Love for Life

Subject: Articles on Fluoride in Drinking Water

December 2004:

The Drugging Of America with Fluoride:

American soldiers who entered Germany at the end of World War 2 made the liberating of POW camps a priority. At camp after camp, they found stockpiles of fluoride stored near the water supply. When they asked what the fluoride was used for, they were told that the Germans used the substance as an additive to the prisoners water, to make them docile. This is the first known incidence of intentionally fluoridating drinking water.

This practice was soon adapted to American use. By the time General Patton took his Third Army to Berlin, the US Army was adding it to the soldiers water to keep them calm and passive. Patton strenuously objected, and refused to allow fluoridation of his troops. (Patton was later killed when his jeep was struck by an Army truck. This accident injured the General, but it didn't kill him. On the way to the hospital, another Army truck hit him, this time resulting in his death. The mysterious death of America's great General Patton will be the subject of a future story here.)

Within a few years, most of the drinking water in the United States had been fluoridated, in the interests of preventing tooth decay. All of our major brands of toothpaste contain fluoride. Most beverages and foods contain sodium fluoride. This is not a naturally-occurring phenomenon - it is intentionally introduced. The most important question becomes "does fluoride do what it claims to do - prevent tooth decay?" The answer is that it does not.

Not only is there no proof that fluoride prevents tooth decay, there is powerful evidence to the contrary. The largest study ever taken on the matter was conducted in Tucson, Arizona in 1992. 26,000 elementary school students were involved in the study, which produced empirical evidence that the more fluoride a child consumes, the more cavities will appear! The study was conducted by the University of Arizona under the supervision of world-renowned Professor Emeritus Cornelius Steelink.

Of course, most of the countries on Earth rejected fluoridated water years ago. Only the United States and a small handful of countries under our influence continue to add this toxin to their public drinking water supplies. China discontinued the practice after finding that fluoride in the water lowers the ability of children to learn. There is also scientific evidence that osteoporosis, Alzheimers Disease, and other aluminum-related diseases are caused by fluoride - an aluminum by-product.

Research chemist Charles Perkins said, "Repeated doses of infinitesimal amounts of fluoride will in time reduce an individual's power to resist domination, by slowly poisoning and narcotizing a certain area of the brain, thus making him submissive to the will of those who wish to govern him. The real reason behind water fluoridation is not to benefit children's teeth. If this were the real reason there are many ways in which it could be done that are much easier, cheaper, and far more effective. The real purpose behind water fluoridation is to reduce the resistance of the masses to domination and control and loss of liberty."

So, what is fluoride anyway? First of all, it needs to be stated that the 'substance' referred to as 'Fluoride' is a misnomer - there is no such substance listed in the periodic chart of the elements, nor in the prestigious CRC handbook, nor in the sacred 'bible' of the pharmaceutical industry - the illustrious 'Merck Index'. Instead, we find a GAS called Fluorine - and from the use of this gas in various industries such as aluminum manufacturing and the nuclear industry certain toxic by-products are created which have 'captured' fluorine molecules. One such toxic, poisonous 'by-product' is called sodium fluoride - which according to the Merck Index is primarily used as rat and cockroach poison and is also the active ingredient in most toothpastes and as an additive to drinking water.

The proof that it is a toxic poison can be found by reading the warning label on any tube of toothpaste. Sodium Fluoride is also one of the basic ingredients in both Prozac and Sarin Nerve Gas, as well as a host of anti-depressant drugs and commercial insecticides. Sodium Fluoride is a hazardous waste by-product of the nuclear and aluminum industries. In addition to being the primary ingredient in rat and cockroach poison, it is also a main ingredient in anaesthetic, hypnotic, and psychiatric drugs as well as military nerve gas!

Historically, this substance was quite expensive for chemical companies to dispose of, but in the 50's and 60's Alcoa and the entire aluminum industry - with a vast overabundance of the toxic waste - sold the FDA and our government on the insane but highly profitable idea of buying this poison at a 20,000% mark-up and then injecting it into our water supply as well as into the nation's toothpaste. When sodium fluoride is injected into our drinking water, its level is approximately 1 part-per-million (ppm), but since we only drink ½ of one percent of the total water supply, the hazardous chemical literally goes down the drain. The chemical industry has not only a free hazardous waste disposal system - but we have also paid them millions of dollars in the process.

Independent scientific evidence over the past 50 plus years has shown that sodium fluoride shortens our life span, promotes various cancers and mental disturbances, and most importantly, makes humans stupid, docile, and subservient, all in one neat little package. Honest scientists who have attempted to blow the whistle on fluoride have consistently been professionally black-listed, and their valid points never have received the ink they deserve.

In 1952 a slick PR campaign rammed the concept of 'fluoridation' through our Public Health departments and various dental organizations. This slick campaign was more akin to a highly emotional "beer salesman convention" instead of the objective, scientifically researched program that it should have been. It has continued in the same vein right up to the present day - and now sodium fluoride use has now become 'usual and customary'.

To illustrate the emotional vs. the scientific nature of this issue, just look at the response given by people (perhaps yourself included?) when the subject of fluoridation comes up. You need to ask yourself, "Is this particular response based on emotions born of tradition, or is it truly unbiased and based instead on thoroughly researched objectivity?"

There is a tremendous amount of emotion attached to the topic of fluoride usage - but I can't find even one objective, double blind study that even remotely links fluoride to healthy teeth at any age. Instead, I hear "9 out of 10 dentists recommend 'fluoride' toothpaste".

Truly independent scientists who've spent a large portion of their lives studying this subject have been hit with a surprising amount of unfair character assassination from strong vested-interest groups who profit from the public's ignorance and illnesses.

http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/fluoridebomb.html

TOXIC SECRETS
Fluoride & the A-Bomb Program
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".
by Joel Griffiths and Chris Bryson

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.

EVIDENCE OF FLUORIDE'S ADVERSE HEALTH EFFECTS

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 NEW JERSEY FLUORIDE POLLUTION INCIDENT
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 riveted 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."

