health & Medical Research Council of Australia lent its support to the
mandatory mass-medication of Australians.17 It is bizarre and disconcerting
to find that the introduction of the fluoridation programme into our
cities was also linked with political and industrial interplay. These connections
have been deftly exposed by Walker and more recently by Wendy
Varney in her book, Fluoride in Australia—A Case to Answer.18
Today, Australia has "distinguished" itself by promoting the fluoridation
programme with such vigour that Australia now ranks as the most
comprehensively fluoridated country in the world. More than 70 percent
of Australians are obliged to drink water to which fluorides have been
added. Brisbane is the only capital city which remains unfluoridated.
Australia persists in its policy committment to artificial fluoridation,
despite the fact that 98 percent of the world's population has either
discontinued fluoridation programmes or never begun them.
Statistics show that less than 40 percent of the U.S. is currently fluoridated
and less than 10 percent of England. Sweden, Scotland, Norway,
Hungary, Holland, West Germany, Denmark, and Belgium have all discontinued
fluoridation, to name only a few.
CAN FLUORIDATION BE KEPT AT SAFE LEVELS?
Although 1 ppm is standardly defined as that level of fluoride concentration
which provides maximal protection against dental decay, with minimal
clinically observable dental fluorosis, controversy ranges widely as to
adverse effects of prolonged fluoride exposure even at this level. As early
as 1942, it was reported that in areas of endemic fluorosis with fluoride
concentrations of 1 ppm or less, children with poor nutrition suffered skeletal
defects, coupled with severe mottling of teeth.
Even if one grants that fluoride concentrations of 1 ppm are relatively
safe, it has become increasingly clear that individual levels of safe fluoride
ingestion cannot be adequately controlled. Drinking water dosages of
fluoride, for example will depend partly upon variable factors such as
thirst. Liquid intakes also vary according to age, work situation, climate
and season and levels of exercise. Athletes, for instance, tend to consume
more water than their non-athletic counterparts. Adjustments to municipal
water supplies cannot accommodate satisfactorily the wide array of relevant
individual differences of this kind.
In addition fluorides are ingested in varying quantities from many
unsuspected sources. Fluoride tablets, seemingly innocuous mouthwashes,
gels and even water-based tablets contribute to dangerous increases in
fluoride levels well beyond the recommended 1 ppm contained in drinking
water. Although the point has yet to be established definitively, it has
been suggested that aluminum cooking utensils and non-stick cookware
which are coated with Tetrafluoroethylene may exude fluoride into food,
particularly if they have surface scratches or are overheated.20 Even more
surprising is the fact that tea leaves contain sufficient fluoride that by
drinking three to eight cups daily, using fluoridated water, the total fluoride
dosage is somewhere between four and six times the safe maximum
recommended daily allowance.21 In addition to endemic fluorides in the
natural foods we eat, we are in many industrial cities forced to breathe fluorides
derived from factory emissions
FLUORIDE CONTAMINATION
FROM BEVERAGE CONSUMPTION
By far the most common source of additional fluoride intake comes from
beverage consumption. Beverages which contain fluoridated water include
reconstituted juices, punches, popsicles, other water-based frozen
desserts and carbonated beverages. Studies have shown that soft drink
consumption in the U.S. has increased markedly over the last two
decades, not only among teenage boys from 15-17 years of age, but
among 1-2 year old children. Statistics show that in Canada soft drink
consumption increased by 37 percent from 1972 to 1981.23 The increase
in soft drink consumption coincided with a decrease in the consumption
of milk, thereby increasing the overall fluoride intake. A number of studies
reveal that the dramatic increase in beverage consumption, coupled
with fluoridation of municipal waters constitutes a potential health hazard.
