Some fifty years after governments began adding fluoride to public water supplies to reduce cavities in children's teeth, declassified documents are shedding new light on the roots of that still-controversial public health measure, revealing a surprising connection between fluoride and the dawning of the nuclear age.
Today, a large percentage of public drinking water in the western world is fluoridated. Many municipalities still resist the practice, disbelieving the government's assurances of safety.
Since the days of World War II, when the U.S. prevailed by building the world's first atomic bomb, 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 documents obtained by Joel Griffiths and Chris Bryson – including declassified papers of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. military group that built the atomic bomb.
Fluoride was the key chemical in atomic bomb production, according to the documents. Massive quantities of fluoride – millions of tons – were essential for the manufacture of bomb-grade uranium and plutonium for nuclear weapons throughout the Cold War. One of the most toxic chemicals known, fluoride rapidly emerged as the leading chemical health hazard of the U.S atomic bomb program--both for workers and for nearby communities, the documents reveal.
Other revelations include:
Much of the original proof that fluoride is safe for humans in low doses was generated by A-bomb program scientists, who had been secretly ordered to provide "evidence useful in litigation" against defense contractors for fluoride injury to citizens. The first lawsuits against the U.S. A-bomb program were not over radiation, but over fluoride damage, the documents show.
Human studies were required. Bomb program researchers played a leading role in the design and implementation of the most extensive U.S. study of the health effects of fluoridating public drinking water--conducted in Newburgh, New York from 1945 to 1956. Then, in a classified operation code-named "Program F," they secretly gathered and analyzed blood and tissue samples from Newburgh citizens, with the cooperation of State Health Department personnel.
The original secret version--obtained by these reporters--of a 1948 study published by Program F scientists in the Journal of the American Dental Association shows that evidence of adverse health effects from fluoride was censored by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) – considered the most powerful of Cold War agencies – for reasons of national security.
The bomb program's fluoride safety studies were conducted at the University of Rochester, site of one of the most notorious human radiation experiments of the Cold War, in which unsuspecting hospital patients were injected with toxic doses of radioactive plutonium. The fluoride studies were conducted with the same ethical mind-set, in which "national security" was paramount.
The U.S. government's conflict of interest--and its motive to prove fluoride "safe" – has not until now been made clear to the general public in the furious debate over water fluoridation since the 1950's, nor to civilian researchers and health professionals, or journalists.
The declassified documents resonate with growing body of scientific evidence, and a chorus of questions, about the health effects of fluoride in the environment.
Human exposure to fluoride has mushroomed since World War II, due not only to fluoridated water and toothpaste, but to environmental pollution by major industries from aluminum to pesticides: fluoride is a critical industrial chemical.
The impact can be seen, literally, in the smiles of our children. Large numbers of U.S. young people--up to 80 percent in some cities--now have dental fluorosis, the first visible sign of excessive fluoride exposure, according to the U.S. National Research Council. (The signs are whitish flecks or spots, particularly on the front teeth, or dark spots or stripes in more severe cases.)
Less-known to the public is that fluoride also accumulates in bones – "The teeth are windows to what's happening in the bones," explains Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry at St. Lawrence University (N.Y.). In recent years, pediatric bone specialists have expressed alarm about an increase in stress fractures among U.S. young people. Connett and other scientists are concerned that fluoride – linked to bone damage by studies since the 1930's – may be a contributing factor. The declassified documents add urgency: much of the original proof that low-dose fluoride is safe for children's bones came from U.S. bomb program scientists, according to this investigation.
Now, researchers who have reviewed these declassified documents fear that Cold War national security considerations may have prevented objective scientific evaluation of vital public health questions concerning fluoride.
"Information was buried," concludes Dr. Phyllis Mullenix, former head of toxicology at Forsyth Dental Center in Boston, and now a critic of fluoridation. Animal studies Mullenix and co-workers conducted at Forsyth in the early 1990's indicated that fluoride was a powerful central nervous system (CNS) toxin, and might adversely affect human brain functioning, even at low doses. (New epidemiological evidence from China adds support, showing a correlation between low-dose fluoride exposure and diminished I.Q. in children.) Mullenix's results were published in 1995, in a reputable peer-reviewed scientific journal. Fluoride Causes Disease
Austrian researchers proved in the 1970s that as little as 1 ppm fluoride concentration can disrupt DNA repair enzymes by 50%. When DNA can't repair damaged cells, we get old fast.
