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SCHENECTADY
Officials considering removal of fluoride from city water Some dentists concerned low-income residents will be at risk
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    For decades, the city has spent thousands to add fluoride to the drinking water in hopes of protecting residents’ teeth. But as the price for the chemical rises and more municipalities question fluoride’s effectiveness, city offi - cials are wondering whether it’s really worth the cost.
“If it isn’t that much of a benefi t, we’re going to consider not doing it,” Commissioner of General Services Carl Olsen said.
Only one vendor offered a bid for the city’s annual fluoride purchase, and the price nearly doubled, Olsen said. The city had to pay $45,000 for this year’s supply.
    “So we’re definitely taking a look at it,” Olsen said. “It’s very difficult to get.”
    Schenectady would not be the first municipality to drop fluoride. The village of Cobleskill stopped putting fluoride in its water last year. Amsterdam in Montgomery County and most Schoharie County public systems don’t treat their water either, and Albany has never added fluoride to its water.
    Cities started adding fluoride to their water in 1945. They found that it was most effective in protecting teeth if it was consumed before the teeth erupt, and reported a 50 to 60 percent drop in cavities, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But later studies, which tried to duplicate the earlier reports, had great difficulty creating scientifically approved control groups since everyone in a city is exposed to the same water. The studies also found much lower rates of cavity reduction, ranging from 18 to 40 percent, according to the CDC.
    The health agency attributed the lower results to the country’s increased use of fluoride in other sources, particularly toothpaste. With all the other ways to get fluoride today, it’s possible that treated water doesn’t play as large a role anymore, CDC doctors said in a 2001 report.
    Albany officials say there are so many ways to get fluoride that it’s completely unnecessary to add it to the drinking water.
    “There are sufficient other places where people can get fluoride. Toothpaste, mouthwash, you can even get tablets now,” said Albany Water Commissioner Robert Cross. “You can get it to those who need it instead of giving it to everybody. The decision has always been there’s no need for fluoride in the water.”
    But Schenectady dentists said the elimination of fluoridated water in their city would hurt the residents who can least afford to go to the dentist or buy their own sources of fluoride.
    “You’ve got to remember there’s a lot of people in the community who will, for a variety of reasons, never seek dental care,” said Schenectady dentist Dr. Peter Gold. “Fluoride reaches everyone who consumes the city’s drinking water, which is rich and poor.”
    Other dentists said the change would particularly hurt poor children, who often don’t go to a dentist unless they have serious tooth decay. They miss out on toothcleaning lessons and regular fluoride treatments, dentists said, and thus can’t afford to also lose the benefit of fluoridated water.
    In Schenectady, 3,400 children under the age of 12 were living in poverty during the 2000 census.
    Several Albany dentists who see children from both cities said they didn’t see a significant difference in cavities between Albany and Schenectady children, but they said they still wished their city’s water was fluoridated.
    “It is a valuable thing for the community. It makes the tooth more resistant to decay. Children are given fluoride to aid the developing teeth,” said Robin Shaw, a hygienist speaking for Rose Dental in Albany.
    The CDC also says that fluoridated water helps protect adult teeth when they have exposed roots. The agency’s 2001 report concluded by urging municipalities to continue the fluoridated water program even though fluoridated toothpaste has also reduced cavities significantly.
    “Community water fluoridation is a safe, effective, and inexpensive way to prevent dental [cavities],” the report read. “Fluoridated community drinking water and fluoride toothpaste are the most common sources of fluoride in the United States and are largely responsible for the low risk for dental [cavities] for most persons in this country.”

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But Schenectady dentists said the elimination of fluoridated water in their city would hurt the residents who can least afford to go to the dentist or buy their own sources of fluoride.

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Cost could send fluoride down drain
Capital Region cities grappling with choice of paying more or dropping water additive endorsed by dentists

By CATHLEEN CROWLEY, Staff writer
First published: Saturday, February 9, 2008

SCHENECTADY -- A California megalopolis' decision to add fluoride to its water supply is having an impact on several Capital Region communities, including Schenectady, which is considering dropping the additive due to rising prices.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves approximately 18 million people in the San Diego and Los Angeles metropolitan areas, began fluoridating in October.
     
