Jehovah

Jehovah's Witnesses oppose mind control because it is Witchcraft and we do not knowingly consume poison. We try to only use bottled water and brush our teeth with salt that has no aluminum added. Go to www.watchtower.org and fill out the online form so you can be contacted by those who will help educate you to protect you from wolves in sheep's clothing. Read Amos chapter 4 in the Holy scriptures and you will see that Yehovah (Jehovah) the Almighty Father gave His people cleaness of teeth. They were exorted to return to Him. So if you are relying on Witchcraft (fluoride chemicals) for cleaness of teeth then you should return to the Almighty Father because he can give you cleaness of teeth without the need to use alchemy which is witchcraft. The Hebrews were certainly not using fluoridated toothpaste or drinking fluoridated water for their teeth health. Yehovah was the source of their clean teeth not witchcraft. If you are relying on witchcraft you need to come back to the Almighty Father Yehovah.

During the ultra-secret Manhattan Project, a report was commissioned to assess the effect of fluoride on humans.
That report was classified "secret" for reasons of "national security".

Some 50 years after United States authorities began adding fluoride to public water supplies to reduce cavities in children's teeth, recently discovered declassified government documents are shedding new light on the roots of that still-controversial public health measure, revealing a surprising connection between the use of fluoride and the dawning of the nuclear age.

Today, two-thirds of US public drinking water is fluoridated. Many municipalities still resist the practice, disbelieving the government's assurances of safety.

Since the days of World War II when the US prevailed by building the world's first atomic bomb, the nation's public health leaders have maintained that low doses of fluoride are safe for people and good for children's teeth.

That safety verdict should now be re-examined in the light of hundreds of once-secret WWII-era documents obtained by these reporters [authors Griffiths and Bryson], including declassified papers of the Manhattan Project-the ultra-secret US military program that produced the atomic bomb.

Fluoride was the key chemical in atomic bomb production, according to the documents. Massive quantities-millions of tons-were essential for the manufacture of bomb-grade uranium and plutonium for nuclear weapons throughout the Cold War. One of the most toxic chemicals known, fluoride emerged as the leading chemical health hazard of the US atomic bomb program, both for workers and for nearby communities, the documents reveal.

Other revelations include:
€ Much of the original proof that fluoride is safe for humans in low doses was generated by A-bomb program scientists who had been secretly ordered to provide "evidence useful in litigation" against defence contractors for fluoride injury to citizens. The first lawsuits against the American A-bomb program were not over radiation, but over fluoride damage, the documents show.
€ Human studies were required. Bomb program researchers played a leading role in the design and implementation of the most extensive US study of the health effects of fluoridating public drinking water, conducted in Newburgh, New York, from 1945 to 1955. Then, in a classified operation code-named "Program F", they secretly gathered and analysed blood and tissue samples from Newburgh citizens with the cooperation of New York State Health Department personnel.
€ The original, secret version (obtained by these reporters) of a study published by Program F scientists in the August 1948 Journal of the American Dental Association1 shows that evidence of adverse health effects from fluoride was censored by the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)-considered the most powerful of Cold War agencies-for reasons of "national security".
€ The bomb program's fluoride safety studies were conducted at the University of Rochester-site of one of the most notorious human radiation experiments of the Cold War, in which unsuspecting hospital patients were injected with toxic doses of radioactive plutonium. The fluoride studies were conducted with the same ethical mindset, in which "national security" was paramount.

The US Government's conflict of interest and its motive to prove fluoride safe in the furious debate over water fluoridation since the 1950s has only now been made clear to the general public, let alone to civilian researchers, health professionals and journalists. The declassified documents resonate with a growing body of scientific evidence and a chorus of questions about the health effects of fluoride in the environment.

Human exposure to fluoride has mushroomed since World War II, due not only to fluoridated water and toothpaste but to environmental pollution by major industries, from aluminium to pesticides, where fluoride is a critical industrial chemical as well as a waste by-product.

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

Less known to the public is that fluoride also accumulates in bones. "The teeth are windows to what's happening in the bones," explained Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry at St Lawrence University, New York, to these reporters. In recent years, paediatric bone specialists have expressed alarm about an increase in stress fractures among young people in the US. Connett and other scientists are concerned that fluoride-linked to bone damage in studies since the 1930s-may be a contributing factor.

The declassified documents add urgency: much of the original 'proof ' that low-dose fluoride is safe for children's bones came from US bomb program scientists, according to this investigation.

Now, researchers who have reviewed these declassified documents fear that Cold War national security considerations may have prevented objective scientific evaluation of vital public health questions concerning fluoride.

"Information was buried," concludes Dr Phyllis Mullenix, former head of toxicology at Forsyth Dental Center in Boston and now a critic of fluoridation. Animal studies which Mullenix and co-workers conducted at Forsyth in the early 1990s indicated that fluoride was a powerful central nervous system (CNS) toxin and might adversely affect human brain functioning even at low doses. (New epidemiological evidence from China adds support, showing a correlation between low-dose fluoride exposure and diminished IQ in children.) Mullenix's results were published in 1995 in a reputable peer-reviewed scientific journal.2

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

Declassified documents of the US atomic bomb program indicate otherwise. A Manhattan Project memorandum of 29 April 1944 states: "Clinical evidence suggests that uranium hexafluoride may have a rather marked central nervous system effect... It seems most likely that the F [code for fluoride] component rather than the T [code for uranium] is the causative factor." The memo, from a captain in the medical corps, is stamped SECRET and is addressed to Colonel Stafford Warren, head of the Manhattan Project's Medical Section. Colonel Warren is asked to approve a program of animal research on CNS effects. "Since work with these compounds is essential, it will be necessary to know in advance what mental effects may occur after exposure... This is important not only to protect a given individual, but also to prevent a confused workman from injuring others by improperly performing his duties."

On the same day, Colonel Warren approved the CNS research program. This was in 1944, at the height of World War II and the US nation's race to build the world's first atomic bomb.

For research on fluoride's CNS effects to be approved at such a momentous time, the supporting evidence set forth in the proposal forwarded along with the memo must have been persuasive. The proposal, however, is missing from the files at the US National Archives. "If you find the memos but the document they refer to is missing, it's probably still classified," said Charles Reeves, chief librarian at the Atlanta branch of the US National Archives and Records Administration where the memos were found. Similarly, no results of the Manhattan Project's fluoride CNS research could be found in the files.

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

The author of the 1944 CNS research proposal attached to the 29 April memo was Dr Harold C. Hodge-at the time, chief of fluoride toxicology studies for the University of Rochester division of the Manhattan Project.

Nearly 50 years later at the Forsyth Dental Center in Boston, Dr Mullenix was introduced to a gently ambling elderly man, brought in to serve as a consultant on her CNS research. This man was Harold C. Hodge. By then, Hodge had achieved status emeritus as a world authority on fluoride safety. "But even though he was supposed to be helping me," said Mullenix, "he never once mentioned the CNS work he had done for the Manhattan Project."

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

Dr Antonio Noronha, an NIH scientific review advisor familiar with Dr Mullenix's grant request, told us that her proposal was rejected by a scientific peer-review group. He termed her claim of institutional bias against fluoride CNS research "far-fetched". He then added: "We strive very hard at NIH to make sure politics does not enter the picture." \

The documentary trail begins at the height of World War II, in 1944, when a severe pollution incident occurred downwind of the E.I. DuPont de Nemours Company chemical factory in Deepwater, New Jersey. The factory was then producing millions of pounds of fluoride for the Manhattan Project whose scientists were racing to produce the world's first atomic bomb.

The farms downwind in Gloucester and Salem counties were famous for their high-quality produce. Their peaches went directly to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City; their tomatoes were bought up by Campbell's Soup.

But in the summer of 1944 the farmers began reporting that their crops were blighted: "Something is burning up the peach crops around here." They said that poultry died after an all-night thunderstorm, and that farm workers who ate produce they'd picked would sometimes vomit all night and into the next day.

"I remember our horses looked sick and were too stiff to work," Mildred Giordano, a teenager at the time, told these reporters. Some cows were so crippled that they could not stand up; they could only graze by crawling on their bellies.

The account was confirmed in taped interviews with Philip Sadtler (shortly before he died), of Sadtler Laboratories of Philadelphia, one of the nation's oldest chemical consulting firms. Sadtler had personally conducted the initial investigation of the damage.

Although the farmers did not know it, the attention of the Manhattan Project and the federal government was rivetted on the New Jersey incident, according to once-secret documents obtained by these reporters.

A memo, dated 27 August 1945, from Manhattan Project chief Major-General Leslie R. Groves to the Commanding General of Army Service Forces at the Pentagon, concerns the investigation of crop damage at Lower Penns Neck, New Jersey. It states: "At the request of the Secretary of War, the Department of Agriculture has agreed to cooperate in investigating complaints of crop damage attributed...to fumes from a plant operated in connection with the Manhattan Project."

After the war's end, Dr Harold C. Hodge, the Manhattan Project's chief of fluoride toxicology studies, worriedly wrote in a secret memo (1 March 1946) to his boss, Colonel Stafford L. Warren, chief of the Medical Section, about "problems associated with the question of fluoride contamination of the atmosphere in a certain section of New Jersey".

"There seem to be four distinct (though related) problems:
"1. A question of injury of the peach crop in 1944.
"2. A report of extraordinary fluoride content of vegetables grown in this area.
"3. A report of abnormally high fluoride content in the blood of human individuals residing in this area.
"4. A report raising the question of serious poisoning of horses and cattle in this area."

The New Jersey farmers waited until the war was over before suing DuPont and the Manhattan Project for fluoride damage-reportedly the first lawsuits against the US atomic bomb program. Although seemingly trivial, the lawsuits shook the government, the secret documents reveal.

Under the personal direction of Major-General Groves, secret meetings were convened in Washington, with compulsory attendance by scores of scientists and officials from the US War Department, the Manhattan Project, the Food and Drug Administration, the Agriculture and Justice departments, the US Army's Chemical Warfare Service and Edgewood Arsenal, the Bureau of Standards, as well as lawyers from DuPont. Declassified memos of the meetings reveal a secret mobilization of the full forces of the government to defeat the New Jersey farmers.

In a memo (2 May 1946) copied to General Groves, Manhattan Project Lt Colonel Cooper B. Rhodes notes that these agencies "are making scientific investigations to obtain evidence which may be used to protect the interest of the Government at the trial of the suits brought by owners of peach orchards in...New Jersey".

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

Why the national security emergency over a few lawsuits by New Jersey farmers? In 1946 the United States began full-scale production of atomic bombs. No other nation had yet tested a nuclear weapon, and the A-bomb was seen as crucial for US leadership of the postwar world. The New Jersey fluoride lawsuits were a serious roadblock to that strategy. "The specter of endless lawsuits haunted the military," wrote Lansing Lamont in Day of Trinity, his acclaimed book about the first atomic bomb test.3

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

Indeed, DuPont was particularly concerned about the "possible psychologic reaction" to the New Jersey pollution incident, according to a secret Manhattan Project memo of 1 March 1946. Facing a threat from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to embargo the region's produce because of "high fluoride content", DuPont dispatched its lawyers to the FDA offices in Washington, DC, where an agitated meeting ensued. According to a memo sent next day to General Groves, DuPont's lawyer argued that "in view of the pending suits...any action by the Food and Drug Administration...would have a serious effect on the DuPont Company and would create a bad public relations situation". After the meeting adjourned, Manhattan Project Captain John Davies approached the FDA's Food Division chief and "impressed upon Dr White the substantial interest which the Government had in claims which might arise as a result of action which might be taken by the Food and Drug Administration".

There was no embargo. Instead, according to General Groves' memo of 27 August 1946, new tests for fluoride in the New Jersey area were to be conducted not by the Department of Agriculture but by the US Army's Chemical Warfare Service (CWS)-because "work done by the Chemical Warfare Service would carry the greatest weight as evidence if...lawsuits are started by the complainants".

Meanwhile, the public relations problem remained unresolved: local citizens were in a panic about fluoride. The farmers' spokesman, Willard B. Kille, was personally invited to dine with General Groves (then known as "the man who built the atomic bomb") at his office at the War Department on 26 March 1946. Although diagnosed by his doctor as having fluoride poisoning, Kille departed the luncheon convinced of the government's good faith. Next day he wrote to the general, expressing his wish that the other farmers could have been present so that "they too could come away with the feeling that their interests in this particular matter were being safeguarded by men of the very highest type whose integrity they could not question".

A broader solution to the public relations problem was suggested by Manhattan Project chief fluoride toxicologist Harold C. Hodge in a second secret memo (1 May 1946) to Medical Section chief Colonel Warren: "Would there be any use in making attempts to counteract the local fear of fluoride on the part of residents of Salem and Gloucester counties through lectures on F toxicology and perhaps the usefulness of F in tooth health?" Such lectures were indeed given, not only to New Jersey citizens but to the rest of the nation throughout the Cold War.

The New Jersey farmers' lawsuits were ultimately stymied by the government's refusal to reveal the key piece of information that would have settled the case: how much fluoride DuPont had vented into the atmosphere during the war. "Disclosure would be injurious to the military security of the United States," Manhattan Project Major C. A. Taney, Jr, had written in a memo soon after the war's end (24 September 1945).