Fluoride prematurely ages the body, mainly by distortion of enzyme shape. Again, when enzymes get twisted out of shape, they can't do their jobs. This results in collagen breakdown, eczema, tissue damage, skin wrinkling, genetic damage, and immune suppression. Practically any disease you can name may then be caused.
All systems of the body are dependent upon enzymes. When fluoride changes the enzymes, this can damage:
- immune system
- digestive system
- respiratory system
- blood circulation
- kidney function
- liver function
- brain function
- thyroid function
The distorted enzymes are proteins, but now they have become foreign protein, which we know is the exact cause of autoimmune diseases, such as lupus, arthritis, asthma, and arteriosclerosis.
Fluoride And Osteoporosis
Dr. Yiamouyiannis (former science director of the National Health Federation) cited a 1990 study of 541,000 cases of osteoporosis that found a definite connection between hip fractures in women over 65 and fluoride levels. The study was written up in JAMA. Several other major studies are cited, massive amounts of research, again all reaching the same conclusion - the undeniable correlation of fluoridation with osteoporosis and hip fracture in the elderly.
Bone Is Living Tissue.
Bone building is a finely balanced, complicated process. Fluoride has been known to disrupt this process since the 1930s. Dr. Alesen, who was the president of the California Medical Association, clearly explains what fluoride does to bone formation.
He cites dozens of international scientific studies proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that fluoride has caused thousands of cases of osteoporosis, skeletal thinning, fractures, "rubber bones," anemia, and rickets.
Fluoride also causes osteoporosis by creating a calcium deficiency situation. Fluoride precipitates calcium out of solution, causing low blood calcium, as well as the buildup of calcium stones and crystals in the joints and organs.
So Why Do We Continue Fluoridating In Present Day?
One word...money!
Toxic disposal. The rise of the EPA since the 1970s. The increase in environmental consciousness as a political tool for creating the illusion of safety in recent decades.
Fluoride is a toxic byproduct in the manufacturing process of manmade chemicals.
Millions of tons of this poison are produced every year. Imagine the cost of containing and disposing of those mountains of waste every year. It's in the billions.
Lobbyists from these industries have presented "scientific studies" paid for by the industries, and provided for a continual stream of media presentations about the health benefits of fluoride. They have created unimaginably lucrative positions for "research" and "education" within the Medical Conglomerates and Associations that are systematically destroying our health.
What are the economic advantages of that? Instead of paying money to dispose of toxic waste, money could now be made by selling fluoride to the water companies of the nation.
They basically use the public water supply as a sewer for industrial wastes and since there is money to be made, the vicious cycle has continued for decades.
What Do The Real Experts Say?
"When historians come to write about this period, they will single out fluoridation as the single biggest mistake in public policy that we've ever had."
- Paul Connett, PhD, Biochemistry
"Water fluoridation is the single largest case of scientific fraud, promoted by the government, supported by taxpayer dollars, aided and abetted by the ADA and the AMA, in the history of the planet."
- David Kennedy, DDS President International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology
"Sodium fluoride is a registered rat poison and roach poison. It has been a protected pollutant for a very long time."
- William Hirzy, PhD President of the Union of Professional Employees of the EPA
"sodium fluoride is a very toxic chemical, acting as an enzyme poison, direct irritant and calcium inactivator ... .It reacts with growing tooth enamel and with bones to produce irreversible damage."
- Granville Knight, MD president of the American Academy of Nutrition
Congressional Record, 31 July 56
"I am appalled at the prospect of using water as a vehicle for drugs. Fluoride is a corrosive poison that will produce serious effects on a long range basis. Any attempt to use water this way is deplorable."
- Charles Gordon Heyd, MD, president, AMA
"no physician in his right mind would hand to his patient a bottled filled with a dangerous drug with instructions to take as much or as little of it as he wished ... And yet, the Public Health Service is engaged upon a widespread propaganda program to insist that communities do exactly that ... The purpose of administering fluoride is not to render the water supply pure and potable but to contaminate it with a dangerous, toxic drug for the purpose of administering mass medication to the consumer, without regard to age or physical condition."