24 Prolonged exposure to fluorides may actually increase rather than
diminish the incidence of tooth decay. Enzymatic damage related to
enamel mineralisation creates a parotic tooth far more susceptible to
caries than would otherwise be the case.25
In a major study of adverse effects of fluoride, Yiamouyiannis and Burk
reported in 1977 that at least 10,000 people in the U.S. die every year of
fluoride-induced cancer. In the introduction to their work 17 research
papers are cited which demonstrate the mutagenic effects associated with
fluorides.26 There is now side consensus within the scientific community
that the mutagenic activity of a substance can be regarded as an important
indication of its potential cancer-causing activity.
Since those provocative studies over a decade ago, a vast scientific
literature has continued to accumulate which strongly indicates that the
practice of fluoridating municipal water supplies is dangerous. In 1983 an
Australian dental surgeon, G. Smith, reported a number of studies which
suggest that there is now a serious risk to the public of fluoride overdose.
He argues that "the crucial argument does not concern the fluoride level
in a community water supply per se, but rather whether fluoridation
increases the risk that certain people develop, even for a short time, levels
of fluoride in the blood that can damage human cells and systems."
In 1985 another Australian scientist, M. Diesendorf, drew attention to
the discovery of a whole new dimension to the health hazards associated
with the ingestion of fluorides. Sodium fluoride, for example, had been
found to cause unscheduled DNA synthesis and chromosonal aberrations
in certain human cells. Other recent studies purport to reveal the actual
mechanism by virtue of which fluoride can disrupt the DNA molecule and
the active sites of the molecules of many human enzymes.
When all is said, it is manifestly clear that the time has come for a serious
and comprehensive review of the policy which mandates the compulsory
fluoridation of our municipal water supplies. Such a review will no
doubt require a multi-faceted approach in which reliable research investigations
can be integrated with a philosophy of health education to assist
their implementation. Through education it may be possible to appreciate
that within nature itself are important patterns of design for an overall programme
of health. In nature, for instance, fluorides are typically found in
decidedly insoluble forms which are relatively safe. By deliberately intervening
to make nature's insoluble forms of fluoride soluble we transform
a relatively harmless natural substance into a concentrated and highly
toxic substance which can then be indiscriminately dispersed throughout
the environment as a poison. The subtle constellation of health clues
which nature provides in respect of fluorides is further illustrated by the
simple but elegant mechanisms of breastfeeding. Breastfed infants are
actually protected from receiving more than extremely low concentrations
of fluoride in breast milk by an inbuilt physiological plasma/milk barrier
against fluoride. There is much about health to learn from nature, but to
do so we must be more concerned to join with nature in partnership than
to stand back from nature to subdue and manipulate it.
Whether the fluoridation campaign must be indicted in the light of the
evidence as one of the major public hoaxes perpetrated this century, is a
judgment best reserved for the reader. Whatever the judgment, it is
incontestable that the prevention of tooth decay is not the bottom-line of
the fluoridation debate when the panacea has become the poison
I am posting here the whole chapter on history of fluoridation as i really
think that I need to share this information with you.
This is an absolute must read and must save (in your archives)
-- if you do not have the book. A really great thing about this chapter on
fluoridation is that it does not sound that it was written by some conspiracy
nut, but it is very factual, with tons of source references (I will post them in
next post due to message size)
so, it is all facts, provable facts.
here it goes:
The Great
Fluoridation
Hoax; Fact or
Fiction?
Dr. Ronald S. Laura and John F. Ashton
DOES IT BENEFIT YOU? OR BIG BUSINESS!
The controversy surrounding fluoridation raises a number of important
socio-ethical issues which cannot be overlooked. One of the most burning
questions is whether the fluoridation programme represents a milestone in
the advancement of community health or the opportunistic outcome of a
powerful lobby concerned largely to advance its own vested interests at
the expense of the interests of the public. The historical origins of fluoridation
are revealing, though we shall for obvious reasons in what follows
not interpret the revelation itself, but rather tease out a few of the truly
remarkable coincidences which make those origins revelatory.
