Fluoride From a Rock????

America's chief fluoridationist, dentist Howard Pollick, told the San Diego City Council that fluoride comes from a rock. This is true.  But the reason it is taken out of the rock is because it is so toxic that animals fed the stuff died. So, instead, its fed to humans. The following explanation of how and why that happens was put together by Chris Gupta.

Here is a bit of history that illustrates why they feed us hydrofluorosilcic acid in our water. Show this to those who ask why should the authorities slow poison us!

"One of the main reasons for processing the raw phosphate rock for agricultural purposes is because of the fluoride content mainly in the form of fluorosilicates/silicon tetrafluoride.

Back in the early part of the 20th century when industrial farming was first starting-up, they did many experiments on cheap mineral supplements for animals to keep costs down and profits up.

Raw, powdered phosphate rock was the first choice because of the abundance and it was dirt-cheap. Bone meal was the second choice, but it was more expensive because it had needed cooking in ovens (calcining) at high temperatures before the animals could digest it properly.

When the animal nutrition researchers did the first experiments with the powdered phosphate rock, the animals started to get sick. The cow�s milk was drying-up, and there was a high rate of calf stillbirths.

It was really knocking the pigs health for a loop many of them became so sick, they just quit eating, quit breeding, and the researchers said they seemed to give up the will to live.

Well, as for the chickens, they just up and died after eating food supplemented with the raw phosphate rock.

They knew that fluorides were toxic and determined that it was the fluorides, but in later experiments, they found that it wasn't just any type of fluoride, but the fluorosilicates* that were doing most of the damage. They used sodium fluoride (like what they use in toothpaste) and sodium fluorosilicate to compare the poisonous effects on the farm animals, and found that the sodium fluorosilicate was a much more effective poison. Another reason for processing the raw phosphate rock is that the fluoride content is also enough to be toxic to many agricultural crops the raw rock will actually inhibit the growth of crops. Some plants like gladiolas will just wilt will die when fertilized with raw phosphate rock because of the fluoride content.

* Also known as hydrofluorosilcic acid. 

The outcome of those early studies strongly suggested that using raw phosphate rock as a cheap fertilizer or animal mineral supplement is not the way to go if you wanted to make a profit and have healthy plants and animals."

Extracted form the book: "Phosphate Fluorides - Toxic Torts" By Gary O. Pittman (page 26)

For more see: Earth Island Journal - Special Feature: "Fluoride and the Phosphate Connection." It was an expose about how America�s public drinking water is fluoridated with pollution scrubber liquor from phosphoric acid processing. This is must read! (Note: Investigative Journalist, George Glasser, wrote this several years ago when Florida was virtually the only source of fluoridation chemicals. Now, countries with proven lax safety standards such as  Mexico and China are supplying the US  with its phosphate fertilizer waste to be used for fluoridation.)

Fluoridation Chemicals Endanger Workers

New Book: "Fluoride Phosphates Toxic Torts," by Gary O. Pittman  

   Gary Pittman gave up his life for his job. 

That wasn’t Gary’s plan when he started working at Occidental Chemical Corporation’s phosphate plants.  He just wanted to make a decent living and provide for his family.  Occidental offered the best pay and best benefits for a high school graduate.

Gary was exposed to 100’s of toxic chemicals with only a hard hat and safety glasses for “protection.” So it’s no surprise that he and many of his co-workers developed debilitating chemical-induced diseases. Most workers were uneducated. Some could barely read and write, Gary says.  They were no match for Occidental’s highly-paid corporate lawyers. But Gary refused to back down and pursued a personal injury lawsuit (toxic tort litigation) against Occidental with several co-workers.

Gary paints a bleak picture of what’s inside the plants – the noise, the smell, the darkness, the boot-eating acids. It’s what you would imagine that Hell would look like, Gary says.

Occidental may have protected themselves legally. But ethically, it stinks as badly as the sulfuric acid stench permeating the plants. However, the one deadly chemical all employees were exposed to didn’t have a smell – fluoride – yes, the stuff they put on your teeth and into your drinking water in a failed effort to reduce tooth decay.

   Fluoride, in the form of fluorosilicates or silicon tetrafluoride, is a toxic contaminant of the phosphate rock. These fluorides must be removed to make safe fertilizer and animal feed products.

Gary says, when researchers fed raw powdered fluoride-containing phosphate rock to farm animals, cows’ milk dried up and had high rates of calf stillbirths.   Pigs quit eating and breeding. Chickens died almost instantly.

And to avoid killing animals and plants surrounding the factory, fluorosilicates must be captured or scrubbed out of air emissions. This captured and contaminated waste product is sold unpurified to fluoridating communities.

