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By
Murray N. Rothbard
Edited
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
First: the generalized
case for and against fluoridation of water.
The case for is almost incredibly thin,
boiling down to the alleged fact of substantial reductions
in dental cavities in kids aged 5 to 9. Period. There are
no claimed benefits for anyone older than nine! For this the
entire adult population of a fluoridated area must be subjected
to mass medication!
The case against, even apart from the
specific evils of fluoride, is powerful and overwhelming.
(1) Compulsory
mass medication is medically evil,
as well as socialistic. It is starkly clear that one key to
any medication is control of the dose; different people, at
different stages of risk, need individual dosages tailored
to their needs. And yet with water compulsorily fluoridated,
the dose applies to everyone, and is necessarily proportionate
to the amount of water one drinks.
What is the medical justification
for a guy who drinks ten glasses of water a day receiving
ten times the fluorine dose of a guy who drinks only one glass?
The whole process is monstrous as well as idiotic.
(2)
Adults, in fact children over nine,
get no benefits from their compulsory medication,
yet they imbibe fluorides proportionately to their water intake.
(3)
Studies have shown that while kids 5 to 9 may have their cavities
reduced by fluoridation, said kids ages 9 to 12 have more
cavities, so that after age 12 the
cavity benefits disappear.
So that, at best, the question boils down
to:
are we to subject
ourselves to the possible dangers of fluoridation solely to
save dentists the irritation of dealing with squirming kids
aged 5 to 9?
(4)
Any parents who want to give their kids the dubious benefits
of fluoridation can do so individually: by giving their kids
fluoride pills, with doses regulated instead of haphazardly
proportionate to the kids' thirst; and/or, as we all know,
they can brush their teeth with fluoride-added toothpaste.
How about freedom
of individual choice?
(5)
Let us not omit the long-suffering taxpayer,
who has to pay for the hundreds of thousands of tons of fluorides
poured into the nation's socialized water supply every year.
The days of private water companies, once flourishing in the
U.S., are long gone, although the market, in recent years,
has popped up in the form of increasingly popular private
bottled water even though far more expensive than socialized
free water.
Nothing loony or kooky about any of these
arguments, is there? So much for the general case pro and
con fluoridation. When we get to the specific ills of fluoridation,
the case against becomes even more overpowering, as well as
grisly.
During the 1940s and 50s, when the successful
push for fluoridation was underway, the pro-forces touted
the controlled experiment of Newburgh and Kingston, two neighboring
small cities in upstate New York, with much the same demographics.
Newburgh had been fluoridated and Kingston had not, and the
powerful pro-fluoridation
Establishment trumpeted the fact that
ten years later, dental cavities in kids 5 to 9 in Newburgh
were considerably lower than in Kingston (originally, the
rates of every disease had been about the same in the two
places). OK, but the antis raising the disquieting fact that,
after ten years, both the cancer and the heart disease
rates were now significantly higher in Newburgh. How did
the Establishment treat this criticism? By dismissing it as
irrelevant, as kooky scare tactics. Oh?
Why were these and later problems and
charges ignored and overridden, and why the rush to judgment
to inflict fluoridation on America? Who was behind this drive,
and how did the opponents acquire the "right-wing kook"
image?
The Drive For Fluoridation
The official drive began abruptly just
before the end of World War II, pushed by the U.S. Public
Health Service, then in the Treasury Department. In 1945,
the federal government selected two Michigan cities to conduct
an official "15-year" study; one city, Grand Rapids,
was fluoridated, a control city was left unfluoridated.
Yet, before five years were up, the government
killed its own "scientific study," by fluoridating
the water in the second city in Michigan. Why? Under the excuse
that its action was caused by "popular demand" for
fluoridation; as we shall see, the "popular
demand" was generated by the government and
the Establishment itself. Indeed, as early as 1946, under
the federal campaign, six American cities fluoridated their
water, and 87 more joined the bandwagon by 1950.