The farmers were pacified with token financial settlements, according to interviews with descendants still living in the area.

"All we knew is that DuPont released some chemical that burned up all the peach trees around here," recalled Angelo Giordano whose father James was one of the original plaintiffs. "The trees were no good after that, so we had to give up on the peaches." Their horses and cows acted and walked stiffly, recalled his sister Mildred. "Could any of that have been the fluoride?" she asked. (The symptoms she detailed are cardinal signs of fluoride toxicity, according to veterinary toxicologists.) The Giordano family has also been plagued by bone and joint problems, Mildred added. Recalling the settlement received by the family, Angelo Giordano told these reporters that his father said he "got about $200".

The farmers were stonewalled in their search for information about fluoride's effects on their health, and their complaints have long since been forgotten. But they unknowingly left their imprint on history: their complaints of injury to their health reverberated through the corridors of power in Washington and triggered intensive, secret, bomb program research on the health effects of fluoride.

A secret memo (2 May 1946) to General Groves from Manhattan Project Lt Colonel Rhodes states: "Because of complaints that animals and humans have been injured by hydrogen fluoride fumes in [the New Jersey] area, although there are no pending suits involving such claims, the University of Rochester is conducting experiments to determine the toxic effect of fluoride."

Much of the proof of fluoride's alleged safety in low doses rests on the postwar work done at the University of Rochester in anticipation of lawsuits against the bomb program for human injury.

For the top-secret Manhattan Project to delegate fluoride safety studies to the University of Rochester was not surprising. During WWII the US Federal Government became involved for the first time in large-scale funding of scientific research at government-owned labs and private colleges. Those early spending priorities were shaped by the nation's often-secret military needs.

The prestigious upstate New York college in particular had housed a key wartime division of the Manhattan Project to study the health effects of the new "special materials" such as uranium, plutonium, beryllium and fluoride which were being used in making the atomic bomb. That work continued after the war, with millions of dollars flowing from the Manhattan Project and its successor organisation, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). (Indeed, the bomb left an indelible imprint on all of US science in the late 1940s and 1950s. Up to 90 per cent of all federal funds for university research came from either the Department of Defense or the AEC in this period, according to Noam Chomsky in his 1997 book, The Cold War and the University.4)

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

But this marriage of military secrecy and medical science bore deformed offspring. The University of Rochester's classified fluoride studies, code-named "Program F", were started during the war and continued up until the early 1950s. They were conducted at its Atomic Energy Project (AEP), a top-secret facility funded by the AEC and housed at Strong Memorial Hospital. It was there that one of the most notorious human radiation experiments of the Cold War took place, in which unsuspecting hospital patients were injected with toxic doses of radioactive plutonium. Revelation of this experiment-in a Pulitzer Prize&endash;winning account by Eileen Welsome-led to a 1995 US presidential investigation and a multimillion-dollar cash settlement for victims.

Program F was not about children's teeth. It grew directly out of litigation against the bomb program, and its main purpose was to furnish scientific ammunition which the government and its nuclear contractors could use to defeat lawsuits for human injury. Program F's director was none other than Dr Harold C. Hodge- who led the Manhattan Project investigation of alleged human injury in the New Jersey fluoride pollution incident.

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

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

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

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

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

Program F's interest in water fluoridation was not just "to counteract the local fear of fluoride on the part of residents", as Hodge had earlier written to Colonel Warren. The bomb program required human studies of fluoride's effects, just as it needed human studies of plutonium's effects. Adding fluoride to public water supplies provided one opportunity.

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

Planning began in 1943 with the appointment of a special New York State Health Department committee to study the advisability of adding fluoride to Newburgh's drinking water. The chairman of the committee was, again, Dr Harold C. Hodge, then chief of fluoride toxicity studies for the Manhattan Project. Subsequent members of the committee included Henry L. Barnett, a captain in the Project's Medical Section, and John W. Fertig, in 1944 with the Office of Scientific Research and Development-the super-secret Pentagon group which sired the Manhattan Project. Their military affiliations were kept secret. Hodge was described as a pharmacologist, Barnett as a paediatrician. Placed in charge of the Newburgh project was David B. Ast, chief dental officer of the New York State Health Department. Ast had participated in a key secret wartime conference on fluoride, held by the Manhattan Project in January 1944, and later worked with Dr Hodge on the Project's investigation of human injury in the New Jersey incident, according to once-secret memos.

The committee recommended that Newburgh be fluoridated. It selected the types of medical studies to be done, and it also "provided expert guidance" for the duration of the experiment.

The key question to be answered was: "Are there any cumulative effects, beneficial or otherwise, on tissues and organs other than the teeth, of long-continued ingestion of such small concentrations?" According to the declassified documents, this was also key information sought by the bomb program. In fact, the program would require "long-continued" exposure of workers and communities to fluoride throughout the Cold War.

In May 1945, Newburgh's water was fluoridated, and over the next 10 years its residents were studied by the New York State Health Department.

In tandem, Program F conducted its own secret studies, focusing on the amounts of fluoride Newburgh citizens retained in their blood and tissues-information called for by the bomb program in connection with litigation. "Possible toxic effects of fluoride were in the forefront of consideration," the advisory committee stated. Health department personnel cooperated, shipping blood and placenta samples to the Program F team at the University of Rochester. The samples were collected by Dr David B. Overton, the department's chief of paediatric studies at Newburgh.

The final report of the Newburgh Demonstration Project, published in 1956 in the Journal of the American Dental Association,5 concluded that "small concentrations" of fluoride were safe for US citizens. The biological proof, "based on work performed...at the University of Rochester Atomic Energy Project", was delivered by Dr Hodge.

Today, news that scientists from the A-bomb program secretly shaped and guided the Newburgh fluoridation experiment and studied the citizens' blood and tissue samples is greeted with incredulity.

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

As a child in the early 1950s, Mayor Carey was taken to the old Newburgh firehouse on Broadway which housed the public health clinic. There, doctors from the Newburgh fluoridation project studied her teeth, and a peculiar fusion of two fingerbones on her left hand which she's had since birth. (Carey said that her granddaughter has white dental-fluorosis marks on her front teeth.)

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

When contacted by these reporters, the now 95-year-old David B. Ast, former director of the Newburgh experiment, said he was unaware that Manhattan Project scientists were involved. "If I had known, I would have been certainly investigating why, and what the connection was," he said. Did he know that blood and placenta samples from Newburgh were being sent to bomb-program researchers at the University of Rochester? "I was not aware of it," Ast replied. Did he recall participating in the Manhattan Project's secret wartime conference on fluoride in January 1944, or going to New Jersey with Dr Hodge to investigate human injury in the DuPont case, as secret memos state? He told these reporters he had no recollection of any such events.

Bob Loeb, a spokesperson for the University of Rochester Medical Center, confirmed that blood and tissue samples from Newburgh had been tested by the University's Dr Hodge. On the ethics of secretly studying US citizens to obtain information useful in litigation against the A-bomb program, he said: "That's a question we cannot answer." He referred inquiries to the US Department of Energy (DOE), successor to the Atomic Energy Commission.

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

On Manhattan Project involvement in Newburgh, Brady stated: "Nothing that we have suggests that the DOE or predecessor agencies-especially the Manhattan Project-authorised fluoride experiments to be performed on children in the 1940s."

When told that these reporters have several documents that directly tie the AEP-the Manhattan Project's successor agency at the University of Rochester-to the Newburgh experiment, DOE spokesperson Brady later conceded her study was confined to "the available universe" of documents.

Two days later, Brady faxed a statement for clarification. "My search only involved the documents that we collected as part of our human radiation experiments project; fluoride was not part of our research effort."

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

SUPPRESSION OF ADVERSE HEALTH FINDINGS
The crucial question arising from the investigation is whether adverse health findings from Newburgh and other bomb-program fluoride studies were suppressed. All AEC-funded studies had to be declassified before publication in civilian medical and dental journals. Where are the original classified versions?

The transcript of one of the major secret scientific conferences of World War II-on "fluoride metabolism"-is missing from the files of the US National Archives and is "probably still classified", according to the librarian. Participants in the January 1944 conference included key figures who promoted the safety of fluoride and water fluoridation to the public after the war: Harold Hodge of the Manhattan Project, David B. Ast of the Newburgh Demonstration Project, and US Public Health Service dentist H. Trendley Dean, popularly known as "the father of fluoridation".

A WWII Manhattan Project c lassified report (25 July 1944) on water fluoridation is missing from the files of the University of Rochester Atomic Energy Project, the US National Archives, and the Nuclear Repository at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The next four numerically consecutive documents are also missing, while the remainder of the "M-1500 series" is present.

"Either those documents are still classified, or they've been 'disappeared' by the government," said Clifford Honicker, Executive Director of the American Environmental Health Studies Project in Knoxville, Tennessee, which provided key evidence in the public exposure and prosecution of US human radiation experiments.

Seven pages have been cut out of a 1947 Rochester bomb project notebook entitled "DuPont Litigation". "Most unusual," commented the medical school's chief archivist, Chris Hoolihan.

Similarly, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests lodged by these reporters over a year ago with the DOE for hundreds of classified fluoride reports have failed to dislodge any. "We're behind," explained Amy Rothrock, chief FOIA officer at Oak Ridge National Laboratories.

So, has information been suppressed? These reporters made what appears to be the first discovery of the original classified version of a fluoride safety study by bomb program scientists. A censored version of this study was later published in the August 1948 Journal of the American Dental Association.6 Comparison of the secret version with the published version indicates that the US AEC did censor damaging information on fluoride-to the point of tragicomedy. This was a study of the dental and physical health of workers in a factory producing fluoride for the A-bomb program; it was conducted by a team of dentists from the Manhattan Project.

€ The secret version reports that most of the men had no teeth left. The published version reports only that the men had fewer cavities.
€ The secret version says the men had to wear rubber boots because the fluoride fumes disintegrated the nails in their shoes. The published version does not mention this.
€ The secret version says the fluoride may have acted similarly on the men's teeth, contributing to their toothlessness. The published version omits this statement and concludes that "the men were unusually healthy, judged from both a medical and dental point of view".

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

Asked for comment on the early links of the Manhattan Project to water fluoridation, Dr Harold Slavkin, Director of the National Institute for Dental Research-the US agency which today funds fluoride research-said: "I wasn't aware of any input from the Atomic Energy Commission." Nevertheless, he insisted that fluoride's efficacy and safety in the prevention of dental cavities over the last 50 years is well proved. "The motivation of a scientist is often different from the outcome," he reflected. "I do not hold a prejudice about where the knowledge comes from."

Endnotes:
1. Dale, Peter P., and McCauley, H. B, "Dental Conditions in Workers Chronically Exposed to Dilute and Anhydrous Hydrofluoric Acid", Journal of the American Dental Association, vol. 37, no. 2, August 1948, pp. 131-140. Note that Dale and McCauley were both Manhattan Project and, later, Program F personnel; they also authored the secret Manhattan Project paper.
2. Mullenix, Phyllis et al., "Neurotoxicity of Sodium Fluoride in Rats", Neurotoxicology and Teratology, vol. 17, no. 2, 1995, pp. 169-177.
3. Lamont, Lansing, Day of Trinity, Atheneum, New York City, 1965.
4. Chomsky, Noam, The Cold War and the University, New Press, New York City, 1997 (distributed by W.W. Norton & Co. Inc., NYC).
5. Hodge, H. C., "Fluoride metabolism: its significance in water fluoridation", in "Newburgh-Kingston caries-fluorine study: final report", Journal of the American Dental Association, vol. 52, March 1956.
6. Dale and McCauley, ibid.

About the Authors:
Joel Griffiths is a medical writer based in New York City. He is the author of a book on radiation hazards that included one of the first revelations of human radiation experiments, and has contributed numerous articles to medical journals and popular publications.
Chris Bryson, who holds a Master's degree in journalism, is an independent reporter for BBC Radio, ABC-TV and public television in New York City, and writes for a variety of publications.
The authors wish to thank Clifford Honicker, Executive Director of the American Environmental Health Studies Project, Knoxville, TN, for his indispensable archival research.

Resources:
Copies of 155 pages of supporting documents, including all the declassified papers referred to in this article, can be obtained from the following contacts for a small fee to cover copying and postage:
€ Australia: Australian Fluoridation News, GPO Box 935G, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, phone (03) 9592 5088, fax (03) 9592 4544.
€ New Zealand: New Zealand Pure Water Association, 278 Dickson Road, Papamoa, Bay of Plenty, phone (07) 542 0499.
€ UK: National Pure Water Association of the UK, 12 Dennington Lane, Crigglestone, Wakefield, WF4 3ET, phone 01924 254433, fax 01924 242380.
€ USA: Waste Not newsletter, 82 Judson Street, Canton, NY 13617, phone (315) 379 9200, fax (315) 379 0448, e-mail http://us.f535.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=wastenot@northnet.org.

A History of Fluoridation

A more detailed history follows the following summary, which encapsulates the essence of the issue.

