Back then the concept of peer reviewed research was unknown, and the American Medical Association declared that the "case for fluoride" was proved. It's clear that corporate largesse (from General Motors) was instrumental in getting the American Dental Association on board with water fluoridation. Whether the AMA also benefited from corporate generosity remains unclear.
Kettering Bribes the American Dental Association
Frary and Cox were soon joined in their little scam by Charles Kettering, who was both GM's research director and a Freon magnate. Kettering was the first to approach the American Dental Association with their proposal to fluoridate public water systems. He also began funding many of their activities and got appointed to their three member Advisory Committee on Research in Dental Caries.
Meanwhile GM and DuPont hired scientist Robert Kehoe to perform safety studies on both fluoride and tetra ethyl lead, a gasoline additive co-manufactured by the two companies. And for obvious reasons, Kehoe declared both lead and fluoride safe at "low levels."
Enter the Atomic Energy Commission and the Father of Public Relations
In the 1940s these corporate researchers were joined in their scheme to promote water fluoridation by Dr Harold Hodge the chief toxicologist of the Manhattan Project (the secret US project to build and atomic bomb).Hodge became involved in "Project F" because large amounts of fluoride are used in the construction of the atomic bomb, and the Atomic Energy Commission was concerned about heading off a flood of lawsuits from Manhattan Project scientists exposed to toxic levels of fluoride. This was the same Harold Hodge who, in his role as chief Manhattan Project toxicologist, experimented on unsuspecting patients at Rochester 's Strong Memorial Hospital , by injecting them with plutonium.
Nevertheless the most prominent villain in this sordid history of lies and secrecy was the infamous father of the public relations industry (i.e. the sophisticated use of propaganda to sway public opinion) Edward Bernays. There was massive public opposition to water fluoridation from the very beginning -" led mainly by doctors who were well aware of fluoride's toxicity. Bernays' answer was to enlist even more prominent doctors to declare it safe, starting with famous baby doctor Benjamin Spock.
A Systematic Corporate Cover-Up
As Christopher Bryson outlines clearly in the Fluoride Deception, the whole notion of fluoride being safe and good for teeth is based on decades of corporations paying researchers to produce the scientific results they want -" and burying research and firing and blacklisting scientists whose studies show otherwise.
As Bryson points out, it was actually mass fluoride poisoning that kick-started the environmental movement, following an air pollution disaster in 1948 that killed 20 people and sickened hundreds more. A temperature inversion and air pollution from a US Steel factory is blamed for the Donora ( Pennsylvania ) Death Fog. However owing to extreme pressure from the steel and aluminum industry, public health authorities colluded in a systematic cover-up of the autopsy results - which revealed that the victims had toxic fluoride levels in their blood (see http://www.fluoridation.com/donora.htm).
GM fluoride researcher Charles Kettering also deliberately suppressed the results of his own lab's 1962 studies demonstrating that fluoride produced lung damage in beagles.
This sordid history also includes deliberate smear campaigns against extremely reputable doctors and scientists who published research and clinical findings showing that water fluoridation has adverse health effects:
- Dr. George Waldbott - a world famous doctor who first identified penicillin allergy and the link between smoking and emphysema. Waldbott published numerous double blind studies in the fifties showing that fluoride is harmful to human health. The result was a massive corporate smear campaign that destroyed his reputation by marginalizing and demonizing him.
- Dr William Marcus - a senior EPA toxicologist in the Office of Water, fired in 1992 for attempting to publicize studies revealing that fluoride causes bone and liver cancer (see http://www.gaia-health.com/articles251/000293-epa-scientists-oppose-fluoridation.shtml). In 1994 Marcus won lawsuit against the federal government and was reinstated. While the EPA still refuses to ban water fluoridation, the unions representing EPA scientists have called for a moratorium (see http://www.nteu280.org/Issues/Fluoride/Press%20Release.%20Fluoride.htm).
- Dr Phyllis Mullinix - research toxicologist hired by Forsyth Dental Institute to study the effect of fluoride on the brain. In the mid-nineties, Mullinex was first fired and then blacklisted in the when she published research showing that fluoride produces memory and behavior problems in children.
Where Does Fluoride Comes From?
Although fluoride is added
to municipal water systems as a "drug" - that allegedly improves dental health
- it has never been approved by the FDA. In fact most communities source their
fluoride from the phosphate fertilizer industry, as hydrofluorosilicic acid.
This is an extremely toxic, hazardous waste, and the EPA requires phosphate
manufacturers to capture it via "wet scrubbers" in their chimneys (to prevent
toxic fluoride gas from being released into the air). The resulting liquid is
then loaded, unpurified, into tanker trucks and sold to cities to be added to
their public water supply. In addition to fluoride, it also contains a number
of heavy metals and radionucleotides (radioactive elements - mainly
uranium-238, uranium-234, thorium-230, radium-226, radon-222, lead-210, and
polonium-210).
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