A key figure in the successful drive for
fluoridation was Oscar R. Ewing, who was appointed by President
Truman in 1947 as head of the Federal Security Agency, which
encompassed the Public Health Service (PHS), and which later
blossomed into our beloved Cabinet office of Health, Education,
and Welfare.
One reason for the left's backing of fluoridation
- in addition to its being socialized medicine and mass medication,
for them a good in itself - was that Ewing was a certified
Truman Fair Dealer and leftist, and avowed proponent of socialized
medicine, a high official in the then-powerful Americans for
Democratic Action, the nation's central organization of "anti-Communist
liberals" (read: Social Democrats or Mensheviks).
Ewing mobilized not only the respectable
left but also the Establishment Center. The powerful drive
for compulsory fluoridation was spearheaded by the PHS, which
soon mobilized the nation's establishment organizations of
dentists and physicians.
The mobilization, the national clamor
for fluoridation, and the stamping of opponents with the right-wing
kook image, was all generated by the public relations man
hired by Oscar Ewing to direct the drive. For Ewing hired
none other than Edward L. Bernays, the man with the dubious
honor of being called the "father of public relations."
Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud,
was called "The Original Spin Doctor" in an admiring
article in the Washington Post on the occasion of the old
manipulator's 100th birthday in late 1991.
As a retrospective scientific article
pointed out about the fluoridation movement, one of its widely
distributed dossiers listed opponents of fluoridation "in
alphabetical order reputable scientists, convicted felons,
food faddists, scientific organizations, and the Ku Klux Klan.
In his 1928 book Propaganda, Bernays laid
bare the devices he would use: Speaking of the "mechanism
which controls the public mind," which people like
himself could manipulate, Bernays added that "Those who
manipulate the 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..." And the process
of manipulating leaders of groups, "either with or without
their conscious cooperation," will "automatically
influence" the members of such groups.
In describing his practices as PR man
for Beech-Nut Bacon, Bernays tells how he would suggest to
physicians to say publicly that "it is wholesome to eat
bacon." For, Bernays added, he "knows as a mathematical
certainty that large numbers of persons will follow the advice
of their doctors because he (the PR man) understands the psychological
relationship of dependence of men on their physicians."
Add "dentists" to the equation, and substitute "fluoride"
for "bacon," and we have the essence of the Bernays
propaganda campaign.
Before the Bernays campaign, fluoride
was largely known in the public mind as the chief ingredient
of bug and rat poison; after the campaign, it was widely hailed
as a safe provider of healthy teeth and gleaming smiles.
After the 1950s, it was all mopping up
- the fluoridation forces had triumphed, and two-thirds of
the nation's reservoirs were fluoridated. There are still
benighted areas of the country left however (California is
less than 16 percent fluoridated) and the goal of the federal
government and its PHS remains as "universal fluoridation."
Doubts Cumulate
Despite the blitzkrieg victory, however,
doubts have surfaced and gathered in the scientific community.
Fluoride is a non-biodegradable substance, which, in
people, accumulates in teeth and bone - perhaps strengthening
kiddies' teeth; but what about human bones?
Two crucial bone problems of fluorides
- brittleness and cancer - began to appear in studies, only
to be systematically blocked by governmental agencies. As
early as 1956, a federal study found nearly
twice as many premalignant bone defects in young
males in Newbergh as in unfluoridated Kingston; but this finding
was quickly dismissed as "spurious."
Oddly enough, despite the 1956 study and
carcinogenic evidence popping up since the 1940s, the federal
government never conducted its own beloved animal carcinogenicity
test on fluorides. Finally, in 1975, biochemist John Yiamouyiannis
and Dean Berk, a retired official of the federal government's
own National Cancer Institute (NCI), presented a paper before
the annual meeting of the American Society of Biological Chemists.
The paper reported
a 5 to 10 percent increase in total cancer rates in those
U.S. cities which had fluoridated their water.
