Re: A must see youtube video
- From: joeturn <joeturn2000@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2010 20:45:03 -0700 (PDT)
http://www.fluoridealert.org/f-industry.htm
I recommend clonazipam it dulls the senses so HAARPS lmf does not
alter your state of conciousness!
Aluminum foil tin hats add floride to your body which shortens your
life span,before floride was introduced by Henry Kissinger the life
expectancy was 130 years.
Reynolds a known illuminati blood line has made mega bux killing off
the herd,with their cancer causing agent "floride"a by product from
the making of alluminum.
........................................................................................................
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Fluoride: Commie Plot or Capitalist Ploy
[Click here to see photocopy of article]
Covert Action Quarterly
Fall, 1992
Fluoride: Commie Plot or Capitalist Ploy
by Joel Griffiths
Cows crawled around the pasture on their bellies, inching along like
giant snails. So crippled by bone disease they could not stand up,
this was the only way they could graze. Some died kneeling, after
giving birth to stunted calves. Others kept on crawling until, no
longer able to chew because their teeth had crumbled down to the
nerves, they began to starve. (1)
These were the cattle of the Mohawk Indians on the New York-Canadian
St. Regis Reservation during the period 1960-75, when industrial
pollution devastated the herd and along with it, the Mohawks' way of
life. Crops and trees withered, birds and bees fled from this remnant
of land the Mohawk still call Akwesasne, "the land where the partridge
drums." Today, nets cast into the St. Lawrence River by Mohawk fishers
bring up ulcerated fish with spinal deformities. Mohawk children, too,
have shown signs of damage to bones and teeth. (2)
In 1980, the Mohawks filed a $150 million lawsuit for damage to
themselves and their property against the companies responsible for
the pollution: the Reynolds Metals Co. and the Aluminum Co. of America
(ALCOA). But five years of legal costs bankrupted the tribe and they
settled for $650,000 in damages to their cows; (3) the court, however,
left the door open for a future Mohawk suit for damage to their own
health. After all, commented human rights lawyer Robert Pritchard, "
What judge wants to go down in history as being the judge who approved
the annihilation of the Indians by fluoride emissions?" (4)
Many Akwesasnes
Fluoride emissions? Fluoride, as in toothpaste?
Well, yes. Fluoride was the pollutant primarily responsible for the
Akwesasne devastation. (5)
For nearly 50 years, the U.S. government and media have been telling
the public that fluoride is safe and beneficial -- it is supposed to
reduce cavities, especially in children. Manufacturers add it to
toothpaste, municipalities put it in the public's drinking water. The
only people who question the safety of fluoride, says the government,
are quacks and lunatics -- particularly of the far-right-wing
variety.
But fluoride has another side the government never mentions. It is a
toxic industrial pollutant; one of the oldest and biggest of them all.
For decades, U.S. industrial plants have rained heavy doses of waste
fluoride on people, such as the Mohawks. The nation, however, has been
successfully conditioned to think of fluoride solely as a benevolent
substance and to dismiss as a crackpot, anyone who claims otherwise.
In recent years, because of rampant environmental damage, some of the
worst fluoride pollution plants such as those at Akwesasne have been
forced to reduce their emissions, but not terminate them. At
Akwesasne, cows still live only half their normal lifespan. (6)
Nationwide, fluoride remains one of industry's largest pollutants. By
the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) last estimate, at least
155,000 tons a year were being released into the air by U.S.
industrial plants. (7) Emissions into water lakes, rivers, and ocean
have been estimated to be as high as 500,000 tons a year. (8) (NOTE
from FAN: Recent EPA data indicates that fluoride is currently the 6th
most emitted Hazardous Air Pollutant in the US, although total air
emissions are now considerably lower than 155,000 tons).
While people living near and/or working in heavy fluoride-emitting
industrial plants have received the highest doses, the general
population has not been spared either. Fluoride is not biodegradable;
whatever comes around stays around, gradually accumulating in the
environment, in the food chain, and in people's bodies, where it
settles in bones and teeth.
If this general increase in fluoride dose were proved harmful to
humans, the impact on industry which pollutes both air and water would
be major. The nation's air is contaminated by fluoride emissions from
the production of iron, steel, aluminum, copper, lead and zinc;
phosphates (essential for the manufacture of all agricultural
fertilizers); plastics; gasoline; brick, cement, glass, ceramics, and
the multitudinous other products made from clay; electrical power
generation and all other coal combustion; and uranium processing. (9)
As for water, the leading industrial fluoride polluters are the
producers and processors of glass, pesticides and fertilizers, steel
and aluminum, chemicals, and metals. (10) The metal processing
industries include copper and brass, as well as titanium, superalloys,
and refractory metals for military use. (11)
The list of polluters extends across industry from basic to strategic.
Industry and government have long had a powerful motive for claiming
an increased dose of fluoride is safe for the population. Maintaining
this position has not been easy because, of industry's largest
pollutants, fluoride is by far the most toxic to vegetation, animals,
and humans. (12) In fact, it's one of the most toxic substances known.
(13)
"Airborne fluorides," reports the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
"have caused more worldwide damage to domestic animals than any other
air pollutant." (14) As for vegetation, as early as 1901, studies
"found that fluoride compounds are much more toxic than the other
compounds that are of significance in the industrial smoke
problem." (15)
Fluoride pollution has caused aquatic damage of similar magnitude.
(16) In other words, there have been many Akwesasnes.
