Well, we cannot talk about diabolical chemical corporations and substances, and omit to discuss what has now become an even more controversial chemical substance, being fluoride. While we often discuss fluoride in light of its presence in water and toothpaste, it actually has a far more extensive history that exposes how fluoride was really never meant to be a substance used in the best interests of people.
Today, we will address 3 questions; namely: (1) What role did fluoride play in the Manhattan project? (2) How did the role of fluoride in the production of atomic weapons fuel water fluoridation? And (3) When did the fluoridation of water and dental substances begin?
And onto our first question, being: What role did fluoride play in the Manhattan project? Well, discovered by Henri Mossan in 1886, fluorine (F) is a corrosive pale yellow gas. It is highly reactive, participating in reactions with virtually all organic and inorganic substances. Consequently, fluorine is usually found in soil, air, food, and water as fluorides. But, fluoride has a little-known role in The Manhattan Project, where scientists actually needed both uranium AND fluoride to build the bomb; in particular fluoride was used to enrich the uranium in order to build the bombs. To explain why this is jarring and utterly diabolical, I’d have to paint a picture of the first atomic bomb that came from the manhattan project. This would be the uranium bomb that detonated over Hiroshima, in Japan, on the 6th of August 1945; and it had an explosive yield equal to 15,000 tonnes of TNT. It razed and burnt around 70 percent of all buildings in the city and caused over 140,000 deaths by the end of 1945, along with increased rates of cancer and chronic disease among the survivors. All of this was from one bomb.
But, fluoride toxicology studies from the research during the Manhattan Project research, which often took the form of experiments performed on unknowing human subjects, were actually covered up. This is in part why when we talk about the atomic bomb (even years after the information about the Manhattan Project became public), we often speak of uranium, and not so much the role of fluoride. But, in addition to that, for years, scientists lied about their results, while government policy blocked publications. HOWEVER, it was clear that the Public Health Service approached this research data not as something to inform the public with, but something that was potentially detrimental to their promotion of water fluoridation. Think about it: if you knew that one of the most destructive weapons ever made contained fluoride, you would not want it in your water, or milk, or cookware. And so, the so-called public health officials kept this crucial fact from the public.
Ultimately, fluoride was the key chemical in atomic bomb production, according to the documents. Massive quantities of fluoride – millions of tons, really – were essential for the manufacture of bomb-grade uranium and plutonium for nuclear weapons throughout the Cold War. Furthermore, being one of the most toxic chemicals known, fluoride rapidly emerged as the leading chemical health hazard of the U.S atomic bomb program–both for workers and for nearby communities – also as revealed by the concealed documents.
THE GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED RESEARCH CLAIMING BENEFITS OF FLUORIDE
This brings us to the second question being: How did the role of fluoride in the production of atomic weapons fuel water fluoridation? Well, in essence, this role primarily stems from the fact that the US government sponsored research that was supposed to assert the benefits of water fluoridation! And the University of Rochester played a big role.
More specifically, Bomb-program scientists played a prominent — if unpublicized — role in the nation’s first-planned water fluoridation experiment, in Newburgh, New York. The Newburgh Demonstration Project is considered the most extensive study of the health effects of fluoridation, supplying much of the evidence that low doses are safe for children’s bones, and good for their teeth. Planning began in 1943 with the appointment of a special New York State Health Department committee to study the advisability of adding fluoride to Newburgh’s drinking water. The chairman of the committee was Dr. Hodge, then chief of fluoride toxicity studies for the Manhattan Project.
Subsequent members included Henry L. Barnett, a captain in the Project’s Medical section, and John W. Fertig, in 1944 with the office of Scientific Research and Development, the Pentagon group which sired the Manhattan Project. Their military affiliations were kept secret: Hodge was described as a pharmacologist, Barnett as a pediatrician. Placed in charge of the Newburgh project was David B. Ast, chief dental officer of the State Health Department. Ast had participated in a key secret wartime conference on fluoride held by the Manhattan Project, and later worked with Dr. Hodge on the Project’s investigation of human injury in the New Jersey incident, according to once-secret memos.
