- Since the 1940s, municipal water supplies across the
United States have been routinely dosed with fluoride. Even if you don't
live in the half of America that adds fluoride to the water supply to help
prevent tooth decay, low doses of fluoride occur naturally in virtually
all water. It's routinely added to toothpaste as well, which provides a
route for small children to ingest it regularly. It's hard to drink, swim
or brush your teeth in this country without being exposed to this highly
toxic chemical.
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- Recently released government documents reveal that the
scientists who first asserted that fluoride was both a good cavity fighter
and harmless to human health were associated with the bomb-making Manhattan
Project, which found itself with large stockpiles of toxic fluoride (an
unwanted byproduct of manufacturing weapons-grade plutonium and uranium).
A convenient disposal option--the nation's municipal water supply--allowed
the nuclear scientists to avoid a hazardous waste storage problem similar
to that encountered by low- level nuclear power waste (which, conveniently
enough, can and is being used to kill bacteria in food).
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- According to Waste Not magazine, atomic scientists helped
design and implement a groundbreaking water fluoridation study in Newburgh,
New York, from 1945 to 1956. The results of that study were classified
until recently. One uncovered document, however, suggests that fluoride
"may have a rather marked central nervous system effect."
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- The Cancer Risk Putting aside the question of how fluoride
got into the water supply, is our massive national experiment with this
chemical worth the risk? Some say yes. Water fluoridation is "a remarkably
efficient way of controlling dental [cavities] at the community level,"
says Dr. Lawrence Furman, a scientist at the National Institute of Dental
Research. A 1991 study by the Public Health Service credited fluoridation
with reducing cavity rates by 20 to 40 percent. But questions persist about
fluoride's role as a carcinogen. Dr. Robert D. Morris, writing in Environmental
Health Perspectives, says that chlorine, not fluoride, is the most dangerous
carcinogen in water. He links chlorine in the water supply to 5,000 cases
of bladder cancer and 8,000 cases of rectal cancer per year in the U.S.
"Fluoridation of water has received great scrutiny but appears to
pose little or no cancer risk," writes Morris.
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- Nevertheless, water fluoridation remains highly controversial,
especially in the wake of a 1990 National Toxicology Program study that
dosed lab rats with fluoride in amounts 25 to 100 times the concentration
found in the municipal water supply. While the female rats were given a
clean bill of health (aside from teeth discoloration), the male rats showed
"equivocal evidence of carcinogenic activity," based on the occurrence
of a small number of bone osteosarcomas. The cancers occurred in one in
50 rats when the dosage was at 100 parts per million; it increased to three
in 80 at 175 parts per million concentrations.
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- But those results were achieved with high concentrations
of fluoride. Municipal water supplies are optimally fluoridated at a rate
of between 0.7 and 1.2 parts per million, and no studies exist to link
that dosage with cancer. A recent National Cancer Institute study, which
examined 2.2 million cancer death records, found no indication of an increased
cancer risk from fluoridation. A year-long Public Health Service study
concluded the same thing in 1991. Good news, assuming Americans are receiving
that optimal dose of fluoride. However, Jeff Green, director of the San
Diego-based Citizens for Safe Drinking Water (CSDW), thinks that fluoridation
monitoring is grossly inadequate, performed largely by industry-supported
groups. Green adds that much of the fluoride used in municipal water supplies
today is a byproduct of the phosphate fertilizer industry, which has to
remove the substance because it's poisonous to plants.
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- Though the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets
maximum contaminant levels for fluoride and officially supports its use
in drinking water, there's considerable dissent about the chemical within
the agency. In Congressional testimony earlier this year, Dr. J. William
Hirzy, representing the EPA professional employees' union, called for a
national moratorium on water fluoridation. The practice, he said, is "a
massive experiment that has been run on the American public, without informed
consent, for over 50 years." Hirzy cited the case of Dr. William Marcus,
who was fired from a senior EPA post for going public with concerns about
fluoride. Marcus sued the EPA, and was reinstated with back pay. He charged
that the dental benefits of fluoride are limited to children three years
old and younger, and that in senior citizens its main effect is to double
the rate of hip fractures and hearing loss.