Gary writes, “When we had to clean the pollution scrubbers, most of us went home with acid burns and coughing up blood.” 

“Once inside those vessels and scrubbers, we had no respirators, and had to breathe that stale, moist acidic air all shift. Sometimes, workers would fall ill with flu-like symptoms, the older workers called it ‘chemical pneumonia,’” writes Gary.

“I remember one time when they assigned me the task of cleaning the filter hood on the pollution scrubber. Powdery fluorosilicate dust was everywhere. As we were cleaning, the dust covered us. It was very hot - 100 to 120 degrees - and we were sweating profusely. When the fluorosilicate dust mixed with the perspiration, it formed acid on the skin and blistered us if we didn't wash it off in time. We were breathing those dusts, too. They didn't give us respirators,” Gary writes.

The pollution scrubbers’ fluorosilicates contain heavy metals such as lead and mercury and radionuclides including radium-226, radon-222 and uranium-238. 

An autopsy of a man who died from several minutes exposure to concentrated fumes at a phosphate fertilizer plant revealed a coating of silica on his lungs. The cause of death, however, was fluorine poisoning, reports Gary.

A dentist speaking at a San Diego City Council meeting, when asked where fluoridation chemicals comes from, answered “from a rock.” He wasn’t lying.  He just didn’t tell the whole truth.

Some fluoridation promoters soften fluorosilicates image by calling them  “co-products” as if the phosphate fertilizer industry made the stuff on purpose. Whatever it’s called, fluorosilicates have never been safety tested in animals or humans.  Yet, it's dumped as is into about 70% of US public drinking water supplies and given a stamp of approval by organized dentistry and its followers.

Gary’s story reveals the horror of working in an industry that provides the chemicals of modern living and how poorly the workers were treated by their employer whose main concern was money. Most of us have no idea how we indirectly put lives in peril. Maybe Gary’s book will get people thinking about it – especially those who endorse, promote or legislate fluorosilicates into our public water supplies. 

Maybe the US phosphate fertilizer industry has improved worker conditions. But now, unbelievably, China, Mexico, Japan and Belgium are selling us their phosphate fertilizer waste fluorosilicates.

China has a history of selling us products with unwanted and/or toxic ingredients. Chinese fluorosilicates have already clogged up water systems in the US.

Organized dentistry, both inside government and out, and the officials they influence have a moral, ethical and maybe legal responsibility to know what toxins are in all fluoridation chemicals, where they come from and whose lives were endangered by handling them. They all need to read this book.

Support Gary's Work:   

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/phosphate-fluorides-toxic-torts/15739397

Confronting the Myths of Water Fluoridation Promoters

The following are excerpts adapted from the recently-released book, The Case Against Fluoride by Paul Connett, PhD; James Beck, PhD; and H. S. Micklem, DPhil (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2010) from an excerpt published in its entirety on the truth-out website

Proponents of fluoridation have made a number of claims that have been effective with an ill-informed public. Let’s take a look at them.

Claim 1: Fluoride is “natural.” We are just topping up what is there anyway.

There is nothing “natural” about the fluoridating chemicals. They are obtained largely from the wet scrubbers of the phosphate fertilizer industry. The chemicals used in most fluoridation programs are either hexafluorosilicic acid or its sodium salt, and those silicon fluorides do not occur in nature. What is more, under international law they cannot be dumped into the sea.

Claim 2: Fluoridation is no different than adding iron, folic acid, or vitamin D to bread and other foodstuffs.

There is a world of difference:

1. Iron, folic acid, and vitamin D are known essential nutrients. Fluoride is not.
2. All of those substances have large margins of safety between their toxic levels and their beneficial levels. Fluoride does not.

3. People who do not want those supplements can seek out foods without them. It is much more difficult to avoid tap water.

Claim 3: The amount of fluoride added to the public water system, 1 ppm, is so small it couldn’t possibly hurt you.

Promoters use analogies such as 1 ppm is equivalent to one cent in $10,000 or one inch in sixteen miles to make it appear that we are dealing with insignificant quantities of fluoride. Such analogies are nonsensical without reference to the toxicity of the chemical in question. For example, 1 ppm is about a million times higher than the safe concentration to swallow of dioxin, and 100 times higher than the safe drinking water standard for arsenic; it is also up to 250 times higher than the level of fluoride in mother’s milk.

Claim 4: You would have to drink a whole bathtub of water to get a toxic dose of fluoride.

