Fluoride Vol. 37 No. 2 55-59 2004
Book Review
Bryson, Christopher.
The Fluoride Deception. Seven Stories Press, 140 Watts Street,New York, NY 10013. xxv + 374 pages,
including index. US $24.95, Canada $37.95,UK ￡17.99. http://www.sevenstories.com
Preprint
with permission to copy
PUBLIC DECEPTION ON FLUORIDE
It is almost a cliche that most industrial corporations are responsible
only to their share holders and dedicated to showing a profit. They are
amoral in that they often feel little or no obligation to safeguard the
health of their workers,the general public, or the environment unless compelled
to comply with laws that are designed for this purpose and are enforced.
Deception supported by suppression of adverse health effects, distorted
science carried out by "captive"researchers, and collusion with
or corruption of government agenciesare made legitimate if doing otherwise
would hurt the "bottom line."
During the last century, this kind of cover-up and deception of major market
products has been exposed with asbestos, leaded gasoline, and the tobacco industry.
An impressive new book adds fluoride to the list.
In The Fluoride Deception a Christopher Bryson, a prize-winning investigative reporter and producer of television documentaries, reveals how the "protected pollutant" status of fluoride and the role of fluoridation to project a benign image of fluoride have been used to counter threats of litigation from its harmful effects to people and the environment. Consulting a wide array of pertinent literature and declassified letters and documents dating to World War II and using extensive interviews with surviving principals, Bryson brings to light critically important studies that had been buried for decades.
His research and consummate writing skill bring to light the shocking story
of more than six decades of fluoride cover-up and deception.
Recounting earlier episodes of fluoride pollution and environmental fluoride hazards,
especially in connection with the aluminum industry, Bryson dates
the beginning of major action on the fluoride problem to 1944 and the Manhattan
Project, the code name for the secret effort to create the world's first
atomic bomb. This undertaking required enormous amounts of uranium hexafluoride
for separation of fissionable uranium-235 from the more abundant and
stable uranium-238. During these and related operations, dangerously high
levels of fluorides were emitted in the factories and to the surrounding
areas. Declassified memos from this period reveal major concerns about
possible adverse health effects of fluorides in the work place and regional
agricultural damage. Accidents, some of them fatal, were covered up. Neurological
effects among workers were suspected, and animal studies were recommended
but may not have been carried out.
The US military and industrial operations producing and releasing fluorides saw themselves facing massive litigation for damages to human health both in the work place and the neighboring agricultural areas. In response, the Fluorine Lawyers Committee was formed to represent key companies: the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa), the Aluminum Company of Canada (Alcan), Kaiser Aluminum, Reynolds Metals, US Steel, and others.
With its enormous prestige and influence, the industry-funded Kettering Laboratory
at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio endeavored to protect these interests.
Headed by Dr Robert A Kehoe, who had successfully assisted in defending
the use of lead in gasoline, the Kettering Laboratory conducted vitally
important fluoride studies which Bryson discovered buried in the library
archives. An especially significant but unreported 1958 study revealed
a direct relationship in dogs between exposure to fluoride at approved
workplace levels and the serious lung disease emphysema that was being
denied as a legitimate workplace injury. The study, which was originally expected
to demonstrate safety, was suppressed. If it had been released when
first carried out, it might have resulted in lowering of permissible fluoride levels
and saved lives.
A key leader in protecting against lawsuits was Dr Harold C Hodge of the University
of Rochester, who was considered America's foremost expert on the
toxicology of fluoride. As a principal medical adviser to the Manhattan Project,
he played a major role in manipulating studies to favor safety and minimize
harm. He also had a history of conducting human experimentation such
as the injection of plutonium into patients without their consent. In his eminent
position he wielded enormous influence over the National Academy of
Sciences (NAS) and the fluoride publication policies of important scientific journals.
In a May 1946 memo to Colonel Stafford L Warren, head of the medical
section of the Manhattan Project, Hodge suggested that it might be a good
strategy to spread the word about the benefits of fluoride to children's teeth
in order to allay concerns of farmers in New Jersey who had lost their peach
orchards from du Pont's fluoride emissions.
Earlier, the perceived need to create a positive image for fluoride gave
birth to the 1945 Newburgh Kingston Fluorine Caries Demonstration
Project. This first experiment with water fluoridation, along with
that in Grand Rapids, Michigan, appears to have been established to
meet two objectives: to show that fluoride is safe in low doses to
reduce tooth decay and, secretly, to study the health of the children
over a ten-year period for evidence of adverse effects.
This effort to put a benign face on fluoride to head off litigation was
originally suggested in 1939 by Gerald J Cox of the Mellon Institute
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, created by Andrew W Mellon, founder of
US Steel and later Secretary of the US Treasury. In the late 1930s
and early 1940s, the US Public Health Service (USPHS) as well as the
American Medical Association and the American Dental Association (ADA)
opposed fluoridation on the grounds of its uncertain toxicity beyond
dental fluorosis. However, in 1950 the chief regulating body, the
USPHS, gave general approval to fluoridation, and many professional
organizations quickly followed suit. Bryson notes, as have others, that
the appointment of Oscar R Ewing as head of the Federal Security Agency
then in control of the USPHS may be relevant. Ewing was a former lawyer
for Alcoa and a fund-raiser and acquaintance of President Harry S Truman,
who appointed him to the position.
In the course of his research, Bryson also uncovered evidence that Dr H Trendley
Dean, hailed in public health circles as the "father of fluoridation" upon
whose epidemiological studies the theory of dental "benefits"
was based, initially opposed fluoridation in view of serious deficiencies
in his own research and the potential for adverse health effects.