The findings were disputed, but triggered
congressional hearings two years later, where the government
revealed to shocked Congressmen that it had never tested fluoride
for cancer. Congress ordered the NCI to conduct such tests.
Talk about foot-dragging! Incredibly,
it took the NCI twelve years to finish its tests, finding
"equivocal evidence" that fluoride caused bone cancer
in male rats. Under further direction of Congress, the NCI
studied cancer trends in the U.S., and found nationwide evidence
of "a rising rate of bone and
joint cancer at all ages," especially in youth,
in counties that had fluoridated their water, but no such
rise was seen in "non-fluoridated" counties.
In more detailed studies, for areas of
Washington state and Iowa, NCI found that from
the 1970s to the 1980s bone cancer for males under 20 had
increased by 70 percent in the fluoridated areas of these
states, but had decreased by 4 percent in the non-fluoridated
areas.
Sounds pretty conclusive to me, but the
NCI set some fancy statisticians to work on the data, to conclude
that these findings, too, were "spurious." Dispute
over this report drove the federal government to one of its
favorite ploys in virtually every area: the allegedly expert,
bipartisan, "value-free" commission.
The government had already done the commission
bit in 1983, when disturbing studies on fluoridation drove
our old friend the PHS to form a commission of "world-class
experts" to review safety data on fluorides in water.
Interestingly, the panel found to its grave concern that most
of the alleged evidence of fluoride's safety scarcely existed.
The 1983 panel recommended
caution on fluoride exposure for children. Interestingly,
the panel strongly recommended that the fluoride content of
drinking water be no greater than two parts per million for
children up to nine, because of worries about the fluoride
effect on children's skeletons, and potential heart damage.
The chairman of the panel, Jay R. Shapiro
of the National Institute of Health, warned the members, however,
that the PHS might "modify" the findings, since
"the report deals with sensitive political issues."
Sure enough, when Surgeon General Everett Koop released the
official report a month later, the federal government had
thrown out the panel's most important conclusions and recommendations,
without consulting the panel.
Indeed, the panel never received copies
of the final, doctored, version. The government's alterations
were all in a pro-fluoride direction, claiming that there
was no "scientific documentation" of any problems
at fluoride levels below 8 parts per million.
In addition to the bone cancer studies
for the late 1980s, evidence is piling up that fluorides lead
to bone fractures. In the past two years, no less than eight
epidemiological studies have indicated the fluoridation has
increased the rate of bone fractures in males and females
of all ages.
Indeed, since 1957, the bone fracture
rate among male youth has increased sharply in the United
States, and the U.S. hip fracture rate is now the highest
in the world. In fact, a study in the traditionally pro-fluoride
JAMA, August 12, 1992, found that even "low
levels of fluoride may increase the risk of hip fracture in
the elderly."
JAMA concluded that "it is now appropriate
to revisit the issue of water fluoridation."
Clearly, it was high time for another
federal commission. During 1990-91, a new commission, chaired
by veteran PHS official and long-time pro-fluoridationist
Frank E. Young, predictably concluded that "no evidence"
was found associating fluoride and cancer. On bone fractures,
the commission blandly stated that "further studies are
required."
But no further studies or soul-searching
were needed for its conclusion: "The U.S. Public Health
Service should continue to support optimal fluoridation of
drinking water." Presumably, they did not conclude that
"optimal" meant zero.
Despite the Young whitewash, doubts are
piling up even within the federal government. James Huff,
a director of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental
Health Sciences, concluded in 1992 that animals in the government's
study developed cancer, especially bone cancer from being
given fluoride - and there was nothing "equivocal"
about his conclusion.
Various scientists for the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) have turned to anti-fluoridation,
toxicologist William Marcus's warning that fluoride
causes not just cancer, but also bone fractures, arthritis,
and other disease.