1855. Smelters in Freiburg, Germany first paid damages to neighbours injured by fluoride emissions.

1901. A young dental school graduate named Frederick McKay left the East Coast to open a dental practice in Colorado Springs, Colorado. McKay was astounded to find scores of Colorado Springs natives with grotesque brown stains on their teeth. This became known as "Colorado brown stain", now known as dental fluorosis.

1909. Independently, Dr. F. L. Robertson, a dentist in Bauxite, Arkansas, noted the presence of mottled enamel among children after a deep well was dug in to provide a local water supply.

The same year, renowned dental researcher Dr. G.V. Black came to Colorado Springs and collaborated with McKay on the mysterious ailment.
Black commented "This is much more than a deformity of childhood. If it were only that, it would be of less consequence, but it is a deformity for life."
Black investigated fluorosis for six years, until his death in 1915. During that period, he and McKay made two crucial discoveries:

1923. McKay travelled to Oakley, Idaho to meet with parents who had noticed peculiar brown stains on their children's teeth. This began appearing shortly after Oakley constructed a communal water pipeline to a warm spring five miles away. McKay analyzed the water, but found nothing suspicious in it. Nonetheless, he advised town leaders to abandon the pipeline altogether and use another nearby spring as a water source. McKay's advice did the trick. Within a few years, the younger children of Oakley were sprouting healthy secondary teeth without any mottling. But it remained a mystery as to what was in the water.

The answer came when McKay and Dr. Grover Kempf of the United States Public Health Service (PHS) travelled to Bauxite, Arkansas-a company town owned by the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA)-to investigate reports of the familiar brown stains. The two discovered that the mottled enamel disorder was prevalent among the children of Bauxite, but nonexistent in another town only five miles away.

McKay and Kempf published a report on their findings that reached the desk of ALCOA's chief chemist, H. V. Churchill, who had spent the past few years refuting claims that aluminum cookware was poisonous. He became worried that this report might provide fresh fodder for ALCOA's detractors.
Using photospectrographic analysis in 1931, Churchill found that the water was high in fluoride.

1931. Drs. Smith determined that even 0.9ppm can cause fluorosis. "The Cause of Mottled Enamel, a Defect of Human Teeth" Univ Ariz Agric Exp Sta Tech Bull No 32, (1931).

Credit was however given to ALCOA’s researchers: Churchill "The Occurrence of Fluorides in Some Waters of the United States" Journal of American Water Works Assn 23: 1399 (1931)

Churchill wrote to McKay on this new revelation. Samples from Colorado were collected and also proved high in fluoride.

This revelation led to the establishment in 1931 of the Dental Hygiene Unit at the National Institute of Health headed by Dr. H. Trendley Dean who began investigating the epidemiology of fluorosis so that new restrictive standards could be set for natural fluoride levels. First developing an analytical method accurate to 0.1ppm, from 1932-1937 Dean conducted surveys to determine the prevalence of dental fluorosis in various States of the USA. He observed fluorosis in communities with as little as 0.3 ppm. Dean was a public dentist, not a medical doctor, yet without any research into toxicology he stated in 1937: "Amounts of fluoride not exceeding 1ppm are of no public health significance" without quoting a total daily intake.

Meanwhile, throughout the 1930’s Aluminium and Superphosphate companies, like ALCOA and Reynolds Metals, were successfully sued for millions of dollars for damage to crops, pastures, and livestock from fluoride fumes.

Back at the Mellon Institute, ALCOA's Pittsburgh industrial research lab, this news was galvanic. There, biochemist Gerald J. Cox immediately fluoridated some lab rats in a study and concluded that fluoride reduced cavities and that: "The case should be regarded as proved." 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 and burdened by the odious expense of disposing of tons of toxic industrial waste. Cox began touring the country, stumping for fluoridation. Dean would go on to carve out a nice career for himself as the "father" of public water fluoridation.

1933. McClure, who later became a leading proponent of fluoridation, shows enzyme interference from fluoride. ("A review of Fluorine and its Physiological Effects" Physiol Rev 13:289 (1933))

1936. HT Dean promotes the theory that fluoride makes teeth more resistant to decay.

1937. Acknowledgement of the importance of other minerals, apart from fluoride, in dental health :Mills CA "Factors affecting the incidence of Dental Caries on Population Groups" J Dent Res 16:417 (1937)

1938. HT Dean acknowledged that other mineral content of water, especially calcium and phosphorus, may be as relevant as fluoride: “Endemic Fluorosis and its relation to Dental Caries” Public Health Reports 53: 1452 (19 Aug 1938)

Two scientists at New Mexico University (Clark and Mann) conduct the first State-wide survey of drinking water in New Mexico, identifying fluoride contents up to 12ppm. Of 157 communities 35 showed fluoride content “above the danger point of 0.9 ppm." The authors set the dividing line of toxicity between 0.8 and 1ppm. A university release classified this as "hopelessly out of date", with no further research evidence to support this claim, once the Newburgh experiment at 0.9-1.2ppm was initiated.

Dr Wallace D Armstrong and PJ Brekhus claimed their analysis of tooth enamel showed less fluoride in decayed teeth than healthy teeth.

For studies into dental decay GJ Cox received grants from the Buhl Foundation at the Mellon Institute, and from the Sugar Institute. Up until this point in 1939, fluoride had been targeted for removal from food and water supplies because of its recognised toxicity. (GJ Cox "New Knowledge of Fluorine in Relation to Dental Caries" J Am Waterworks Assn 3: 1926 (1939). Cox was the first to promulgate the idea that fluoride may be necessary for tooth formation.

From being a troublesome industrial pollutant, fluoride suddenly became a desirable medication, and the fluoride-producing industries had a market for their toxic wastes.

In the early 1940’s Cox promoted fluoridation like crazy, becoming a member of the National Research Council, compiling several summaries of fluoride research, becoming one of "the experts".

Cox had already completed research showing no benefit to the teeth of rat offspring at up to 20.6 ppm in the water of pregnant and lactating mother rats, and that humans are more sensitive to fluoride toxicity than rats:

1939. New York water authorities propose a maximum level of 0.1 ppm based Dean’s 1937 statement (thast 1ppm was safe) and a safety factor of 10. However the fluoridation movement adopted 1ppm as a safe level, without any toxicological studies.

1940. Drs Mr &Mrs Smith: "Although mottled teeth are somewhat more resistant to the onset of decay, they are structurally weak; when decay does set in, the result is often disastrous." Smith M, Smith H "Observations on the Durability of Mottled Teeth" American Journal of Public Health 30:1050 (1940)

The study was conducted in St David Arizona. Water fluoride levels were 1.6 – 4 ppm. Very few persons over 21 were free of dental caries. There was a high incidence of extracted teeth in all age groups with over 50% false teeth at ages 24-26.
Fillings would not anchor in the structurally weakened teeth, which had then to be removed.

1943. Tooth decay studied in Hereford and Colorado Springs. Both had 2.5 ppm fluoride, but there was high tooth decay in Colorado Springs yet low rates in Hereford. There were, however, high phosphorus levels in Hereford foods. Phosphorus is an important mineral for bones and teeth. This recognition that Hereford's other minerals were involved was again confirmed in 1965.

Dr Ast, main investigator of the Newburg experiment: "[dental fluorosis is] the first objective indication of chronic fluoride poisoning."

FA Arnold, NIDR advocated fluoridation in the Journal of the American Dental Association, Vol 30:499-508 (1943) "Role of Fluorides in Preventive Dentistry" on the basis of Cox’s experiments and the invalid Armstrong-Brekhus analysis. He acknowledged the possibility of cumulative toxic effects but casually dismissed it as "rather remote".

Meanwhile, the "Manhattan Project" had produced the atomic bomb. The radioactive Uranium was separated by first turning all the Uranium ore into Uranium Hexafluoride. The fluoride fumes caused serious health problems in workers, notably Central Nervous System damage, later to be confirmed by Dr Phyllis Mullinex in laboratory trials in 1995, at Forsyth Dental School. The US Government was facing law suits over fluoride exposure and was looking for a way of denying harm in such actions. Its subsequent involvement in the Newburgh-Kingston experiment was revealed in documents released under the US Official Secrets Act in 1997.

"Fluorides are general protoplasmic poisons, with the capacity to modify cell metabolism, changing the permeability of the cell membrane by inhibiting certain enzymes. Sources of fluoride intoxication include drinking water containing 1ppm or more of fluorine.

1945. Cox's hypothesis was also a godsend for those interested in dental health which, in contrast to the great medical advances made in the 20^th century, had made no such advances. This led to four initial experiments: Grand Rapids, Newburgh, Evanston, and Brantford.

The fluoridation experiment in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was originally sponsored by the U.S. Surgeon General, but taken over by the NIDR (a unit within the PHS) shortly after the Institute's inception in 1948. This was planned as a 15 year project, but the control city, Muskegon, was fluoridated in 1951 (the same year as the infamous Conference, and the year following the PHS' premature "go-ahead" for fluoridation) . It had shown the same rate of dental improvement as Grand rapids, which was not politically acceptable, so the experiment was reported as a success by quoting only the "before and after" results of Grand Rapids, and excluding the Muskegon figures.

Later the methodology was found so poor that no conclusions could validly be drawn, yet this was one of the experiments quoted worldwide, even today, as "conclusive proof" of the alleged benefits of fluoridation: Lack of standardisation of data gathering methods, personal examiner bias, inadequate control of studies, relatively short exposure when a lifetime exposure is contemplated. In related studies, there was an 89% deviation in the average number of caries recorded in 33 teeth by 8 dentists. JC Boyd, NE Wessels: "Epidemiological Studies in Dental Caries III: The interpretation of Clinical Data Relating to Caries Advance" Am J Public Health 41: 967-986 (1951).
Examination of the data also showed that the claimed 53% improvement over the first 4 years was an alleged 80% improvement in the first year, and and worsening over the next 3. The 80% improvement in 1 year is of course impossible. It was then discovered that only a selection of the original children were studied after the initial survay. Further, at one point the figures for 11 year olds were better than the figures for the previous yearfor 10 year olds, when (supposedly) the same children were a year younger. Again this is impossible, proving the statistcial base was so corrupt as to be useless.

The same year a second experiment began in Newburgh, NY, with Kingston as the control city, planned as a 10 year study into both the possible benefits and possible adverse effects of fluoride. At the 1951 State Dental Directors Conference, Dr Bain, who was on the technical committee, acknowledged that it had hoped to keep its findings secret until the 10 years was up, only then advising if any adverse health effects had been found. This aspect of the study was controlled by a group from the Manhattan project, who wanted to keep quiet any adverse effects which could be used against them in the pending court actions mentioned earlier.

The people of Newburgh were also given dental hygiene information, and topical treatments, in addition to fluoridating the water, invalidating the comparison with Kingston. The published results after 7 years of the trial were analysed by independent statisticians who, aside form identifying "embarrassingly" inadequate methodology or sampling techniques, concluded that no permanent improvement was evidenced in Newburgh, and predicted that shortly the decay rates would exceed those of Kingston. This in fact happened and today Kingston continues to have less tooth decay than the fluoridated Newburgh, a result consistent with the New Zealand Hastings-Napier experiment.

Fluoride levels varied by up to 900% between individuals, hence averages as the basis of safety conclusions were not only worthless, but dangerous. FA Smith, DE Gardner, HC Hodge "Investigation on the Metabolism of Fluoride, Fluoride Content of Blood and Urine as a Function of the Fluoride in Drinking water" J Dent Res 29: 596-600 (1951)

The Newburgh experiment director, Dr Ast, originated the idea of fluoridating without citizen’s knowledge. (see 1969, Michigan.)

1946. JJ Frisch launched a campaign to fluoridate his home town of Madison, Wisconsin, 1 year after the Newburgh and Grand Rapids studies began; 9 years before adverse health data was expected to be available.
Frisch enlisted Frank Bull, who immediately launched a political campaign to adopt fluoridation in Madison.

The council composed a committee which, after studying the evidence, advised against fluoridation, largely because of the time the experiments were to run.( EB Hart., Professor Emeritus, Wisconsin University, before a Congressional Committee, 6 years later)

Bull and Frisch persisted. The council approached the US PHS who advised "many years of research are needed before fluoridation can be implemented on a general basis. [The studies may take 12-15 years to determine a final answer].Mass fluoridation cannot yet be recommended."

1947. Oscar Ewing took a leave of absence form his law firm of Hughes, Hubbard, and Ewing, solicitors for ALCOA, where he was earning approximately $750,000 annually. He became Director of the US Federal Security Agency directing, amongst others, the US PHS, on a salary of $120,000. Although the PHS had initially taken a cautious approach to fluoridation, it was lobbied by a Wisconsin group, including J Frisch and Dr Frank Bull, who argued that there was no need to wait 10-15 years for the results of the Grand Rapids experiment because there were generations of experience with naturally high fluoride areas.
Ewing promoted fluoridation before the permanent teeth of the children in the test cities had erupted. Ewing was later confirmed as the committer of PHS to fluoridation: Hearings on Res 74 and 447 House Select Committee to investigate the Use of Chemicals in Foods and Cosmetics 82^nd US Congress 1952.