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- Whitens Teeth? Fluoride is also present in many brands
of toothpaste, and recent evidence suggests that children in particular
may be getting too much of it. "There probably is excess exposure,"
says Kit Shaddix, fluoride team leader at the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control, which published a 1999 study showing that children are getting
dosed on fluoride from drinking water, toothpaste, mouthwashes, fluoride
supplements and even grape juice. A 1991 Journal of Clinical Pediatric
Dentistry study found fluoride in every sample of bottled fruit beverage
tested. A Gerber's grape juice sample contained 6.8 parts per million fluoride,
70 percent higher than the EPA's maximum contaminant level for drinking
water According to the Wall Street Journal, children are most at risk because
fluoride exposure occurs when their teeth are forming, leading to a permanent
brown stain called "dental fluorisis" (which now affects 22 percent
of American kids). The Canadian broadcaster CBC Radio reports that fluorisis
in its mild form affects as many as half of all Canadian kids.
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- Procter & Gamble, makers of Crest, told reporters
that parents of children under six should "supervise" the use
of fluoridated toothpaste. But no such reticence is reflected in the Crest
"kids' tips" website, which calls fluoride "a naturally
occurring substance" and one of the "building blocks of healthy
teeth." The site adds that dentists or physicians "may recommend
or prescribe additional fluoride treatments." Left unmentioned is
the fact that some dentists are now recommending that young children brush
their teeth only once a day to avoid excessive fluoride dosage.
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- The Backlash
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- Groups like Citizens for Safe Drinking Water are leading
a growing movement on the local and state level to get fluoride out of
the water supply. The city of Bremerton, Washington voted to keep fluoride
out of its water in 1999, joining 78 other U.S. cities that have rejected
the additive since 1996. Wilmington, Massachusetts rejected the use of
fluoride last March. Wilmington Public Health Director Gregory Erickson
used Public Health Service statistics to predict that fluoridated water
would lead to 216 children in town schools with moderate to severe fluorisis.
"This is a totally unacceptable tradeoff," Erickson said in his
own report. He noted that much of the most damaging information about fluoride
originates from the EPA itself.
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- "No other drug or medicine has such a widespread
application, and yet has had so little scrutiny as to its safety,"
he concluded. Fluoride's backers point to high-level endorsements from
professional groups, but even some of those are ambiguous. The American
Medical Association (AMA), a respected authority that could provide leadership
on the issue, takes a rather murky official position. The AMA endorses
fluoride application in general, but admits it has not carried out any
research work on the subject.
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- Consequently the AMA "is not prepared to state that
no harm will be done to any person by water fluoridation." Given the
corporate interest in maintaining the fluoride status quo, there's some
evidence that pressure has been exerted to alter scientific findings. Hirzy,
in his Congressional testimony, charged that the 1990 National Toxicology
Program animal tests that found "equivocal evidence" of cancer
was watered down by a "hastily convened" special commission.
The initial findings, he said, had described "clear evidence of carcinogenicity
in male rats." _____
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- The Magnum-Opus Project DOE Watch List--Solver of Mysteries
Subscribe: http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/doewatch DOEWatch page: http://members.aol.com/doewatch
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- Oak Ridge and its' industry minions use supplanted activist
organizations fabricating mysterious illness directions to hide HF emission/toxic
effects and nuclear human experiment war crimes.
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- Oak Ridge and other gas diffusion sites are primarily
Bhopal like chemical affected areas and secondarily a Chernobyl like radiation
affected area. Gas diffusion sites are also affected with high coal power
emissions and compounded with heavy metal toxins and hundreds of other
toxic exposure from the plants.
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- These exposures cause shortened longevity, impacted learning,
and produce a gullible population for political and industry profiting.
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- Gulf War affected have related fluoride toxic effects
from nerve gases.
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- In common with GW and DOE gas diffusion ills are long
term halogen toxic insult via bioconcentration into the lymphatic system,
impairment of macrophages, and damage to mitochondria of cells resulting
in immune protection damage and resultant rise of viral, bacterial, microplasma,
and fungal cell damage.
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- In the new millenium, the truth will set all free to
enter a kinder and gentler time for environment and health.
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