But the whopping 12,000 tons of fluoride the system uses annually depleted U.S. supplies of the chemical and created a nationwide shortage, according to a major U.S. supplier. As a result, communities such as Fort Worth, Texas, and Needham, Mass., suspended fluoridation.
Several Capital Region water districts have seen a modest increase in fluoride costs, and Schenectady's bill nearly doubled.
"We have to evaluate whether the benefit is worth the expense," said Carl Olsen, Schenectady's commissioner of general services. "If it's demonstrated that the cost is worth the advantage, then obviously we'll continue."
Schenectady's water works serves about 62,000 people in the city, parts of Niskayuna and Rotterdam and the bill for its 50 tons of fluoride has jumped $20,000 to $45,000 in 2008.
Fluoride costs for Saratoga Springs, Troy and Guilderland have increased. Troy is spending $32,000 this year, about 17 percent higher than last year. Saratoga Springs spent $8,300 in 2007 and won't put out another order for fluoride until May.
Albany doesn't add the chemical to its water supply.
"It killed the whole stinkin' country," said Hal Turnbow, vice president of Thatcher Co., a Salt Lake City-based chemical distributor that supplies fluoride to Schenectady and other communities in New York state.
"We've gone from a long position where we couldn't get rid of it fast enough, to now you can't find the stuff," Turnbow said.
Robert Muir, spokesman of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said the district's fluoride costs increased 75 percent in less than a year. The total price tag was $3.6 million.
"It's a very volatile market," Muir said. "We have experienced the cost increases along with the rest of the nation." In New York, roughly 180 public water systems fluoridate, and about 660 communities buy water from systems that add fluoride.
But the use of fluoride is a controversial topic. The American Dental Association says fluoridation reduces cavities by 20 percent to 40 percent. But critics link fluoride to lower IQs, endocrine system problems, bone damage and fluorosis, a dental condition that causes white streaks and brown spots on teeth.
Fluoride is a byproduct of the manufacturing process of phosphate fertilizer. Much of the nation's fertilizer comes from central Florida, said Tony Besthoff, owner of Faesy and Besthoff, a Connecticut chemical distributor that serves some New York communities.
Fluoride occurs naturally in phosphate rock that is found 25 to 40 feet below the ground in what was once ocean. The fluorine gas created during the fertilizer manufacturing process used to be burned in smokestacks and released into the air, Besthoff said.
When pollution laws were enacted, manufacturers began trapping the gas and converting it to fluoride.
"Making the product is energy intensive and delivering it is energy intensive," Besthoff said.But despite the rising costs, at least one official feels the purported benefits of fluoride outweigh the costs -- at least so far.
William West, Guilderland's water superintendent, budgeted $8,600 for fluoride, up from $6,500 last year.
"My personal opinion, is that 8,500 town of Guilderland residences are getting something that hasn't been proven to be a health issue and is actually a benefit," West said. "It equates to a dollar a year per a household, which is very economical for fluoride treatment."
F. Crowley can be reached at 454-5348, or by e-mail at ccrowley@timesunion.com.
Fluoride use in the state
In New York, roughly 180 public water systems fluoridate, and about 660 communities buy water from systems that add fluoride.

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Cost-benefit analysis makes strong case for fluoridating water

    Schenectady officials are thinking about discontinuing the use of fluoride in the city’s water supply because the price of the chemical has risen substantially in the last year and fluoride is so easily obtained elsewhere. Yes, but ...
    Fluoridating public water — even at the elevated cost of $45,000 a year — remains the most cost-effective way to keep people from getting cavities. That’s not just conventional wisdom talking, it’s what the American Dental Association, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the state Health Department say. And it’s especially true of children.
    Yes, people can keep from getting cavities by brushing their teeth with fluoridated toothpaste, which means just about any toothpaste nowadays. But that’s assuming they remember to brush their teeth, and do it properly, which kids don’t always do.
    And kids whose baby teeth haven’t erupted yet need the benefit of fluoridated water because they haven’t started brushing yet. And even though they may be brushing regularly, and properly, by the time their permanent teeth come in, topical application is still less effective than when they absorb the fluoride internally.
    Fluoridating water is also cheaper. If every man, woman and child in Schenectady had to spend $5 per year on toothpaste alone, it would cost nearly seven times what the city is spending to fluoridate its water.
    Then there are the dental costs: A single-surface filling costs nearly $100 nowadays. For that reason alone — because the county pays part of its Medicaid patients’ dental bills — Schenectady County should encourage the city to keep fluoridating its water. In fact, if county officials were smart, they’d offer to subsidize the fluoridation effort so their Medicaid dental bills don’t go up. (State Medicaid statistics from 2006 indicate that children visiting the dentist in Albany, where fluoride isn’t used, were roughly 50 percent more likely to need a filling than those in Schenectady.)
    The sad fact is that, even with Medicaid-furnished dental care, a lot of people don’t go to the dentist regularly. Some don’t even brush their teeth. Economics are part of the reason, at least with regard to the former, but no matter, fluoridated water provides both with an added layer of protection against cavities, dental disease, tooth loss and a lifetime of related problems for relatively little money.

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Fluoridation is both safe and cost-effective

    Re Jan. 25 letter by Doug Faulisi Sr., “If fluoride is so safe, why is it being banned?” I would like to take this opportunity to respond to Mr. Faulisi’s letter regarding fluoride.
    Fluoridation of community water supplies is the single most effective public health measure to prevent dental decay. Throughout more than 60 years of research and practical experience, the preponderance of credible scientific evidence indicates that fluoridation of community water supplies is both safe and effective.
    In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has proclaimed community water fluoridation (along with vaccinations and infectious disease control) as one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century. Of the thousands of credible scientific studies on fluoridation, none has shown health problems associated with the consumption of optimally fluoridated water.
    I do agree with Mr. Faulisi that money does influence a great deal of research. In fact, it does play a role in the debate over fluoridation, as fluoridation is a community public health measure that undeniably saves money. For most cities, every dollar invested in water fluoridation saves $38 in dental treatment costs. With the escalating cost of health care, fluoridation remains a preventive measure that benefits persons of all socioeconomic statuses at minimal cost.
    Finally, I ask skeptics and opponents of fluoridation to consider this: What financial incentives exist for dentists to promote measures that minimize tooth decay? In a word — none! Without tooth decay, which fluoridation undeniably reduces, many dentists would be out of a job. The fact is that we, as educated professionals who have critically evaluated the literature on water fluoridation, strongly believe it is in the best interest of our patients to fluoridate community water supplies in an effort to reduce the prevalence of dental disease.
    MICHAEL K. DELUKE
    Niskayuna
The writer is president of the Schenectady County Dental Society.