- L. Alesen, MD, president of the California Medical Association
Robotry, p14
"Fluoridation is the greatest fraud that has ever been perpetrated and it has been perpetrated on more people than any other fraud has."
- Albert Schatz, PhD Nobel Laureate for discovering streptomycin
quoted in Sutton's Fluoridation:The Greatest Fraud
"More people have died in the last 30 years from cancer connected with fluoridation than all the military deaths in the entire history of the United States."
- Dean Burk, PhD National Cancer Institute -- Fluoridation:A Burning Controversy
"Fluoridation is the greatest case of scientific fraud of this century, if not of all time."
- EPA scientist, Dr. Robert Carton (Downey, 2 May 99)
What Kind Of Water Should You Drink?
Today there is enough grassroots consciousness about the dangers of tap water that cheap carbon filters are now available in any hardware store which attach easily to the kitchen faucet. It is likely that such filters get rid of most of the chlorine - for awhile.
But to really get the resistant biologicals, the fluoride, heavy metals, and other contaminants, the customer may consider one of the high-end drinking water filters. These cost between two and four hundred dollars and come in models for both over and under the sink.
Names like Alpine, MultiPure, and Spectrapure are among the dozens of brand names that have come along during the past 20 years. Everyone claims to be the best, of course, but we can find some important similarities in their advertising. When you begin to compare the better water filters, you notice common concerns:
- chlorine
- THMs
- chloriform
- chloramines
- cryptosporidium and giardia lamblia cysts
- fluoride
- pesticides and toxic chemicals
- heavy metals
- minerals
- MTBEs
- nitrates
Killing microbials is not a big deal since most of that's been done by chlorine. Most contaminants are removed by the better filters. The problem when choosing a filter seems to come down to four main concerns: fluoride, minerals, THMs, and nitrates.
Difficult to find one filter that does everything: many reverse osmosis filters take out fluoride, but also the healthy minerals. Many of the high-end carbon filters will not remove fluoride or nitrates, but leave the healthy minerals.
Fluoride is obviously a biggie. Find out if the filter you are about to buy removes fluoride, and what percentage. After what we've learned about fluoride, we should expect a filter to remove it.
Due to fluoride advocate propaganda, most don't even realize fluoride is bad, and therefore don't think about it when considering a water filter.
NSF is a third-party non-profit testing agency that has been rating water filters for the past 50 years. Always ask - is it NSF-certified? Don't be fooled if they say 'NSF-tested.' Big difference.
Minerals is an area of some controversy. You've got the hard water / soft water debate. Hard water has more minerals in it, which obviously is better for the bones and teeth, and probably for the heart as well.
That makes sense, although elemental minerals are the least absorbed of all types. Elemental means from rocks, and that's the kind that would be in spring water, and therefore in filtered water, except for reverse osmosis.
Most naturopaths and holistic nutritionists don't like distilled water because they say it leaches minerals from the bones and teeth. In general, that seems logical, although it may not make any difference unless the person is extremely malnourished.
The truth is, no formal studies comparing distilled with mineral water have been done, so it's all pretty theoretical. But thinking about the Hunzas and their 120-year lifespan that was attributed to the glacial mineral waters they drank, one can see the value of minerals in drinking water.
A high-end water filter should take this discussion into consideration and give reasons about the importance or unimportance of filtering out certain minerals.
Comes down to a choice: reverse osmosis or carbon block. With reverse osmosis you've can remove fluoride but also remove many minerals, and wasting about 4-9 gallons to get one gallon of pure water. With high-end carbon mesh filters, you can get rid of everything but fluoride, and you'll still have minerals.
Bottom Line: Stay away from direct consumption of tap water and research effective filtration methods that remove fluoride, lead, arsenic, or specific contaminants. Not only will it improve the taste, it will improve your health.
The Fluoride Deception
'The Fluoride Deception' reads like a whodunit. There are conspiracies, cover-ups, human casualties, and broken careers. The prime suspects in this toxic thriller are compounds of fluoride; the coconspirators represent industry, the military, and the public health community. At the book's ending, the suspect chemicals are not proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, but we are left with compelling evidence that powerful interests with high financial stakes have colluded to prematurely close honest discussion and investigation into fluoride toxicity.