Marcus mentions, too, that an unreleased
study by the New Jersey Health Department (a state where only
15 percent of the population is fluoridated) shows that the
bone cancer rate among young males is no less than six times
higher in fluoridated than in non-fluoridated areas.
Even coming into question is the long-sacred
idea that fluoridated water at least lowers cavities in children
five to nine. Various top pro-fluoridationists highly touted
for their expertise were suddenly and bitterly condemned when
further study led them to the conclusion that the dental
benefits are really negligible. New Zealand's most
prominent pro-fluoridationist was the country's top dental
officer, Dr. John Colquhoun.
As chairman of the Fluoridation Promotion
Committee, Colquhoun decided to gather statistics to show
doubters the great merits of fluoridation. To his shock, he
found that the percentage of children free of dental decay
was higher in the non-fluoridated part than in the fluoridated
part of New Zealand. The national health department refused
to allow Colquhoun to publish these findings, and kicked him
out as dental director.
Similarly, a top pro-fluoridationist in
British Columbia, Canada, Richard G. Foulkes, concluded that
fluoridation is not only dangerous, but that it is not even
effective in reducing tooth decay. Foulkes was denounced by
former colleagues as a propagandist "promoting the quackery
of anti-fluoridationists."
Why The Fluoridation
Drive?
Since the case for compulsory fluoridation
is so flimsy, and the case against so overwhelming, the final
step is to ask: why? Why did the Public Health Service get
involved in the first place? How did this thing get started?
Here we must keep our eye on the pivotal role of Oscar R.
Ewing, for Ewing was far more than just a social democrat
Fair Dealer.
Fluoride has long been
recognized as one of the most toxic elements found in the
earth's crust.
Fluorides are by-products of many industrial
processes, being emitted in the air and water, and probably
the major source of this by-product is the aluminum industry.
By the 1920s and 1930s, fluoride was increasingly being subject
to lawsuits and regulations. In particular, by 1938 the important,
relatively new aluminum industry was being placed on a wartime
footing. What to do if its major by-product is a dangerous
poison?
The time had come for damage control;
even better, to reverse the public image of this menacing
substance. The Public Health Service, remember was under the
jurisdiction of the Treasury Department, and treasury secretary
all during the 1920s and until 1931 was none other than billionaire
Andrew J. Mellon, founder and head of the powerful Mellon
interests, "Mr. Pittsburgh," and founder and virtual
ruler of the Aluminum Corporation of America (ALCOA), the
dominant firm in the aluminum industry.
In 1931, the PHS sent a dentist named
H. Trendley Dean to the West to study the effects of concentrations
of naturally fluoridated water on people's teeth. Dean found
that towns high in natural fluoride seemed to have fewer cavities.
This news galvanized various Mellon scientists into action.
In particular, the Mellon Institute, ALCOA's
research lab in Pittsburgh, sponsored a study in which biochemist
Gerald J. Cox fluoridated some lab rats, decided that cavities
in those rats had been reduced and immediately concluded that
"the case (that fluoride reduces cavities) should be
regarded as proved." Instant science!
The following year, 1939, Cox, the ALCOA
scientist working for a company beset by fluoride damage claims,
made the first public proposal for mandatory fluoridation
of water. Cox proceeded to stump the country urging fluoridation.
Meanwhile, other ALCOA-funded scientists trumpeted the alleged
safety of fluorides, in particular the Kettering Laboratory
of the University of Cincinnati.
During World War II, damage claims for
fluoride emissions piled up as expected, in proportion to
the great expansion of aluminum production during the war.
But attention from these claims was diverted, when, just before
the end of the war, the PHS began to push hard for compulsory
fluoridation of water.
Thus the drive for compulsory fluoridation
of water accomplished two goals in one shot: it transformed
the image of fluorine from a curse to a blessing that will
strengthen every kid's teeth, and it provided a steady and
substantial monetary demand for fluorides to dump annually
into the nation's water.