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Fluoride just one of many supplements worthy of public water

    I am disheartened that Schenectady is considering the removal of fluoride from its municipal drinking water. According to your Feb. 8 article, adding fluoride to Schenectady’s water costs the city only $45,000 per year. That small investment is all it takes to provide this important benefit that may potentially result in modestly fewer cavities among a small subset of Schenectady’s population.
    In fact, if Schenectady really wants to show visionary leadership, it should consider a whole variety of cost-effective supplements to municipal water supplies.
    For example, many senior citizens take low-dose aspirin to prevent cardiovascular disease and stroke. However, seniors on a fixed income may not be able to afford this luxury. The Centers for Disease Control recommends pregnant women consume 400 micrograms of folic acid daily to prevent birth defects. Of course, not all pregnant women are empowered with this knowledge. Adding cholesterol-lowering statins could make Schenectady the city with the best heart health in the country! And why not Viagra in the water supply for good measure?
    Yes, Schenectady could make an unparalleled commitment to the health of its residents, one drinking- water supplement at a time!
    KYLE LAWRENCE
    Galway

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Discontinuing the fluoridation of water would be unwise
BY EDWIN D. REILLY JR.
For the Sunday Gazette

    Gen. Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war?
    Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No, I don’t think I do, sir, no.
    Gen. Ripper: He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. . . . Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, there are studies
under way to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk . .. ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children’s ice cream!
Mandrake: Lord, Jack.
Gen. Ripper: It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face.
— From the fi lm “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”



    “Dr. Strangelove” is certainly one of my favorite movies, but I don’t know whether to classify it as a comedy or a tragedy. Whatever, I couldn’t help but recall the famous dialogue quoted when I read with astonishment that Schenectady is considering abandoning the fluoridation of water. Not because of fear of communists or al-Qaida, of course, but because it costs about 75 cents per year per resident to do so. The very thought has prompted several Gazette letters and a cartoon already, but I haven’t yet seen a discussion of the implications to the other county municipalities that buy water from the city.
    Niskayuna, for example, buys more water from the city than it can comfortably pump from its own wells. So, as Gazette columnist Carl Strock would say, today I hied myself up to town hall to refresh my memory of certain details about our water supply system. I had a nice chat with new Supervisor Joe Landry, and just before that, a more technical one with superintendent of Engineering Rich Pollock, son of the late GE R&D scientist Herb Pollock, whom many readers will remember.
CORRECT DOSE
    Right now, imported city water arrives with the proper dose of fluorides, about one part per million in accord with a standard first proposed by Edward L. Bernays (1891-1995) in 1946. Similarly, water pumped from Niskayuna wells is fed the same dosage. Some parts of the town receive the city water, some receive the Niskayuna water, but most of the town receives a blended mixture.
    If the city stops fluoridating and Niskayuna and Rotterdam want to continue fluoridating to the standard level needed to protect our children’s teeth, they will have to build a possibly costly interchange system that will intercept and treat the city water before it is blended with its own. I would hope that the temptation to take the simpler approach of abandoning fluoridation itself would be rejected.
    Now, consider the economics of water production. A city such as Schenectady may operate its water system at a “profi t,” which can legally be used to augment general municipal revenues. Towns such as Niskayuna, Glenville and Rotterdam that operate water systems cannot — state auditors make sure that their water rates generate no revenue in excess of the actual cost of operations. If the city remains concerned about the rising cost of fluoride, then all it need do is, at the next contract renewal with each client, raise the price by, I estimate, one or two cents per thousand gallons, about 1 percent. (Glenville does not have to buy city water.)
OPPOSITION VOICE
    After taking a break from the keyboard to check primary results just after writing the above, I happened to surf to Channel 16 and — whoa! As it is wont to do (First Amendment, you know), SACC-TV was giving airtime to yet another conspiratorialist “documentary,” this one hosted by narrator Christopher Bryson. Boy, did he give it to old Ed Bernays. Seems that that fellow was the nephew of Sigmund Freud. And before Bryson turned full force on the evils of fluoridation, he even took time to ridicule that classic exchange between Gen. Ripper and Group Captain Mandrake with which I began this essay.
    Well, there are reasons to be concerned about fluoridation. One is just the standard libertarian belief that government should not be trying to tell us what is good for us, or what they think might be good for us. Right away I had a hunch that Ron Paul must oppose fluoridation and, sure enough, a check of his Web site indicates that he does.
    Other opponents feel that they must deny the efficacy of fluoride in reducing dental caries that ultimately lead to cavities. After all, there is very little fluoridation in Western Europe, and all but the English seem to still have teeth. But the scientific evidence in support of the ability of fluoridation to reduce caries is overwhelming.
CANCER RISK OR BLOG POLLUTION?
    The remaining concern, then, is the possible side effect. Does fluoridation cause cancer? Does it reduce the IQ of children? (Oh dear, we all know how dumb Niskayuna children are.) All these claims and many more pollute the blogosphere.
    It is tempting to write that our bodies are just bags of chemicals. OK, take out that “just”; surely the chemicals combine into molecules that combine into the miraculous structures that make us conscious, sentient, thinking, humans. Interestingly, 70 percent of our bodies consist of the very substance to which additional fluoride is often added — H2O, or water. That means that of the approximately 60 elements (of the naturally occurring 92) from which our bodies are built, oxygen is the most common and hydrogen is third, with carbon in between.
    Then come nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus and potassium, all of which we have been educated to know as beneficial. But next come sulfur, chlorine and sodium, which give us pause. Sulfur doesn’t smell very good. (And H2SO4, shaken, but not stirred, can break a chemical Bond. ) Pure sodium and chlorine are the most potently dangerous elements of the 92, but when combined they produce a big flash and what remains is — table salt! Well, too much of that gives you high blood pressure. Go easy.
    Now, are you ready for this? The 13th most common element in “us” is — fluorine! But despite that rank, fluorine was the last of the body’s elements to be identified. It was fi rst isolated from its compounds in 1886 by the French chemist Frederick Henri Moissan (1852-1907), who won the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery. Pure fluorine at room temperature is a gas, but inside us, it is bound into solid fluorides and distributed throughout the body in ways that do little or nothing to harden our teeth. But if it were liberated, cooled, liquefied, and kept at a temperature just below its boiling point, the mass would be the size of a cube about a half-inch on a side. Some bouillon cube!
    Rubidium, 16th in rank by weight, is the most abundant element in the body that has no known biological role. Vanadium, 54th, is the body’s least abundant element that does have a biologic role, followed by cobalt, 39th, the latter being a constituent of Vitamin B-12.
    Oh, we have copper, gold and silver in us too, all put to good use on our behalf. I owe all of these insights to Ed Uthman, M.D., of Houston, Texas. Google him for confirmation. Dragging this information out of him was much easier than pulling the teeth of those unfortunates who live in communities that refuse to fluoridate. The closest one is Albany.