"Man [sic] is much more sensitive than domestic animals to fluoride
intoxication [the medical term for poisoning]." (17)
Evidence that industrial fluoride has been killing and crippling not
only cows but human beings has existed at least since the 1930s. The
government has not only dismissed the danger and left industry free to
pollute, but it has promoted the intentional addition of fluoride most
of which is recycled industrial waste to the nation's drinking water.
"It might be economically feasible to reduce industrial fluoride
emissions further," says Fred L. Metz of the EPA's Office of Toxic
Substances, "but eliminating them would probably be impossible." (18)
Primal Poison Threatens industry
Of the highly toxic elements that are naturally present throughout the
earth's crust -- such as arsenic, mercury, and lead -- fluoride is by
far the largest in quantity. (19) Normally, only minute amounts of
these elements are found on the earth's surface, but Industry mines
its basic raw materials from deep in the earth and brings up vast
tonnages -- none in greater quantity than fluoride.
Historically, perhaps no other pollutant has posed a greater threat to
industrial expansion. As early as 1850, fluoride emissions from the
iron and copper industries poisoned crops, livestock, and people. By
the turn of the century, consequent lawsuits and burdensome
regulations threatened the existence of these industries in Germany
and England. (20) They saved themselves by introducing the tall
smokestacks which reduced damage by dispersing the fluorides and other
toxins into the upper air.
In twentieth century America, however, enormous industrial plants and
new technologies increased fluoride emissions so that even tall stacks
could not prevent gross damage for miles around. Following the period
of explosive industrial expansion known as "industry's roaring 2Os,"
the magnitude of industry's fluoride dilemma became starkly apparent.
International reports of fluoride damage mushroomed in 1933 when the
world's first major air pollution disaster struck Belgium's Meuse
Valley: several thousand people became violently ill and 60 died. The
cause was disputed, but investigations by prominent scientists,
including Kaj Roholm, the world's leading authority on fluoride
hazards, placed the blame on fluoride. (21)
Here and abroad, health scientists were beginning to regard fluoride
as a poison, pure and simple. The trend toward its removal from the
environment was potentially disastrous from industry's point of view.
"Only recently, that is, within the last ten years, has the serious
nature of fluoride toxicity been realized," wrote Lloyd DeEds, senior
toxicologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 1933.
"It is a well-established fact that chronic intoxication [poisoning]
may manifest itself in man as recognized abnormalities only after
constant, or at least frequent, exposure over many years....The
possibility of fluoride hazard should...be recognized in
industry...where this element is discharged into the air as an
apparently worthless by-product." (22)
It was abundantly clear to both industry and government that
spectacular U.S. industrial expansion -- and the economic and military
power and vast profits it promised -- would necessitate releasing
millions of tons of waste fluoride into the environment. Furthermore,
two large new industries would be adding to the dose: fluorocarbon
chemicals (the aerosol propellants and refrigerants now depleting the
ozone layer) and aluminum, slated for a crucial economic and military
role during the upcoming Second World War. By 1938 the aluminum
industry, which then consisted solely of ALCOA, had been placed on a
wartime schedule. And fluoride was the aluminum industry's most
devastating pollutant. (23)
U.S. future industrial expansion, then, would be accompanied by
complaints and lawsuits over fluoride damage on an unprecedented scale
-- the most threatening aspect of which was harm to human health.
Damage to animals and the environment might be tolerated and easily
paid off; if, however, serious injury to people were established,
lawsuits alone could prove devastating to companies, while public
outcry could force industry-wide government regulations, billions in
pollution-control costs, and even mandatory changes in high-fluoride
raw materials and profitable technologies.
Liability Into Asset
This inter-war period saw the birth of the military-industrial
complex, with its concomitant public disinformation campaigns. It also
saw a federal blitz campaign to convince the public fluoride was safe
and good for them. The kick-off was the 1939 announcement by ALCOA-
funded scientist Gerald J. Cox: "The present trend toward complete
removal of fluoride from water and food may need some reversal." (24)
New evidence of fluoride's safety began emerging from research centers
plied with industry's largess. Notable among these was the University
of Cincinnati's Kettering Laboratory, whose specialty was
investigating the hazards of industrial chemicals. Funded largely by
top fluoride-emitters such as ALCOA, the Kettering Lab quickly
dominated fluoride safety research. A book by Kettering scientist and
Reynolds Metals consultant E.J. Largent, for example, written in part
to "aid industry in lawsuits arising from fluoride damage," became a
basic international reference work. (25)
The big news in Cox's announcement was that this "apparently worthless
by-product" had not only been proved safe (in low doses), but actually
beneficial: it might reduce cavities in children. A proposal was in
the air to add fluoride to the entire nation's drinking water. While
the dose to each individual would be low, "fluoridation" on a national
scale would require the annual addition of hundreds of thousands of
tons of fluoride to the country's drinking water.
Government and industry -- especially ALCOA -- strongly supported
intentional water fluoridation. Undoubtedly, most proponents were
sincere in their belief that the procedure was safe and beneficial. At
the same time, it might be noted that fluoridation made possible a
master public relations stroke -- one that could keep scientists and
the public off fluoride's case for years to come. If the leaders of
dentistry, medicine, and public health could be persuaded to endorse
fluoride in the public's drinking water, proclaiming to the nation
that there was a "wide margin of safety," how were they going to turn
around later and say industry's fluoride pollution was dangerous?
As for the public, if fluoride could be introduced as a health-
enhancing substance that should be added to the environment for the
children's sake, those opposing it would look like quacks and
lunatics. The public would question attempts to point out its toxicity
or its unsavory industrial connections.