Here again, proponents are confusing a toxic dose with a lethal dose—that is, a dose causing illness or harmful effect as opposed to a dose causing death. Opponents of fluoridation are not suggesting that people are going to be killed outright from drinking fluoridated water, but we are suggesting that it may cause immediate health problems in those who are very sensitive and, with long-term exposure, persistent health problems in others.

Claim 5: Fluoridated water is only delivered to the tap. No one is forced to drink it.

Unfortunately, that is not a simple option, especially for families of low income who cannot afford bottled water or expensive fluoride filtration systems. Even those who can afford alternatives cannot easily protect themselves from the water they get outside the home. Fluoridated tap water is used in many processed foods and beverages (soda, beer, coffee, etc.). 

Claim 6: Fluoridation is needed to protect children in low-income families.

This is a powerful and emotional argument. However, it ignores the fact that poor nutrition is most prevalent in families of low income, and the people most vulnerable to fluoride’s toxic effects are those with a poor diet. Thus, while children from low-income families are a special target for this program, they are precisely the ones most likely to be harmed. Moreover, some of the many distressing newspaper accounts of children suffering from tooth decay in low-income areas located in cities that have been fluoridated for over thirty years. In fact numerous state oral health reports indicate the continued disparity in tooth decay between low-income and high-income families, even in states with a high percentage of the population drinking fluoridated water.

Claim 7: Fluoridation has been going on for over sixty years; if it caused any harm, we would know about it by now.

Such statements would start to be meaningful only if fluoridated countries had conducted comprehensive health studies of their fluoridated populations. Most have not. Only a few health studies have been performed in the United States, most many years ago; very few health studies have been performed in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or the UK; and none has been performed in Colombia, Ireland, Israel, or Singapore (all coun tries with more than 50 percent of the population drinking fluoridated water).

Claim 11: Every major dental and medical authority supports fluoridation.

Here we return to the dubious nature of endorsements not backed up by inde pendent and current reviews of the literature. Many of the major associations on the list frequently cited by the American Dental Association endorsed fluoridation before a single trial had been completed and before the first health study had been published, in 1954.

Claim 12: When fluoridation is stopped, tooth decay rates go up.

There now have been at least four modern studies showing that when fluo ridation was halted in communities in East Germany, Finland, Cuba, and British Columbia (Canada), tooth decay rates did not go up.

Claim 13: Hundreds (or thousands) of studies demonstrate that fluoridation is effective.

On the contrary, the UK’s York Review was able to identify very few studies of even moderate quality, and the results were mixed.

Claim 14: Fluoridation reduces tooth decay by 20–60 percent.

The evidence for fluoridation’s bene fits and found is very weak. Even a 20 percent reduction in tooth decay is a figure rarely found in more recent studies. Moreover, we have to remember that percentages can give a very misleading picture. For example, if an average of two decayed tooth surfaces are found in a non-fluoridated group and one decayed surface in a fluoridated group, that would amount to an impressive 50 percent reduction. But when we consider the total of 128 surfaces on a complete set of teeth, the picture—which amounts to an absolute saving in tooth decay of a mere 0.8 percent—does not look so impressive.

Claim 15: Hundreds (or thousands) of studies demonstrate that fluoridation is safe.

When proponents are asked to produce just one study (a primary study, not a governmental review) that has convinced them that fluoridation is safe, they are seldom able to do so. Apparently, they have taken such assurances from others at face value, without reading the literature for themselves. The fact is, it is almost impossible to prove conclusively that a substance has no ill effects. A careful and properly controlled study may show that, under the conditions and limitations of the investigation, no harm is apparent. A hundred such studies may permit a considerable degree of confidence—but in the case of fluoridation, very few studies have even been attempted. As fluoride accumu lates progressively in the skeleton and probably the pineal gland, studies need to extend over a lifetime. Meanwhile, fluoride at moderate to high doses can cause serious health problems, leav ing little or no margin of safety for people drinking fluoridated water. 

Claim 16: Opponents of fluoridation do not have professional qualifications.

Some opponents of fluoridation do not have professional qualifications (of course); many do. Many highly qualified doctors, dentists, and scientists have opposed fluoridation in the past and do so today. Currently, over 3,000 individuals from medicine, dentistry, science, and other relevant professions are calling for an end to fluoridation worldwide. Furthermore, many opponents without professional qualifications have educated themselves on the science relevant to fluoridation and are qualified to evaluate many aspects of it.

Claim 17: Opponents of fluoridation get their information from the Internet.