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The question isn’t fluoride or no fluoride, but in what doses?

    This will support the continued fluoridation of water in Schenectady as advocated by Edwin D. Reilly, Jr., in his Feb. 17 Viewpoint: “Discontinuing the fluoridation of water would be unwise.”
    Toward the end of his article, Mr. Reilly cited opposition to fluoridation because of fears by some people of various toxic effects. As far as I can discover, the citizens of Schenectady have been drinking fluoridated water for a long, long time with no ill effects seen. If the dangers of fl uoridation are as dire as are being claimed, there should be large-scale evidence of such effects by now.
    I suspect that part of the fear of fluoridation comes from the fact that sodium fluoride, commonly used to fluoridate drinking water, is a poison. Anything that is a poison has no business being in a public water supply, the thinking goes. This is simplistic thinking, for it is well known that an overdose of many beneficial medications can be fatal.
    But when very small doses of a poison are administered, there is no effect. Increasing the dose also shows no effect until some critical threshold is reached when toxicity starts to become evident. Increasing the dose above this threshold value increases the toxic effect, with the severity of the effect getting larger as the dose is increased.
    The fact that no adverse health effects attributed to fluoridation have been seen in Schenectady informs us that the amount of agent being used is well below this threshold level, regardless of its toxicity in large doses.
    ALMY D. COGGESHALL
    Niskayuna

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SCHENECTADY
Council returns to fluoride debate
Rising cost, uncertain benefit cited
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Kathleen Moore at 395-3120 or moore@dailygazette.com

    The price of fluoride has crept up another $20,000, leading the Schenectady City Council to once again debate the effectiveness of the controversial chemical.
    The city will pay $65,000 this year for the increasingly-rare chemical, which cost $45,000 last year and $25,000 just two years ago.
    The chemical was added to protect teeth, particularly the developing teeth of children too poor to get annual fluoride treatments at a dentist. But some physicians now believe fluoride can hurt more than it helps. The chemical can be dangerous if too much of it is consumed, and it can be found in many innocuous foods, ranging from tea and coffee to chocolate ice cream. It’s also in most toothpaste — but not children’s toothpaste.
    In large amounts, fluoride has been accused of causing everything from discolored teeth to cancer. No studies definitively prove that fluoridated water causes such effects, according to the Centers for Disease Control, but advocates of fluoride-free water say they are generally opposed to having any medicine forced upon them, particularly if it could be risky.
    C o u n c i l w o m a n B a r b a r a Blanchard has been somewhat convinced by their arguments. She suggested that the council reduce the amount of fluoride in the water to make sure avid tea drinkers and other fluoride consumers don’t get an overdose.
    “The question is, are we irresponsible in putting in as much as we are?” she said, adding that her research into the chemical left her seriously worried.
    “It made me realize we’re not just fooling around with nothing,” she said. “The amount of fluoride that had been recommended and that we have been using may be too high.”
    Other council members and the mayor vehemently disagreed with her.
    “I think adding fluoride to the water is one of the most cost-efficient things we can do as stewards to protect the children of this city,” Mayor Brian U. Stratton said. “I know with my son, you have to kick and drag them to get them to brush their teeth.”
    Councilman Mark Blanchfield added that poor children aren’t likely to get the right amount of fluoride if it isn’t in the water.
    “They reference all these things that in the perfect world every child is eating, but we know in Schenectady they don’t,” Blanchfield said.
    McCarthy added that many adults may need the fluoride more than ever.
    “Because of the instances of bottled water, you’re seeing an increase in cavities,” he said.
    The CDC says that fluoridated water is only helpful to adults when they have exposed roots. The agency studied the issue in 2001 and determined that fluoridated toothpaste and fluoridated water have played an important role in decreasing cavities. However, it said treated water played the greatest role and urged municipalities to continue their fluoridated water programs.
    McCarthy indicated he might be willing to compromise on that point, saying, “If there are studies that show we can get the same results with a lower concentration, we can make that adjustment down the road.”
    Most of the council seemed to agree with McCarthy.
    Blanchard plans to continue the debate at upcoming council meetings in hopes of determining how much fluoride to use in city water this year.
    Schenectady is not the first municipality to question fluoride. The village of Cobleskill stopped putting fluoride in its water two years ago. Amsterdam in Montgomery County and most Schoharie County public systems don’t treat their............................http://www.dailygazette.net/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=CLONE&BaseHref=SCH%2F2009%2F01%2F06&ViewMode=GIF&EntityId=Ar01000