FLUORIDE DAMAGE: THE FIRST LAWSUITS
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 mobilisation 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 post-war world. The New Jersey fluoride lawsuits were a serious roadblock to that strategy. "The spectre 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 specialises 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 psychological 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.

"PROGRAM F": SECRET FLUORIDE RESEARCH
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 post-war 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 post-war 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-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 post-war 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.

THE A-BOMB AND WATER FLUORIDATION
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 finger bones 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 classified 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-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."

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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 wast...@northnet.org.
· © Joel Griffiths and Chris Bryson 1997
4 West 104th Street
New York, NY 10025, USA

http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/fluoride/fluoride_phosphates.html

Fluoride and the Phosphate Connection

by George C. Glasser

Cities all over the US purchase hundreds of thousands of gallons of fresh pollution concentrate from Florida - fluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6) - to fluoridate water.

Fluorosilicic acid is composed of tetrafluorosiliciate gas and other species of fluorine gases captured in pollution scrubbers and concentrated into a 23% solution during wet process phosphate fertilizer manufacture. Generally, the acid is stored in outdoor cooling ponds before being shipped to US cities to artificially fluoridate drinking water.

Fluoridating drinking water with recovered pollution is a cost-effective means of disposing of toxic waste. The fluorosilicic acid would otherwise be classified as a hazardous toxic waste on the Superfund Priorities List of toxic substances that pose the most significant risk to human health and the greatest potential liability for manufacturers.

Phosphate fertilizer suppliers have more than $10 billion invested in production and mining facilities in Florida. Phosphate fertilizer production accounts for $800 million in wages per year. Florida's mines produce 30% of the world supply and 75% of the US supply of phosphate fertilizers. Much of the country's supply of fluoro-silicic acid for water fluoridation is also produced in Florida.

Phosphate fertilizer manufacturing and mining are not environment friendly operations. Fluorides and radionuclides are the primary toxic pollutants from the manufacture of phosphate fertilizer in Central Florida. People living near the fertilizer plants and mines, experience lung cancer and leukaemia rates that are double the state average. Much of West Central Florida has become a toxic waste dump for phosphate fertilizer manufacturers. Federal and state pollution regulations have been modified to accommodate phosphate fertilizer production and use: These regulations have included using recovered pollution for water fluoridation.

Radium wastes from filtration systems at phosphate fertilizer facilities are among the most radioactive types of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) wastes. The radium wastes are so concentrated, they cannot be disposed of at the one US landfill licensed to accept NORM wastes, so manufacturers dump the radioactive wastes in acidic ponds atop 200-foot-high gypsum stacks. The federal government has no rules for its disposal.

During the late 1960s, fluorine emissions were damaging crops, killing fish and causing crippling skeletal fluorosis in livestock. The EPA became concerned and enforced regulations requiring manufacturers to install pollution scrubbers. At that time, the facilities were dumping the concentrated pollution directly into waterways leading into Tampa Bay.

A Phosphate Worse than Death

In the late 1960s, EPA chemist Ervin Bellack worked out the ideal solution to a monumental pollution problem. Because recovered phosphate fertilizer manufacturing waste contain about 19% fluorine, Bellack concluded that the concentrated "scrubber liquor" could be a perfect water fluoridation agent. It was a liquid and easily soluble in water, unlike sodium fluoride - a waste product from aluminum manufacturing. It was also inexpensive.

Fate also intervened. The aluminum industry, which previously supplied sodium fluoride for water fluoridation, was facing a shortage of fluorspar used in smelting aluminum. Consequently, there was a shortage of sodium fluoride to fluoridate drinking water.

For the phosphate fertilizer industry, the shortage of sodium fluoride was the key to turning red ink into black and an environmental liability into a perceived asset. With the help of the EPA, fluorosilicic acid was transformed from a concentrated toxic waste and a liability into a "proven cavity fighter."

The EPA and the US Public Health Service waived all testing procedures and - with the help of the American Dental Association (ADA) - encouraged cities to add the radioactive concentrate into America's drinking water as an "improved" form of fluoride.

The product is not "fluorine" or "fluoride" as proponents state: It is a pollution concentrate. Fluorine is only one captured pollutant comprising about 19% of the total product.

By 1983, the official EPA policy was expressed by EPA Office of Water Deputy Administrator Rebecca Hanmer as follows: "In regard to the use of fluosilicic (fluorosilicic) acid as a source of fluoride for fluoridation, this agency regards such use as an ideal environmental solution to a long-standing problem. By recovering by-product fluosilicic acid from fertilizer manufacturing, water and air pollution are minimized, and water utilities have a low-cost source of fluoride available to them."

A Hot New Property

In promoting the use of the pollution concentrate as a fluoridation agent, the ADA, Federal agencies and manufacturers failed to mention that it was radioactive. Whenever uranium is found in nature as a component of a mineral, a host of other radionuclides are always found in the mineral in various stages of decay. Uranium and all of its decay-rate products are found in phosphate rock, fluorosilicic acid and phosphate fertilizer.

During wet-process manufacturing, trace amounts of radium and uranium are captured in the pollution scrubber. This process was the subject of an article by H.F. Denzinger, H. J. König and G.E. Krüger in the fertilizer industry journal, Phosphorus & Potassium (No. 103, Sept./Oct. 1979) discussed how radionuclides are carried into the fluorosilicic acid.

While the uranium and radium in fluorosilicic acid are known carcinogens, two decay products of uranium are even more carcinogenic: radon-222 and polonium-210.

During the acidulation process that creates phosphoric acid, radon gas contained in the phosphate pebble can be released in greater proportions than other decay-rate products (radionuclides) and carried over into the fluorosilicic acid. Polonium may also be captured in greater quantities during scrubbing operations because, like radon, it can readily combine with fluoride.

In written communications to the author, EPA Office of Drinking Water official Joseph A. Cotruvo and Public Health Service fluoridation engineer Thomas Reeves have acknowledged the presence of radionuclides in fluorosilicic acid.