The committee recommended that Newburgh be fluoridated. It also selected the types of medical studies to be done, and “provided expert guidance” for the duration of the experiment. The key question to be answered was: “Are there any cumulative effects — beneficial or otherwise, on tissues and organs other than the teeth — of long-continued ingestion of such small concentrations…?” According to the declassified documents, this was also key information sought by the bomb program, which would require long-continued exposure of workers and communities to fluoride throughout the Cold War.
In May 1945, Newburgh’s water was fluoridated, and over the next ten years its residents were studied by the State Health Department. In tandem, Program F conducted its own secret studies, focusing on the amounts of fluoride Newburgh citizens retained in their blood and tissues – key information sought by the bomb program: “Possible toxic effects of fluoride were in the forefront of consideration,” as was stated by the advisory committee. Health Department personnel cooperated, shipping blood and placenta samples to the Program F team at the University of Rochester. The samples were collected by Dr. David B. Overton, the Department’s chief of pediatric studies at Newburgh.
The final report of the Newburgh Demonstration Project, published in 1956 in the Journal of the American Dental Association, concluded that “small concentrations” of fluoride were safe for U.S.citizens. The biological proof — claimed (quote): “based on work performed … at the University of Rochester Atomic Energy Project” — and, this report of so-called proof was delivered by Dr. Hodge.
THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE FLUORIDATION OF WATER AND DENTAL SUBSTANCES
This then brings us to our final question, being: When did the fluoridation of water and dental substances begin? In essence, community, or artificial, water fluoridation—which is the addition of a fluoride compound (usually hexafluoro-silicic acid) to public drinking water supplies—is a controversial public health intervention; the benefits and harms of which have been debated since its introduction in the USA in the 1950.
And here’s where it gets interesting: fluorine remained a laboratory curiosity until 1940, when nuclear energy requirements stimulated commercial production. In industrial settings, fluorine and its compounds are used in producing uranium, plastics, ceramics, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals. In addition, fluoro chloro-hydrocarbons are used in refrigeration and aerosol propellant applications. Then, the impact of fluorine on human teeth was recognised in 1909 in Colorado, United States, when two dental surgeons, being Frederick McKay and Grant Black, launched an investigation into the causes of mottled enamel (also known as the “Colorado brown stain”) in their practice area. Further studies by McKay, Kempf, and Churchill on water samples in areas in Idaho and Arkansas in 1931 confirmed the link between mottled enamel and high water fluoride levels.
But, in the same period, from 1931, Dr Trendley Dean, who was the Head of the Dental Hygiene Unit at the National Institute of Health, began investigating the epidemiology of fluorosis. After a decade’s study, Dean and his team found that water containing fluoride at a concentration of 1.0 part per million (ppm) appeared to offer some caries protection while minimising the extent of dental fluorosis. However, early studies on the impact of fluoridation on dental caries undertaken by Dean and his colleagues in a Chicago neighbourhood and 12 other cities in four states were qualified.
Furthermore, additional multisite studies commenced in 1945 to determine impacts of fluoridated water on dental caries prevention and health also appeared to demonstrate a positive effect of water fluoridation—with claims of a reduction of dental caries by up to 60% among almost 30,000 schoolchildren in Grand Rapids, MI, USA. However, these findings have been criticised for major methodological flaws, including data cherry-picking and selection bias. Notwithstanding this and before the final results of these studies were known, the US Public Health Service adopted the 1 ppm dose and supported the widespread introduction of community water fluoridation schemes in 1950. And all of this is to say that: not only were the adverse effects of fluoride already evident to many, but pseudoscience, encapsulated in bad studies that were riddled with flawed methodologies, became the basis for the wide-spread use of fluoride. In addition, it’s not even pharmaceutical grade fluoride that has been used for the longest time!
Written By Lindokuhle Mabaso
