Postcards from the Pétrole Epoque VII

EPA Scientists Call for an End to Water Fluoridation
WASHINGTON, DC, August 30, 2005 --Eleven EPA employee unions representing over 7000 environmental and public health professionals of the Civil Service have called for a moratorium on drinking water fluoridation programs across the country, and have asked EPA management to recognize fluoride as posing a serious risk of causing cancer in people. The unions acted following revelations of an apparent cover-up of evidence from Harvard School of Dental Medicine linking fluoridation with elevated risk of a fatal bone cancer in young boys.

I doubt the cancer risk from flouride is anywhere near as high as that from cell phones or cigarettes -- but with fluoride, cancer is the tip of the iceberg. If this is the wedge for awareness, fine.

In "The Fluoride Deception", author Bryson details the cold war inception of a clever marketing scheme to dilute an industrial waste product of the nuclear and coal industry into a friend of Happy Mr Atom. It became something so delicious you could rub it on your teeth and bath in it. And if you can sell this waste to municipalities on the promise of public health benefits -- all the better. Beats sinking barrels into the ground (cleanup is so durned expensive.)

What is a fluoride? A dash of neurotoxicity, a pinch of the pacific, inducing sheep-like behaviour:

"Also of historical interest is the item we came across describing how the Nazi concentration camps used fluoridated water to suppress the will and vigor of inmates. This appears to have been during the 1930's and was the first known example of fluoridated water supplies for a specific population. "

Once people are taught to love poison, it can be slipped in anwhere in the food chain:

"Two national environmental organizations, Environmental Working Group and Beyond Pesticides, joined today with the Fluoride Action Network in challenging the safety of new food tolerances issued by the EPA for the fluoride based pesticide, sulfuryl fluoride. This action marks growing concern among mainstream scientists and environmental organizations that total exposure to fluoride, from water, food, and dental uses like toothpaste and rinses, is not safe for vulnerable populations, particularly young children."


Being a pesticide, fluoride is good for humans, kinda like DDT and RoundUp. Thanks DOW -- I'd like a triple, heaping helping of sweet fluoride. When I leave my supermarket apple in the fridge for two days, it smells -- like pesticide. (This experiment is repeatable; try it at home, with an organic control apple).

This actualized evil will come to an end as the petrol age flickers out of existance. The big lie, repeated often enough, has become reality. No conspiracy necessary, the principles are all dead, but frankenstein lurches on, gently tossing flowers in the lake.

There are some interesting observations to make when one considers the abject failure of Authority in this specific instance. Fluoride is so ubiquitous in American culture -- with a positive spin -- one must wonder what else the dentists have gotten wrong.

Haha! It isn't just the dentists, of course. Doubtless one cannot pass the Tooth Bar in America without bending over for fluoride.

As one begins to look for for examples of the Big Lie, there is no limit to how deep the rabbit hole goes.

The August 1995 issue of this journal contained an abstract (pages 151-152) of an interesting paper by Dr Phyllis Mullenix and her collaborators.1 They recorded behavioral changes in rats after ingestion of fluoride, and found that the severity of the effect on behavior increased directly with plasma fluoride levels and fluoride concentration in specific brain regions. A reading of the full paper is well worthwhile. In their Introduction, after referring to the increase in dental fluorosis in humans after decades of water fluoridation, the authors comment:

"One concern that has not been fully investigated is the link between fluoride and effects an the central nervous system (CNS).... Many years of ubiquitous fluoride exposure have not resulted in obvious CNS problems such as seizures, lethargy, salivation, tremors, paralysis, or sensory deficits. Still unexplored, however, is the possibility that fluoride exposure is linked with subtle brain dysfunction."

The carefully designed animal experiment which they report revealed subtle but very real changes in behavior patterns following fluoride ingestion: hyperactivity after prenatal exposure, and cognitive deficits after weanling and adult exposure. Fluoride accumulation in important regions of the rat brain, especially the hippocampus, was found to increase as the drinking water fluoride levels increased. These effects, and the sex differences observed, corresponded to those observed in other studies of hippocampal brain damage.

The authors point out that the plasma fluoride levels recorded in the rats were the same as those sometimes recorded in humans - for example, in children one hour after receiving topical fluoride treatment of their teeth. In their conclusion calling for further rat and human studies they state:

"Experience with other developmental neurotoxicants prompt expectations that changes in behavioral function will be comparable across species, especially humans and rats. Of course behaviors per se do not extrapolate, but a generic behavioral pattern disruption as found in this rat study can be indicative of a potential for motor dysfunction, IQ deficits and/or learning disabilities in humans."

The authors draw attention to reports from Chinese investigators that high levels of fluoride in drinking water (3-11 ppm) affect the central nervous system directly without first causing the physical deformations of skeletal fluorosis.2-4 Readers of Fluoride will recall the recent (November 1995) research report from China indicating adverse neurological effects on the brain from fluoride exposure.5 This work also suggested that children with dental fluorosis are at greater risk of decreased mental acuity. One can only wonder whether the effects of fluoridated water might extend beyond the appearance of the teeth and include neurotoxicity among children afflicted with dental fluorosis.