In a more direct approach to a related issue, however, we shall argue that
the potential and actual health risks associated with fluoridation have not
been sufficiently appreciated by those in favor of fluoridation. The intentional
introduction of fluorides in drinking water has certainly not received
the rigorous scrutiny and testing properly brought to bear on the wide array
of available medical drugs, many of which can be bought without prescription.
Finally, we urge that even if it were determined that the addition of a
minimal amount of fluoride to our water supply was both safe and effective
in the reduction of caries in the teeth of children, the relevant dosage of
fluorides could not be satisfactorily restricted to ensure that the harmful
effects of fluoride did not outweigh the alleged beneficial effects.
THE GENESIS OE FLUORIDATION
Many readers will be surprised to hear that fluorides have been in use for
a long time, but not in the prevention of tooth decay. The fluorides we
now, in the name of health, add to our drinking water were for nearly four
decades used as stomach poison, insecticides and rodenticides. Fluorides
are believed to exert their toxic action on pests by combining with and
inhibiting many enzymes that contain elements such as iron, calcium and
magnesium. For similar reasons fluorides are also highly toxic to plants,
disrupting the delicate biochemical balance in respect of which photosynthesis
takes place. Nor is there any reason to suspect that humans are
immune from the effects of this potent poison. Even a quick perusal of the
indexes of most reference manuals on industrial toxicology list a section
on the hazards of handling fluoride compounds. In assessing the toxicity
levels of fluorides Sax confirms that doses of 25 to 50 mg must be regarded
as "highly toxic" and can cause severe vomiting, diarrhea and CNS
manifestations.
It is crucial to recognise from the outset that fluoride is a highly toxic
substance. Appreciation of this simple point makes it easier to understand
the natural reluctance on the part of some to accept without question the
compulsory ingestion of a poison to obtain partial control of what would
generally be regarded as a noncommunicable disease. The potent toxicity
of fluoride and the narrow limits of human tolerance (between 1-5 ppm)
make the question of optimum concentration of paramount importance.
FLUORINE WASTES-A MAJOR POLLUTANT
The fluoridation controversy becomes even more interesting when we
realise that industrial fluorine wastes have since the early 1900s been one
of the main pollutants of our lakes, streams and acquifers, causing untold
losses to farmers in regard to the poisoning of stock and crops.
Fluorides such as hydrogen fluoride and silicon tetrafluoride are emitted
by phosphate fertilizer manufacturing plants (phosphate rock can typically
contain 3 percent fluoride). The industrial process of steel production,
certain chemical processing and particularly aluminium production
which involves the electrolysis of alumina in a bath of molten cryolite
(sodium aluminium hexafluoride) all release considerable quantities of
fluorides into the environment. The fluorides emitted are readily absorbed
by vegetation and are known to cause substantial leaf injury. Even in concentrations
as low as 0.1 ppb (parts per billion), fluorides significantly
reduce both the growth and yield of crops. Livestock have also fallen victim
to fluoride poisoning caused primarily by ingesting contaminated vegetation.
2 It is reported that the Aluminum Corporation of America
(ALCOA) was confronted by annual claims for millions to compensate
for the havoc wreaked by their fluorine wastes. It was in 1933 that the
United States Public Health Service (PHS) became particularly concerned
about the poisoning effect of fluoride on teeth determining that dental flu
orosis (teeth mottled with yellow, brown and even black stains) occurred
amongst 25-30 percent of children when just over 1 ppm of fluoride was
present in drinking water.3 By 1942 the PHS, largely under the guidance
of Dr. H. Trendley Dean, legislated that drinking water containing up to 1
ppm of fluoride was acceptable. The PHS was not at this stage introducing
fluoridation—it was concerned mainly to define the maximum allowable
limit beyond which fluoride concentrations should be regarded as
contaminating public water supplies. Dean's research investigations also
indicated that although 1 ppm fluoride concentration caused enamel fluorosis
or mottling in a small percentage of children (up to 10 percent), it
also served to provide partial protection against dental decay.4
HOW IT ALL STARTED
Dean was also well aware that fluoride concentrations of as little as 2 ppm
could constitute a public health concern, causing severe dental fluorosis.