Dr Weaver was a pro-fluoridation medical officer who had been studying dental decay in Shields England, half of which had high fluoride levels. He went to great lengths to ensure there were no demographic differences when claiming that there was less decay in the high fluoride area.
His results, however, supported the delay theory: there was no difference in decay of 15 year olds in South Shields UK at 1.4 ppm fluoride and 12 year olds in N Shields at 0.25ppm: R Weaver "The Inhibition of Dental caries by Fluorine" Proc Royal Soc Med 41: 284 (1948)

He subsequently published in the British Dental Journal his comparison of general medical health. The records showed a significantly higher mortality in the 1.4 ppm area, especially infant mortality (as also shown 1977 by Dr Albert Schatz in Chile). Weaver refused to accept that fluoride was the cause, claiming there must have been some other factor, even though he had ensured there was no other possible factor.

20 people died in Donora Pa. An independent investigation showed this was due to fluoride 12 -25 times higher blood plasma levels than normal. (public health Bulletin 306, 1959) The US PHS covered this up, supporting industry in denial, but never offered an alternative explanation.

1948. Dr Leo Spira Acta Medica Scandinavia showed the presence of fluorine in cigarette smoke.

1949. US promoter Dr Rowlett began lobbying the World Health Organisation to adopt fluoridation as policy, without success.

Dr AP Black Florida, is personally responsible for introduction of fluoridation, 3 years before it becomes official PHS policy. (Testimony before Florida State Board of Health Aug 20 1955.) He was a collaborator with HT Dean. As president of the American Water Works Association Black obtained the Association's permissive resolution at its 1949 Convention.

1950. January 1950. ALCOA advertised fluoridation for improving children’s teeth. Journal of the American Water Works Association Vol 42. Advertising was discontinued once the PHS started doing so.

US PHS survey in American Samoa, conducted by USN Capt FL Losee. It reveals almost perfect teeth amongst inhabitants of low to near-zero fluoride areas.

1 June 1950, the PHS announced "Communities desiring to fluoridate their communal water supplies should be strongly encouraged to do so." This endorsement was followed 5 months later by the American Dental Association, and others.

The Sugar Research Foundation with 130 sugar company members 7^th annual report: at p23 - its aim is "To discover effective means of controlling tooth decay by methods other than restricting carbohydrate (sugar) intake."

January 1950. ALCOA advertised fluoridation for improving children’s teeth. Journal of the American Water Works Association Vol 42. Advertising was discontinued once the PHS started doing so.

The NSW branch of the Australian Dental Association, the Faculty of Dentistry Sydney University, and the Sydney Institute of Dental research, submitted a report to the Australian Government urging that fluoridation begin.

1951. Ewing persuaded Congress to release $2M for the promotion of artificial fluoridation.

The infamous Conference of State Dental Directors was held, where the main strategist, Dr Frank Bull, told attendees how to get fluoridation into communities by subversive means, against public opposition, and particularly how to deal with concerns over adverse health effects, which had at that time not been sufficiently researched. In particular it was stated that fluoride must be promoted as "absolutely safe" yet was admitted that this was unknown.
Right click here and select "Save Target As" to download pdf file.

Bull’s promotional tactics were taken up by the American Dental Association, whose representative, Philip Phair, had attended the conference.

The US Surgeon General, Dr Leonard Scheele, became president of WHO, paving the way for its later fluoridation policy.

The American Medical Association is pressured to "fully endorse" fluoridation as safe and effective. The chairman of the AMA’s Public Health Committee, Dr Farrell, proposed that the AMA support fluoridation "in principle" as there was insufficient research on adverse health effects was available. In fact the main protagonist, F J McClure, who insisted fluoride was absolutely safe, had published articles in 1933 and 1946 stating that the possibility of adverse anti-enzymatic activity could not be disregarded. Once fluoridation was approved "in principle," promoters within the AMA pushed it as hard as they could, with no regard for possible adverse effects.
Note that, similarly, in its correspondence with the NZ Human Rights Commission, the NZMA also stated it supported fluoridation "in principle", rather than the outright commitment to compulsion proposed by the NZDA.

A 63% reduction in decay is shown by brushing with a non-fluoride dentifrice: LS Fosdick "Reduction of Incidence of Dental Caries" JADA 40:133 (1951).

Dr A Taylor PhD, biochemist, Biochemical Institute, Texas University: Original tentative studies showed a shortening of the life of cancer-prone mice fed 0.44ppm fluoride. Two PHS officials visited him (HT Dean, H Andervont). Although Dr Taylor had stated these were preliminary findings, the PHS declared the experiments invalid because there was measurable fluoride in the feed pellets.

McClure repeats his 1933 findings of enzyme interference from fluoride, stating "Anti-enzymatic effects of trace quantities of fluoride cannot be disregarded." ("Non-dental Physiological Effects of Trace Quantities of Fluorine. Dental Caries and Fluorine" a Symposium ed: FR Moulton Am Soc for Advancement of Science p89 Wash DC (1951)). McClure then assures AMA Councils on Pharmacy and Chemistry and on Foods and Nutrition that fluoridation is completely safe.

The National Research Council reports. Its 9 member committee to consider fluoridation was guided by 3 men: promoter Dr Basil Bibby, had carried out research for the Sugar Research Foundation, Dr FF Heyroth assistant director of the Kettering laboratory, financed by ALCOA and other industries with serious fluoride problems, and HT Dean of the PHS. Their final report in 29 November 1951 referenced papers by about 30 authors, all but 2 of whom were closely linked with either the PHS or industry.

By the end of 1951, the US PHS and American Association for the Advancement of Science were apparently endorsing fluoridation. The ADA used these endorsements to gain others, without any subsequent organisations investigating safety or asking for evidence. The more organisations that endorsed it, the more the campaign snowballed. The ADA, as is still the primary tactic, avoided answering the science and simply quoted the endorsements.

Foreign countries established study groups. Their representatives visiting the US were hosted around the Newburgh and Grand Rapids experiments by Scheele, Dean, and Knutson (now Assistant Surgeon General)

Around this time the US Government enlists Edward L. Bernays, since dubbed "the original spin-doctor", to launch amassive public reelations campaign. Bernays promoted the tactic of vigorous character assassination of opponents, in the absence of scientific argument.

1952. ALCOA had offered research grants for disposal of its aluminium waste. The USPHS was collaborating closely with industry to in the disbursement of these research funds. (Conflict of interest).(Seattle Times 16 December 1952.)

A. Kantorowicz a German scientist observes no correlation between fluoride and caries in 18 German cities: "Caries Incidence in Communities of North Rhein-Westfallen and the Fluorine Content of their Drinking Water" Deutsch. Zahn. Zeitschrift 7:1017-20 (1952).

Dr L Matthews promoting dentist in Chester, Virginia said "tooth decay among Chester children is about as bad as anywhere else." (New York Herald, 15 May 1952). Chester’s water had 2ppm, unbeknown to Matthews. (See 2001: the same statement is made about Kentucky: promoters don't appear to check their facts any more today than they did 50 years ago.)

US Select Committee to Investigate the Use of Chemicals in Food and Cosmetics: Examined a wide range of chemicals, many of which were proven carcinogenic but which no one had bothered to check. The Committee had 7 days of hearings on fluoridation, with many scientists expressing concern that the safety of fluoridation was not sufficiently demonstrated.

The National Research Council’s report on fluoridation states regarding the Grand Rapids – Muskegon experiment:

Research by M Massler and I Schour shows that the nutritional status of the population, especially calcium intake, affects the prevalence and degree of mottling caused by [water fluoridation]. The poorer the nutritional status and the lower he calcium intake, the more prevalent and more severe the mottling.

1953. The basis of 1ppm fluoride in the water in temperate climates is established on the basis that 4 glasses of water per day gives 1 mg. This is recommended by NIDR (PHS) based on: FJ McClure "Ingestion of Fluorine and Dental Caries. Quantitative Relations Based on Food and Water Requirements of Children, 1-12 Years Old." Amer J Diseases of Children 66: 362 (1953)

Hastings, New Zealand, becomes the first city to fluoridate outside the USA.

The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC ) assisted in a study of children at the Hopewood Home, Bowral, NSW. The children were fed a healthy diet, and used water with no measurable amount of fluoride. 78% had perfect teeth. The average DMFT was 0.58.

In spite of the Hopewood study the NHMRC first endorses fluoridation. Its task is to advise the Australian government on all matters concerning health of people. Its recommendation was based on the advice of the Dental Research Advisory Committee. It was, nevertheless, conditional:

Promoters claimed this to be an unequivocal endorsement. Deliberations were held in secret, the same as the 1979 Hamer Committee. Even the conditional endorsement was based on the uncompleted US studies. As at 1982 the NHMRC had conducted no research in Australia, but simply kept repeating its original endorsement.

Chile also begins fluoridation, banning it in 1977 due to proven adverse health effects and increased death rates amongst its poor.

Most countries in Europe set up fluoridation trials. All eventually abandon them.

For example Sweden, in 1972 stated publicly that although the results from the first 5 years looked hopeful, the results from the full 10 year study showed no benefit. The early termination of the US trials is interesting to note in this context.

Fort Worth Texas, Council voted for fluoridation in August 1953, yet water already contained up to 1.8 ppm (different supplies). It was listed as "naturally fluoridated" by the PHS in a nationwide release in 1963. Yet dentists started promoting fluoridation again in September 1964. (Fort Worth Star Telegram 20 Sept 1964.)

Evanston Illinois. PHS studies by JR Blayney, well known promoter of fluoridation, reported before the International Association for Dental Research, 1954: persons with kidney disease eliminate only 60% as much fluoride as healthy person with water at 1ppm, but the same amount with water at 0.1ppm. Abstract: J Dent Res 33: 691 (1954)"Evanston Dental Caries Study XIII. Preliminary Report on Comparative Fluorine Retention in human Tissue." The research was never allowed to be published in full.

Dr GF Lull, Secretary AMA "I am aware of the fact that the American Dental Association may only publish what it desires on the subject" Letter to Dr George Waldbott, April 23 1954.

Dr George Waldbott seeks to submit article against fluoridation to AMA for publication. Response: "[The AMA has] endorsed fluoridation. Any contribution on this subject must therefore first clear the policy making body of our organisation." The same response from the New England Journal of Medicine: "the profession hereabouts is pretty much sold on fluoridation."

The ADA publish a booklet ( "How to Obtain Fluoridation in your community" May 1954) based on Bull’s tactics as preached at the 1951 Conference (see above). They add a section "Downgrading the Public Image of opponents of Fluoridation"

It also advocated that dentist promoters not answer technical questions, but insist that it is unnecessary to do so because US health authorities had endorsed fluoridation therefore any objections had already been addressed. Also that fluoridation be represented as correcting a fluoride deficiency in the water, not as adding medication. This tactic is still followed in New Zealand in 2003). The booklet contained not one single piece of scientific data.

A New York scientist (who asked to remain anonymous) opposed fluoridation over the radio. The following day the Dean of the New York University Dental School advised him that his services were no longer require. When the scientist threatened to publicise the matter it was dropped.

The Fleming Whitfield experiment is the standard reference to the teratogenicity of sodium fluoride.

1955. At the State Public Utilities Commission hearing 20-22 October 1955, FA Arnold, supervisor of the Grand Rapids experiment and leading promoter of fluoridation, admitted on the witness stand that he had no proof of the safety of fluoridation and that he "couldn’t possibly have".

HT Dean admitted that the graphs and charts on which he based his theory that fluoride makes teeth decay-resistant were invalid. (Original research: HT Dean, E Elvove "Some Epidemiological Aspects of Chronic Endemic Fluorosis" Am J of Public Health 26: 569 (1936).)

Dr Elmer Hess, President AMA : "I think most of us in the AMA have to depend on the ADA and the PHS primarily for scientific facts concerning a situation of this kind and I am unable to express an opinion as to whether it is safe or not safe". Letter to Dr George Waldbott August 9 1955.

Journalist George Sokolsky: letter in Journal of the American Dental Association 50:567 1955:

"I find that as many of those whom I interviewed who are members of your association are opposed to the process as favour it. I also find that they live in terror of being quoted. They tell me that they may be brought up (before the ethics committee) on charges should I quote their names. I regard such intimidation of any citizen for whatever reason to be un-American. I should like to see a Congressional Committee investigate this whole subject." (Note that it is currently a breach of the ADA's code of ethics for dentists to oppose fluoridation, in contravention of the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution.)

4 March 1955, the ADA publish a smear letter regarding Dr George Waldbott, who by now is a well known figure in revealing the truth about fluoridation, alleging intellectual dishonesty an incompetence, and that he was associated with a mental institute escapee and an imposter. This was also distributed by the PHS wherever Dr Waldbott spoke or submitted information adverse to fluoridation, for example the NZ Commission of Inquiry. It was also distributed to journal editors or program organisers where Dr Waldbott was likely to speak. (G Waldbott A Struggle With Titans 1965, p66.)

Fluoride toothpaste first marketed. PHS required the following warnings, due to the danger of double dosing with fluoride from the toothpaste and water:

(Ref: Chemical Week 6 July 1957)
Both regulations were abandoned in 1958 even though no adequate safety studies had been done.>

1955. Journal of the North Carolina Dental Society Vol 38 p 144 Aug 1955. Dentists RP and DHE Greensboro were suspended from membership for openly opposing fluoridation. The Boston Daily Record 28 Sept 1961: Dr M Ginns was "dropped" from the Massachusetts Dental Society for the same reason.