ALCOA Foils Accountability
With such a powerful spin operating, fluoride might become a virtually
"protected pollutant," as writer Elise Jerard later termed it. (26)
One thing is certain, the name of the company with the biggest stake
in fluoride's safety was ALCOA -- whose name is stamped all over the
early history of water fluoridation.
Throughout industry's "roaring 20s," the U.S. Public Health Service
was under the jurisdiction of Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon, a
founder and major stockholder of ALCOA. In 1931, the year Mellon
stepped down, a Public Health Service dentist named H. Trendley Dean
was dispatched to certain remote towns in the West where drinking-
water wells contained high concentrations of natural fluoride from
deep in the earth's crust. Dean's mission was to determine how much
fluoride people could tolerate without obvious damage to their teeth
-- a matter of considerable concern to ALCOA. Dean found that teeth in
these high-fluoride towns were often discolored and eroded, but he
also reported that they appeared to have fewer cavities than average.
He cautiously recommended further studies to determine whether a lower
level of fluoride in drinking water might reduce cavities without
simultaneously damaging bones and teeth, where fluoride settles in
humans and other animals.
Back at the Mellon Institute, ALCOA's Pittsburgh industrial research
lab, this news was galvanic. ALCOA-sponsored biochemist Gerald J. Cox
(27) immediately fluoridated some lab rats in a study and concluded
that fluoride reduced cavities and that: "The case should be regarded
as proved." (28) In a historic moment in 1939, the first public
proposal that the U.S. should fluoridate its water supplies was made
not by a doctor, or dentist, but by Cox, an industry scientist working
for a company threatened by fluoride damage claims.(29) Cox began
touring the country, stumping for fluoridation.
Initially, many doctors, dentists, and scientists were cautious and
skeptical, but then came World War II, during which industry's
fluoride pollution increased sharply because of stepped-up production
and the extensive use of ALCOA aluminum in aircraft manufacture.
Following the war, as expected, hundreds of fluoride damage suits were
filed around the country against producers of aluminum, iron and
steel, phosphates, chemicals, and other major polluters. (30) The
cases settled in court involved only damage to livestock or
vegetation.
"Friends" of Children
Many others were settled out of court, including those claiming damage
to human health, thus avoiding legal precedents. In one case, for the
first time in the U.S. an Oregon federal court found in Paul M. and
Verla Martin v. Reynolds Metals (1955) that the couple had sustained
"serious injury to their livers, kidneys and digestive functions" from
eating "farm produce contaminated by [fluoride] fumes" from a nearby
Reynolds aluminum plant. (31) Soon thereafter, no less than the
Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA) and six other metals and chemical
companies joined with Reynolds as "friends of the court" to get the
decision reversed. According to a local paper, a Reynolds attorney
"contended that if allowed to stand, the verdict would become a ruling
case, making every aluminum and chemical plant liable to damage claims
simply by operating [emphasis added]." (32) Despite extensive medical
testimony for Reynolds from Kettering Lab scientists, the Martins kept
on winning. Finally, in a time-honored corporate solution, Reynolds
mooted the case by buying the Martins' ranch for a hefty price.
The postwar casualties of industrial fluoride pollution were many --
from forests to livestock to farmers to smog-stricken urban residents
-- but they received little more than local notice. National attention
had been diverted by fluoride's heavily publicized new image. In 1945,
shortly before the war's end, water fluoridation abruptly emerged with
the full force of the federal government behind it. In that year, two
Michigan cities were selected for an official "15-year" comparison
study to determine if fluoride could safely reduce cavities in
children, and fluoride was pumped into the drinking water of Grand
Rapids.
Other early experiments were performed, not only without publicity,
but without the knowledge of the subjects. The scientific value of
these experiments -- and their ethics -- were dubious in the extreme.
In Massachusetts and Connecticut, for example, the first fluoridation
experiments (1945-46) were conducted on indigent, mentally retarded
children at state-run schools. According to the 1954 congressional
testimony of Florence Birmingham, a trustee of the Wrentham
(Massachusetts) State School for Feebleminded Children, her school's
administration learned only by accident that fluoride was being put in
the drinking water. (33)
The trustees immediately voted to stop the fluoridation, Birmingham
testified, "but to my shocked surprise, we were told by the
[Massachusetts Department of Health] that it was not an experiment and
the fluoridation continued on.... I found in the files a letter
revealing that [a health department representative] had come to the
institution school and in a conference with administration officials
warned them that there should be no publicity on the fluoride program
there..."
The federally sanctioned experimenters did not seem concerned that
these children might accidentally receive a toxic overdose of
fluoride. "The method used in putting fluoride in the water," said the
president of the school employees' union, "...is enough to cause panic
at the institution....A boy patient does it...He knows what it is for
he said, Come up with me and I can show you how I can take care of you
if I get mad at you.'" (34)
Meanwhile, in 1946, despite the fact that the official 15-year
experiment in Michigan had barely begun, six more U.S. cities were
allowed to fluoridate their water. The fluoridation bandwagon had
begun to roll.
At this juncture, Oscar R. Ewing, a long-time ALCOA lawyer who had
recently been named the company's chief counsel with fees in the then-
astronomical range of $750,000 a year (35) -- arrived in Washington.
Ewing was presumably well aware of ALCOA's fluoride litigation
problem. He had handled the company's negotiations with the government
for the building of its wartime plants. (36)
In 1947, Ewing was appointed head of the Federal Security Agency
(later HEW), a position that placed him in charge of the Public Health
Service (PHS). Under him, a national water fluoridation campaign
rapidly materialized, spearheaded by the PHS. Over the next three
years, 87 additional cities were fluoridated including the control
city in the original two-city Michigan experiment, thus wiping out the
most scientifically objective test of safety and benefit before it was
half over.