Radon-222 is not an immediate threat because it stops emitting alpha radiation and decays into lead-214 in 3.86 days. Lead-214 appears to be harmless but it eventually decays into bismuth-214 and then into polonium-214. Unless someone knew to look for specific isotopes, no one would know that a transmutation into the polonium isotope had occurred.

Polonium-210, a decay product of bismuth-210, has a half-life of 138 days and gives off intense alpha radiation as it decays into regular lead and becomes stable. Any polonium-210 that might be present in the phosphate concentrate could pose a significant health threat. A very small amount of polonium-210 can be very dangerous, giving off 5,000 times more alpha radiation than the same amount of radium. As little as 0.03 microcuries (6.8 trillionths of a gram) of polonium-210 can be carcinogenic to humans.

The lead isotope behaves like calcium in the body. It may be stored in the bones for years before turning into polonium-210 and triggering a carcinogenic release of alpha radiation.

Drinking water fluoridated with fluorosilicic acid contains radon at every sequence of its decay to polonium. The fresher the pollution concentrate, the more polonium it will contain.

As long as the amount of contaminants added to the drinking water (including radionuclides in fluorosilicic acid) do not exceed the limits set forth in the Safe Drinking Water Act, the EPA has no regulatory problem with the use of any contaminated products for drinking water treatment.

Big Risks: No Tests

Despite the increased cancer risk from using phosphate waste to fluoridate drinking water, the EPA nor the Centers for Disease Control have never commissioned or required any clinical studies with the pollution concentrate - specifically, the hexafluorsilicate radical whose toxicokinetic properties are different than the lone, fluoride ion.

Section 104 (I) (5) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) directs the Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the EPA, the Public Health Service and the National Toxicology Program to initiate a program of research on fluoride safety. However, after almost 30 years of using fluorosilicic acid and sodium fluorosilicate to fluoridate the drinking water, not one study has been commissioned.

The fluoride ion only hypothetically exists as an entity in an ideal solution of purified water - and tap water is far from pure H2O. All clinical research with animal models is done using 99.97% pure sodium fluoride and double distilled or deionized water. Among the thousands of clinical studies about fluoride, not one has been done with the pollution concentrate or typical tap water containing fluorides.

Synergy Soup

The fluorosilicic acid is also contaminated with small traces of arsenic, cadmium, mercury, lead, sulfates, iron and phosphorous, not to mention radionuclides. Some contaminants have the potential to react with the hexafluorosilicate radical and may act as complex ionic compounds. The biological fates and toxicokinetic properties of these complex ions are unknown.

The reality of artificial water fluoridation is so complex that determining the safety of the practice may be impossible. Tap water is chemically treated with chlorine, soluble silicates, phosphate polymers and many other chemicals. In addition, the source water itself may contain a variety of contaminants.

The addition of a fluoridation agent can create synergized toxicants in a water supply that have unique toxico-kinetic properties found only in that particular water supply. Consequently, any maladies resulting from chronic ingestion of the product likely would be dismissed as a local or regional anomaly unrelated to water fluoridation.

Technically, artificially fluoridating drinking water is a violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Under statutes of the SDWA, federal agencies are forbidden from endorsing, supporting, requiring or funding the practice of adding any chemicals to the water supply other than for purposes of water purification. However, the Public Health Service (PHS) applies semantics to circumvent Federal law in order to promote and fund the practice.

PHS states that they only recommend levels of fluorides in the drinking water, and it is the sole decision of a state or community to fluoridate drinking water.

Federal agencies are forbidden from directly funding or implementing water fluoridation but Federal Block Grants are given to States to use as they see fit. Through second and third parties (such as the American Dental Association, state health departments and state fluoridation coordinators), PHS encourages communities to apply for Federal Block Grant funds to implement fluoridation.

The legality of using of Federal Block Grant funds to fund water fluoridation, a practice prohibited by Federal law, has never been addressed in the courts.

Vendors selling the pollution concentrate as a fluoridation agent use a broad disclaimer found on the Material Data Safety Sheet that states: "no responsibility can be assumed by vendor for any damage or injury resulting from abnormal use, from any failure to adhere to recommended practices, or from any hazards inherent to the product." [Emphasis added.]

The next time you turn on the tap and water gushes out into a glass, reflect on the following disclaimer from the EPA's 1997 Fluoride: Regulatory Fact Sheet: "In the United States, there are no Federal safety standards which are applicable to additives, including those for use in fluoridating drinking water."

George Glasser is a Florida-based writer whose work has appeared in Newlife, Whole Life Times, the Sarasota ECO Report and the Tampa Tribune.

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Thursday, June 17th, 2004
The Fluoride Deception: How a Nuclear Waste By-product Made Its Way Into the Nation's Drinking Water

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Journalist Christopher Bryson claims in his new book "The Fluoride Deception" that the post-war campaign to fluoridate drinking water was less a public health innovation than a public relations ploy sponsored by industrial users of fluoride - including the government's nuclear weapons program.[includes transcript]

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Hailed as a harmless chemical that would prevent tooth decay, new evidence shows how fluoride could be linked to serious health problems.

Fluoridation was first advanced in the US at the end of the second World War. Proponents argued that fluoride in water and toothpaste would help to protect teeth and prevent decay. Over the following decades, fluoride was added to public water supplies across the country.

While the benefits of fluoridation have been held to be unquestionable, accumulating evidence points to a frightening prospect: that fluoride may have serious adverse health effects, including infant mortality, congenital defects and IQ.

Now a new book, titled "The Fluoride Deception" by Christopher Bryson examines the background of the fluoridation debate. According to Bryson, research challenging fluoride's safety was either suppressed or not conducted in the first place. He says fluoridation is a triumph not of medical science but of US government spin.

Christopher Bryson, has reported science news stories for many media outlets including the BBC, Christian Science Monitor and the Discovery Channel. He was part of an investigative team at Public Television that won a George Polk Award for "The Kwitny Report."