No one denies that plenty of rubbish appears on the Internet. But just because a published study can be found using the Internet does not invalidate it. In fact, scientists now do much of their reading of the scientific literature online. The Fluoride Action Network maintains a Health Effects Database on its Web site, which provides citations, excerpts, abstracts, and in some cases complete pdf files of many published studies. Proponents would do well to read some of these papers, rather than trying to dismiss them because they are available online.

Claim 18: There is no evidence that fluoride at the levels used in fluoridation schemes causes any health problems.

There are three weaknesses to this argument. First, it does not make clear that fluoridating countries have done few basic health studies of populations drinking fluoridated water. Absence of studies does not mean absence of harm. Second, just because a study is conducted at a higher water fluoride level than 1 ppm does not mean that it is not relevant to water fluoridation. Toxicologists are nearly always extrapolating from high-dose animal experi ments to estimate safe doses for humans. In the case of fluoride, we have the luxury of a large number of human studies conducted in countries with moderate to high levels of exposure to naturally occurring fluoride. What is required here is a “margin-of-safety” analysis to see if there is a sufficient safety margin between the doses that cause harm and the doses likely to be experienced in fluoridated communities. In our view, there is not. And third, it is not true that there is no evidence of ill effects from fluoride at present levels of fluoridation.

Claim 21: Skeletal fluorosis is very rare in fluoridated countries.

It is difficult for promoters of fluoridation to deny that high natural levels of fluoride have caused severe bone damage in millions of people in India, China, and several other countries. However, proponents insist that skeletal fluorosis is a rare occurrence in countries with artificial fluoridation like the United States. What they really mean by this is that the crippling phase (stage III) of this condition is rare in the United States; they fail to recognize that the earlier phases (stage I and stage II) are associated with pains in the joints and bones, symptoms identical to the early symptoms of arthritis, a condition that affects many millions of adults in the United States.The 2006 NRC review recommends that stage II skeletal fluorosis be considered an adverse effect: “The committee judges that stage II is also an adverse health effect, as it is associated with chronic joint pain, arthritic symptoms, slight calcification of ligaments, and osteosclerosis of cancellous bones.” No fluoridating country has undertaken a study to see if there is a relationship between fluoridation and arthritis.

The complete chapter can be found here: 

http://www.truth-out.org/confronting-myths-water-fluoridation-promoters65562?print

Pres Obama's Science Czar on Fluoridation

John P Holdren is now President Obama's Science Adviser or "Science Czar"

The following is from a book Holdren co-wrote in 1977, "Eco Science" with Paul R Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich:

(page 575 "Direct Assaults on Well-Being")

Fluorides

Fluoridation of public water supplies for partial protection against tooth decay is an emotion-charged subject. The scientific evidence supporting the efficacy and safety of mass fluoridation at the generally recommended level of 1 milligram per liter of water (1 ppm) is not as good as it ought to be, but neither is there convincing evidence that it is harmful. although there are certainly some cranks in the antifluoridation school, there are also some serious and competent scientists and responsible laymen who have been unmercifully abused because of the position they have taken on this controversial issue. Perhaps the strongest argument against mass fluoridation of drinking water is that individual treatment with fluoride is simple and can be supplied cheaply on public funds for those wishing to use it.

There is no question that fluoride is toxic in high concentrations, and fluoride pollution from a variety of industrial activities is a significant problem. Fluorides are discharged into the air from steel, aluminum, phosphate, pottery, glass, and brick works. These sources together emit perhaps 150,000 tons of hydrogen fluoride annually, and the same activities emit some tens of thousands of tons of fluorides annually into waterways. Intentional addition of fluorides in fluoridation programs makes a modest but not negligible contribution of perhaps 20,000 tons per year to the human-caused fluoride inputs to the environment.

The main problems encountered in trying to evaluate health threats from fluoride pollution are familiar ones: the boundary between safe and unsafe levels is a fuzzy one; some individuals are more sensitive than others; and fluorides may act in combination with other pollutants to do damage at concentrations where the fluorides alone would not be harmful.

Fluorides have been shown to concentrate in food chains, and evidence suggesting a potential for significant ecological effects is accumulating. Harm to terrestrial plants and algae at concentrations encountered in polluted environments has been documented, and the ability of certain plants and microorganisms to synthesize particularly toxic organic fluorides has been demonstrated. The toxicity of inorganic and organic fluorides to soil organisms is essentially unexplored and is a potential danger point.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/18564724/Eco-Science-One

Dentists Continue to Ignore Low-Income Children

Children in America are dying from untreated tooth decay. And dentists are resisting any change that might alleviate the problem. Sixty-six percent of Medicaid eligible children (12.6 million) are not receiving any dental care. And the number of dentists has gone down in recent years and the number of dentist-shortage areas has gone up.