Coincidentally, the U.S. PHS was at the time sponsored under the Department
of the Treasury, the chief officer of which was Andrew Mellon,
owner of ALCOA. In 1939 The Mellon Institute (established and controlled
by the family of Andrew Mellon), employed a scientist, Dr. Gerald
Cox, to find a viable market for the industrial fluoride wastes associated
with the production of aluminium. Of this intriguing series of connections
between the interests of ALCOA and the story of fluoridation Walker
writes:
In 1939, Gerald Cox, a biochemist employed by the University of
Pittsburgh, was undertaking contract work for the Mellon Institute.
At a meeting of water engineers at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, he first
put forward his idea to add fluoride to public water supplies.
By 1940, Cox had become a member of the Food and Nutrition Board
of the National Research Council, and he prepared for this illustrious
body a series of submissions strongly promoting the idea of artificial fluoridation.
Dennis Stevenson also comments about this connection between Dr.
Cox, ALCOA and fluoridation but somewhat more cynically. He writes:
Dr. Cox then proposed artificial water fluoridation as a means of reducing
tooth decay. What better way to solve the huge and costly problem
of disposing of toxic waste from aluminum manufacturers than getting
paid to put it in the drinking water? What an incredible coincidence—
ALCOA and the original fluoridation proposal.
Nor do the chain of seeming coincidences end here.
Caldwell refers to the very interesting testimony of Miss Florence
Birmingham on May 25-27, 1954, before the Committee on Interstate and
Foreign Commerce, which had organised a series of hearings on the
fluoridation issue. As President of the Massachusetts Women's Political Club,
Miss Birmingham was on the occasion representing some 50,000 women.
She is recorded as saying:
In 1944 Oscar Ewing was put on the payroll of the Aluminum Company
of America [ALCOA], as attorney; at an annual salary of $750,000. This
fact was established at a Senate hearing and became part of the
Congressional Record. Since the aluminum company had no big litigation
pending at the time, the question might logically be asked, why such
a large fee? A few months later Mr. Ewing was made Federal Security
Administrator with the announcement that he was taking a big salary cut
in order to serve his country. As head of the Federal Security Agency
(now the Department of Health, Education and Welfare), he immediately
started the ball rolling to sell "rat poison" by the ton instead of in dime
packages ... sodium fluoride was dangerous waste product of the aluminum
company. They were not permitted to dump it into rivers or fields
where it would poison fish, cattle, etc. Apparently someone conceived
the brilliant idea of taking advantage of the erroneous conclusions
drawn from Deaf Smith County, Texas.* The Aluminum Company of
America then began selling sodium fluoride to put in the drinking water.
Facts About Fluoride
TOOTH DECAY IS NOT REDUCED
BY WATER FLUORIDATION!
A computer analysis of the data from the largest dental survey
ever done—of nearly 40,000 school children—by the National
Institutes of Dental Research revealed no correlation between
tooth decay and fluoridation. In fact, many of the non-fluoridated
cities had better tooth decay rates than fluoridated cities. The city
with the lowest rate of tooth decay was not fluoridated. Of the
three with the highest rate of decay, two were partially fluoridated.
The Missouri State Bureau of Dental Health had conducted
a survey of more than 6,500 lifelong resident second- and
sixth-grade children in various parts of Missouri and found that
overall . . . there were no significant differences between
children drinking optimally fluoridated water and children
drinking suboptimally fluoridated water.
—Albertt W. Burgstahler, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry, University of Kansas
. . . school districts reporting the highest caries-free rates, were
totally unfluoridated. How does one explain this?
—A. S. Gray, D.D.S.
Journal of the Canadian Dental Association, 1987
all surveys both here and in Western Europe show that
the reduction in [dental] caries over the past 20 years is just
as great in unfluoridated as in fluoridated communities.