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The history of forcing fluoride on humans through the fluoridation of drinking water is wrought with lies, greed and deception. Governments that add fluoride to drinking water supplies insist that it is safe, beneficial and necessary, however, scientific evidence shows that fluoride is not safe to ingest and areas that fluoridate their drinking water supplies have higher rates of cavities, cancer, dental fluorosis, osteoporosis and other health problems. Because of the push from the aluminum industry, pharmaceutical companies and weapons manufacturers, fluoride continues to be added to water supplies all over North America and due to recent legal actions against water companies that fluoridate drinking water supplies, precedent has been set that will make it impossible for suits to be filed against water suppliers that fluoridate. There is a growing resistance against adding toxic fluoride to our water supplies, but unfortunately, because fluoride has become "the lifeblood of the modern industrial economy"(Bryson 2004), there is too much money at stake for those who endorse water fluoridation . The lies of the benefits of water fluoridation will continue to be fed to the public, not to encourage health benefits to a large number of people, but to profit the military-industrial complex.

The story begins in 1924, when Interessen Gemeinschaft Farben (I.G. Farben), a German chemical manufacturing company, began receiving loans from American bankers, gradually leading to the creation of the huge I.G. Farben cartel. In 1928 Henry Ford and American Standard Oil Company (The Rockefellers) merged their assets with I.G. Farben, and by the early thirties, there were more than a hundred American corporations which had subsidiaries and co-operative understandings in Germany. The I.G. Farben assets in America were controlled by a holding Company, American I.G. Farben, which listed on it’s board of directors: Edsel Ford, President of the Ford Motor Company, Chas. E. Mitchell, President of Rockerfeller’s National City Bank of New York, Walter Teagle, President of Standard Oil New York, Paul Warburg, Chairman of the federal reserve and brother of Max Warburg, financier of Germany’s War effort, Herman Metz, a director of the Bank of Manhattan, controlled by the Warburgs, and a number of other members, three of which were tried and convicted as German war criminals for their crimes against humanity. In 1939 under the Alted agreement, the American Aluminum Company (ALCOA), then the worlds largest producer of sodium fluoride, and the Dow Chemical Company transferred its technology to Germany. Colgate, Kellogg, Dupont and many other companies eventually signed cartel agreements with I.G. Farben, creating a powerful lobby group accurately dubbed "the fluoride mafia"(Stephen 1995).

At the end of World War II, the US government sent Charles Eliot Perkins, a research worker in chemistry, biochemistry, physiology and pathology, to take charge of the vast Farben chemical plants in Germany. The German chemists told Perkins of a scheme which they had devised during the war and had been adapted by the German General Staff. The German chemists explained of their attempt to control the population in any given area through the mass medication of drinking water with sodium fluoride, a tactic used in German and Russian prisoner of war camps to make the prisoners "stupid and docile"(Stephen 1995). Farben had developed plans during the war to fluoridate the occupied countries because it was found that fluoridation caused slight damage to a specific part of the brain, making it more difficult for the person affected to defend his freedom and causing the individual to become more docile towards authority. Fluoride remains one of the strongest anti-psychotic substances known, and is contained in twenty-five percent of the major tranquilizers. It may not seem surprising that Hitler’s regime practiced the concept of mind control through chemical means, but the American military continued Nazi research, exploring techniques to incapacitate an enemy or medicate an entire nation. As stated in the Rockerfeller Report, a Presidential briefing on CIA activities, "the drug program was part of a much larger CIA program to study possible means of controlling human behavior"(Stephen 1995).

The ‘dental caries prevention myth’ associated with fluoride, originated in the United States in 1939, when a scientist named Gerald J. Cox, employed by ALCOA, the largest producer of toxic fluoride waste and at the time being threatened by fluoride damage claims, fluoridated some lab rats, concluded that fluoride reduced cavities and claimed that it should be added to the nation’s water supplies. In 1947, Oscar R. Ewing, a long time ALCOA lawyer, was appointed head of the Federal Security Agency , a position that placed him in charge of the Public Health Service(PHS). Over the next three years, eighty-seven new American cities began fluoridating their water, including the control city in a water fluoridation study in Michigan, thus eliminating the most scientifically objective test of safety and benefit before it was ever completed.

American ‘education and research’ was funded by the Aluminum Manufacturing, Fertilizer and Weapons Industry looking for an outlet for the increasingly mounting fluoride industrial waste while attaining positive profit increase. The ‘discovery’ that fluoride benefited teeth, was paid for by industry that needed to be able to defend "lawsuits from workers and communities poisoned by industrial fluoride emissions" (Bryson 1995) and turn a liability into an asset. Fluoride, a waste constituent in the manufacturing processes of explosives, fertilizers and other ‘necessities’, was expensive to dispose of properly and until a ‘use’ was found for it in America’s water supplies, the substance was only considered a toxic, hazardous waste. Through sly public re-education, fluoride, once a waste product, became the active ingredient in fluorinated pesticides, fungicides, rodenticides, anesthetics, tranquilizers, fluorinated pharmaceuticals, and a number of industrial and domestic products, fluorinated dental gels, rinses and toothpastes. Fluoride is so much a part of a multibillion-dollar industrial and pharmaceutical income, that any withdrawal of support from pro-fluoridationists is financially impossible, legally unthinkable and potentially devastating for their career and reputation.