The Father of All Spin Doctors
The government's official reason for this unscientific haste was
"popular demand." And indeed, these 87 cities had become so wild for
fluoridation that the government claimed it wasn't fair to deny them
the benefits. By then, in fact, much of the nation was clamoring for
fluoridation. This enthusiasm was not really surprising, considering
Oscar Ewing's public relations strategist for the water fluoridation
campaign was none other than Sigmund Freud's nephew Edward L. Bernays,
(37) "The Original Spin Doctor," as a Washington Post headline
recently termed him. (38) Bernays, also known as the "father of public
relations," pioneered the application of his uncle's theories to
advertising and government propaganda. The government's fluoridation
campaign was one of his most stunning and enduring successes.
In his 1928 book, Propaganda, Bernays explained "the structure of the
mechanism which controls the public mind, and how it is manipulated by
the special pleader [i.e., public relations counsel] who seeks to
create public acceptance for a particular idea or commodity.....(39)
Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an
invisible government which is the true ruling power of our
country...our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas
suggested, largely by men we have never heard of...."
"If you can influence the [group] leaders," wrote Bernays who had many
confidential industrial clients, "either with or without their
conscious cooperation [emphasis added], you automatically influence
the group which they sway..." (40)
Describing how, as PR man for the Beech-nut Bacon Company, he
influenced leaders of the medical profession to promote sales, Bernays
wrote, "The new salesman [would] suggest to physicians to say publicly
that it is wholesome to eat bacon. He knows as a mathematical
certainty that large numbers of persons will follow the advice of
their doctors because he understands the psychological relationship of
dependence of men on their physicians." (41)
Substitute "dentists" for "physicians" and "fluoride" for "bacon" and
the similarities are apparent. Almost overnight, under Bernays' mass
mind-molding, the popular image of fluoride -- which at the time was
being widely sold as rat and bug poison -- became that of a beneficial
provider of gleaming smiles, absolutely safe, and good for children,
bestowed by a benevolent paternal government. Its opponents were
permanently engraved on the public mind as crackpots and right-wing
loonies.
Right-Wing Association
Fluoridation attracted opponents from every point on the continuum of
politics and sanity. The prospect of the government mass-medicating
the water supplies with a well-known rat poison to prevent a non-
lethal disease flipped the switches of delusionals across the country
-- as well as generating concern among responsible scientists,
doctors, and citizens.
Moreover, by a fortuitous twist of circumstances, fluoride's natural
opponents on the left were alienated from the rest of the opposition.
Oscar Ewing, as Federal Security Agency administrator, was a Truman
"fair dealer" who pushed many progressive programs such as
nationalized medicine. Fluoridation was lumped with his proposals.
Inevitably, it was attacked by conservatives as a manifestation of
"creeping socialism," while the left rallied to its support. Later
during the McCarthy era, the left was further alienated from the
opposition when extreme right-wing groups, including the John Birch
Society and the Ku Klux Klan, raved that fluoridation was a plot by
the Soviet Union and/or communists in the government to poison
America's brain cells.
It was a simple task for promoters, under the guidance of the
"original spin-doctor," to paint all opponents as deranged -- and they
played this angle to the hilt. For example, one widely distributed
dossier on opponents "listed in alphabetical order reputable
scientists, convicted felons, food faddists, scientific organizations,
and the Ku Klux Klan." (42)
Actually, many of the strongest opponents originally started out as
proponents, but changed their minds after a close look at the
evidence. And many opponents came to view fluoridation not as a
communist plot, but simply as a capitalist-style con job of epic
proportions. Some could be termed early environmentalists, such as the
physicians George L. Waldbott and Frederick B. Exner, who first
documented government-industry complicity in hiding the hazards of
fluoride pollution from the public. Waldbott and Exner risked their
careers in a clash with fluoride defenders, only to see their cause
buried in toothpaste ads.
Exner's voluminous files were a source of pivotal evidence in lawsuits
decided against industry and against fluoridation promoters. In 1978,
following his death, his files were destroyed in a mysterious fire.
(43)
But all the opponents, credible and cracked alike, were run over by
the fluoridation bandwagon. In 1950 the Public Health Service, along
with leaders of dentistry, medicine, and practically everything else,
officially endorsed fluoridation, and the transformation of fluoride's
image was complete. Since then, two-thirds of the nation's reservoirs
have been fluoridated, and about 143,000 tons of fluoride are pumped
in yearly to keep them that way. (44) Meanwhile, the government
continues to campaign for "universal fluoridation."
Which brings us to the last benefit to industry from fluoridation:
Companies forced to reduce their emission can recoup some of the
expense by selling the waste to cities for water fluoridation. And
most of the fluoride added to drinking water has been recycled waste,
particularly from the fertilizer industry. (45)
Protected Pollutant
Since the 195Os, fluoride as industrial toxin has remained largely
unknown to the public, replaced by fluoride as children's friend and
creator of beautiful smiles. The 1930s trend toward its removal from
the environment has been reversed with a vengeance. For example, in
1972 the newly formed EPA did a survey of atmospheric fluoride
polluters. It found that five of the top six typically didn't bother
to control their fluoride emissions at all and weren't measuring
emissions. (46) The most lax was the iron and steel industry, which,
according to the report, was also the biggest fluoride emitter. (47)
And why should these industries worry, as regulatory agencies have
maintained -- ever since water fluoridation - that industrial fluoride
emissions are harmless to humans? As the EPA report stated: "The
fluorides currently emitted [by industry] may damage economic crops,
farm animals, and materials of decoration [i.e., flowers and
ornamental plants] and construction [i.e. buildings, statuary and
glass]...