--------------------------

AMY GOODMAN: Today we will talk about this new book "The Fluoride Deception" by Christopher Bryson. It looks at the background of the fluoride debate. According to Chris, research changing fluoride safety was either suppressed or not conducted in the first place. He says it is a triumph not of medical science, but of U.S. Government spin. He joins us in the studio. Welcome to Democracy Now!

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Thank you for having me.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you just give us the history? Is it all over this country and why is it there?

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: It's in about two thirds of the water supply in the united states. However, the united states is virtually alone in the addition of fluoride to its water supplies and 98% of western Europe, for example, don't add fluoride to the water supplies in many communities. Countries there which have fluoride in the water have taken it out. The theory behind fluoride is that the addition of fluorides to water supplies will give you less cavities in your mouth. And that's been the prevailing wisdom of the public health establishment since 1950 when they signed off on that. My book "The Fluoride Deception," challenges you or requires you to think of fluoride differently. The book under the secret history of this book is premised on 10 years of investigative work going into the archives of the United States Manhattan Project, going into --

AMY GOODMAN: The making of the atomic bomb.

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Yes, the Manhattan Project with the World War II, very secret project to make the atomic bomb. I went to industry archives, a very large, significant industry archive out at the University of Cincinnati and found that the very same health researcher , Dr. Robert Kehoe who headed up the laboratory at the University Of Cincinnati, he spent his entire career telling the United States 'S public health community that adding lead to gasoline was safe. That's now being discredited. He was also one of two leading public health scientists saying that adding fluoride to water was safe and good for children. So, that's the -- some of the material that this book gets into.

JUAN GONZALES: The common understanding that many of us have in this country is that there's been sort of a persistent, anti-fluoridation move independent this country, but it has been considered like the fringes of American society. Could you talk a little bit about how the development of the atomic bomb would involve in the whole fluoride campaign?

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, that's -- it's a media swirl, Juan, as the grassroots citizen movement against water fluoridation of t hat fact came into being almost immediately .... the public health service had been against adding fluoride to water for years. In 1950, they did a complete about-face, a flip flop. And the citizens across the country were outraged that this rat poison was going to be added to the water supplies. Today the fluorides that goes in our drinking water is almost exclusively raw industrial pollution from the Florida Phosphate Industry. It's a waste that's scrubbed from the smokestacks and trucked in tankers and dumped into reservoirs. That is a raw industrial poison.

AMY GOODMAN: Wait a second. Rat poison?

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Yes. Sodium chloride is used as a rat poison for a long time.

JUAN GONZALES: But, again, the connection to the atom bomb.

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Sure. Atom bomb. Yeah. Sure. Let me get back to the -- in fact, the movement against fluoridation is a precursor to the movement of today. It has many political hues, many different groups, conservatives, liberals, republicans across the board and it was led not by nut cases, but by scientists and doctors with long-established pedigrees safe guarding public health . The leading scientist opposing water fluoridation was a man by the name of Dr. George Waldbott. He warned the United States about the dangers of cigarette smoking and the allergic reaction to penicillin. This is the background. It is not a fringe movement. It is being marginalized by the media and hasn't been well reported on. My book attempts to address that. The Manhattan Project, I mentioned one leading fluoride researcher, scientist, Robert Kehoe, the second was the name, a fellow a scientist by the name of Dr. Harold Hodge. For most of the Cold War , Dr. Hodge was the leading scientist assuring the nation of the safety and effectiveness of adding fluoride e to water supplies. Dr. Hodge had his public hat, he had his private hat. He was the senior toxicologist for the Manhattan Project to build the world's first atomic bomb. Fluoride is a key ingredient in industry used for making aluminum. It's used for making steel. It is used for producing high-octane gasoline, to name a few industries the dental story is a minor story. The real issue is pollution outside these industrial plants and pollution inside the plants. Industries are on the hook for millions and millions of dollars for potential damage for injuries to workers. There's a medical study commissioned by industry at the University Of Cincinnati . In the 1950's which shows that fluoride is profoundly injurious to lungs and lymph nodes in experimental animals. That study was buried. The significance of that study, had it been shown to the standard setters, the fluoride that men and women workers in these industrial plants breathe, the threshold levels would have been set much lower. That is a crime. What that means is that tens of thousands of workers in factories have been injured as a result of this suppression of this medical information. Anyway, to return to your question. The Manhattan Project needed fluoride to enrich uranium . That's how they did it. The biggest industrial building in the world, for a time, was the fluoride gaseous diffusion plant in Tennessee the Manhattan Project and Dr. Hodge as the senior toxicologist for the Manhattan Project, were scared stiff less that workers would realize that the fluoride they were going to be breathing inside these plants was going to injury them and that the Manhattan Project, the key -- the key of U.S. Strategic power in the Cold War Era, would be jeopardized because the Manhattan Project and the industrial contractors making the atomic bomb would be facing all these l lawsuits from workers, all these lawsuits from farmers living around these industrial plants and so Harold Hodge assures us that fluoride is safe and good for children. Very hard to get a public doctor, an expert witness in a court to say if it's good for children. How can it be harmful for workers?

JUAN GONZALES : In essence, the uranium and fluoride that was necessary for enriching of the uranium and produced this by-product and obviously this waste of fluoride in my mind it sounds very similar to the issue of depleted uranium , again, being a by-product of the nuclear industry and the need then to sanitize these waste products from our nuclear industry, for the public to get rid of them in other words , right? So, it's -- could you talk a little bit about the role of Edward Béarnaise, ,the father of propaganda or public relations in America in convincing the public about this?