Funded by US industrialists, in an attempt to encourage public acceptance of fluoride, Edward Bernays, known also as the father of PR, or the original spin doctor, began a campaign of deception to persuade public opinion. Barnays explained "you can get practically any idea accepted if doctors are in favour. The public is willing to accept it because a doctor is an authority to most people, regardless of how much he knows or doesn’t know"(Bryson 2004). Doctors who endorsed fluoridation didn’t know that research discrediting fluoride’s safety was either suppressed or not conducted in the first place. Fluoride became equated with scientific progress and since it was introduced to the public as a health-enhancing substance, added to the environment for the children’s sake, those opposing fluoride were dismissed as cranks, quacks and lunatics. Fluoride became impervious to criticism because of a relentless PR offensive, but also because of it’s overall toxicity. Unlike chemicals that have a signature effect, fluoride, a systemic poison, produces a range of health problems, so it’s effects are more difficult to diagnose.

Recently declassified US Military documents such as Manhattan Project, shows how Fluoride is the key chemical in atomic bomb production and millions of tonnes of it were needed for the manufacture of bomb-grade uranium and plutonium. Fluoride poisoning, not radiation poisoning, emerged as the leading chemical health hazard for both workers and nearby communities. A-bomb scientists were ordered to provide evidence useful for defense in litigation, so they began secretly testing fluoride on unsuspecting hospital patients and indignant, mentally retarded children.. "The August 1948 Journal of the American Dental Association shows that evidence of adverse effects from fluoride was censored by the US Atomic Energy Commission for reasons of "national security" (Griffiths 1998). The only report released stated that fluoride was safe for humans in small doses.

During the Cold War, Dr. Harold C. Hodge, who had been the toxicologist for the US Army Manhattan Project, was the leading scientific promoter of water fluoridation. While Dr. Hodge was reassuring congress of the safety of water fluoridation, he was covertly conducting one of the nation’s first public water fluoridation experiments in Newburgh, New York, secretly studying biological samples from Newburgh citizens at his US laboratory at the University of Rochester. Since there are no legal constraints against the suppression of scientific data, the only published conclusion resulting from these experiments was that fluoride was safe in low doses, a profoundly helpful verdict for the US Military who feared lawsuits for fluoride injury from workers in nuclear power plants and munitions factories. Fluoride pollution was one of the biggest legal worries facing key US industrial sectors during the cold war. A secret group of corporate attorneys, known as the Fluorine Lawyers Committee, whose members included US Steel, ALCOA, Kaiser Aluminum, and Reynolds Metals, commissioned research at the Kettering Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati to "provide ammunition"(Bryson 2004) for those corporations who were fighting a wave of citizen claims for fluoride injury. The Fluorine Lawyers Committee and their medical ambassadors were in personal and frequent contact with the senior officials of the federal National Institute for Dental Research, and have been implied in the ‘burying’ of the forty year old Kettering study, which showed that fluoride poisoned the lungs and lymph nodes in laboratory animals. Private interests, sought to destroy careers and censor information by ensuring that scientific studies raising doubts about the safety of fluoride never got funded, and if they did, never got published.

During the 1990’s, research conducted by Harvard toxicologist Phillis Mullenix showed that fluoride in water may lead to lower IQ’s, and produced symptoms in rats strongly resembling attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Just days before her research was accepted for publication, Mullenix was fired as the head of toxicology at the Forsyth Dental Center in Boston. Then her application for a grant to continue her fluoride and central nervous system research was turned down by the US National Institute of Health (NIH), when an NIH panel told her that "fluoride does not have central nervous system effects"(Griffiths 1998).

Despite growing evidence that it is harmful to public health, US federal and state public health agencies and large dental and medical organizations such as the American Dental Association (ADA), continue to promote fluoride. Water fluoridation continues, despite the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s own scientists, whose union, Chapter 280 of the National Treasury Employees Union, has taken a strong stand against it. Dr. William Hirzy, vice president of Chapter 280, stated that "fluoride (that is added to municipal water) is a hazardous waste product for which there is substantial evidence of adverse health effects and, contrary to public perception, virtually no evidence of significant benefits"( Mullenix 1998). Although fluoride is up to fifty times more toxic than sulfur dioxide, it is still not regulated as an air pollutant by the American Clean Air Act. Since thousands of tonnes of industrial fluoride waste is poured into drinking water supplies all over North America, supposedly to encourage gleaming smiles in our children, big industry in the US has the benefit of emitting as much fluoride waste into the environment as they like with absolutely no requirement to measure emissions and no way of being held accountable for poisoning people, animals and vegetation.

In August 2003, the EPA requested that the National Research Council, the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), re-evaluate water fluoride safety standards by reviewing recent scientific literature, because the last review in 1993 had major gaps in research. "Neither the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), nor the National Institute for Dental Research (NIDR), nor the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry has any proof on fluoride’s safety or effectiveness"(Sterling 1993). The International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology has classified fluoride as an unapproved dental medicament due to it’s high toxicity and the US National Cancer Institute Toxicological Program has found fluoride to be an "equivocal carcinogen" (Maurer 1990).

Currently the US government is continuing to introduce further fluoridation schemes throughout the country, including the Water Act passed in November 2003, which has made it impossible for water companies to undergo civil or criminal hearings as a result of adding fluoride to public water supplies.

In a society where products containing asbestos, lead, beryllium and many other carcinogens have been recalled from the marketplace, it is surprising that fluoride is embraced so thoroughly and blindly. It seems absurd that we would consider paying the chemical industry to dispose of their toxic waste by adding it to our water supply. Hiding the hazards of fluoride pollution from the public is a capitalist-style con job of epic proportions that has occurred because a powerful lobby wishes to manipulate public opinion in order to protect it’s own financial interests. "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 formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of" (Bernays 1991).