At least 50 percent of the average dentist's income now comes from elective cosmetic procedures. If dentists spent less time giving wealthier Americans artificially whitened grins, they would have more time to treat the serious oral disease that plagues millions of poorer Americans.

In 2000, the US Surgeon General revealed the ugly truth - that the low-incomed and minorities aren't getting the dental care wealthier Americans take for granted.

Many reports, meetings, symposiums, studies, conferences and years later, nothing has changed. Representative Dennis Kucinich held his fourth hearing on this issue on October 9, 2009 as chairman of the Domestic policy Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

In his opening statement, Kucinich said:

"On February 25, 2007 Deamonte Driver, a twelve-year-old boy from Prince George's County, Maryland died from a brain infection caused by untreated tooth decay. Deamonte's tragic death could have been easily prevented by access to dental care - dental care he was entitled to.”

About two dozen dentists contacted refused to treat Deamonte Driver because he was on Medicaid.

"At our first hearing in May 2007, we learned that Deamonte Driver was not the only Maryland youth who wasn't receiving dental care to which he was entitled by Medicaid, said Kucinich. His investigation found that approximately 11,000 Maryland children on Medicaid had not seen a dentist in at least four years.

Representative Elijah Cummings, a member of the committee, said he grew up without dental care and believed his constant tooth decay pain was normal. He doesn't want any kids to have to endure that, especially when it's easily treated, he said.

Cummings said he has lots of kids from fluoridated Baltimore going to the University of Maryland for dental care, partially because of Deamonte Driver's death because "I want them to grow up," he said. Many of them have such bad tooth infections that traveled to and infected their eyes - which happens before the infections reaches the brain which killed Deamonte Driver, said Cummings.

Kucinich said, “A GAO report (2007), the first of its kind since 2000, revealed that millions of Medicaid-enrolled children suffer from tooth decay - almost one-third of the total Medicaid population. Medicaid children are roughly twice as likely as privately-insured chidren to suffer from tooth decay. Moreover, this pattern has persisted for years; very little had been done to improve access to and utilization of dental services. In a sense, the problem of tooth decay is getting worse because the rate of decay in the teeth of children aged two through five has increased in recent years."

Today, there are millions of children just like Deamonte Driver - entitled to dental care but not getting it, said Kucinich

Still Waiting for Promised NIH Cancer Study

FLUORIDE ACTION NETWORK BULLETIN 1078
http://www.FluorideAlert.Org

Still waiting for Chester "Godot" Douglass

June 18, 2009 -- It has now been over three years since Professor Chester Douglass of the Harvard Dental School trashed Bassin's (his own student!)[published and peer-reviewed] study associating fluoride exposure to osteosarcoma [bone cancer], with the promise that his paper (to be co-authored by Robert Hoover and Gary Whitford) - to be published in the Summer of 2006 - would refute her findings. We've been waiting and waiting, but still no paper has appeared. Meanwhile, proponents of fluoridation such as

1) Dr. Peter Cooney, chief dental officer of Canada
2) the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC, 2007) and
3) the South Central Strategic Health Authority in the UK,

continue to cite Douglass' letter as if it were a fully fledged research article scientifically rebutting Bassin's findings. So much for authorities who insist upon "peer-reviewed and published" science!

For those new to the Chester Douglass scandal, here is a short time line.

1977. In the wake of the furor generated over the research by Drs. Dean Burke and John Yiamiouyannis showing cancer rates had increased in 10 American cities after fluoridation had begun in the 1950's, the US Congress ordered the National Toxicology Program (NTP) to do animal studies investigating a possible connection between fluoride and cancer.

1990. After a delay of 13 years the NTP finally reported back on the animal-cancer study. They found a number of cancers - all but the osteosarcomas were subjectively downgraded by a government review body, much to the disgust of Dr. William Marcus, who was the chief toxicologist for EPA's Office of Drinking Water. Marcus was fired by the EPA for being too noisy about the matter. Even so, the finding of a dose related increase in osteosarcomas in the male rats, created quite a stir in the media and in dental circles.

1991. Very quickly an article was published in the Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA) co-authored by Douglass. In this study by McGuire et al., the authors reported that they had found no evidence of an association between fluoridation and osteosarcoma and even suggested the opposite: that fluoridation was actually protective against osteosarcoma. This article was given lavish treatment by JADA. The beautiful cover, featuring a huge glass of water with a lake and mountain in the background, carried the statement: "Fluoride and Cancer. Study points to protection."

