the fluoride deception_ how a nuclear waste byproduct made its way into the nation's drinking water

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June 17, 2004

The Fluoride Deception: How a Nuclear Waste Byproduct MadeIts Way Into the Nations Drinking Water

Journalist Christopher Bryson claims in his new book The Fluoride

Deception that the post-war campaign to fluoridate drinking water

was less a public health innovation than a public relations ploysponsored by industrial users of fluorideincluding the governments

nuclear weapons program.[includes transcript]

Hailed as a harmless chemical that would prevent tooth decay, new evidence

shows how fluoride could be linked to serious health problems.

Fluoridation was first advanced in the US at the end of the second World War.

Proponents argued that fluoride in water and toothpaste would help to protect

teeth and prevent decay. Over the following decades, fluoride was added to

public water supplies across the country.

While the benefits of fluoridation have been held to be unquestionable,

accumulating evidence points to a frightening prospect: that fluoride may have

serious adverse health effects, including infant mortality, congenital defects and

IQ.

Now a new book, titled The Fluoride Deception by Christopher Bryson examines

the background of the fluoridation debate. According to Bryson, researchchallenging fluorides safety was either suppressed or not conducted in the first

place. He says fluoridation is a triumph not of medical science but of US

government spin.

Christopher Bryson, has reported science news stories for many media

outlets including the BBC, Christian Science Monitor and the Discovery

Channel. He was part of an investigative team at Public Television that won

a George Polk Award for The Kwitny Report.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

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AMY GOODMAN: Today we will talk about this new book The Fluoride Deception

by Christopher Bryson. It looks at the background of the fluoride debate.

According to Chris, research search changing fluoride safety was either

suppressed or not conducted in the first place. He says it is a triumph not of

medical science, but of U.S. Government spin. He joins us in the studio. Welcome

to Democracy Now!

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CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Thank you for having me.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you just give us the history? Is it all over this country and

why is it there?

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Its in about two thirds of the water supply in the

united states. However, the united states is virtually alone in the addition of

fluoride to its water supplies and 98% of western Europe, for example, dont add

fluoride to the water supplies in many communities. Country there is who have

fluoride in the water have taken it out. The theory behind fluoride is that theaddition of fluorides to water supplies will give you less cavities in your mouth.

And thats been the prevailing wisdom of the public health establishment since

1950 when they signed off on that. My book The Fluoride Deception, challenges

you or requires you to think of fluoride differently. The book under the secret

history of this book is premised on 10 years of investigative work going into the

archives of the United States Manhattan Project, going into

AMY GOODMAN: The making of the atomic bomb.

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Yes, the Manhattan Project with the World War II, very

secret project to make the atomic bomb. I went to industry archives, a very

large, significant industry archive out at the University of Cincinnati and found

that the very same health researcher , Dr. Robert Kehoe who headed up the

laboratory at the University Of Cincinnati, he spent his entire career telling the

United States S public health community that adding lead to gasoline was safe.

Thats now being discredited. He was also one of two leading public health

scientists saying that adding fluoride to water was safe and good for children. So,

thats thesome of the material that this book gets into.

JUAN GONZALEZ: The common understanding that many of us have in this

country is that theres been sort of a persistent, anti-fluoridation move

independent this country, but it has been considered like the fringes of Americansociety. Could you talk a little bit about how the development of the atomic bomb

would involve in the whole fluoride campaign?

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, thatsits a media swirl,

Juan, as the grassroots citizen movement against water fluoridation of t hat fact

came into being almost immediately . the public health service had been against

adding fluoride to water for years. In 1950, they did a complete about-face, a flip

flop. And the citizens across the country were outraged that this rat poison was

going to be added to the water supplies. Today the fluorides that goes in our

drinking water is almost exclusively raw industrial pollution from the Florida

Phosphate Industry. Its a waste thats scrubbed from the smokestacks and

trucked in tankers and dumped into reservoirs. That is a raw industrial poison.

AMY GOODMAN: Wait a second. Rat poison?

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Yes. Sodium fluoride is used as a rat poison for a long

time.

JUAN GONZALEZ: But, again, the connection to the atom bomb.

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Sure. Atom bomb. Yeah. Sure. Let me get back to the

in fact, the movement against fluoridation is a precursor to the movement of

today. It has many political hues, many different groups, conservatives, liberals,

republicans across the board and it was led not by nut cases, but by scientists

and doctors with long-established pedigrees safe guarding public health . The

leading scientist opposing water fluoridation was a man by the name of Dr. George

Waldbott. He warned the United States about the dangers of cigarette smoking




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and the allergic reaction to penicillin. This is the background. It is not a fringe

movement. It is being marginalized by the media and hasnt been well reported on.My book attempts to address that. The Manhattan Project, I mentioned one

leading fluoride researcher, scientist, Robert Kehoe, the second was the name, a

fellow a scientist by the name of Dr. Harold Hodge. For most of the Cold War , Dr.