Watershed education for TV weather forecasters ›
Tags Water Quality and Quantity Issues
Flouride Conspiracy
Submitted by Jeff on July 30, 2005 - 18:02.
Great essay!  I had no idea….

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Great read
Submitted by Prarie Blake on August 6, 2005 - 17:46.
Thanks, that’s a lot of information packed into an excellent essay.

Rather chilling to think it’s on purpose and the goal is to keep the people docile.

—-
- Prarie Blake
- ekosTV.com Webmaster

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Damning Allegations
Submitted by Rick Searle on August 9, 2005 - 08:38.
Superb essay, not doubt about it. Very thought-provoking. I’d appreciate seeing your references. Perhaps you could post these as well.

I wonder though about your carte blanche critique of flouride. The human body requires certain minerals and chemicals in trace amounts to function properly. Perhaps the dosages of flouride added to such things as toothpaste and drinking water are so low as not to constitute a serious threat. This is not to dispute the point of your essay, only to suggest the possibility of more balance in your critique.

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Cities shrug off concerns over flouride in water
Submitted by Rick Searle on August 31, 2005 - 07:52.
A recent news item on the flouride controversy.  


    
Cities shrug off concerns over fluoride in water

By Alex Paul
Albany Democrat-Herald


Mid-valley cities have no plans to alter fluoridation programs in public water systems after 11 Environmental Protection Agency unions last week called for a moratorium on fluoridation across the country.


The unions, which represent some 7,000 environmental and public health professionals, said a study at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine indicates a link between fluoride consumption and an elevated risk of bone cancer in boys 5 to 10 years old.


The 2001 report, which was part of a thesis by a Harvard doctoral student, indicated a seven-fold increase in osteosarcoma, a cancer of the bone found predominantly in boys and animals. However, Harvard officials are investigating the director of that study, who allegedly downplayed the findings in a report to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The institute had provided a $1.3 million grant for the study.


"Sweet Home has added fluoride to its drinking water since the 1960s," City Manager Craig Martin said. "Everything we’ve seen shows that the positives from adding fluoride far outweigh the negatives."


Martin said he doesn’t see the report "creating an issue here," although he added, "Some people don’t even want chlorine in their water."


Lebanon City Administrator John Hitt said he hadn’t seen the report, but to his knowledge, no citizens have come forward concerning fluoridation.


"It was a council decision to start fluoridation and it would be a council decision to cease it," Hitt said.


Albany City Manager Wes Hare said the topic of fluoridating city water is a new one for him. La Grande, where he was city manager for 10 years, did not fluoridate its water.


Albany residents voted to approve fluoridation of water in 1968, said Public Works Director Diane Dennis.


"This whole issue with the EPA scientists began about 2000," Dennis said. "There’s an internal disagreement within the EPA itself over fluoridation."


The EPA standard for fluoridation is no more than 4 parts per million, Dennis said. City staff shoot for 1 ppm and the actual number fluctuates between 0.67 and 1.18 ppm.


"We’re keeping watch on this," Dennis said. "We want to be protective of the people."


The fluoridation of public water supplies began nationwide after World War II as a method of fighting tooth decay. By the 1970s, public health concerns arose as cities began reporting issues of increased bone deformities in some segments of their populations.


Anti-fluoride groups, such as the Fluoride Action Network, contend most people get enough fluoride from products such as toothpaste.


Supporters are celebrating the 60th anniversary of municipal water fluoridation. They say fluoridation helps reduce decay by 40 to 49 percent in baby teeth and 50 to 59 percent in permanent teeth. Others say the actual benefit is closer to 18 to 25 percent.


About two-thirds of the U.S. population, 145 million people, regularly drink fluoridated water. Some 10 million of those live in communities where optimal fluoride levels occur naturally.


The 2005 Oregon Legislature let die House Bill 2025, which would have required cities with populations of 10,000 or more to fluoridate water supplies. The bill had been passed by the House, but it died in the Senate.


Portland and Gresham are among the Oregon cities where no fluoride is added to the water.


Alex Paul covers business, agriculture and timber issues. He can be reached at 812-6076 or alex.paul@lee.net.


Copyright © 2005 Democrat-Herald

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I dunno guys...
Submitted by Tony on April 5, 2006 - 21:16.
I am currently doing a paper on the fluoridation of water and stumbled across this paper. I’m sorry, but I have to voice my dissent. This paper is 1) heavilly lacking any citation of the most outlandish statements, 2) extreemely biased, and 3) bordering on plagarism. While I too am against the fluoridation of local water supplies, I find an article such as this generally not helpful to the general debate on the reasons for/against the practice.

(sorry that my first post had to be such a downer, overall I really do like EkosTV).

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Thank you and a spelling correction.
Submitted by NiftyNan on August 13, 2006 - 14:21.
Thank you for this article. It’s a very interesting history on this
topic.

We live in a small town in Illinois, a state where
municipalities are required to
add fluoride to the drinking water. I went to visit my
state representative to ask him to help remove this requirement.
I think he was surprised by my request. There is a big
ALCOA plant right across the Mississippi River in Iowa.
He quickly tried to think of an answer. Pointing to his
bad teeth he said something about leaving the fluoride in
for his sake. Later, I joked with my family that next
time we should bring him a bottle of fluoride rinse.

In my opinion the best way to avoid cavities is to
avoid sugar and sodas.

Our family of six has been drinking distilled water for about
nine years. My nineteen-year-old son had to have
one filling put in about five years ago,
but none of the rest of my kids have any
fillings. We also consume very little sugar and no sodas,
but only the son with the filling brushes twice a day; the others only brush once.