McGuire et al. made it clear in the text of this article that a positive finding of a relationship between fluoridation with osteosarcoma would have serious consequences for the fluoridation program, a possibility they were clearly worried about, as the following quotes make clear:

"An incorrect inference implicating systemic fluoride carcinogenicity and its removal from our water systems would be detrimental to the oral health of most Americans, particularly those who cannot afford to pay for increasingly expensive restorative dental care" (p.39)

"Because of its strengthening action, fluoride has been widely accepted as the responsible agent for the dramatic declines in the tooth decay rates of U.S. children and adolescents." ( pp.39-40)

"A disruption in the delivery of fluoride through municipal water systems would increase decay rates over time." (p.40) (The authors cited the dubious Antigo study to support this claim, PC)

"Linking of fluoride ingestion and cancer initiation could result in a large-scale defluoridation of municipal water systems under the Delaney clause." (p.40)

The authors concluded, based on this small study, that there was no relationship between fluoridation and osteosarcoma, and even suggested that:

"fluoridation at recommended levels may provide a protective effect against the formation of osteosarcoma" (p.44)

This allowed Douglass and his co-authors to reach the final conclusion that they clearly wanted out of this study:

"Given present knowledge, every effort should be made to continue the practice of fluoridating community water supplies." (p. 45)

1992. The NIEHS chose Chester Douglass to undertake further research to investigate the possible relationship between fluoridation and osteosarcoma. It is incredible, that such a sensitive research effort should have been given to a dental professor, let alone one who had clearly articulated how serious it would be for the fluoridation program should a positive finding be found.

Over the next 10 years (or more), this funding from NIEHS kept on being renewed, despite the fact that, apart from one abstract, Douglass had published nothing on this research. A total of over a million dollars flowed into Douglass' Harvard coffers for this work. These are really patient people at NIEHS!

2001. Then in 2001, Elise Bassin (Douglass' graduate student) successfully defended her PhD thesis. In this, she reported, in what she herself called a robust study, that young boys exposed to fluoridated water in their 6th, 7th and 8th years had a 5-7 fold increased risk of succumbing to osteosarcoma by the age of 20.

2002. In a presentation that Douglass gave to the British Fluoridation Society (BFS), he assured the members of the BFS that his work had found no linkage between fluoridation and osteosarcoma. He somehow failed to mention that his graduate student had found the very opposite to be the case. The BFS reported Douglass' claim in their pamphlet, and used it in their continued promotion of fluoridation. There was no mention of Bassin. The BFS pamphlet went unchanged, long after the existence of Bassin's study had been revealed.

2004. Douglass sent a letter to the National Research Council (NRC) fluoride review panel talking about his research (NRC, 2006). Again he claimed that his work had found no relationship between fluoridation and osteosarcoma. Again he made no mention of Bassin's work, but this time he gave her thesis as a footnote. Any casual reader would have reasonably assumed that Bassin's thesis supported Douglass' claim. Douglass sent a similar letter to his funders at NIH.

2005. In January, acting on a tip-off from Myron Coplan, Michael Connett visited one of the libraries at Harvard and located Bassin's thesis in the rare books section. He was able to photocopy the chapter dealing with osteosarcoma. FAN sent this chapter both to the NRC review panel and to the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in Washington, DC. EWG called for an NIH enquiry into Douglass' behavior and released the story to the media claiming that Douglass was covering-up this important finding. They also mentioned that Douglass was a consultant for Colgate (he edited their monthly bulletin, "Colgate Oral Care Report'). This triggered wide coverage in the media including an important article in the Wall Street Journal (Begley 2005). However, the NIEHS meekly handed over the investigation to Harvard.

2006. One year later, Harvard exonerated Douglass of "deliberately" covering-up Bassin's work. A video clip from Fox News showing Douglass holding up the Harvard "get out of jail free" card, can be accessed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xR47jUqX9g&feature=channel_page

In March, the National Research Council fluoride report was released and stated:

"A relatively large hospital-based case-control study of osteosarcoma and fluoride exposure is under way (Douglass 2004) and is expected to be reported in the summer of 2006 (C. Douglass, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, personal communication, January 3, 2006)."
Ref: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=030910128X&page=329

In May, Bassin, with three other Harvard researchers, published her findings in the Journal Cancer Causes and Control (Bassin et al., 2006). In the same issue, the editors published Douglass' effort to discount Bassin's findings and his promise that his "larger" study would show that Bassin's thesis didn't hold (Douglass & Joshipura, 2006).

The summer of 2006 comes and goes. No published paper from Douglass.