1956. The New Zealand Commission of Inquiry sits, and the antifluoridation movement becomes national. Not one of the 3 Commissioners was in a position to evaluate scientific medical data in his own. They had to rely on "advisors". A National Archive document shows that this "Inquiry" was "established and guided" by the Health Department, in conjunction with the NZ Dental Association.

Dr JR Herman New York City Urologist, found 1795ppm fluoride in a kidney stone. He was immediately provided with a PHS grant and PHS scientists as “collaborators”, to conduct a second study. This purported to show that fluoride has no bearing on kidney stones.(Se p290) JR Herman "Fluorine in Urinary Tract Calculi" Soc Exp Biol Med 91: 189 (1956).

Dr Ionel Rappaport, analysed PHS statistics from Wisconsin, Illinois, North and South Dakota. Significantly higher levels of Mongolism occurred in levels of high natural fluoride than areas of low natural fluoride: I Rappaport "Mongolism and Fluoridated Drinking Water" The Bulletin of the National Academy of Medicine of France 140: 529 (1956).

Dr Hornung, one of Europe’s most fanatical proponents of fluoridation, was sponsored to come to the US by the American Council on Education to "study" fluoridation in 1955 and 1956, visiting the main battle sites. He stayed with DR Waldbott, a leading opponent of fluoridation, pretending professional interest and friendship. Waldbott writes "I showed him my case studies, and explained that I first used a questionnaire in order to eliminate and which to carefully investigate. The questionnaire served solely for screening purposes." (p229 A Struggle With Titans) Hornung subsequently promulgated the lie that Waldbott accepted any positive answer as proof of fluoride poisoning, along with an unconscionable character assassination. These lies were printed in the Journal of the American Dental Association September 1956.

1957. WF Ramsayer, CAH Smith, CM McCay, "Effect of Sodium Fluoride Administration on Body Changes in Old rats" J Gerontology 12:14 (1957) at Cornell University demonstrated that rats fed throughout their lives with 1ppm water eventually developed periodontoclasia (gum disease) and kidney disturbances. JW Knutson, Asst Surgeon General PHS Dental Division claimed this must have been due to 20-30 times the fluoride level used in fluoridation (9 August 1956) on what basis, since the water was 1ppm, is not known. A new team under the PHS reproduced the same abnormal changes, did not test for fluoride levels, and reported that these effects were due to "old age".(1962)

11 December 1957: 4 of the 6 Michigan delegates of AMA's “House of Delegates” – the AMA's political arm - advise Dr George Waldbott verbally or in writing that they were opposed to fluoridation but stated that to openly oppose fluoridation "was political suicide."

WHO adopt the report of their Expert Committee, favouring fluoridation. 5 of the 7 man Committee were known fluoridation promoters (Expert Committee on Fluoridation, Technical Report 146, WHO, Geneva, 1958). WHO resolved to commission a monograph "Metabolism of Fluorides and their Utilisation in Medicine, Dentistry, and Public Health." Professor Ynge Ericsson of Sweden, a well known ardent proponent of fluoridation (who later acted as advisor to the profluoridation side in the Irish case of Ryan, 1965), acted as special consultant. He commissioned 28 pro-fluoridation scientists of international standing to contribute. Not one scientist involved in research adverse to fluoride was asked to contribute, in fact many requested that they be allowed to submit papers and were refused. This resulted in the 1970 report Fluorides and Human Health.

The typical scenario throughout this era, and still today, is for a committee to be "guided" by 1-3 experts, who are always pro-fluoridation and ensure most of the information put before the committee is pro-fluoride, and that any adverse research is accompanied by a proponent "critique".

1958. New Zealand holds a "fluoridation symposium" along the same lines as the 1951 US conference. It determines to implement fluoridation by "back door" methods and avoid public consultation, like the US. The New Zealand Health Department claims the statements, published in a local newspaper in 1959, were not the views of the department but of an individual participant. That participant was a member, and later chairman, of the department's fluoridation promotion committee. (Col. J Ferris-Fuller)

US OHS study: EF Geever NC Leone, P Geiser, JE Lieberman "Pathological Studies in Man after prolonged Ingestion of Fluoride in Drinking Water" Public Health Reports 73: 721 (Aug 1958). Reported on microscopic examination of bones of subjects in areas of 1-4 ppm fluoride, compared with communities at 0.5ppm. The study found "no significant differences" concluding no harm to bones from fluoride. However on p722 it states "those persons with chronic illness and diseases known to affect the bone structure were excluded". Among the diseases specified, two are associated with chronic fluoride poisoning: namely parathyroid and kidney diseases. Thus the proof of harm was specifically excluded from the study, which then found "no evidence of harm".

1958: PHS pub 621(1958)
1960: PHS pub 777 part I (1960)
1963: PHS pub 1079 part I(1963)

1958. Drs D Jackson and SM Weidmann recorded that water with as little as 0.8ppm could result in a bone concentration of 5000ppm. (J Path Bact 76: 451, 1958))

Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary defines fluorosis as: Fluorosis – chronic poisoning with fluorine… enamel, mottled – a chronic endemic dental fluorosis found in communities using a drinking water that contains one part or more of fluorine per million.

Dr R Soggnaes found on Tristan da Cunha 30% of 6-9 year olds had dental fluorosis of their upper incisors. The water contained 0.2 ppm fluoride.

Dr VO Hurme observed mottling among Negro children in New Haven, Connecticut (0.25ppm)

1959. Research shows only 1/3 fluoride ingested is eliminated, far from the 75-90% claimed by the PHS based on the work of Largent and McClure: Muhler JC, Wagner MJ "Fluoride Ingestion and Urinary Calcium" Journal of Dental Research Vol 38 p 1078 (1959).

Errors and Omissions in Experimental Trials is published by PRN Sutton. It highlights the total inadequacy of the methodology of the early fluoridation studies. In the same year it is reviewed by the UK National Health and Medical Research Council, Dental Research and Advisory Committee. After 3 years they were forced to produce their report, but its contents were never disclosed. The WHO, in 1960, do not mention Sutton's critique, but refer to the 3 studies of Newburgh, Grand Rapids, and Evanston as "well planned".

1960. HT Dean, "the father of fluoridation", is honoured by Irish Dental Society. Dean personally persuaded the Minister of Health to introduce compulsory fluoridation.

Drs R Feltman and G Kosel conclude a 14 year single blind study commissioned by Abbott Laboratories. They gave fluoride tablets to a large population of children and pregnant women. Use of placebos proved that 1% had adverse reactions. (Published J Dent Med 1961). Abbott subsequently put a warning on their fluoride tablets.

TheLancet 1960. "Fluorides occur naturally in water with a high calcium content, and the effects of fluoride may well be modified in soft water."

1961. Dr FJ Stare, very powerful due to his position at the Harvard School of Public Health, denigrated every opponent of fluoridation as "misinformed, stupid, or dishonest". (JAMA 2 Dec 1961). He pushed and repeated propaganda in "rebuttal" of every article published against fluoridation. Yet he admitted before the committee of the Ottawa legislature in 27 Feb 1964 "I don’t pretend to be an expert on fluoride metabolism."
In fact he had not published any original research at all for 25 years at this point.

Dr George Waldbott organises a conference in Rome to discuss fluoride research (adverse).(19-22 March 1961.) The Italian government had agreed to underwrite the conference costs. Meanwhile an uninvited scientist , a top official in the Canadian government, appeared and was anxious to serve on the organising committee. 3 weeks before the conference the Italian government withdrew support. The Eastman Dental Institute in Rome was funded from the US. Italian scientists received over $1M in research grants from the US PHS in 1960-62.

Letter by the chairman of the Fluoridation Committee of a dental society in Pennsylvania, 6 October 1961 to Mrs WS, Ketchikan, Alaska: "We now have spies in most of the established national organisations opposed to fluoridation and can anticipate the moves they are making, and we can really hit hard now. Of course this is not for publication."

1962. Australia: a 9 year old boy experienced gastric haemorrhages, requiring removal of a large portion of the stomach. After his return home he suffered another, requiring removal of part of the upper bowel. Several hours before the second incident he had taken a 1 milligram fluoride tablet.

1963. The Kettering Institute, funded by vested commercial interests and supported by US PHS grants, published a "selected bibliography" on fluoridation. (a copy of which is in the Otago Dental School Library). All references to adverse research were either omitted or presented in such a way as to infer they were groundless.

The New Zealand case of Lewis v Lower Hutt City begins, eventually going to the Privy Council, who make the opposite decision to that of the Canadian Supreme Court and rule that Local Councils can put anything they like in the water, including medication, so long as the water remains "wholesome".
The Australian case of Kelberg in 1964 and the Scottish case of McColl in 1983 ruled that fluoridation was unlawful on exactly the same wording, as the Candian Supreme Court had already done. The latter cases "distinguished" Lewis which, in the circumstances, was a polite way of saying the judgment was plainly wrong.

The US PHS issued a public health warning in Drug News Weekly Nov 14 1963. "In areas supplied with fluoridated water use of added supplements is not only unnecessary but definitely contraindicated."

1964. The case of Kelberg v City of Sale in Victoria Australia, adopts the Canadian interpretation, rejecting the New Zealand approach. Australian States simply pass legislation instead.

January 1964. A US Sociology student surveyed 400 local members of the medical society. She found 49% for fluoridation, 34% against, and 17% undecided. The assistant dean, prompted by the local fluoridation promotion committee chairman, wrote a letter berating the student as besmirching the good name of the university. A threatened libel suit by the student resulted in a retraction.

1965. The Irish case of Ryan v Attorney General is heard, challenging the constitutionality of fluoridation. Ministry of Health stenographers made transcripts so that the case could be prepared for the following day, including phone correspondence with the US PHS. Witnesses we supplied by the US PHS: most admitted to active involvement in promotion. The defence attacked the status of plaintiff witnesses after they had returned overseas. The Court needed explanation of even the simplest scientific and medical matters yet held fluoridation acceptable and Ireland became compulsorily fluoridated.

Dr. George Waldbott, an allergy specialist and independent fluoride researcher, publishes A Struggle with Titans, detailing:

Dr Waldbott writes "For eleven years I have been engaged in medical research on the effect of fluoride on the human organism. While exploring the subject I have observed many practices usually not encountered in medical research."

January 1965 several Detroit dentists told a newspaper editor, who had published facts unfavourable to fluoridation, that $27,000 was available for advertising to win the vote for fluoridation in Detroit, and that some of it would be spent on his paper if he cooperated.

March 24, 1965, two prominent fluoridation promoters representing themselves as a newspaper editor and a member of "The Antigo Freedom from Fluoridation Committee" gained the confidence of Mrs JWP of W, Wisconsin, whose physician had recognised that she was poisoned by fluoridated water and had advised her to eliminate it for cooking and drinking. Having convinced her that they were genuinely interested in assisting her in proving her case valid, she divulged her physician’s name and granted them permission to contact him for details. Subsequently the physician Dr S was visited by five fluoridation promoters. After their visit he had no choice but to remain silent. The following day, the profluoridation committee "Antigo Citizens for Better Health" declared in the local Antigo Daily Journal while this so-called "legal and medical investigation" was "in process" (sic) that the case of Mrs P was "a flagrant abuse of truth, in fact a hoax."

This is typical of the way the PHS suppressed the truth, by threatening doctors who diagnosed fluoride poisoning.

May 13 1965, every member of the Detroit District Dental Society was notified of a $20 levy to support this campaign. Any dentists not complying within 4 months were threatened with loss of membership.

Patient deaths ensued from using fluoridated water in dialysis treatment. The AMA quietly arranged to advise hospitals to use unfluoridated water for this process, without revealing the death cases specifically.

1966. The US Food and Drug Administration bans the sale of fluoride tablets to pregnant women, due to evidence that it caused birth deformities.

1967-68. WHO Report #482 expresses concern over safe use of drugs.
It finds the following categories of existing drugs should be high priorities for updated testing (fluoride meets all categories):

WHO definition of a drug: "any substance used to alter or influence a physiological system for the benefit of the recipient."

Recommends fluoridation where total intake from all sources is below "optimal", and that further research be conducted into dental caries. But it never specified the "optimal" dose. Similarly the US PHS have never specified an "optimal" dose as a daily intake.

1968. Smith and Hodge, 2 proponent experts state: "No large scale epidemiological studies are available comparing the health of fluoridated communities with that of communities where the water [contains] only traces of fluoride." Dental associations worldwide, and the US PHS, continue to promote fluoridation as "safe and effective."

Tasmanian Inquiry into fluoridation supports fluoridation
Tasmania bans local councils form holding referenda on fluoridation, making it compulsory. (In 1995 the lower House passes a Bill making it illegal to hold public meetings to discuss fluoridation, which was overturned by the upper House.)

Dr George Waldbott founds the International Society for Fluoride Research, dedicated to independent scientific research on fluoride, free of political influence or position.

1969. Jan 21 1969, Dr F Wertheimer, Michigan State Dental Director of health boasted that 7 communities had been secretly fluoridated during that year. He recommended public discussion be avoided until fluoridation had been "sold to citizens".