"...[H]owever, the potential to cause fluoride effects in man is
negligible." (48) Or, as another EPA report puts it, "It is clear that
fluoride emissions from primary aluminum plants have no significant
effect on human health. Fluoride emissions, however, do have adverse
effects on livestock and vegetation." (49) In other words, the stuff
withers plants, cripples cows, and even eats holes in stone, but it
doesn't hurt people. Nature ever surprises.
When it comes to water pollution, of course, industry has even less
reason to fear conviction for damage to human health. The government's
fluoridation studies have supposedly established beyond a doubt that
hundreds of thousands of tons of fluoride a year can be poured
directly into the nation's drinking water supplies with a "wide margin
of safety" for humans. So industrial fluoride emitters only have to
worry about the fish when they poison nearby bodies of water. The same
concentrations added to human drinking water for cavity prevention can
be fatal to freshwater fish. (50)
Polluted Science
When new scientific evidence threatens fluoride's protected pollutant
status, the government immediately appoints a commission, typically
composed of several veteran fluoride defenders and no opponents;
usually, these commissions dismiss the new evidence and reaffirm the
status quo. When one didn't in 1983, the government simply altered the
findings. It's an instructive tale.
In 1983, the Public Health Service convened a panel of "world-class
experts" to conduct pro forma review of safety data on fluoride in
drinking water. A panel transcript of the private deliberations
revealed its members discovering that much of the vaunted evidence of
fluoride's safety barely existed. (51) The 1983 panel recommended
caution, especially in regard to fluoride exposure for children, (52)
but its chair, Jay R. Shapiro, then with the National Institutes of
Health, was aware that recommendations which conflicted with
government fluoride policy might run into trouble. In an attached
memo, Shapiro remarked, "[B]ecause the report deals with sensitive
political issues which may or may not be acceptable to the PHS [Public
Health Service], it runs the risk of being modified at a higher
level...." (53)
Shapiro was prescient. When Surgeon General Everett Koop's office
released the official report a month later, the panel's most important
conclusions and recommendations had been thrown out, apparently
without consulting its members. "When contacted," wrote Daniel
Grossman, "...members of the panel assembled by the Public Health
Service expressed surprise at their report's conclusions: They never
received copies of the final -- altered -- version. EPA scientist
Edward Ohanian, who observed the panel's deliberations recalled being
'baffled' when the agency received its report." (54)
All the government's alterations were in one direction and any
conclusion suggesting low doses of fluoride might be harmful was
thrown out. In its place, the government substituted this blanket
statement: "There exists no directly applicable scientific
documentation of adverse medical effects at levels of fluoride below 8
ppm [parts per million]." (55)
This contradicted the panel's final draft, which firmly recommended
that "the fluoride content of drinking water should be no greater than
1.4-2.4 ppm for children up to and including age 9 because of a lack
of information regarding fluoride effect on the skeleton in children
(to age 9), and potential cardiotoxic effects [heart damage]..." All
that, and more, was tossed out by the government. (56)
To quote from the transcript of the panel's meeting:
Dr. Wallach: "You would have to have rocks in your head, in my
opinion, to allow your child much more than 2 ppm."
Dr. Rowe: "I think we all agree on that." (57)
But in 1985, basing its action on the altered report issued by Surgeon
General Koop, EPA raised the amount of fluoride allowed in drinking
water from 2 to 4 ppm for children and everybody else
Bones of Contention
What are the effects of the decades-long increase in fluoride exposure
on the nation's health? The best answer is, given the size and
pervasiveness of the motive for bias and the extreme politicization of
science on this question, no one knows. Recently, scientists have
taken a new look, especially at the most likely place to find fluoride
damage: human bones, where it accumulates. In the past two years,
eight epidemiological studies by apparently disinterested scientists
have suggested that water fluoridation may have increased the rate of
bone fractures in females and males of all ages across the U.S. (58)
The latest study published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association (JAMA) found that "low levels of fluoride may increase the
risk of hip fracture in the elderly." (59) These results, if correct,
would also implicate industrial fluoride pollution. Another group
likely to show damage from fluoride is young males. Since 1957, the
bone fracture rate among male children and adolescents has increased
sharply in the U.S. according to the National Center for Health
Statistics. (60) The U.S. hip fracture rate is now the highest in the
world, reports the National Research Council. (61) "...Clearly," wrote
JAMA in an editorial, "it is now appropriate to revisit the issue of
water fluoridation." (62)
Fluoride and cancer, too, have been linked by the government's own
animal carcinogenicity test. (63) Evidence that fluoride is a
carcinogen has cropped up since at least the 1940s, but the government
has dismissed it all. A 1956 federal study found nearly twice as many
bone defects (of a type considered possibly pre-malignant) among young
males in the fluoridated city of Newburgh, New York, as compared with
the unfluoridated control city of Kingston; this finding, however, was
considered spurious and was not followed up. (64) For a long time, the
government avoided performing its official animal carcinogenicity test
-- which, if positive, would require regulatory action against
fluoride. It had to be pushed into doing that.