2007. The summer of 2007 comes and goes. Still no published paper from Douglass.

2008. The summer of 2008 comes and goes. Still no published paper from Douglass.

2009. June 18. The first day of summer is just three days away and still no published paper from Douglass.

Meanwhile, those who have examined Douglass' proposed methodology have concluded that there is no way that it can actually disprove Bassin's thesis because the measure of exposure they are using is bone fluoride levels - and there is no way that this can test Bassin's thesis since this is based on which year the young boys are exposed to fluoride. The bone level will only give the cumulative exposure after 20 years . Moreover, another extraordinary weakness of this matched case and control study, is that the controls are young men with other forms of bone cancer (other than osteosarcoma). Clearly, if fluoride was to also cause any these cancers - as it well might - that would completely eliminate any significance of this study!

With such huge weaknesses to this study it is quite conceivable that no reputable journal will touch it. So standby for another cover issue of JADA!

Meanwhile, some believe that Douglass was a "stooge" in all this, and that the person really pulling the strings was Dr. Robert Hoover at the National Cancer Institute. It was Hoover who had done battle with Burke and Yiamiouyiannis in the 1970s. It was also Hoover who conveniently found a reason to discount his own findings of an increase in osteosarcoma in young men living in fluoridated counties covered by the SEER registry (Hoover et al., 1991). Hoover was also the co-author of the paper delivered by Douglass to the BFS in 2002. Hoover was aware of Bassin's findings but apparently went along with Douglass in not revealing them in this paper. Moreover, Hoover has been a part of the Douglass study from the very beginning. Currently, he is listed as the Principle Investigator of the Douglass study, and the current funding appears to all be coming directly from "intramural" funding at NCI. NIEHS funding ran out several years ago.

Paul Connett, PhD, Executive Director Fluoride Action Network
http://www.FluorideAction.Net


References

Bassin EB, Wypij D, Davis RB, Mittleman MA. (2006). Age-specific Fluoride Exposure in Drinking Water and Osteosarcoma (United States). Cancer Causes and Control 17: 421-8.

Begley S. 2005. Fluoridation, cancer: did researchers ask the right questions? Wall Street Journal. July 22. p B1. Available at http://www.fluoridealert.org/media/2005h.html

Hoover RN, et al. 1991. Time trends for bone and joint cancers and osteosarcomas in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program. National Cancer Institute In: DHHS (1991) Review of Fluoride: Benefits and Risks Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Fluoride of the Committee to Coordinate Environmental Health and Related Programs US Public Health Service. Appendices E & F.

Douglass CW, Joshipura K . 2006. Caution needed in fluoride and osteosarcoma study. Cancer Causes & Control 17:481-2.

McGuire SM, Vanable ED, McGuire MH, Buckwalter JA, Douglass CW. 1991. Is there a link between fluoridated water and osteosarcoma? J Am Dent Assoc 122:39-45.

National Research Council. 2006. Fluoride in drinking water: a scientific review of EPA's standards. National Academies Press, Washington D.C. Report available to read and search at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11571

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Another Embarrassing Fluoridation Birthday

Sixty-four years ago, on January 25, sodium fluoride was slowly poured into Grand Rapids, Michigan’s public water supply to prove that fluoridation reduces children’s tooth decay. Five years into the experiment, things weren’t going as expected. Cavities declined equally in the non-fluoridated control city of Muskegon, too. So to blur the truth or prove their expectation, Muskegon was fluoridated also.

So what’s happening today?

Ingested fluoride is not stopping cavities and is causing dental fluorosis – white spotted, yellow, brown and/or pitted teeth.

For example, according to data presented at the 2006 American Association for Dental Research’s annual meeting:

-- Researchers following children from birth found almost twice the amount of dental fluorosis in children drinking fluoridated water but no less decay than children drinking non-fluoridated water. (1)

-- No significant relationship was found between fluoride exposure and cavities in permanent teeth of 6 to 9-year-old's in Campeche, Mexico(2). Previously, it was reported that 56% of this group has dental fluorosis.(3)

-- A U.S. national study reports cavity prevalence increased by 15% in 2 to 5-year-olds, in surveys taken between 1988-1994 and 1999-2002,(4) The Centers for Disease Control report that 1/3 to 1/2 of U.S. schoolchildren display dental fluorosis.(4a)

-- Breastfed US children have less cavities than non-breastfed.(5) even though breast milk has 250 times less fluoride than dentists claim is optimal to reduce cavities. Breastfeeding is also protective against fluorosis.(5a)

-- Although New York City fluoridated in 1965, NYC children of Chinese descent suffer a much higher prevalence and severity of tooth decay than the national average (63% vs 38%). (6)

-- About half of 7 to14-year-old children from fluoridated Rochester, NY, have cavities. Latino children had significantly higher caries experience than African-American and Caucasian children, thus indicating that disparities exist among different ethnic groups even when the water is fluoridated.(7)

Grand Rapids children are showing high rates of tooth decay and dental fluorosis. According to the Grand Rapids Press, one pediatric dentist said in 2007 “…we see children under the age of 2 with active decay…Rather than just a few cavities, we're seeing a lot of cavities. It's not unusual to see a child with 8 to 10 cavities."

