I have a personal reference to this particular subject. My sister’s youngest daughter almost died from an overdose of fluoride, which was in the form of a tube of toothpaste, which she consumed the whole tube. This happened quite a few years back.
Fluoride is a poison that accumulates in our bones. It has been associated with cancer in young males; osteoporosis; reduced I.Q.; and hip fractures in the elderly, to name a few. George Orwell would have been dazzled by the promotion of this toxic by dental and public health officials and concurrently, the avoidance of this issue by the environmental community. We think it has a lot to do with the sordid 50-year history of the promotion of fluoridation by the U.S. Department of Public Health and the American Dental Association. Rather than acknowledge the accumulating evidence of fluoride's threat to human health, they have en-trenched themselves in a position that has produced tactics that include the harassment of scientists and dentists who speak out.
FLUORIDE, TEETH, AND THE ATOMIC BOMB
Today, two thirds of U.S. public drinking water is fluoridated. Many municipalities still resist the practice, disbelieving the government's assurances of safety.
Since the days of World War II, when this nation prevailed by building the world's first atomic bomb, U.S. public health leaders have maintained that low doses of fluoride are safe for people, and good for children's teeth.
That safety verdict should now be re-examined in the light of hundreds of once-secret WWII documents obtained by Griffiths and Bryson – including declassified papers of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. military group that built the atomic bomb.
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.
"Information was buried," concludes Dr. Phyllis Mullenix, former head of toxicology at Forsyth Dental Center in Boston, and now a critic of fluoridation. Animal studies Mullenix and co-workers conducted at Forsyth in the early 1990's indicated that fluoride was a powerful central nervous system (CNS) toxin, and might adversely affect human brain functioning, even at low doses. (New epidemiological evidence from China adds support, showing a correlation between low-dose fluoride exposure and diminished I.Q. in children.) Mullenix's results were published in 1995, in a reputable peer-reviewed scientific journal.
During her investigation, Mullenix was astonished to discover there had been virtually no previous U.S. studies of fluoride's effects on the human brain. Then, her application for a grant to continue her CNS research was turned down by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), where an NIH panel, she says, flatly told her that "fluoride does not have central nervous system effects."
Declassified documents of the U.S. atomic-bomb program indicate otherwise. An April 29, 1944 Manhattan Project memo reports:
"Clinical evidence suggests that uranium hexafluoride may have a rather marked central nervous system effect.... It seems most likely that the F [code for fluoride] component rather than the T [code for uranium] is the causative factor."The memo – stamped "secret" – is addressed to the head of the Manhattan Project's Medical Section, Colonel Stafford Warren. Colonel Warren is asked to approve a program of animal research on CNS effects:
"Since work with these compounds is essential, it will be necessary to know in advance what mental effects may occur after exposure...This is important not only to protect a given individual, but also to prevent a confused workman from injuring others by improperly performing his duties."
On the same day, Colonel Warren approved the CNS research program. This was in 1944, at the height of the Second World War and the nation's race to build the world's first atomic bomb. For research on fluoride's CNS effects to be approved at such a momentous time, the supporting evidence set forth in the proposal forwarded along with the memo must have been persuasive.
The proposal, however, is missing from the files of the U.S. National Archives. "If you find the memos, but the document they refer to is missing, its probably still classified," said Charles Reeves, chief librarian at the Atlanta branch of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, where the memos were found. Similarly, no results of the Manhattan Project's fluoride CNS research could be found in the files.
After reviewing the memos, Mullenix declared herself "flabbergasted." She went on, "How could I be told by NIH that fluoride has no central nervous system effects when these documents were sitting there all the time?" She reasons that the Manhattan Project did do fluoride CNS studies – "that kind of warning, that fluoride workers might be a danger to the bomb program by improperly performing their duties--I can't imagine that would be ignored" – but that the results were buried because they might create a difficult legal and public relations problem for the government.
The author of the 1944 CNS research proposal was Dr. Harold C. Hodge, at the time chief of fluoride toxicology studies for the University of Rochester division of the Manhattan Project. Nearly fifty years later at the Forsyth Dental Center in Boston, Dr. Mullenix was introduced to a gently ambling elderly man brought in to serve as a consultant on her CNS research--Harold C. Hodge. By then Hodge had achieved status emeritus as a world authority on fluoride safety. "But even though he was supposed to be helping me, says Mullenix, "he never once mentioned the CNS work he had done for the Manhattan Project."