In 1975, John Yiamouyiannis, a biochemist and controversial
fluoridation opponent, and Dean Burk, a retired National Cancer
Institute (NCI) official, reported a 5 to 10 percent increase in total
cancer rates in U.S. cities which had fluoridated their water
supplies. (65) Whether scientifically valid or not, the paper did
trigger congressional hearings in 1977, at which it was revealed,
incredibly, that the government had never cancer-tested fluoride.
Congress ordered the NCI to begin.
Twelve years later, in 1989, the study was finally completed. It found
"equivocal evidence" that fluoride caused bone cancer in male rats.
(66) The NCI was immediately directed to examine cancer trends in the
U.S. population that might be fluoride-related. The NCI found that
nationwide evidence "...of a rising rate of bone and joint cancer of
all ages combined, due mainly to trends under the age of 20, was seen
in the 'fluoridated' counties but not in the 'non-fluoridated'
counties....The larger increase in males under the age of 20 seen in
the aggregate data for all bone and joint cancers is seen only in the
'fluoridated' counties." (67)
The NCI also did more detailed studies focused on several counties in
Washington and Iowa. Once again, "When restricted to percent under the
age of 20, the rates of bone and joint cancer in both sexes rose 47
percent from 1973-80 to 1981-87 in the fluoridated areas of Washington
and Iowa and declined 34 percent in the non-high fluoridated areas.
For osteosarcomas [bone cancers] in males under 20 [emphasis added],
the rate increased 70 percent in the fluoridated areas and decreased
four percent in the non-fluoridated areas." (68)
But after applying sophisticated statistical tests, the NCI concluded
that these findings, like those in Newburgh in 1956, were spurious.
It was commission time again.
The new commission, chaired by venerable fluoridation proponent and
U.S. Public Health Service official Frank E. Young, concluded in its
final report that "...its year-long investigation has found no
evidence establishing an association between fluoride and cancer in
humans." As for the evidence on bone fractures, the commission merely
stated, "further studies are required." And finally, as always: "The
U.S. Public Health Service should continue to support optimal
fluoridation of drinking water." (69)
"If fluoride presents any risks to the public at the levels to which
the vast majority of us are exposed," intoned U.S. Assistant Secretary
for Health, James G. Mason, when releasing the report, "those risks
are so small that they have been impossible to detect. In contrast,
the benefits are great and easy to detect." (70) That is, fewer
cavities in children.
Government Doubts
There are signs, however, that 50 years of official unanimity on this
subject may be disintegrating. Referring to the government's animal
study, James Huff, a director of the U.S. National Institute of
Environmental Health Sciences, told a 1992 meeting he believes "that
the reason these animals got a few osteosarcomas [bone cancers] was
because they were given fluoride...Bone is the target organ for
fluoride." In other words, the findings were not "equivocal" but
solid.
"Perhaps we need to learn more about this chemical," said Huff. (71)
Others feel more than enough has already been learned. William Marcus,
an EPA senior science adviser and toxicologist was indignant. "In my
opinion," he said, "fluoride is a carcinogen by any standard we use. I
believe EPA should act immediately to protect the public, not just on
the cancer data, but on the evidence of bone fractures, arthritis,
mutagenicity and other effects." Marcus adds that a still-unreleased
study by the New Jersey State Health Department has found that the
bone cancer rate is six times higher -- among young males -- in
fluoridated communities. (72)
"The level of fluoride the government allows the public is based on
scientifically fraudulent information and altered reports," charges
Robert Carton, an EPA environmental scientist and past president of
its employee union, Local 2050, National Federation of Federal
Employees. The EPA union has been campaigning for six years against
what it terms the "politicization of science" at the agency, citing
fluoride as the archetypal case. "People can be harmed simply by
drinking the water," Carton warns. (73)
A subcommittee headed by Congressman Ted Weiss (D-N.Y.) is
investigating the government's handling of the evidence on fluoride's
safety. And there the matter rests -- until the next commission.
Mega-con
Does fluoridation reduce cavities in children? Almost everyone feels
certain that it does, but only because trusted authorities have told
them so, and those authorities in turn received their information from
leaders who, as the original spin-doctor noted, must be influenced if
you want to make the public believe something.
Actually, over the years, many health professionals -- especially
abroad -- have decided the beneficial effects of fluoride are mostly
hokum; but open debate has been stifled if not strangled. Repeatedly
dentists and doctors who were regarded as paragons of professional
excellence -- when they supported fluoride -- have been vilified and
professionally ostracized after they changed their minds. During the
early 1980s, New Zealand's most prominent fluoridation advocate was
John Colquhoun, the country's chief dental officer. Then he decided to
gather some results. "I was an ardent fluoridationist, you see. I
wanted to show people how good it was..."
"When as chair of the Fluoridation Promotion Committee, I gathered
these statistics...I observed that...the percentage of children who
were free of dental decay was higher in the unfluoridated part of most
health districts in New Zealand." (74) The national health department
refused to allow Colquhoun to publish these findings, and he was
encouraged to resign.
Now Colquhoun writes that "new evidence...suggests that the harmful
effects of water fluoridation are more real than is generally admitted
while the claimed dental benefit is negligible." (75)
A more recent example is Canadian physician Richard G. Foulkes, who is
currently being accused by his former colleague, Brent Friesen, chief
medical officer of Calgary, AB., of "a classical case of manipulation
of information and selective use...to promote the quackery of anti-
fluoridationists."