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Yeah. Edward Béarnaise is a legendary figure in the 20th century. He was Sigmund Freud's nephew and Béarnaise, he was married to a feminist and he was very attune to the liberal currents in the 20th century and he was a Machiavellian genius. He is the father of public relations. He understood that you could harness that liberal sentiment for commercial gain and he had women march in 1916, he had Suffragettes march in The 1916 Easter Parade In New York City holding cigarettes as torches of liberty. He was working for the American Tobacco Company and George Hill. He was -- so, my book "The Fluoride Deception," uncovers for the first time correspondence between Béarnaise and the New York City Health Commissioner, Dr. Leona Baumgartner in which he says that helping out on the fluoride campaign in New York in the early 1960's interested him because it related to problems of engineering consent. So he was the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain.

AMY GOODMAN: We only have a minute to go. I wanted to ask how fluorides ended up in the water of each community where did the decision get made and how did those debates play out?

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: The public health service endorsed it in 1950 and by and large, it is not given over to referendum. This is a democracy issue. When it is submitted to the votes, far more often than not, voters give it the thumbs down. Mostly it is by fiat or dictate. In New York City, for example it was the board of estimates that signed up for it, that gave it the green light. So, that's --

AMY GOODMAN: Where does it come from?

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Fluoride?

AMY GOODMAN: Where do they ship it in from? Do they have to dump it on a regular basis in the reservoirs?

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Yeah the fluoride comes up -- we were talking about 9/11. Since 9/11, there has been a lot of concern about the safety of these fluoride tankers. So toxic are the contents of the fluoride tankers coming from the Florida Phosphate Industry to New York City or all over the country that there is a fear that the tankers hijacked.

AMY GOODMAN: Christopher Bryson, we have to leave it there. Author of "The Fluoride Deception." This is Democracy Now!

To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (888) 999-3877.

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Nuclear plant to supply fluoride for water

http://www.fluoridealert.org/news/927.html

Latest News from South Africa

· Unintended consequences

· CSIR warns against fluoride in water

· Fluoridation scheme halted by health concerns

· Support for South Africa's fluoride proposal

· Unprofessional activity in South Africa
Read more news from South Africa

Note from FAN: Tony Carnie, the journalist who authored the following articles, was CNN's African Health/ Medical Journalist of the Year in 2000. According to CNN's website, Carnie won the award for his work on the "links between cancer and pollution." According to CNN, Carnie's "usage of state records and extensive statistics that the average reader could benefit from is quite commendable. Personal stories and comments from officials make the entry come alive in a way that brings urgency to a prevailing problem." http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/africa/africanawards/winners00.html

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The Sunday Tribune
Sunday 30 June 2002

Nuclear plant to supply fluoride for water

by Tony Carnie

The nuclear energy establishment wants to cash in on South Africa's controversial chemical "tooth medicine" plan, writes TONY CARNIE

THE Pelindaba nuclear/chemical complex - set up by the apartheid government in the 1960s to produce atomic bombs and enriched uranium fuel - is set to become the major supplier of hundreds of tons of fluoride which will be added to drinking water throughout the country from next year.

In terms of health department regulations, water suppliers like Umgeni Water will be compelled to add fluoride to tap water in towns and cities nationwide, in a bid to reduce tooth decay.

In its concentrated form, fluoride is highly toxic. Yet it has been added in diluted form to the drinking water of many Americans for fifty years, to harden tooth enamel.

However, most European countries do not allow fluoridation of water, and many dentists and scientists around the world are back-tracking on their earlier support of fluoridation because of mounting evidence that it may do more harm than good to human health.

In America, most of the fluoride added artificially to water supplies originates from chimney stacks, as a waste by-product of the fertilizer industry.

This week, the health department declined to reveal where South Africa's fluoride would come from. Oral health director Dr Johan Smit argued that the quality of the fluoride was more important than its origin.

When pressed by The Tribune, he disclosed that most chemicals would most likely come from Pelchem, which is a subsidiary of the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (NECSA), located in the Pelindaba nuclear complex west of Pretoria.

Though aluminium smelting and fertilizer companies in South Africa produce large quantities of fluoride as a waste-product, Pelchem is believed to be the only local company able to supply enough fluoride for the nationwide water-dosing campaign.

The company's ability to provide this highly-corrosive chemical stems from its long history of producing and handling the vast quantities of hyrdro-fluoric acid needed for the enrichment of uranium nuclear fuel. Fluoride, in acid form, was a raw material which helped Armscor and the old Atomic Energy Corporation produce highly-enriched uranium for its top-secret atomic weapon programme. Between 1977 and 1989, at least six "gun-type" nuclear devices were built, and an underground explosion test site was prepared in the Kalahari desert.

However, large quantities of fluorine products from the Pelchem facility were also sold to local and foreign industries - for use in glass-etching, insecticides or leather preservatives.

Pelchem commercial manager Eddie Valkenbergh, was at pains this week to stress that fluoride produced at Pelindaba was a raw material, rather than a radioactive by-product of nuclear fuel. It was produced from locally-mined fluorspar, mixed with sulphuric acid.

To get additives for drinking water, the Pelchem acid stocks would be treated with silica sand to produce fluorosilicic acid - which would be added to water at a diluted concentration of 0,7 parts per million. Pelchem stands to boost annual revenue of about R130 million by at least 10% if it corners the local water fluoridation market.

Valkenbergh said his company's fluoride would meet American water works standards, and was a "purer" form of the chemical than fertilizer or aluminium industry supplies.

But Dr Hardy Limeback, former president of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, and head of preventive dentistry at the University of Toronto, says the Pelchem supplies could not be regarded as pharmaceutical grade medicine.

Limeback, one of several former fluoride advocates who have changed their minds, has written to President Mbeki urging him to set up a fluoridation panel to review whether or not South Africans are especially susceptible to the harmful effects of fluoride.

Limeback - who apologized to his campus and students some years ago for his previous support of fluoride - says fluoride is a known poison if ingested over a long period of time, even in small daily doses.