I have bad eczema on my hands and wondered, after reading
this article, if the fluoride could be entering my open pores
when I wash dishes twice a day in warm water.

On the paragraph which starts “Despite growing evidence” (page 3)
I believe you meant the last word on the line to be “public.”

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Excellent & very Informative!
Submitted by Danny on August 17, 2006 - 19:10.
Fluoride is not an Essential Nutrient, nor ever has been.

Yet the Fluoride Fairy believes Fluoride works Wonders by being Swallowed & is Truly Magic!!
It does not need to be applied Topically, nope, just Swallow this Thing, it will amazingly bypass everything Inside unharmed, on to the final Destination to the Teeth.

What does one expect from Diluted Toxic Waste?

It would surely be a Miracle, if this Toxic Waste were 100% Safe, as the Lunatics claim!!

We can thank the Selfish, Evil & Greedy Individuals behind this Madness.

What Lunacy!!

The Hell ought to be Sued out of these Bastards, Poisoning & Slowly Killing Millions across the Globe, far & wide.

The better People get educated on the Fluoride Fraud, the better!!

The Insane Lunatics always get an Outlet for their Toxic Waste!

Although most of Europe has Banned the Practise of Water ‘Fluoride Waste’, another Outlet has been provided for (sadly) Via the Salt!!

It’s far more Important what one Eats (A Responsible Diet) & what the Teeth get exposed to.

No-one has the right to take away an Individuals Choice of Food & Pure Water.

Honestly Folks, do you Really, Blindly believe Toxic Litter is 100% safe, without doing Independent Research, away from the Insane Fluoride Sales Personal Industrial Complex?

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Fantastic Essay!
Submitted by LionelM on May 21, 2007 - 16:01.
Thanks a lot! Too much info very well “packed”.

Lionel - Reverse

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We just had
Submitted by meddoc on July 28, 2007 - 17:55.
We just had a prescription for fluoride drops filled for our 9 month old son. On the prescription label it said to avoid dairy products when giving this medication - why?

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Flouride drops
Submitted by LadyJo on September 15, 2007 - 15:21.
They tell you to avoid milk products because flouride binds to the calcium in them therefore they bind to the calcium, not the area of the body ‘they’ want the flouride to bind to. The treatment for eating toothpaste or ‘flourid eoverdose’ is to drink lots of milk and eat a handful of tums so the flouride will bind to the calcium and not the body which if left untreated, can actually kill you. DONT GIVE YOUR CHILD FLOURIDE DROPS!!!! You may as well be giving your child small doses of rat poison everyday. One tiny bit may not kill you, but can cause damage regardless in the long run. One tube of toothpaste can kill three small children if left untreated.
Flouride is a cumulitive poison, originally developed for teh Manhattan Project in teh 1940’s and has never beed approved by the FDA and they say they never will approve it since scientific studies have shown it has no true benefit, and is indeed a created poison from the wet scrubbing systems of fertilizer factories. see below links PLEASE and PASS IT ON. I am trying diligently to get this mass medicating of people stopped since most people are following like blind sheep and dont even know the half of teh real issues with flouride. Its a poison and nothing more.

http://www.fluoridealert.org/fluoridation.htm

http://www.fluoridedebate.com/

http://www.fluoridealert.org/50reasons.htm

http://www.noreenshealthdiner.com/flouride.html

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Just remember this was
Submitted by Jeff on November 28, 2007 - 17:05.
Just remember this was submitted by a member…not a staffer. This opinion is not the opinion of the site, but of a concerned member.

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Brilliant essay!
Submitted by domingjm on September 26, 2008 - 12:36.
In fact, I encourage all of us who believe this irrefutable data to stop drinking fluids altogether. Consiprators can be in the most unpredictable positions, including manufacturers of so-called “spring” and “distilled” water. We better stop eating too. Is breathing safe? Are you certain?

I get a real kick out of you all.

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Alcoa doesn’t care much
Submitted by timada on October 16, 2008 - 02:22.
Alcoa doesn’t care much about people. They are more concerned about producing money. I am glad that Alcoa finally got a lesson and lost in court in the case of the dead child. To be honest I don’t think they will respect the rules, but at least they know now that they can’t harm anyone without being punished. Browsing the internet I came across this page about Mesothelioma Lawyers and i finally understood how hard their work is. I appreaciate them for protecting people from monsters like Alcoa.

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Big money big business big government
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on November 26, 2008 - 18:35.
Of course the pharmaceutical companies should like it. If it helps CAUSE physical harm to the US population it keeps them full of pill popping people.

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We've just been flouridated again
Submitted by Rachael (not verified) on December 29, 2008 - 12:48.
Hi, thanks for this great article - I just came across this as our 3rd largest state (in Australia) has just been flouridated and many people don't like it and don't want it with good reason. I'm in the process of researching much 'strange' information about what we as a global population are being subjected to atm.  It worries, me - if you do some reasearch on the subject, how can it not?  Want great teeth?  Regulate the JUNK FOOD and the SUGAR that our kids and adults are eating. Prevention is better than poison bandaids people. Heard of Chemtrails? Flouridation? Softening the will of the people so they can resist what is to come less?  It's just the tip of the iceberg. Check out http://selfsufficientgenius.com to learn more.
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All I know is flouride is a
Submitted by Link7881 (not verified) on January 5, 2009 - 20:45.
All I know is flouride is a cumulative poison, originally developed for the Manhattan Project in the 1940’s and has never been approved by the FDA and they say that they never will approve it since scientific studies have shown it has no true benefit, and is indeed a created poison from the wet scrubbing systems of fertilizer factories. Its a poison and nothing more.

az dentists
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