In 1973, as a special consultant to the health minister of British
Columbia, Foulkes had authored a report recommending mandatory
fluoridation for the province. But, after reviewing the evidence, he
has concluded that "fluoridation of community water supplies can no
longer be held to be safe or effective in the reduction of tooth
decay....Even in 1973, we should have known this was a dangerous
chemical." (76) He adds that "there is, also, a not-too-subtle
relationship between the objective [the promotion of fluoridation] and
the needs of major industries..." (77)
"I was conned," Foulkes thinks, "by a powerful lobby." (78)
NOTE: Joel Griffiths is a medical writer who lives in New York City.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
1. Janet Raloff, The St. Regis Syndromes Science News, July 19, 1980
pp.42-43. The account w as verified by F. Henry Lickers, director,
environmental division Mohawk council of Akwesasne, Cornwall Ontario,
Canada. For primary data on cattle damage at Akwesasne, see Krook, L
and Maylin, G. A. "Industrial Fluoride Pollution," The Cornell
Veterinarian, Vol. 69, supplement 8 April 1979.
2. The pollution continues today, but at reduced levels; cows survive
to about half their normal life spans.
3. Robert Tomsho "Dumping Grounds" Wall Street Journal. November 29
1990.
4. Karen st. Hilaire, "St. Regis Indians to Settle Fluonde Dispute"
Syracuse Post-Standard, January 8, 1985.
5. See also accounts cited above for further documentation.
6. Author's 1992 interview with F. Henry Lickers,op cit.
7. Summary Review of Health Effects Associated with Hvdrogen Fluonde
and Related Compounds,' s EPA Report Number 600/8-29/002F, December
1988 p. 1-1.
8. John Yiamouyiannis, Lifesaver's Guide to Fluoridation (Delaware
Ohio: Safe Water Foundation, 1983), p. 1; see also D. Rose and J.R.
Maner "Environmental Fiuonde," National Research Council of Canada
Publication Number NRCC 16081,1977.
9. Enginering and Cost Effectiveness Study of Fluoride Emissions
Control, U.S. EPA report, Volume 1, Number SN 16893.000, January 1972,
p. 1-3, et seq.
1O Final Draft for the Drinking Water Criteria Document on Fluoride,
EPA Repon Number PB85-199321, Apnl 1985, p. 11-5.
11. "Treatment and Recovery of Fluoride Industrial Wastes," EPA Repon
Number PB-234 447, March 1974, p. 5.
12. E. Jerard and J.B. Patnck, "The Summing of Fluoride Exposures,"
International Journal of Environmental Studies, Volume 3, 1973, p.
143.
13. G.J. Cox, "New Knowledge of Fluoride in Relation to Dental
Caries," Journal of American Water Works Association, Volume
31:1926-30, 1939; see also standard toxicology manuals. Tube terms
"fluorine" and "fluoride" were used interchangeably in early
literature.
14. Air Pollutants Affecting the Performance of Domestic Animals U.S.
Department of Agriculture Handbook No. 380, August 1970, p. 41.
15. Kaj Roholm. Fluorine Intoxication (London: H.K. Lewis & Co.,
1937), pp. 64-65.
16. Jerard and Patnck, op. cit., pp. 149-50.
17. USDA Handbook, op. cit., p. 46. Around industrial plants, how-
ever, grazing animals such as cows get the highest doses.
18. Author's 1992 interview.
19. Roholm, op. cit., p. 46.
20 H. Ost," The Fight Against Injurious Industrial Gases." Angew Chem
Volurne 20,1907, pp. 1689-93. Also Roholm op.cit, pp. 36 41.
21. Kaj Roholm "The Fog Disaster in the Meuse Vallev: A Fluorine
Intoxication" Journal ofIndustrial Toxicology Vol. 19, 1937, pp.
126-37.
22. Lloyd DeEds, "Chronic Fluorine Intoxication," Medicine. Vol. 12,
1933, pp. 1 60.
23. R. Berk, et al, Aluminum: Profile of the Industry (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1985), p. 5.
24. Cox, op. cit
25. G.L. Waldbott, et aL, Fluoridation: The Great Dilemma (Lawrence,
Kans.: Coronado Press. 1978), pp. 304-05, and F.B. Exner, Economic
Motives Behind Fluoridation (monograph) (Toronto: Westlake.~, Press,
1966), pp. 1-2.
26. Elise Jeranl, ed., The Case of the Protected Pollutant (New York:
Independent Phi Beta Kappa Study Group, privately printed, 1969).
27. ALCOA's sponsorship was verified in a 1992 interview by the author
with a Mellon Institute public information spokesperson
28. GJ . Cox, ' Discussion, " Journal of the American Medical /
Associate on Vol. 113, 1938, p. 1753.
29. In his 1939 public address in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. before any
safety studies had been conducted, Cox urged that city to fluoridate
its water supplies immediately. They turned him down. See Waldbott,
op. clt., p. 304.
30. Waldbott, op.cit., pp. 296-301; Exner, op. cit., p. 4. Fluoride
has also been the worst pollutant in the phosphate and iron industries
(Exner, pp.3, 6) re: iron and steel see Engineering and Cost, EPA, op.
cit., pp.111 5940.
31. "ThreeWin in Fume Suit, " The Oregonian (Portland), September
17,1955.
32. 'Seven Enter Fluoride Case," The Oregonian, October 15, 1957.
33. Heanngs before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,
U.S. House of Representatives, 83rd Congress, Second Session on H.R.
2341, May 25 27, 1954, pp. 46-48.
34. Ibid The accuracy of Birrningham's testimony concerning the
Wrentham school was confirmed by John Small, Information Specialist,
Fluorides and Health, National Institute of Dental Research. Interview
with author, 1992.