—John R. Lee, M.D.
Even the Journal of the American Dental Association [states]
that "the current reported decline in caries in the U.S. and other
Western industrialised countries has been observed in both fluoridated
and nonfluoridated communities, with percentage reductions
in each community apparently about the same."
—Chemical & Engineering News, 1 August 1988
INFANT MORTALITY RATES ARE HIGHEST
IN FLUORIDATED CITIES
Figures released by the National Centre for Health Statistics
reveal that infant mortality is a big problem in the United States.
The data shows that the ten cities with the worst rate of infant
mortality have all been artificially fluoridated at least seventeen
years or longer!
After the first full year of fluoridation Kansas City, Missouri's
infant mortality increased 13 percent.
—The Kansas City Star, 21 November 1982
After the fifth year of fluoridation in Kansas City, infant mortality
increased 36 percent.
—The Kansas City Star, 26 February 1987
The series of events which thereafter led to the apparently inevitable
implementation of fluoridation deserve also to be reviewed. In 1945
Grand Rapids, Michigan was selected as the site of the first major longitudinal
study of the effects of fluoridation on the public at large.
Comparisons were to be made with the city of Muskegon, Michigan
which remained unfluoridated so that it could be used as a control.9
Although the experiment was supposed to be undertaken over the
course of ten years to determine any cumulative side-effects which might
result from the fluoridation of municipal water, Ewing intervened after
only five years to declare the success of the study in showing fluoridation
to be safe. As Walker puts it:
In June, 1950, half-way through the experiment, the U.S. PHS under its
Chief, Oscar Ewing, "endorsed" the safety and effectiveness of artificial
fluoridation; and encouraged its immediate adoption through the
States.10
One year later Ewing was able to convince the American Congress that
fluoridation was a necessity, and a total of two million U.S. dollars (an
enormous sum of money in those days) was immediately directed to promote
the fluoridation program throughout the USA.11
While the circumstances surrounding Ewing's achievement were
revealing, an even more intriguing set of interconnections was yet to be
revealed. Miss Birmingham's testimony had included a statement that
"Mr. Ewing's propaganda expert was Edward L. Bernays."1 Her testimony
continued:
We quote from Dr. Paul Manning's article: 'The Federal Engineering of
Consent." Nephew of Sigmund Freud, the Vienna born Mr. Bernays is well
documented in the Faxon book published in 1951 (Rumford Press,
Concord, N.H.); Public Relations: Edward L. Bernays and the American
Scene. The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits
and opinions of the masses must be done by experts, the public relations
counsels (Bernays invented the term); "they are the invisible rulers who
control the destinies of millions . . . the most direct way to reach the herd
is through the leaders. For, if the group they dominate will respond ... all
this must be planned . . . indoctrination must be subtle. It should be
worked into the everyday life of the people—24 hours a day in hundreds
of ways ... A redefinition of ethics is necessary ... the subject matter of
the propaganda need not necessarily be true," says Bernays.
If the socio-ethical attitudes expressed in this testimony are associated
with the fluoridation programme, it is clear that we have more than just
health reasons to be concerned about fluoridation.
In 1979 Chemical & Engineering News13 published a review of a well
documented anti-fluoridation book by Waldbott.14 The unashamedly profluoridation
review prompted a spate of letters criticising the tenor and
content of the review, and re-asserted Waldbott's persuasive case against
fluoridation. One letter complained that the reviewer was in fact explicitly
urging readers not to take seriously the various reports of fluoride poisoning.
15 Another letter writer drew attention to another aspect of the
review, saying:
Waldbott does not base his objection to fluoridation merely on dental fluorosis
but on the broader issue of individual clinical toxicity. Those of us
in clinical practice (and our patients as well) have much to be grateful to
Waldbott for in our attention to this aspect of fluoridation problems. The
alert clinician who goes beyond the orthodox practice of making diagnoses
keyed to organicity and providing symptomatic treatment will find
in his practice those individuals who are being made ill by fluoridation. It
is this insight that is Waldbott's greatest contribution . . .