The World Health Organisation endorses fluoridation of water supplies on July 23, 1969, despite cautions from G.Penso of the Italian delegation, who warned about "possible genetic damage to future generations".
During the final hours of the session, when only 45 of the 1,000 delegates from 131 countries were still present, all bills that had not been accepted, including the one on fluorides, were collected and voted upon (no quorum), including the statement on fluoridation.
The Health Minister of Luxembourg later describes the earlier debate as heated, at times violent (as between proponents and opponents).

1970. WHO publishes Fluoride and Human Health recommending fluoridation but only if the total intake from all sources is taken into account. It also acknowledges: "fluorides accumulate in the aorta and possibly the kidney."

WHO also acknowledge that skeletal fluorosis can occur with as little as 2 mg fluoride per day - we get at least this much today if our water is fluoridated:

1970 Dr Arvid Carlsson, Head of Pharmacology, Gothenburg University, advisor to the Swedish government, in the Swedish Medical Association Journal: “There is no proof that fluoride is an essential nutrient. All the talk of water fluoridation as being merely a "restoration of the natural balance" is groundless."

1971. Punjab province, India: Professor SS Jolly demonstrates by X-ray 1320 cases of skeletal fluorosis. The water contains 1-5ppm fluoride. The majority of subjects also demonstrate rheumatic arthritic, or neurological symptoms.

Sweden abandoned fluoridation in 1969. WHO pressures it to resume and Sweden asks for research proof of safety. WHO fails to provide any and backs down. Throughout the 1970’s European countries abandon fluoridation due to ineffectiveness, and health and civil liberties concerns.

* This was following the discovery by researchers that people who lived for 10 years or more in the fluoridated city (Kuopio) had accumulated dangerously high levels of fluoride in their bones.(Acta Orthopaedica Scandinavia 51:413-420, (1980))

1972. Sydney, Australia. Dental promoters claim a significant improvement in tooth decay due to fluoridation. The actual figures, when broken down, show that there was 60% improvement in tooth decay from 1961 to 1967. Sydney was fluoridated in 1968. By 1972 the improvement was only another 2%, with a backslide of 1% until 1970. That is, the rate of improvement declined after fluoridation commenced. Dental promoters then selected children from the affluent northern Sydney, with less than average tooth decay, to claim a better improvement than reality. (A similar technique appears to have been used in Grand Rapids).

The Netherlands: A double blind study by 10 physicians, biologists, a pharmacologist, an allergy specialist, a dermatologist, and a notary (to ensure objectivity) demonstrated the same adverse (allergic) symptoms as already described in the literature. Water was supplied from drinking bottles with secret codes, changed every 2 weeks, known only to the notary. After 16 weeks the reports were delivered, sealed, to the notary. They were opened with two witnesses. The study found 1-5% of subjects showed adverse symptoms. The validity of the study was subsequently upheld in court. (31 August 1976, by Royal decree, fluoridation was banned in the Netherlands.)

1973. Australia NSW Health Department Policy, stated in the Medical Journal of Australia "It has been conventional practice to give a fluoride supplement during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy at a rate of 1.5mg of fluoride per day." In fact the US FDA had banned fluoride tablets for pregnant women in 1966.

During the 1973 Victorian election (Australia) Premier Hamer undertakes to honour the wishes of Ballarat people over fluoridation. 1978: the Council conducted an opinion poll on fluoridation: 2922 against, 186 for. The Victorian Government ordered the Ballarat Water Commission to proceed with fluoridation regardless. A petition to the Queen ensued, signed by 12,500 people, about 1/3 of the adult population. Unions put a black ban on the fluoridation plant installation. Due to an unexpected by-election, Hamer agreed to suspend work and establish an independent inquiry. (See 1979) However of the 3 commissioners appointed without consultation, one was past president of the Victorian branch of the Australian Medical Association, who supported fluoridation. (VD Pleuckaham. The other two were DM Myers, and ALG Rees.) It undertook to hold public meetings: they never did. All proceedings were in secret. The Ballarat people made many in depth submissions on the science involved. One went to Europe at his own expense to gather information. Not one reference could be found in the report. The petition was sent from the Queen back to the Australian Governor-General, who then referred it to the Victorian Governor. It then went back to the Victorian Premier’s department. The people of Ballarat were then informed that it did not meet standing Orders and hence could not be tabled before parliament. On 11 November 1980 it was presented unaltered to the House by the member for Ballarat North. It was not debated. On 11 Feb 1981 it was sent to the relevant Minister. The union bans continued in the face of this deliberate political manoeuvring by Hamer.

1975. 16 December 1975: Dean Burk and John Yiammouyannis published analysis of the US Cancer statistics for fluoridated and unfluoridated cities, showing a 5% increase in cancer deaths. The study covered 18 years and 18 million people. This led to court action in 1978 (see below).

The National Cancer Institute hastily prepared a rebuttal, and sent this to Drs M Sheppard, R Doll, and/or LJ Kinlen, who submitted it to the New Scientist, published 5 February 1976, as their own work, claiming that they showed no increase in cancer in fluoridated communities. The NCI also claimed their own analysis showed no difference, and quoted the supposedly independent Kinlen and Doll study in support. They had used the same erroneous figure as the NCI. (14,487 instead of 14,272), revealing the conspiracy to deceive. This was admitted on oath before the court. In the US, PD Oldham and DJ Newell published the erroneous NCI data also, again claiming it as their own independent work, which was also claimed in support by the NCI. Oldham and Newell disclaimed responsibility for theNCI data in Applied Statistics 28(2) 184, 1979. They acknowledged that the data contained errors and claimed they were only to provide independent appraisal of the data provided, not search for new data. Yet they presented this to the courts (Aitkenhead v West View and McColl v Strathclyde) as an independent study showing the Burk-Yiammouyannis analysis to be incorrect.

Kinlen also published a paper on Birmingham cancer rates from 1961 to1968 (Fluoridated in 1964. Published in the British Dental Journal 1975. There was no adjustment for age; it was a static study only with no time trend data from before fluoridation to after. Kinlen admitted the results were estimates only. In the report he claimed there was no evidence of increased cancer in Birmingham. This was also presented in the Aitkenhead case in rebuttal of the Burk-Yiammouyannis claim of increased cancer rates. Under cross-examination (11 May 1978) Kinlen admitted that the fluoridated cancer rate was in fact 5% higher (1.03 v 0.98). The statement in the Journal was simply a lie.

In 1976 the (UK) Royal College of Physicians repeated the claim, (see below) based on Kinlen's work, with no reference to the Burk-Yiammouyannis study.

The validity of the Burk-Yiammouyannis conclusion was admitted on 1 Dec 1976 by D S Fredrickson MD, Director, NIH, after consultation with the NCI over the Burk-Yiammouyannis analysis.

The NZ Medical Journal 27 Aug 1980 No 666 pp164-167 claims that all the international studies show that fluoridation does not increase cancer death rates, citing the statement of the Royal College of Physicians which in turn relied on Kinlen’s report in the British Dental Journal.

RN Hoover et al "Fluoridated Drinking water and the Occurrence of Cancer" presented to Congress 14 Nov 1975, republished in J of the National Cancer institute 57 (4) 1976. pp757-768. 16 Texas towns were compared. The authors claimed no difference in the cancer rates. The study was found inadequate for the following reasons:

T Hirayama Cancer Res 35 3460, 1975. Elevated levels of dietary fluoride were found to be related to increased cancer death rates.

Sir Arthur Amies, Dean of the faculty of Dental Science, Melbourne University, after 20 years study of fluoride and being one of the world’s experts: "In my opinion the claim for complete medical safety of fluoride is entirely false."

1976. The Royal College of Physicians England, publishes Fluoride Teeth and Health endorsing the safety of fluoridation. Lord Douglas of Barloch describes this as "not an original contribution to research, but merely an evaluation of pre-existing information. Careful perusal reveals that it does not conform to the scientific standard [of skill and impartiality] required. Much of it reads like a piece of propaganda in favour of fluoridation. The Report does not attempt to specify what daily intake from all sources is important. Its [data on intake from food] is 30 years out of date."

There is a stormy WHO General Assembly vote over fluoridation: "the vote on this resolution had been preceded by dramatic discussions, at times extremely violent, between followers and the adversaries of fluoridation of drinking water, which proves to society that the last word has certainly not been said in this complex and complicated domain". (Health Minister of Luxembourg)

W Klein et al, Report of the Austrian Society of Atomic Energy Sabetsdorf research Centre 1 May 1976: Fluoride ions can inactivate DNA repair mechanisms.

27 April 1976. Feingold Association USA (care of hyperactive children) “Fluoride is one additive that cannot be tolerated by children in this group. It has a severe adverse reaction upon the nervous system." (Compare the work of Mullinex in 1995, showing central nervous system damage, as also shown by Manhattan Project files released in 1997.)

1977. USA Congressional Inquiry into the USA National Cancer Institute (part of the USPHS) and fluoridation. Washington DC 1977. The purpose was to determine whether the NCI had “done its job” before endorsing fluoridation. NCI admit that although it had endorsed fluoridation as "completely safe" for 27 years, it had never done a single study, and only was only planning animal studies at the time because of pressure, otherwise it "probably still would not do it." Testimony of Dr Newell pp243-245 of the report. The NCI started experiments on mice in 1979. It is a standard requirement that the test last for the natural life of an animal. (3 yrs) So until at least 1982 no one could have known whether fluoride caused cancer or not.

Chile discontinues fluoridation following research by Dr Albert Schatz, Nobel laureate and discoverer of the antibiotic streptomycin, that the poor were suffering adverse health effects and higher infant mortality due to fluoridation.

Melbourne, Australia, fluoridated February 1977. Over 100 statutory declarations were filed by persons suffering adverse health effects whenever they drank the water. The Victorian "Hamer" Commission of Inquiry (1979-1980) claimed no adverse health effects had been observed.

The ADA state: "No evidence is available to support the claim that the use of dietary fluoride supplements by adults will provide dental benefits in adults."

The Council on Dental Therapeutics of the ADA recommended that the maximum daily dose of fluoride for children 2-5 years old be reduced to 0.5 mg, and that this be decreased if the water contained more than 0.3 mg. Also that the daily dose for less than 2 years be 0.25 mg, reduced if the water contained more than 0.3 mg.

1978. Bacchus Marsh Australia. Promoters stated that the percentage of children with no decay had increased (1963-1978) by 15.8% due to fluoridation. In fact the total number had increased from 2 to 3 individuals (Bacchus Marsh population was approx 5000).

The landmark case of Aitkenhead v Borough of West View (16 November 1978) Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas Civil Division, Pennsylvania, is heard. This was an application for injunction to prevent the city from fluoridating the water. It revolved around the Burk-Yiammouyannis study of National Cancer Institute data showing a 5% increase in cancer death rates following fluoridation. Dean Burk was a former head of the NCI and one of the world's leading experts in cancer. The NCI called in every expert they could find to challenge the Burk-Yiammouyannis findings. The trial lasted 5 1/2 months; the transcript covered 2500 pages. The judge held that every objection by the NCI was met and even turned against them by Burk and Yiammouyannis. Sadly, the injunction against the City of West View was stayed on appeal on purely jurisdictional grounds.

1979. Quebec Ministerial Inquiry into Fluoridation rejects fluoridation as being unsafe. Bill 88 had been put before parliament to implement fluoridation. The Inquiry concluded fluoride was mutagenic and cancer-causing. "We should be more concerned about possible intoxication than with deficiencies of fluorides."

John Yiammouyannis visits Australia. Proponents are invited to publicly debate with him. NHMRC put up their expert at a meeting at Canberra University, 27 June. The debate was publicly described as a complete walkover for Yiammouyannis.

The Official Physician’s Desk Reference (Australia): Fluoride supplements should not be administered to persons who are hypersensitive to fluoride. Side effects [include] Eczema, atopic dermatitis, urticaria, skin rashes, gastro-intestinal upsets, headache, nausea, and vomiting.

HC Hodge: "The most important and widely disregarded fact about dental fluorosis is this: no safe established daily intake exists." Hodge was an ardent proponent of fluoridation, operating out of Rochester University.

Weatherell et al 1979 quoted in British Dental Journal 19 May 1981. "In recent years, views about the mechanism of fluoride action have changed. The action of fluoride post-eruptively … is now considered to be of equal if not more importance than its pre-eruptive effect." i.e. this contradicts the long-standing claim that fluorides benefit is systemic - the justification for fluoridation. This topical effect is confirmed definitively in 1999 and 2000 by the Centre for Disease Control and the American Dental Association.

1979-1980. The "Hamer" Commission of Inquiry sits in Victoria Australia. To support its predetermined outcome it repeats lies and deceptions throughout its report, and omits much adverse evidence put before it. A detailed analysis of this, referencing original documents "quoted" by the Commission, is available in Fluoridation: Poison on Tap by G Walker, Magenta Press, Melbourne, 1982.