One interesting footnote
to this story is that whereas fluorine in naturally fluoridated
water comes in the form of calcium fluoride, the substance
dumped into every locality is instead sodium fluoride.
The Establishment defense that "fluoride
is fluoride" becomes unconvincing when we consider two
points: (a) calcium is notoriously good for bones and teeth,
so the anti-cavity effect in naturally fluoridated water might
well be due to the calcium and not the fluorine; and (b) sodium
fluoride happens to be the major by-product of the manufacture
of aluminum.
Which brings us to Oscar R. Ewing. Ewing
arrived in Washington in 1946, shortly after the initial PHS
push began, arriving there as long-time counsel, now chief
counsel, for ALCOA, making what was then an astronomical legal
fee of $750,000 a year (something like $7,000,000 a year in
present dollars).
A year later, Ewing took charge of the
Federal Security Agency, which included the PHS, and waged
the successful national drive for water fluoridation. After
a few years, having succeeded in his campaign, Ewing stepped
down from public service, and returned to private life, including
his chief counselship of the Aluminum Corporation of America.
There is an instructive lesson in this
little saga, a lesson how and why the Welfare State came to
America. It came as an alliance of three major forces: ideological
social democrats, ambitious technocratic bureaucrats, and
Big Businessmen seeking privileges from the State. In the
fluoridation saga, we might call the whole process "ALCOA-socialism."
The Welfare State redounds to the welfare not of most of society
but of these particular venal and exploitative groups.
www.lewrockwell.com
Why is the
Media Finally Paying Attention to Fluoridation?
Below are some of the recent reports in
the press, both in the US and elsewhere, along with some brief
excerpts.
ABCNews.com
-- "What Evidence Is There That Water Fluoridation Prevents
Cavities?" - Feb. 15, 2001 -
Public health policy in this
country has allowed water fluoridation to continue in the
absence of solid scientific evidence that its benefit is greater
than its risk ... When you commit to putting a powerful
chemical into the water supply, you’d better have the
best of evidence that it is both safe and effective. The required
level of evidence is just not there.
Reuters
Health -- "Fluoridated Water: Some Say it is
Unnecessary" -- Feb. 16, 2001 -
If...the effects of the cessation
of water fluoridation are not readily detectable due to other
existing sources of the element -- or better treatment --
the continued practice of fluoridation is therefore unnecessary ...
Irish
20/20 News Program -- "Hard to Swallow? The Water
Fluoridation Debate" -- Jan. 12, 2001 -
98% of Europe does not drink
fluoridated water. Apart from 10% of the UK and 3% of Spain,
virtually every European country has either stopped, rejected
outright, or even banned water fluoridation as a health program.
New
Hampshire Sunday News -- "Arsenic in the water:
Benefits vs. dangers" - Feb. 18, 2001
Arsenic, the legendary king of
poisons, is being added to drinking water in ... communities
that fluoridate. The cancer-causing metallic element is among
the contaminants found in hydrofluosilicic acid, which is
used to deliver tooth decay-preventing fluoride to Manchester's
drinking water.
...a growing body of research
has raised serious questions about long-term fluoride use,
indicating it may cause health problems such as cancer, mental
impairment, brittle bones and fluorosis ...
Proponents of fluoridation argue that
thousands of studies since 1950 have put questions about
the safety of water fluoridation to rest. But if anything,
the questions keep growing ... In the last six months,
the British and Canadian governments both released wide-ranging
reports that reviewed the thousands of published scientific
studies on water fluoridation ...
The British review was the most comprehensive
ever done of fluoride science. The Canadian review, which
looked at a different set of studies, reached the same conclusions
as the British. Both directly challenged the conventional
wisdom on fluoride in the United States.
Healthmall
- Fluoride "Bad to the Bone" -- Feb. 14, 2001 -
...increasing exposure to fluoride
may be a contributing factor to the near epidemic levels of
arthritis now found in the US ...
Fluoride
Action Network Press Release
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