A second major point bypassed in the book review is the fact of dramatically
increased dietary fluoride exposure, as confirmed by the data of
Rose and Marier (Canadian National Research Council), Herta Spencer,
Wiatroski, and others, including my own food fluoride study ... It boggles
the mind to argue, as the U.S. Public Health Service does, that "optimal"
water fluoridation levels should be the same in 1979 as they were in
1943 when food fluoride was essentially negligible.
It is ironic that if fluoridation were to be raised as new concept for the prevention
of tooth decay today, the same government agencies that might
employ reviewer Burt would reject the proposal without a second thought. It
is only an accident of historical scientific naivete that fluoridation became an
entrenched public policy. The fact that 100 million Americans (and a large
percentage of them against their expressed desire) are subject to the unnecessary
ecologic burden of water fluoridation does not make it right...
Mandatory medication by fluoridation was not of course peculiar to the
United States. Australians have for more than three decades been subjected
to forced fluoridation of their drinking water. In 1953 the National
Health & Medical Research Council of Australia lent its support to the
mandatory mass-medication of Australians.17 It is bizarre and disconcerting
to find that the introduction of the fluoridation programme into our
cities was also linked with political and industrial interplay. These connections
have been deftly exposed by Walker and more recently by Wendy
Varney in her book, Fluoride in Australia—A Case to Answer.18
Today, Australia has "distinguished" itself by promoting the fluoridation
programme with such vigour that Australia now ranks as the most
comprehensively fluoridated country in the world. More than 70 percent
of Australians are obliged to drink water to which fluorides have been
added. Brisbane is the only capital city which remains unfluoridated.
Australia persists in its policy committment to artificial fluoridation,
despite the fact that 98 percent of the world's population has either
discontinued fluoridation programmes or never begun them.
Statistics show that less than 40 percent of the U.S. is currently fluoridated
and less than 10 percent of England. Sweden, Scotland, Norway,
Hungary, Holland, West Germany, Denmark, and Belgium have all discontinued
fluoridation, to name only a few.
CAN FLUORIDATION BE KEPT AT SAFE LEVELS?
Although 1 ppm is standardly defined as that level of fluoride concentration
which provides maximal protection against dental decay, with minimal
clinically observable dental fluorosis, controversy ranges widely as to
adverse effects of prolonged fluoride exposure even at this level. As early
as 1942, it was reported that in areas of endemic fluorosis with fluoride
concentrations of 1 ppm or less, children with poor nutrition suffered skeletal
defects, coupled with severe mottling of teeth.
Even if one grants that fluoride concentrations of 1 ppm are relatively
safe, it has become increasingly clear that individual levels of safe fluoride
ingestion cannot be adequately controlled. Drinking water dosages of
fluoride, for example will depend partly upon variable factors such as
thirst. Liquid intakes also vary according to age, work situation, climate
and season and levels of exercise. Athletes, for instance, tend to consume
more water than their non-athletic counterparts. Adjustments to municipal
water supplies cannot accommodate satisfactorily the wide array of relevant
individual differences of this kind.