He said research by University of Stellenbosch researchers (Loue AJ and Grobler SR (2002, J Dent Res) reported that in some regions already containing fluoride naturally, dental decay rates increased with increasing dental fluorosis.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE FLUORIDE ISSUE:

PRO-FLUORIDE: The South African national fluoridation committee has published a pamphlet entitled 'Community Water Fluoridation: The Facts" (available from the national health department) or visit the America Dental Association website ( www.ada.org )

ANTI-FLUORIDE: The international Fluoride Action Network has compiled a document entitled "50 reasons to oppose fluoride", available on the web at ( http://www.fluoridealert.org/50reasons.htm ). Also see

( http://www.fluoride-journal.com )

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BOX QUOTES

"I USED to be an ardent advocate of fluoridation . . . I had been taught, and believed, that there was really no scientific case against fluoridation, and that only misinformed lay people and a few crackpot professionals were foolish enough to oppose it . . . By 1983 I was thoroughly convinced that fluoridation caused more harm than good." - Dr John Colquhoun, former pro-fluoride advocate and principal dental officer of Auckland, New Zealand.

"These people who oppose fluoridation are basing their arguments on emotion, not science . . . but I think it would do more harm than good for me to get into a public debate with them." - Dr Johan Smit, South African head of oral health.

"THOSE who believe fluoride works are entitled to their opinion. That is their right. But they have no right to force others to drink or use fluoride against their will, especially in the face of so much credible evidence of harms . . . The only people who truly benefit from the widespread use of fluoride for "dental" purposes are the big industries that generate fluoride as a waste product. - Prof David R. Hill, University of Calgary, Canada

"THE evidence is quite convincing that the addition of sodium fluoride to the public water supply at one part per million is extremely deleterious to the human body . . . Prior to my hearing this case, I gave the matter of fluoridation little if any, thought but I received quite an education, and noted that the proponents of fluoridation do nothing more than try to impugn the objectivity of those who oppose fluoridation." - Supreme Court Justice J.P. Flaherty and former chairman of the Pennsylvania Academy of Sciences, who granted a court interdict against fluoridation in 1978.

Fluoride
Adverse Health Effects

The International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology has classified Fluoride as an unapproved dental medicament due to its high toxicity.

Fluoride was found to be an equivocal carcinogen by the National Cancer Institute Toxicological Program.1

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A Chronology of Fluoridation
By Val Valerian

Material Added on November 3, 1997
(c) 1996,1997 Leading Edge Research Group. All Rights Reserved.
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"Fluoridation is not a Communist Plot; it is an attempt by industry to camouflage their deadliest pollutant, with government officials and Madison Avenue advertisers beating the drums. The fluoridation empire is like a castle built on quicksand." Gladys Caldwell, author, "Fluoridation and Truth Decay", 1974.

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1855 Smelters in Freiburg, Germany first paid damages to neighbors injured by fluoride emissions. (See 1893)

1893 The smelters in Freiburg, Germany paid out 80,000 marks in damages for fluorine contamination injuries and 644,000 marks for permanent relief. (See 1855, 1900, 1907).

1900 The existence of the smelting industry in Germany and Great Britain is threatened by successful lawsuits for fluorine damage and by burdensome laws and regulations.

1907 The smelters in Freiburg, Germany (see 1893) are identified as the cause of crippled cattle in the area since 1877, and fluorides are identified as the culprit.

1916 The first evidence of brown mottling of teeth is reported in the United States, and would be eventually found to be caused by fluorides in water.

1922 Aluminum production (along with production of toxic by-product sodium fluoride) increases. Aluminum cookware is mass introduced in the US, beginning the gradual accumulation of aluminum in the brains of Americans. Additional aluminum is injected into society in "antacids" and toothpaste tubes, which aggravate the action of toxic fluorides.

1928 The equivalent of the U.S. Public Health Service is under the jurisdiction of Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon, a founder and major stockholder of ALCOA aluminum, a major producer of toxic fluoride wastes. Mellon would step down from control of the Public Health in 1931.

1928 Edward L. Bernays, nephew to Sigmund Freud, writes the book Propaganda, in which he explains the structure of the mechanism which controls the public mind, and how it is manipulated by those who wish to create public acceptance for a particular idea or commodity. Says Bernays, "those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. Our minds are molded, our tastes are formed, largely by men we have never heard of." Bernays represents another connection to Germany and would be essential in the fluoride campaign in the United States. Wrote Bernay's, "if you can influence group leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway." (See Bernay's, 1947, and the fluoride campaign).

1930 Kettering Laboratory is founded from gifts from Ethyl Corporation, General Electric and DuPont (all who have interlocking relationships with I.G. Farben in Germany) to "investigate chemical hazards in American industrial operations" under contract, with provision that research "shall not be released to the public without the consent of the contracting company." During the mid-20th century, Kettering dominated the medical literature on the toxicology of fluorides, but information was not released into the public domain.

1931 A considerable portion of Kettering Laboratory's facilities are dedicated to the study of fluorides. Under contract, the studies are not releasable to the public. (See also 1939, Mellon Institute)

1931 Three independent groups of scientists determine that fluoride in the water is the cause of dental mottling. Research teams from ALCOA Aluminum (who have fluorides as a hazardous by-product of aluminum manufacture) and the University of Arizona. Also shown by North African investigators and others. Dr. Gerald Cox of the Mellon Institute, owners of ALCOA, would later solve the expensive disposal problem with toxic fluorides by convincing others that it could be dumped in the public water supply as a "preventative" for tooth decay.

1931 Under an agreement with I.G. Farben, ALCOA accepts a restriction on the production of magnesium in the U.S, hampering the war effort, while Germany itself stepped up production. Most of the U.S. production was shipped out of the country to Germany.

1931 Public Health Service dentist H. Trendley Dean is dispatched by ALCOA founder Andrew Mellon to certain remote towns in the Western U.S. where water wells have a naturally high concentration of calcium fluorides. Dean's mission would be to find out how much fluoride people could physically tolerate before obvious visible damage to their teeth. Dean publishes a purposely skewed and deceptive study which purports to show that at 1ppm, fluorides result in the "reduction of tooth decay". (See Gerald Cox, 1939)

1931 The Mellon Institute is ALCOA's Pittsburgh research lab.

1931 From 1931 to 1939, the U.S. Public Health Service seeks to remove fluorides from water supplies because of endemic mottled teeth. ALCOA's fluoride proposals have not been bought into by the public or government yet.