35. Birmingham testimony, Op. cit, p. 51. Newspaper accounts from the
period also refer to Ewing as ALCOA's "chief counsel." Later ASIA
responding to charges that it had been behind the fluoridation scheme,
claimed that Ewlng was just another of its many lawyers and that his
fees had been much lower. Undisputed, however, is that Ewing was an
extremely wealthy corporate lawyer and that his major client was
ALCOA
36. Time, "Aluminum," November 10,1941.
37. Birmingham testimony, op.cit., confirmed by Bernays, at age 100,
in a 1991 interview with author.
38. 'The Original Spin Doctor. " Washington Post, November '3, 1991,
p. B 1.
39. Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda (New York: H. Liveright, 1928), p.
18.
40. Ibid, pp.9, 49.
41. Ibid., p. 53.
42. Bette Hilernan, 'Fluoridation of Water," Chemical and
Engineering .Views, Volume66, August 1,1988, p. 37.
43. Author's interview with Exner's associate Len Greenall, 1992,
Bntish Columbia. Canada; more recently a similar case of possible
arson involved the files of Greenpeace scientist Pat Costner in 1991
(CAIB, Number 41, Summer 1991, pp. 42 44).
44. Letter to author from American Water Works Association, Denver
Colorado, public information department, 1991.
45. A 1983 letter from an EPA administrator dessnbes the system: "In
regard to the use of Sulfuric acid as a source of fluoride for
foundation, this agency regards such use as an ideal environmental
solution to a long-standing problem. By recovenng by-product sulfuric
acid from phosphate enilizer manufacturing, water and air pollution
are minimized, and water utilities have a low cost source of blonde
available to them...." (Rebecca Hammer, EPA Deputy assistant
administrator for water, March 30, 1983.)
46. "Engineering and Cost...," op. cit., pp. 1-1, II-1, 11-L
47. Ibid., p. 1-3.
48. Ibid, p. 1-2.
49. Primary Aluminum: Draft Guidelines for Control of Fluoride
Emissions from Existing Aluminum Plants, EPA report Number Ps2s4s38,
1979, pp. 11-9.
50. Berk, et aL, "Aluminum: Profile...," op. cit., p.l48.
51. Joel Griffiths, " 83 Transcripts Show Fluoride Disagreements,"
Medical Tribune, April 20. 1989, p. 1.
52. Joel Griffiths, "Fluoride Report Softened," Medical Tribune, April
27, 1989.
53. Daniel Grossman, "Fluoride's Revenge," The Progressive December
990 p. 31.
54. Ibid.
55. Griffiths 'Fluoride...," Op. cit., p. 11.
56. Ibid.
57. Griffiths, "83 Transcripts...," Op. Ott.
58. Cooper, et al., Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol.
266 Julv24, 1991, pp.513-14. See also Sowers, et al,"A Prospective
Study of Bone Mineral Content and Fractures in Communities with
Different Fluoride Exposure," American Journal of Epidemiology, Vol.
133, No. 7, pp. t's49-60. For a summary of the most recent studies and
a review of the scientific debate, see "Summary of Workshop on
Drinking Water Fluoride Influence on Hip Fracture and Bone Health,"
Osteoporosis international, Vol. 2, 1992, pp. 109-17.
59. Christa Danielson. et al.. "Hip Fractures and Fluoridation in
Utah's Elderly Population," JAMA Vol 268, August 12, 1992, p. 746-4S.
60. Author's 1992 interview with Sharon Ramirez, statistician,
National Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Centers for Disease
Control. Hyattsville, Md.
61. U.S. National Research Council, Diet and Health (Washington, D.C.:
National Academy Press, 1989). p. 121.
62. JAMA, "Hip...." op. cit.
63. Not just anything causes cancer in the government tests. The
majority of substances tested, all suspected carcinogens, prove
negative, according to the National Cancer Institute. And there's good
reason to worry about the few, like asbestos and DES. that do prove
positive, says the NCI brochure March 1990.
64. U.S. National Research Council. Drinking Water and Health,
(Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1977), pp.3S8-S9.
65. John Yiamouyiannis and Dean Berk, "Fluoridation of Public Water
Systems and Cancer Death Rates in Humans," presented at the 67th
annual meeting of the American Society of Biological Chemists, and
published in Fluoride, Volume 10, Number 3; 1977, pp. 102-23. Follow-
up studies were conducted here and abroad which claimed to refute this
paper and it remains controversial .
66. U.S. Public Health Service, Review of Fluoride Benefits and Risks
(Washington D.C.: Department of Health and Human Services, February
l991), p. iii.
57. Ibid., p. F-2.
6S. Ibid., p. F-3.
69. Ibid., pp. 84-so.
70. HHS press release, February 19,1991.
71. Mark Lowey, "Scientists Question Health Risks of Fluoride,"
Calgary Herald (Canada), February 28,1992.
72. Author's interview 1992*
73. Author's interview 1992.
74. Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory,
Standing Committee on Social Policy, "Inquiry into Water Fluoridation
in the Act [sicl," January 1991, pp. 183-84.
75. John Colquhoun, Community Health Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3, 1990, p.
288.
76. Mark Lowey, "Doctor Warns Fluoride Risky," Calgary Herald,
January
77. Richard G. Foulkes, Letter to Thomas Perrv, Minister of Advanced
Education, Victoria, British Columbia, March 3, 199'.
78. Tom Hawthorne "MD Who Pushed Fluoridation Now Opposes Idea," The
Province (Vancouver), January 26, 1992.
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