Detroit Michigan is also fluoridated.

A study shows that, although fluoridated tap water is the most consumed item, 83% of low-income Detroit African-American adults, 14-years-old and over, have severe tooth decay. Almost all Detroit’s African-American 5-year-olds have cavities, most of them go unfilled.

In fact, there are cavity crises in all fluoridated cities and states (See: http://www.FluorideNews.blogspot.com ) because 80% of dentists refuse Medicaid patients and over 108 million Americans lack dental insurance.

Our food supply has become fluoride-polluted. The USDA had to create a database of fluoride content of some foods to help Americans tally their daily fluoride intake to avoid dental fluorosis and the National Institutes of Health just granted $3 million to a researcher to find out why children are getting dental fluorosis.

It makes better fiscal sense to stop adding fluoride chemicals into the public water supply instead of feeding the research community millions of dollars to tell us we are over-fluoridating our children.

These studies add to a growing body of evidence pointing to fluoride's ineffectiveness and lack of safety: See: http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/teeth/caries/fluoridation.html#top

Take action to end fluoridation here: http://congress.FluorideAction.net


References:

(1) AADR 35th Annual Meeting in Orlando:
Abstract # 0153 - Dental caries and fluorosis in relation to water fluoride levels, I Hong, SM Levy, J Warren, B Broffitt http://iadr.confex.com/iadr/2006Orld/techprogram/abstract_73811.htm

(2) AADR 35th Annual Meeting in Orlando:
Abstract # 1995 - Cross-Sectional analysis of dental caries in children with mixed dentition, AA Vallejos-Sanchez, CE Mendina-Solis, JF Casanova-Rosado, G Maupome, AJ Casanova-Rosado, M Minaya-Sanchez http://iadr.confex.com/iadr/2006Orld/techprogram/abstract_73452.htm

(3) Prevalence of dental fluorosis and additional sources of exposure to fluoride as risk factors to dental fluorosis in schoolchildren of Campeche, Mexico, PR Beltran-Valladares, H Cocom-Tun, JF Casanova-Rosado, AA Vallejos-Sanchez, CE Medina-Solis, G Maupome, Rev Invest Clin. 2005 Uly-Aug;57(4):532-9

(4) AADR 35th Annual Meeting in Orlando:
Abstract # 0458 - Trends in Dental Caries of Primary Teeth, United States, 1988-2002, F Jaramillo, E Beltran, L Barker, S Griffin, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention http://iadr.confex.com/iadr/2006Orld/techprogram/abstract_76323.htm

(4a) Beltrán-Aguilar et al. Surveillance for Dental Caries, Dental Sealants, Tooth Retention, Edentulism and Enamel Fluorosis – United States, 1988-1994 and 1999-2002. MMWR. CDC August 26, 2005
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5403a1.htm


(5) AADR 35th Annual Meeting in Orlando:
Abstract # 0881 - No association between breastfeeding and early childhood caries: NHANES 1999-2002, H Iida, P Auinger, M Weitzman, RJ Billings http://iadr.confex.com/iadr/2006Orld/techprogram/abstract_75842.htm

(5a) Breastfeeding is Protective Against Dental Fluorosis in a Nonfluoridated Rural Area of Ontario, Canada, D Brothwell, H Limeback, Journal of Human Lactation, Vol. 19, No. 4, 386-390 (2003) http://jhl.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/19/4/386
(6) AADR 35th Annual Meeting in Orlando:
Abstract # 0l50 - Caries Experience among Chinese-American Children and Adolescents in Lower Manhattan, CH Chinn http://iadr.confex.com/iadr/2006Orld/techprogram/abstract_74008.htm

(7) AADR 35th Annual Meeting in Orlando:
Abstract # 0478 - Dental Caries in Latino Elementary School Children, S Gajendra http://iadr.confex.com/iadr/2006Orld/techprogram/abstract_74009.htm

(8) AADR 35th Annual Meeting in Orlando:
Abstract # 1992 - Severity of Dental Caries Among African American Children in Detroit, AI Ismail, M Tellez http://iadr.confex.com/iadr/2006Orld/techprogram/abstract_73168.htm