1931 I.G. Farben and Alcoa Aluminum sign Alted Agreement pooling patents, which would continue through 1939 and beyond. I.G. Farben complex begins large contributions to fund Nazi cause.

1933 A study is published in which it is shown that fluorides inhibit the action relative to lipase on ethyl acetate in vivo 50 percent at a concentration of one part in 15 million. (McClure, F.J., "A Review of Fluorine and its physiological effects", Physiological Review, 13: 295-297, July 1933).

1933 According to a study by Freni in 1994 (71), in 1933 and again in 1984 that fluorides produce cumulative generational effects on biological organisms.

1937 U.S. Public Health Service publishes material indicating that fluoride concentrations in many U.S. cities varied between 0.6 ppm to 8.0 ppm. A concentration of 0.9 ppm means that over 10% of children have mottled teeth and tooth deformities.

1937 A clinical hygienic study by K. Roholm in 1937, Fluoride Intoxication, published by H.K. Lewis, London. Roholm is convinced that fluorides cross the placental barrier into the foetus. (70). This realization is echoed in 1951 by an M.D. and chemist from the University of Oregon Medical School.

1938 Dr. Wallace Armstrong and P. J. Brekhus at the University of Minnesota Department of Biochemistry publish a study in which they claim that the enamel of sound teeth had a significantly greater fluoride content than the enamel of teeth with cavities. Armstrong was to admit that these results were false. In a follow-up study in 1963, Dr. Armstrong found no difference in the fluoride contents of the enamel of sound or decayed teeth.

1938 The University of Mexico Bulletin, August 1, 1938, in an article entitled "Menace of Fluorine to Health", states "Solutions of sodium fluoride with a fluoride content as low as one part in 15 million may inhibit the action of the lipase (pancreatic juice) as much as 50 percent."

1939 The ALCOA company, the world's largest producer of sodium fluoride, transfers it technology under the Alted Agreement to Germany. Dow Chemical follows suit.

1939 ALCOA-sponsored biochemist Gerald J. Cox fluoridates rats in his lab and mysteriously concludes that "fluoride reduces cavities". He makes a public proposal that the U.S. should fluoridate its water supplies. Cox begins to tour the United States, stumping for fluoridation.

1939 Scientists at I.G. Farben prepare the first sample of fluorinated nerve gas Sarin.

1939 On September 29, 1939, Mellon Institute scientist Gerald J. Cox plays a major role in the promotion of fluoridation by saying "the present trend toward removal of fluorides from food and water may need reversal. Water engineers had been recommending a maximum allowable fluoride contaminant level of 0.1 part per million (ppm), maintaining a tenfold margin of safety. (When fluorides were eventually added to water through corporate pressure, that safety factor would be thrown out and the level raised tenfold beyond the engineering recommendations in 1939, when fluoride was properly recognized as a toxic contaminant. Note: Mellon Institute was founded by Andrew and Richard Mellon, former owners of ALCOA Aluminum, plagued by disposal problems of toxic fluoride by products. ALCOA also had a relationship with I.G. Farben in Germany)

1939 U.S. Public Health Service regulations state "the presence of fluorides in excess of 1 ppm shall constitute rejection of the water supply." (Yet, when water fluoridation is instituted, levels are set at a minimum of 1 ppm)

1939 Volume 9 Report to the House Un-American Activities Committee delves deeply into the alleged use of fluoridation to keep the American people docile, so they would accept the changing of their system of government to a socialist state.

1940 "Fluoride inhibits neuromuscular activity". Ref: Russo, G. Att.Acad. Sci. Nat.., 1940.

1940 Soviet concentration camps maintained by fluoride administration to inmates to decrease resistance to authority and induce physical deteriorization.

1942 "Fluorine may cause anoxia in the newborn and shorten the period of their survival" Ref: Himwich, H.E., et al., American Journal of Physiology, 1942.

1942 Germany becomes worlds largest producer of aluminum (and Sodium Fluoride). Fluoride is used in the concentration camps to render the prisoners docile and inhibit the questioning of authority.

1943 Researchers from the US Public Health Service examine the health of residents of Bartlett, Texas to see if the 8ppm fluoride in the drinking water was affecting their health. It was checked again in 1953. They find that the death rate in Bartlett was three times higher than a neighboring town which contained 0.4 ppm fluoride.

1943 A special New York State Health Department Committee is appointed to study the advisability of adding fluoride to Newburg's drinking water, chaired by Dr. Hodge, then chief of fluoride toxicity studies for the Manhattan Project.

1943 The Journal of the American Medical Association on September 18, 1943, contains an article, "Chronic Fluorine Intoxication", which states, "fluorides are general protoplasmic poisons, changing the permeability of the cell membrane by inhibiting certain enzymes. The exact mechanism of such actions, it was said, are obscure. The sources of fluorine intoxication are drinking water containing 1ppm or more of fluorine, fluorine compounds used as insecticidal sprays for fruits and vegetables (cryolite and barium fluoro- silicate) and the mining and conversion of phosphate rock to superphosphate, which is used as a fertilizer. That process alone releases approximately 25,000 tons of pure fluorine into the atmosphere annually. Other sources of fluorine intoxication is from the fluorides used in the smelting of many metals, such as steel and aluminum, and in the production of glass, enamel and brick."

1943 Environmental pollution by toxic metals, including fluorides, affects forests, livestock, and urban residents, but coverage remains on local levels.

1944 "Even at 1ppm, fluoride in drinking water poisons cattle, horses and sheep" (Moules, G.R., Water Pollution Research and Summary of Current Literature, 1944.