100 statutory declarations, some with doctor’s certificates were provided regarding hypersensitivity. All stated the symptoms cleared up upon using distilled water for drinking and cooking. The Commission never called in for medical testing. One woman was just out of Melbourne public hospital and had been given a wristband warning nurses not to give fluoridated water to the patient. Evidence was given that doctors had no hesitation in ordering unfluoridated water to be supplied from the dispensary for that purpose.

Re fluoride ions, the Commission finds, contrary to proponent's usual claims, that although in water the formation of HF and HF₂^- is quite insignificant, at pH 4,( and below) some F^- would be converted to HF₂^-. Note the stomach acidity is often pH2-3, (pH1 without food) hence some HF₂^- would be expected. Formation of both had been shown by one of the leading experts Kaj Roholm, with the stomach’s hydrochloric acid. (HF (hydrofluoric acid) is the most corrosive acid known, and causes burns which get worse, rather than heal.)

Brisbane. A boy ingested between 4 and 6 fluoride tablets. The cause of death was listed as fluoride poisoning. Queensland Health Administration claimed that he had swallowed half a bottle – 92 tablets. No evidence was forthcoming to substantiate this. The mother said 6; his stomach had 4. (pumped at hospital) Reported 3 Nov 1979. The hospital doctors refused to believe the cause was fluoride poisoning because they were unaware that fluoride had a lethal dose (in spite of being used as rat poison for years) No inquest was ever held.

Dental fluorosis in Queensland (Australia) school children. March 1979, Dr G Smith took up a position of dentist at Prosperine Hospital, Queensland. He encountered a large number of children with dental fluorosis. He reported this to Brisbane authorities who told him to forget about it. He did not, but had the information published in Victoria. He was immediately asked to resign. Two investigators were sent. They were both employed by the school dental service, one taught the female dental therapists to apply fluoride .They advised they would do no more than classify the degrees of fluorosis. Smith advised that this was a superficial and cynical approach to the issue which he would not be associated with. He was classified as "unco-operative" in justifying the request for his resignation. The level of fluorosis was only marginally below the level considered a "public health problem". The equipment was obsolete, no one monitored the fluoride levels. Subsequent tests averaged 0.93 ppm: the recommended level was 0.6. (hot climate, high water consumption) School dental therapists were giving fluoride treatments and recommending fluoride tablets. They had never been taught about fluorosis. Two of the children were suffering from chizzola maculae: a possible symptom of fluoride poisoning resembling small bruises. The dentist were totally unqualified to address this, which is in the area a of clinical pharmacology and toxicology. Smith officially requested they be properly examined. No response to this request was received.

December 1979. Michigan Governor’s scientific task force: "Most studies which comprehensively review the topic [of fluoridation] are able to identify areas in need of further research."

1980. Australian Prescribing Manual 1980: recommended fluoride doses: expectant mothers in fluoridated areas: 0.75 mg per day fluoride; non-fluoridated areas: 1.5 mg/day. The 1966 US FDA ban is still in force.

Dr John Colquhoun of New Zealand visits the US NIDR, who tell him about their research into the US statistics on tooth decay. They advise that they are confident that this will prove once and for all the benefits of fluoride. The report, when published, failed to mention these results. Dr Colquhoun enquired why. He was told that a different statistical analysis was going to be used. When published this new analysis claimed a 33% improvement, but neither the calculations nor the original data was ever published. Obviously the anticipated improvement was not shown by the statistics.

1981. American Chemical Society Journal Vol 3 Issue 1 pp84-88. Research results unexpectedly showed that the fluoride ion can form an amide-fluoride hydrogen bond as the strongest heteronuclear hydrogen bond known. Many components within the living cell contain amide groups- hydrogen bonds between amides are the most important weak hydrogen bonds in biological systems. These can be disrupted by the formation of the much stronger N-H-F bond, explaining how the fluoride ion could interfere with healthy cellular systems.

1982. By this time fluoridation is compulsory in all Australian military camps.

1983. In the case of McColl v Strathclyde Regional Council Lord Jauncey held that the Council had no authority to fluoridate the water supply. The Water (Scotland) Act required the local authority "to provide a supply of wholesome water to every part of their limits of supply." Lord Jauncey also held that there was no proof of harmful effects, a finding which is untenable in light of the admissions before the Aitkenhead Court in Pennsylvania in 1978.

1986. Dr John Colquhoun proves that the Hastings experiment was a fraud. This study had been cited around the world, along with the US experiments. The Ministry of Health simply stops citing it as authority. Dr Colquhoun becomes persona non gratis and the Ministry of Health attempts to silence him and to disparage his work.

1989. Arends et al show that 2ppm fluoride is required to remineralise tooth enamel: the 1ppm level in water is useless as a topical application. See admission by the CDC and ADA in 1999/2000 that it is a topical effect that allegedly prevents tooth decay.

Dr John Colquhoun in New Zealand seeks to publish NZ school dental statistics which show that tooth decay was the same if not better in unfluoridated areas. Dr Colquhoun was the chief dental offcier in Auckland, and for 2 years had been the chairman of the NZ Government's Fluoridation Promotion Committee. The Director-General of Health refused permission. (Fluoridation was, and still is, a strongly promoted Government policy in NZ). Dr Colquhoun retired shortly after and published it anyway. He notes that although these were official figures he could not get his analysis published in either the medical or dental journal in NZ: he had to get it published by a body which was not politically aligned with fluoridation. He supported Dr George Waldbott's observation that such journals regularly refuse to publish adverse research on fluoride.

1990. Brunelle and Carlos publish the US National Institute of Dental Research study, the largest in US history, showing minimal difference between fluoridated and unfluoridated communities. (0.6 dmfs out of 128 in the mouth. Refer also Spencer et al, 1996, below)

1992. The US EPA is ordered to reinstate Dr William Marcus, with $50,000 damages, for firing hime over whistleblowing regarding NTP's coverup of cancer dangers from fluoridation.

1993. According to the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR, 1993), large cohorts of the public will be at considerable risk of adverse health effects from fluoridation. To quote from the Toxicological Profile for Fluorides, Hydrogen Fluoride and Fluorine (p 112): "Populations that are unusually susceptible: the elderly, people with calcium deficiency, magnesium and vitamin C deficiencies, and people with cardiovascular and kidney problems."

1994. WHO publishes Fluorides and Oral Health again reiterating that the total fluoride intake from all sources must be taken into account.

1995. Tasmania attempts to ban public meetings held to discuss fluoridation. The Bill passes the Lower House but is rejected by the Upper House.

Dr Phyllis Mullinex demonstrates Central Nervous System damage in rats at the same blood-fluoride levels as humans drinking fluoridated water. Her funding grant is withdrawn, she is sent to a children’s hospital with no research funding, and her laboratory and all equipment and records are destroyed 3 days later.
Click here for Mullinex's story: it is typical of the history of fluoridation, and now GE research as we saw with Aberdeen University.

Spencer et al publish their Australian study showing insignificant difference in lifetime dental figures as between fluoridated and unfluoridated communities. (0.12-0.3 dmfs. Refer Brunelle and Carlos, 1990, above)

1997. Jennifer Luke, UK, demonstrates accumulation of up to 22,000ppm fluoride in the pineal gland.

"Manhattan Project" documents released under the US Official Secrets Act reveal that Central Nervous System damage was evident in refinery workers, working with fluoride, and was covered up by the US Government. The documents also revealed that the scientists overseeing the adverse health effect research aspect of the Newburgh - Kingston fluoridation experiment from 1945 were appointed by the Atomic Energy Commission to supress any adverse data, and collect information useful in defending litigation by workers for health damage.

1998. Betty De Liefde publishes a paper in the NZ Dental Journal revealing that it had been demonstrated that:

1999. Drs Masters and Coplan demonstrate an increased uptake in Lead with silicofluorides now used in water fluoridation, as opposed to the original sodium fluoride. At first dismissed by the US EPA, this is later accepted and in part leads to the EPA's change in position in 2002.

In November 1999, Professor Limeback, Head of Preventive Dentistry, University of Toronto, President of Canadian Association of Dental Research, and the country's leading fluoride authority, publicly apologised to his faculty members and the media for mistakenly promoting water fluoridation for over 15 years.
His apology included the following:" Skeletal fluorosis is a debilitating condition that occurs when fluoride accumulates in bone making them extremely weak and brittle. The earliest symptoms are mottled and brittle teeth. In Canada, we are now spending more on dental fluorosis than we do treating cavities." He added: "Dentists have absolutely no training in toxicity. Your well- intentioned dentist is simply following 50 years of misinformation from public health and the dental association. Me, too. Unfortunately, we were wrong. Poisoning children was the furthest thing from my mind."
He was dismissed by the university, but was subsequently reinstated with $150,000 damages on a wrongful dismissal action.

The US Center for Disease Control admits that any benefit from fluoride is topical, not systemic: the whole basis of fluoridation is proven wrong.

2000. Journal of the American Dental Association: "Fluoride works primarily via topical mechanisms. Fluoride incorporated during tooth development is insufficient to play a significant role in caries protection."

The York Review, in spite of being established by the British Ministry of Health to prove the case for fluoridation, finds that all epidemiological studies are unreliable, and that there is no evidence of significant benefit, social equity, or safety. Proponent organisations, including the NZ Ministry of Health, lie about the outcome, claiming the report supported fluoridation. This led the review board chairman, Dr Trevor Sheldon, to make a public statement, presented to the House of Lords, regarding these lies and the true findings of the review. (See on this site)

2001. US promoters pressure the South African government to adopt fluoridation, in spite of endemic fluorosis throughout Africa. The usual farce Inquiry follows. The government decides to fluoridate. The fluoride is to be supplied by the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (NECSA), located in the Pelindaba nuclear complex west of Pretoria, though not as a waste product. This promises an annual income to the company of R13 Million.

"The 2001 Kentucky Childrens Oral Health Survey: findings for children ages 24 to 59 months and their caregivers."
Hardison JD, Cecil JC, White JA, Manz M, Mullins MR, Ferretti GA. Pediatr Dent. 2003 Jul-Aug;25(4):365-72.
In this article it is revealed that for children in Kentucky, "43% had untreated caries, 47% had caries experience (early childhood caries), and 31% had severe early childhood caries."

2002. There is a major push from the US to compulsorily fluoridate its own communities. A similar push to recover lost ground begins in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

The US Environmental Protection Agency, a traditional promoter of fluoridation (though opposed by its Union of Scientists, who actually do the research) acknowledges that no human health safety tests have ever been done on silicofluorides used in water fluoridation, and calls for such research. It holds a scientific forum, and includes a 1 1/2 hour time slot for a fluoridation debate. Dr Paul Connett and Dr Hardy Limeback put the case against fluoridation. Not one federal agency, claiming fluoridation to be one of the 10 great medical achievements of the 20th century, is prepared to debate with these experts. The media, and Congressional aides present, begin asking why proponents cannot apparently support their claims.

Belgium bans all fluoride supplements citing that excessive use of fluoride increases the risk of osteoporosis, could damage the nervous system and, even Belgian dentists agree, is ineffective when ingested.
Belgian health minister at the time, Magda Aelvoet, said she was now pressing for a Europe-wide ban, hinting that the removal of supplements was just the first step towards removing the chemical from the food chain

The Irish Fluoridation Forum reports its "findings". It is unable to answer even one of the questions put to it by Dr Paul Connett, in spite of a special committee having been established for that express purpose and sitting for 2 years. It fails to mention any of the adverse research presented to it, rather like the Hamer Inquiry in Victoria in 1979, and simply repeats the endorsements of promoters instead of addressing the science.

The US pressure Israel, "the US of the Middle East", to adopt fluoridation. The Israeli parliament passes compulsory legislation: in 2003 the Israeli Supreme Court stands down the law, ruling it unconstitutional.

In January, 2002, the South Korean Medical Association official statement announced that "we are not in definitely positive position about water fluoridation since there are not enough scientific and medical evidences on its effects on human health" and expressed their wish to withdraw their name from the list of professional groups endorsing water fluoridation. This movement was followed by another announcement from the Korean Pharmaceutical Association in May, 2002, in which the latter said that the Pharmaceutical Association will not support the practice of water fluoridation until clear scientific evidence on its effects is available.

2003. Four South Korean city councils -Chongju, Pohang, Gwacheon, Uiwang- decide to stop the fluoridation of public water supplies.

The town of Basel, the only fluoridated town in Switzerland, ends fluoridation citing "lack of any perceptible benefit". In 1975 the Health Department had recommended discontinuing fluoridation because of "lack of any perceptible benefit".

Tony Blair in the UK introduces a Bill to make fluoridation compulsory. The House of Commons passes the Bill, in spite of the Government's own York Review finding no justification for fluoridation.

Dr Sam Epstein, Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, author of "The Politics of Cancer", and "The Politics of Cancer Revisited", publicly opposes fluoridation.

Local councils of Pierce-Tacoma County, USA, file for injunction against the health boards who are trying to force councils to fluoridate water supplies against their wishes. The case goes to the Washington State Supreme Court, on the constitutional issues only. The health boards claim that dental caries is a dangerous disease allowing them to invoke their "police powers". One of the judges asks "If dental caries is dangerous, tell me: how do I catch it?" The decision of the court is awaited.