Hodge was the leading scientist assuring the nation of the safety and

effectiveness of adding fluoride e to water supplies. Dr. Hodge had his public hat,

he had his private hat. He was the senior toxicologist for the Manhattan Project

to build the worlds first atomic bomb. Fluoride is a key ingredient in industry used

for making aluminum. Its used for making steel. It is used for producing high-octane gasoline, to name a few industries the dental story is a minor story. The

real issue is pollution outside these industrial plants and pollution inside the plants.

Industries are on the hook for millions and millions of dollars for potential damage

for injuries to workers. Theres a medical study commissioned by industry at the

University Of Cincinnati . In the 1950s which shows that fluoride is profoundly

injurious to lungs and lymph nodes in experimental animals. That study was buried.

The significance of that study, had it been shown to the standard setters, the

fluoride that men and women workers in these industrial plants breathe, the

threshold levels would have been set much lower. That is a crime. What that

means is that tens of thousands of workers in factories have been injured as a

result of this suppression of this medical information. Anyway, to return to your

question. The Manhattan Project needed fluoride to enrich uranium . Thats howthey did it. The biggest industrial building in the world, for a time, was the fluoride

gaseous diffusion plant in Tennessee the Manhattan Project and Dr. Hodge as the

senior toxicologist for the Manhattan Project, were scared stiff less that workerswould realize that the fluoride they were going to be breathing inside these plants

was going to injury them and that the Manhattan Project, the keythe key of

U.S. Strategic power in the Cold War Era, would be jeopardized because the

Manhattan Project and the industrial contractors making the atomic bomb would

be facing all these l lawsuits from workers, all these lawsuits from farmers living

around these industrial plants and so Harold Hodge assures us that fluoride is safe

and good for children. Very hard to get a public doctor, an expert witness in a

court to say if its good for children. How can it be harmful for workers?

JUAN GONZALEZ: In essence, the uranium and fluoride that was necessary for

enriching of the uranium and produced this by-product and obviously this waste of

fluoride in my mind it sounds very similar to the issue of depleted uranium , again,

being a by-product of the nuclear industry and the need then to sanitize these

waste products from our nuclear industry, for the public to get rid of them in

other words , right? So, itscould you talk a little bit about the role of EdwardBernays, ,the father of propaganda or public relations in America in convincing the

public about this?

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Yeah. Edward Bernays is a legendary figure in the 20th

century. He was Sigmund Freuds nephew and Bernays, he was married to a

feminist and he was very attune to the liberal currents in the 20th century and he

was a Machiavellian genius. He is the father of public relations. He understood

that you could harness that liberal sentiment for commercial gain and he had

women march in 1916, he had Suffragettes march in The 1916 Easter Parade In

New York City holding cigarettes as torches of liberty. He was working for the

American Tobacco Company and George Hill. He wasso, my book The Fluoride

Deception, uncovers for the first time correspondence between Bernays and the

New York City Health Commissioner, Dr. Leona Baumgartner in which he says that

helping out on the fluoride campaign in New York in the early 1960s interested him

because it related to problems of engineering consent. So he was the Wizards of

Oz behind the curtain.

AMY GOODMAN: We only have a minute to go. I wanted to ask how fluorides




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ended up in the water of each community where did the decision get made and

how did those debates play out?

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: The public health service endorsed it in 1950 and by

and large, it is not given over to referendum. This is a democracy issue. When it is

submitted to the votes, far more often than not, voters give it the thumbs down.

Mostly it is by fiat or dictate. In New York City, for example r it was the board of

estimates that signed up for it, that gave it the green light. So, thats

AMY GOODMAN: Where does it come from?

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Fluoride?

AMY GOODMAN: Where do they ship it in from? Do they have to dump it on a

regular basis in the reservoirs?

CHRISTOPHER BRYSON: Yeah the fluoride comes upwe were talking about

9/11. Since 9/11, there has been a lot of concern about the safety of thesefluoride tankers. So toxic are the contents of the fluoride tankers coming from the

Florida Phosphate Industry to New York City or all over the country that there is a

fear that the tankers high jacked.

AMY GOODMAN: Christopher Bryson, we have to leave it there. Author of The

Fluoride Deception. This is Democracy Now!

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