However, Dean was persuaded to relent, and for his about-face, he
was amply rewarded and appointed the first Director of the National
Institute of Dental Research (NIDR) and later moved to a senior position
with the ADA. Once professional opposition was overcome, the selling
of fluoridation to the public was aided by the services of Edward
L Bernays, often called "the father of public relations," who
had been hired earlier by the tobacco industry to persuade women to
take up smoking.
Contrary to prevailing propaganda, fluoridation is based on flawed studies, not
sound science. Properly conducted surveys show that tooth decay in areas with
fluoridation is not significantly lower than in areas without fluoridation. Simply
put, the continued promotion of fluoridation fosters and maintains an insidious
deception.
Bryson also describes how fluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6) became the prime source
of fluoride for municipal water fluoridation. Although a much less convenient
source for the large industrial need for hydrogen fluoride (HF) than
fluorspar (or fluorite, CaF2), this by-product from the production of phosphate
fertilizer from fluoroapatite (Ca10(PO4)6F2) is obtained by scrubbing the
effluent stacks of phosphate fertilizer plants, especially in Florida.
As an "incentive," the "surplus" fluorosilicic
acid, which otherwise has only a very limited industrial market, is
sold for use in fluoridation, even though it is contaminated with
arsenic, lead, and radionuclides. Money earned thereby defrays the
cost of collecting it. Major savings are achieved from not having to
comply with laws that require the material be treated as "toxic waste"
forbidden for disposal in the marine environment or on land without
the use of elaborate and costly storage areas.
Making full use of his engaging literary skill, Bryson opens
The Fluoride Deception with a moving account of the tragic ordeal of Dr Phyllis J
Mullenix who, like others, was discharged from her position and robbed
of her career when she dared to publish results of a study contradicting
the prevailing view about the safety of fluoridation. Her investigation,
published in 1995, demonstrated a link between fluoride exposure and
abnormal behavior in rats caused by neurological damage.
Dr Mullenix had been brought to the Forsyth Dental Center in Boston from the
Department of Psychiatry of the Harvard Medical School to head up a new department
of toxicology. At Forsyth she was requested to study the neurotoxicology of
fluoride in rats by the ultra-sensitive computer pattern recognition
system she had developed with Dr William J Kernan of Iowa State University
and had begun using at Harvard. The results of the study by Mullenix and
her co-workers amply confirmed the concerns about adverse effects of
fluoride on the central nervous system expressed some fifty years earlier
by Dr Hodge. Ironically, Hodge, who in his retirement was a consultant
at Forsyth, was often present in Mullenix's laboratory during the
time of her study without disclosing his suspicions expressed in 1944.
In contrast to the perfidious behavior of Dr Hodge and Dr Kehoe stands
the the inspiring and reassuring but all-too-brief life of Dr Kaj
E Roholm, the legendary Danish pioneer of fluoride research. Roholm
thoroughly investigated the adverse effects of fluoride on cryolite
workers in Denmark in the 1930s and subsequently did not agree with
US health officials in their sanguine assessment of fluoride effects
on bones in the US. In a later chapter Bryson cogently summarizes
the very important clinical findings on reversible intoxication from
fluoridated water by Dr George L Waldbott, founder of the International Society
for Fluoride Research and the journal Fluoride.
With equally impressive skill, Bryson devotes two chapters to the "killer fog"
disaster that struck Donora, Pennsylvania in October 1948. Using the words
of the survivors, he vividly describes the deplorable conditions that led up
to the disaster and the suffering it incurred. He then lays bare the attempts to
deny the role of fluoride by collusion between the official investigators from
USPHS, the Kettering Laboratory, and the Mellon Institute to suppress the
independent findings by chemist Dr Philip Sadtler of high levels of fluoride in
the bodies of victims.
Previous authors have presented the idea of a deception, if not an outright conspiracy
involving fluoride. What makes Bryson's book unique is that it is an
up-to-date account supported by indisputable new evidence in the form of declassified
correspondence and exhumation of buried studies. To top it off, The Fluoride Deception presents its case in such a brilliant way and with such literary skill
that it stands a good chance of becoming a cause celebre for the general
public to protest and demand action. A top priority must be placed on "taking
back" such public institutions as NAS, EPA, and USPHS in order to serve
the needs of the public rather than those of industry. Although the book deals
primarily with the situation in the US, it is equally germane to other countries
such as Canada, Australia, Ireland, and the UK. The Fluoride Deception is extraordinarily well crafted and is presented in a manner
that it is bound to hold the interest of both the professional and
the general reader. Even the extensive Notes and annotated citations
of the literature are engaging and rewarding to read.
In summary, The Fluoride Deception reveals how various fluoride-emitting industries have
created and maintained a gigantic deception for more than six decades.
Their primary objective has been to stave off the threat of litigation from
workers and others harmed by fluoride. In their view, protection of the all-important
financial "bottom line" serves to justify the use of dubious
and unsavory techniques including suppression of adverse studies,
distorted science, career assassination, and even collusion with government
agencies.
Bryson's outstanding presentation throws the spotlight on how both the
public and the scientific community have been deceived about fluoride
in general and fluoridation in particular.
With a foreword by Dr Theo Colborn, coauthor of Our Stolen
Future,1 and a postscript by Dr Arvid Carlsson, Nobel Laureate for Physiology
or Medicine in the year 2000, The Fluoride
Deception can be read with confidence and perceived as a credible, stirring
call for immediate action.
Richard G Foulkes, BA, MD Associate Editor, Fluoride
PO Box 278
Abbotsford, BC, Canada
V2S
4N9
Andersfoulkes@cs.com
REFERENCE
1 For review and comment, see Foulkes RG. Fluoride 1996;29(4):227-36. Published
by the International Society for Fluoride Research
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~spittle/fluoride-journal.htm
Editorial
Office: 727 Brighton Road, Ocean View, Dunedin 9051, New Zealand