In addition fluorides are ingested in varying quantities from many
unsuspected sources. Fluoride tablets, seemingly innocuous mouthwashes,
gels and even water-based tablets contribute to dangerous increases in
fluoride levels well beyond the recommended 1 ppm contained in drinking
water. Although the point has yet to be established definitively, it has
been suggested that aluminum cooking utensils and non-stick cookware
which are coated with Tetrafluoroethylene may exude fluoride into food,
particularly if they have surface scratches or are overheated.20 Even more
surprising is the fact that tea leaves contain sufficient fluoride that by
drinking three to eight cups daily, using fluoridated water, the total fluoride
dosage is somewhere between four and six times the safe maximum
recommended daily allowance.21 In addition to endemic fluorides in the
natural foods we eat, we are in many industrial cities forced to breathe fluorides
derived from factory emissions
FLUORIDE CONTAMINATION
FROM BEVERAGE CONSUMPTION
By far the most common source of additional fluoride intake comes from
beverage consumption. Beverages which contain fluoridated water include
reconstituted juices, punches, popsicles, other water-based frozen
desserts and carbonated beverages. Studies have shown that soft drink
consumption in the U.S. has increased markedly over the last two
decades, not only among teenage boys from 15-17 years of age, but
among 1-2 year old children. Statistics show that in Canada soft drink
consumption increased by 37 percent from 1972 to 1981.23 The increase
in soft drink consumption coincided with a decrease in the consumption
of milk, thereby increasing the overall fluoride intake. A number of studies
reveal that the dramatic increase in beverage consumption, coupled
with fluoridation of municipal waters constitutes a potential health hazard.
24 Prolonged exposure to fluorides may actually increase rather than
diminish the incidence of tooth decay. Enzymatic damage related to
enamel mineralisation creates a parotic tooth far more susceptible to
caries than would otherwise be the case.25
In a major study of adverse effects of fluoride, Yiamouyiannis and Burk
reported in 1977 that at least 10,000 people in the U.S. die every year of
fluoride-induced cancer. In the introduction to their work 17 research
papers are cited which demonstrate the mutagenic effects associated with
fluorides.26 There is now side consensus within the scientific community
that the mutagenic activity of a substance can be regarded as an important
indication of its potential cancer-causing activity.
Since those provocative studies over a decade ago, a vast scientific
literature has continued to accumulate which strongly indicates that the
practice of fluoridating municipal water supplies is dangerous. In 1983 an
Australian dental surgeon, G. Smith, reported a number of studies which
suggest that there is now a serious risk to the public of fluoride overdose.
He argues that "the crucial argument does not concern the fluoride level
in a community water supply per se, but rather whether fluoridation
increases the risk that certain people develop, even for a short time, levels
of fluoride in the blood that can damage human cells and systems."
In 1985 another Australian scientist, M. Diesendorf, drew attention to
the discovery of a whole new dimension to the health hazards associated
with the ingestion of fluorides. Sodium fluoride, for example, had been
found to cause unscheduled DNA synthesis and chromosonal aberrations
in certain human cells. Other recent studies purport to reveal the actual
mechanism by virtue of which fluoride can disrupt the DNA molecule and
the active sites of the molecules of many human enzymes.
When all is said, it is manifestly clear that the time has come for a serious
and comprehensive review of the policy which mandates the compulsory
fluoridation of our municipal water supplies. Such a review will no
doubt require a multi-faceted approach in which reliable research investigations
can be integrated with a philosophy of health education to assist
their implementation. Through education it may be possible to appreciate
that within nature itself are important patterns of design for an overall programme
of health. In nature, for instance, fluorides are typically found in
decidedly insoluble forms which are relatively safe. By deliberately intervening
to make nature's insoluble forms of fluoride soluble we transform
a relatively harmless natural substance into a concentrated and highly
toxic substance which can then be indiscriminately dispersed throughout
the environment as a poison. The subtle constellation of health clues
which nature provides in respect of fluorides is further illustrated by the
simple but elegant mechanisms of breastfeeding. Breastfed infants are
actually protected from receiving more than extremely low concentrations
of fluoride in breast milk by an inbuilt physiological plasma/milk barrier
against fluoride. There is much about health to learn from nature, but to
do so we must be more concerned to join with nature in partnership than
to stand back from nature to subdue and manipulate it.
Whether the fluoridation campaign must be indicted in the light of the
evidence as one of the major public hoaxes perpetrated this century, is a
judgment best reserved for the reader. Whatever the judgment, it is
incontestable that the prevention of tooth decay is not the bottom-line of
the fluoridation debate when the panacea has become the poison