An international petition is launched calling for aan independent evaluation of fluoridation

That is a brief summary of the history -
whether we will tolerate this indefensible practice, promoted by commercial and political interests, in the future, is in our hands.

by Paul, Ellen and Michael Connett*

In 1997 the union representing scientists, engineers and lawyers at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, D.C., voted to support a California citizen initiative to stop fluoridation of public drinking water. In 1999 the union's vice-president released a paper explaining the union's opposition to fluoridation.[1]

Fluoridation is the practice of adding fluoride to the public water supply to reduce dental decay. U.S. fluoridation trials began in 1945 and by 1992 approximately 56% of the U.S. public received its water from fluoridated systems.[2]

Typically, fluoride-containing (or -generating) compounds are added to water to bring the level up to 1 milligram of fluoride ion per liter (1 part per million). In 1986 EPA set a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for fluoride in drinking water at 4 ppm.[3] The MCL was based on only one adverse health effect: skeletal fluorosis, a crippling bone disease.

Fluoridation of public water supplies has stirred passionate debate for over 50 years. Now new data is refining the debate. It appears that some of the early claims for fluoridation's benefits were inflated. In recent years tooth decay has declined in both fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities. In fact, the largest U.S. survey indicates that the benefit to fluoridated communities amounts to 0.6 fewer decayed tooth surfaces per child, which is less than one percent of the tooth surfaces in a child's mouth.[4]

The public health community justified medicating whole communities via public drinking water using certain arguments that recent research has now shown to be false. For example, in 1945 scientists believed that fluoride had to be swallowed to be effective. However, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has recently acknowledged that fluoride's mechanism of action is primarily topical, not systemic.[5] This means that you don't need to swallow fluoride to reap its tiny benefits.

A second early belief, now known to be false, is that fluoride is an essential nutrient. There is no evidence of any disease related to fluoride deficiency. Natural levels of fluoride in human milk (0.01 ppm) are approximately a hundred times less than baby formula reconstituted with fluoridated water.[6]

A third early belief was that dental fluorosis (a defect of the tooth enamel caused by fluoride's interference with the growing tooth) would occur in only about 10% of the children drinking water fluoridated at 1 ppm and would occur only in its mildest form. Today fluorosis occurs on two or more teeth in 30% of children in areas where the water is fluoridated, and not all in its mildest form.[7]

A fourth early belief was that 1 ppm fluoride in drinking water provided an ample margin of safety against toxic effects. Not only is there no safety margin for dental fluorosis but there is growing evidence that there may be no safety margin for changes to bone structure and impacts on the brain, thyroid, and other soft tissues, especially when it is coupled with nutrient deficiencies, particularly iodide.

THE EVIDENCE

1) In 1998 the results of a long-term, low-dose rat study were published.[8] Two groups of rats were exposed to two different kinds of fluoride at 1 ppm in distilled water. A third group received only distilled water. Amyloid deposits (associated with Alzheimer's Disease and other forms of dementia) were elevated in the brains of both fluoridated groups compared to the control group. The authors speculate that fluoride enables aluminum to cross the blood-brain barrier.

2) Millions of people in India and China suffer a crippling bone disease called skeletal fluorosis, caused by moderate to high natural levels of fluoride (1.5 to 9 ppm) in their water.[9] Skeletal fluorosis has several stages of severity, with the less severe being chronic joint pain. "Because some of the clinical symptoms mimic arthritis, the first two clinical phases of skeletal fluorosis could be easily misdiagnosed."[3] Arthritis is now at epidemic levels in the U.S. Fluoride's plausible contribution has been ignored, but needs to be taken seriously.

3) Since fluoridation began in 1945 our exposure to other sources of fluoride has increased substantially. These include processing food and beverages with fluoridated water; air pollution from fluoride emitting industries; pesticide residues; vitamins; and dental products. If 1 ppm in drinking water were the only source of fluoride, the average person would ingest 2 milligrams (mg) of fluoride each day, though some may get less because they use bottled water, or they drink less water than the average adult. In 1991, the federal Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) estimated that the range of exposure in communities with approximately 1 ppm fluoride in the water was 1.58 to 6.6 mg per day.[10]

4) The dose of 1.58 to 6.6 mg per day overlaps the dose found to depress the functioning of the human thyroid gland. At 2.27 to 4.54 mg/day, fluoride has been found to "completely relieve" the symptoms of hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid).[11] With fluoride's known capacity to depress thyroid activity, it seems that there may be a link between current fluoride consumption and the prevalence of hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid). More than twenty million people in the U.S. receive treatment for thyroid problems and many others are thought to go undiagnosed.[12]

5) Fluoride is a hormone disrupter. It mimics the action of many water-soluble hormones by interacting with G proteins, which transmit hormonal messages across cell membranes.[13] Additionally, fluoride accumulates in the pineal gland and may reduce melatonin production.[14]

6) Fluoride (50-75 mg per day) given to osteoporosis patients to strengthen bones has actually increased their rate of hip fractures.[15,16] Of 18 studies conducted since 1990, 10 have found an association between water fluoridation and hip fractures in the elderly.[17] According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR): "If this effect is confirmed, it would mean that hip fracture in the elderly replaces dental fluorosis in children as the most sensitive endpoint of fluoride exposure."[18] Hip fracture is not a minor problem: in the U.S. up to 50,000 people die each year of osteoporosis-related hip fractures.[19]

7) Some evidence suggests that fluoride causes bone cancer in male rats and perhaps in young men.[20, 21]

8) A recent report by the Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility reviews studies showing that fluoride interferes with brain function in young animals and in children, reducing IQ.[22]

Most European countries have rejected fluoridation. Recognizing that there are simple and effective alternatives, they have applied the precautionary principle. Their children's teeth have not suffered as a consequence. Parents willing to expose their children to fluoride can simply purchase fluoridated toothpaste (which contains 1000 to 1500 ppm fluoride -- read the warning label on the package).[23] The American policy of giving fluoride to children by medicating whole communities with a potent drug that may harm some people seems a dubious practice at best. At worst it violates the primary principle of medical ethics: First do no harm. Furthermore, it violates the ethical principle of informed consent.

In May 2000 the Fluoride Action Network (FAN) was formed by a coalition of activists and scientists from 12 countries (see: http://www.fluoridealert.org/). FAN's goal is to end fluoridation and minimize exposure to fluoride. FAN's founding members include the late David Brower; Teddy Goldsmith; Michael Colby; Gar Smith; Terri Swearingen; the union representing professional employees at EPA headquarters; and Dr. Hardy Limeback, Canada's leading dental authority on fluoridation who in 1999 apologized for having promoted fluoridation for 15 years.

We urge our colleagues working on public health and environmental issues to become involved and take a second look at fluoridation.

=====

* Paul Connett is professor of chemistry at St. Lawrence University in Canton N.Y.; Ellen Connett is editor of WASTE NOT , 82 Judson, Canton N.Y. 13617; Michael Connett is FAN's webmaster <http://www.fluoridealert.org>/

[1] J. William Hirzy, "Why the union representing U.S. EPA's professionals in Washington D.C. opposes fluoridation," WASTE NOT #448 ( May 1, 1999), pgs. 1-4. And see http://www.fluoridation.com/epa2.htm.

[2] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Prevention Services, Division of Oral Health, "Water Supply Statistics" (Atlanta, Georgia: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1993). Available at http://www.cdc.gov/nohss/FSSupplyStats.htm.

[3] Bette Hileman, "Fluoridation of water. Questions about health risks and benefits remain after more than 40 years," CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING NEWS Vol. 66 (August 1, 1988), pgs. 26-42. Available at http://www.fluoridealert.org/hileman.htm.

[4] J.A. Brunelle and J.P. Carlos, "Recent Trends in Dental Caries in U.S. Children and the Effect of Water Fluoridation," JOURNAL OF DENTAL RESEARCH Vol. 69, Special Issue (February 1990), pgs. 723-727 and discussion pgs. 820-823.

[5] Centers for Disease Control, "Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Fluoridation of Drinking Water to Prevent Dental Caries," MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY WEEKLY REPORT Vol. 48, No. 41 (October 22, 1999), pgs. 933-940.

[6] C.J. Spak and others, "Fluoride in Human Milk," ACTA PAEDIATRICA SCANDINAVICA Vol. 72, No. 5 (September 1983), pgs. 699-701.

[7] Keith E. Heller and others, "Dental Caries and Dental Fluorosis at Varying Water Fluoride Concentrations," JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH DENTISTRY Vol. 57, No. 3 (Summer 1997), pgs. 136-143.

[8] Julie A. Varner and others, "Chronic administration of aluminum-fluoride and sodium-fluoride to rats in drinking water: alterations in neuronal and cerebrovascular integrity," BRAIN RESEARCH Vol. 784, No. 1-2 (February 1998), pgs. 284-298.

[9] S.S. Jolly and others, "Human Fluoride Intoxication in Punjab," Fluoride Vol, 4, No. 2 (1971), pgs. 64-79.

[10] Ad Hoc Subcommitttee on Fluoride of the Committee to Coordinate Environmental Health and Related Programs, Public Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services. REVIEW OF FLUORIDE: BENEFITS AND RISKS, REPORT OF THE AD HOC COMMITTEE ON FLUORIDE OF THE COMMITTEE TO COORDINATE ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND RELATED PROGRAMS (February 1991), pg. 17.

[11] Pierre-M. Galletti and Gustave Joyet, "Effect of fluorine on thyroidal iodine metabolism in hyperthyroidism," JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ENDOCRINOLOGY Vol. 18 (October 1958), pgs. 1102-1110.

[12] Beth Ann Ditkoff and Paul Lo Gerfo, THE THYROID GUIDE [ISBN 0060952601] (New York: Harper, 2000), cover notes.

[13] Anna Strunecka and J. Patocka, "Pharmacological and toxicological effects of aluminofluoride complexes." FLUORIDE Vol. 32, No. 4 (November 1999), pgs. 230-242.

[14] Jennifer Anne Luke, THE EFFECT OF FLUORIDE ON THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE PINEAL GLAND , Ph.D Thesis, University of Surrey, United Kingdom (1997). See also Jennifer Luke, "Fluoride Deposition in the Aged Human Pineal Gland," CARIES RESEARCH Vol. 35 (2001), pgs. 125-128.

[15] L.R. Hedlund and J.C. Gallagher, "Increased incidence of hip fracture in osteoporotic women treated with sodium fluoride," JOURNAL OF BONE MINERAL RESEARCH Vol. 4, No. 2 (April 1989), pgs. 223-225.

[16] B.L. Riggs and others, "Effect of fluoride treatment on the fracture rates in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis," NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE Vol. 322, No. 12 (March 22 1990), pgs. 802-809.

[17] Paul Connett and Michael Connett, "The Emperor Has No Clothes: A Critique of the CDC's Promotion of Fluoridation," WASTE NOT #468 (October 2000), pgs. 27-28. Available at http://www.fluoridealert.org/cdc.htm.

[18] Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, TOXICOLOGICAL PROFILE FOR FLUORIDES, HYDROGEN FLUORIDE, AND FLUORINE (F) [ATSDR/TP-91/17]. (Atlanta, Ga.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, April 1993), pg. 57.

[19] K. Phipps, "Fluoride and bone health," JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH DENTISTRY Vol. 55, No. 1 (Winter 1995), pgs. 53-56.

[20] National Toxicology Program, TOXICOLOGY AND CARCINOGENESIS (December 1990). This NTP study is summarized in reference 10, pgs. 71-73.

[21] Perry D. Cohn, A BRIEF REPORT ON THE ASSOCIATION OF DRINKING WATER FLUORIDATION AND THE INCIDENCE OF OSTEOSARCOMA AMONG YOUNG MALES. (Trenton, N.J.: New Jersey Department of Health, November 8, 1992).

[22] Ted Schettler and others, IN HARM'S WAY: TOXIC THREATS TO CHILD DEVELOPMENT (Cambridge, Mass.: Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility [GBPSR] , May 2000). Available at http://www.igc.org/psr/ or from GBPSR in Cambridge, Mass.; telephone (617) 497-7440.

[23] Paul Connett and Ellen Connett, "The Fluoridation of Drinking Water: a house of cards waiting to fall. Part 1: The Science," WASTE NOT #373 (November 1996). See Table 2 pgs. 6-7.

	1958	1960	1963
Canada	$8,640	$810,621	$1,237,365
Denmark	$27,297	$101,067	$439,704
Eire	$19,078	$62,250	$78,730
Netherlands	$56,945	$175,436	$289,320
Norway	$14,875	$129,286	$258,528
Sweden	$87,600	$507,570	$1,509,011
Switzerland	$5,259	$44,288	$892,606
UK	$232,035	$900,048	$2,751,326

FLUORIDE ACTION NETWORK (NZ) Inc.	Fluoridation everywhere is a political matter and the dental profession has to be prepared to treat it as such. - British Dental Journal 1972
"We cannot escape the fact that fluoridation has been wrested from the hands of the scientist and deposited squarely in the middle of the political arena. Fluoridation is now a political problem. - Journal of the American Dental Association 1961

A History of Fluoridation

A Fatal Error The "mistaken assumption" that led to the misguided practice of water fluoridation

A Fatal Error
The "mistaken assumption" that led to the misguided practice of water fluoridation