The "black hole" in fluoride CNS research since the days of the Manhattan Project is unacceptable to Mullenix, who refuses to abandon the issue. "There is so much fluoride exposure now, and we simply do not know what it is doing," she says. "You can't just walk away from this."
Dr. Antonio Noronha, an NIH scientific review advisor familiar with Dr. Mullenix's grant request, says her proposal was rejected by a scientific peer-review group. He terms her claim of institutional bias against fluoride CNS research "farfetched" he adds, "We strive very hard at NIH to make sure politics does not enter the picture."
Fluoride and National Security
The documentary trail begins at the height of WW2, in 1944, when a severe pollution incident occurred downwind of the E.I. du Pont du Nemours Company chemical factory in Deepwater, New Jersey. The factory was then producing millions of pounds of fluoride for the Manhattan project, the ultra-secret U.S. military program racing to produce the world's first atomic bomb.
The farms downwind in Gloucester and Salem counties were famous for their high-quality produce – their peaches went directly to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Their tomatoes were bought up by Campbell's Soup.
But in the summer of 1943, the farmers began to report that their crops were blighted, and that "something is burning up the peach crops around here."
The account was confirmed in taped interviews, shortly before he died, with Philip Sadtler of Sadtler Laboratories of Philadelphia, one of the nation's oldest chemical consulting firms. Sadtler had personally conducted the initial investigation of the damage.
Although the farmers did not know it, the attention of the Manhattan Project and the federal government was riveted on the New Jersey incident, according to once-secret documents obtained by these reporters. After the war's end, in a secret Manhattan Project memo dated March 1, 1946, the Project's chief of fluoride toxicology studies, Harold C. Hodge, worriedly wrote to his boss Colonel Stafford L. Warren, Chief of the Medical Division, about "problems associated with the question of fluoride contamination of the atmosphere in a certain section of New Jersey. There seem to be four distinct (though related) problems," continued Hodge;
" A question of injury of the peach crop in 1944."" A report of extraordinary fluoride content of vegetables grown in this area."" A report of abnormally high fluoride content in the blood of human individuals residing in this area."" A report raising the question of serious poisoning of horses and cattle in this area."
These agencies "are making scientific investigations to obtain evidence which may be used to protect the interest of the Government at the trial of the suits brought by owners of peach orchards in ... New Jersey," stated Manhattan Project Lieutenant Colonel Cooper B. Rhodes, in a memo c.c.'d to General Groves.
27 August 1945
Crop damage
Subject: Investigation of Crop Damage at Lower Penns Neck, New Jersey
To: The Commanding General, Army Service Forces, Pentagon Building, Washington D.C."At the request of the Secretary of War the Department of Agriculture has agreed to cooperate in investigating complaints of crop damage attributed... to fumes from a plant operated in connection with the Manhattan Project."
Signed, L.R. Groves, Major General U.S.A
"The reports of human injury were especially threatening, because of the potential for enormous settlements – not to mention the PR problem."Indeed, du Pont was particularly concerned about the "possible psychologic reaction" to the New Jersey pollution incident, according to a secret 1946 Manhattan Project memo. Facing a threat from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to embargo the region's produce because of "high fluoride content," du Pont dispatched its lawyers to the FDA offices in Washington, where an agitated meeting ensued. According to a memo sent next day to General Groves, Du Pont's lawyer argued "that in view of the pending suits...any action by the Food and Drug Administration... would have a serious effect on the du Pont Company and would create a bad public relations situation." After the meeting adjourned, Manhattan Project Captain John Davies approached the FDA's Food Division chief and "impressed upon Dr. White the substantial interest which the Government had in claims which might arise as a result of action which might be taken by the Food and Drug Administration."
The farmer's spokesman, Willard B. Kille, was personally invited to dine with General Groves – then known as "the man who built the atomic bomb" – at his office at the War Department on March 26, 1946. Although he had been diagnosed with fluoride poisoning by his doctor, Kille departed the luncheon convinced of the government's good faith. The next day he wrote to the general, wishing the other farmers could have been present, he said, so "they too could come away with the feeling that their interests in this particular matter were being safeguarded by men of the very highest type whose integrity they could not question."
"Because of complaints that animals and humans have been injured by hydrogen fluoride fumes in [the New Jersey] area, although there are no pending suits involving such claims, the University of Rochester is conducting experiments to determine the toxic effect of fluoride."Much of the proof of fluoride's safety in low doses rests on the postwar work performed by the University of Rochester, in anticipation of lawsuits against the bomb program for human injury.
Addendum Video - April 14, 2011
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