1944 The city manger of Grand Rapids, Michigan announces that the Michigan State Department of Health is planning a long range experiment with fluoridated water and that Grand Rapids was selected as the location for the experiment. The city commission approves a motion to fluoridate on July 31, and decides it is to begin in January 1945, despite the warning issued three months earlier, ironically, by the American Dental Association. Grand Rapids becomes the first city in the United States to conduct this experiment. It was to serve as the test city to be compared against un-fluoridated Muskegon for a period of ten years relative to tooth decay, "at which time it would be determined whether or not fluoride was "safe and effective." Dr. H. Trendley Dean was put in charge of the project. The experiment was terminated early, after the control city was fluoridated, ruining the validity of the experiment, with the pronouncement that fluorides in public water supplies was "safe". See 1945.

1944 The Pentagon Scientific Research and Development Group further pursued the project to fluoridate the drinking water of Newburg, New York. Members included Henry L. Barnett, a captain in the Manhattan Project medical section, John W. Fertig, SRDG, Dr. Hodge, and David Ast, chief dental officer of the New York State Health Department, who was placed in charge of the Newburg Project. The group sought information on cumulative effects, which was also a goal of the Manhattan Project. (See below)

1944 Through 1948. Previously classified documents from Manhattan Project which indicate the government knew the physiological and psycho-behavioral effects of fluorides, as a result of studies connected with determining the effect of uranium hexafluoride processing on workers, as well as studies in defense of litigation against the project by tree growers who experienced fluoride damage from airborne pollutants connected with the project. Ref: Declassified documents from the National Archives published in 1997.

1944 An April 29, 1944 Manhattan Project memo, released in 1997, states "Clinical evidence suggests that uranium hexafluoride may have a rather marked central nervous system effect, with mental confusion, drowsiness and lassitude as the conspicuous features... it seems that the fluoride component is the causative factor....since work with these compounds is essential, it will be necessary to know in advance what mental effects may occur after exposure, if workmen are to be properly protected. 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". Ref: Previously classified SECRET Manhattan Project Memo, 29 April 1944, declassified and released from the National Archives.

1944 Oscar Ewing is put on the payroll of the Aluminum Company of America ALCOA), as an attorney, at an annual salary of $750,000. In 1947, Ewing was made Federal Security Agency Administrator, with the announcement that he was taking a big cut in salary. The US Public Health Service, then a division of the FSA, comes under the command of Ewing, and he begins to vigorously promote fluoridation nationwide. Ref: May 25-27 Hearings before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. A by-product of aluminum manufacture is toxic sodium fluoride. Ewings public relations strategist for the fluoride campaign was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward L. Bernays. Bernays conducts a public relations campaign to promote fluorine ingestion by applying Freudian theory to induce public acceptance. It was one of Bernays most successful campaigns.

1944 The October 1944 issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association cautions that "knowledge of the subject does not warrant the introduction of fluorine in community water supplies generally. Sodium fluoride is a highly toxic substance, and while its applications in safe concentrations, and under strict control by competent personnel, may prove to be useful therapeutically, under other circumstances it may definitely be harmful. To be effective, fluorine must be ingested into the system during the years of tooth development, and we do not yet know enough about the chemistry involved to anticipate what other conditions may be produced in the structure of the bone and other tissues of the body generally. We do know that the use of drinking water containing as little as 1.2 to 3.0 ppm of fluorine will cause such developmental disturbances in bones as osteosclerosis, spondylosis, and osteopetrosis, as well as goiter, and we cannot run the risk of producing such serious systemic disturbances in applying what is at present a doubtful procedure intended to prevent development of dental disfigurements among children ... because of our anxiety to find some therapeutic procedure that will promote mass prevention of caries, the seeming potentialities of fluorine appear speculatively attractive, but, in the light of our present knowledge or lack of knowledge of the chemistry of the subject, the potentialities for harm far outweigh those for good."

1945 An FDA Chief inspector discovers that fluorides are being added to beer by the Commonwealth Brewing Company of Massachusetts (the same state where they did experimental fluoride treatments on institutionalized children). The owner of the brewery was arrested and subjected to a Federal jury trial for poisoning the beer. The indictment charged that the beer contained "an added poison or deleterious poison, fluoride, which was unsafe within the meaning of the statute (Section 301a of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act), since it was a substance not required in the production of the beer, it could have been avoided by good manufacturing practice." The fact was established that the fluoride was added in the concentration of 0.5 ppm. The jury was instructed that fluoride was established to be harmful and poisonous, and that it was unimportant to show how much beer it would take to demonstrate harmful effects. Beer was classified as a food and fluoride as a poison in 1945. The Commonwealth Brewery Company was slapped with a $10,000 fine, and Kaufmann, the owner, was given a 6 month suspended jail sentence and a three year probation period.

1945 Newburgh, New York has their water supply fluoridated in May 1945. Subsequent exams of the children by x-ray reveal that almost 14% have cortical defects in bone, compared to the nearby unfluoridated town of Kingston, where 7.5% have bone defects. The data is suppressed. In tandum, Project F (connected with the Manhattan Project) conducted their own studies of Newburg residents, focusing on the amounts of fluoride Newburg residents retained in the tissues and blood - key information sought by the bomb program, according to previously classified documents released in 1997. See 1956.

1945 The newspaper Philadelphia Record, 18 October 1945, reveals an article entitled "First Bomb Suit for Ruined Peaches filed by Salem County Growers for $400,000" details suits against chemical manufacturers connected with the Manhattan Atomic Bomb Project for hydrogen fluoride damage to peach groves. Companies involved were DuPont de Nemours (which has been interacting with I.G. Farben in Nazi Germany), the Sun Oil Company and the General Chemical Company.

1945 The government does a public test case of fluoridation, comparing fluoridated Grand Rapids with unfluoridated Muskegon, Michigan. The study is to last ten years. After one year, it becomes obvious to the government that fluorides do not conform to their public propaganda, and the study is terminated. The city of Muskegon is then fluoridated in 1947 to conceal the difference in effect. Other experiment