Flouride and Festivals

June 13, 2003

1. I just went to the dentist for the first time in about 8 years.

I cant feel my face right now due to the crazy anesthetic. I had 5

mercury-free fillings and no gum disease. Not so bad. Anyhow, the

dentist said I should be using a high-flouride prescription

toothpaste. I'm hesitant to do this because i think flouride is

bad - what do you think (anyone who has some knowledge about this)

2. Living Now - I am presenting workshops and pperformaing at this

festival and driving up from Atlanta. The route will take me due

north to ohio and then NE until Bufallo. I will be leaving early

(the 25th) to stay at a cabin in east otto and then to be part of

the festival crew.

3. Portland Festival - Still looking for manifestation of very

inexpensive travel to Portland to perform and present workshops

there as well. Open to possibilities like trading my musical

meditation, sonic relaxation services, maybe a few copies of my cd,

and life empowering music lessons for, say, unused frequent flyer

miles or buddy passes.

Love to you all...

Glenn

June 13, 2003

lots of raw people loose their teeth (I forgot the reason why see Paul neisons

books), you should try using a water pic with something like Dr. Schulze tooth &

gum formula. I've heard it can grow back teeth provided the person is eating

well which you are.

Stay away from fluoride if possible, it really destroys the bones.

-

glenn

rawfood

Friday, June 13, 2003 12:36 PM

[Raw Food] Flouride and Festivals

1. I just went to the dentist for the first time in about 8 years.

I cant feel my face right now due to the crazy anesthetic. I had 5

mercury-free fillings and no gum disease. Not so bad. Anyhow, the

dentist said I should be using a high-flouride prescription

toothpaste. I'm hesitant to do this because i think flouride is

bad - what do you think (anyone who has some knowledge about this)

2. Living Now - I am presenting workshops and pperformaing at this

festival and driving up from Atlanta. The route will take me due

north to ohio and then NE until Bufallo. I will be leaving early

(the 25th) to stay at a cabin in east otto and then to be part of

the festival crew.

3. Portland Festival - Still looking for manifestation of very

inexpensive travel to Portland to perform and present workshops

there as well. Open to possibilities like trading my musical

meditation, sonic relaxation services, maybe a few copies of my cd,

and life empowering music lessons for, say, unused frequent flyer

miles or buddy passes.

Love to you all...

Glenn

June 13, 2003

Glenn:

Start reading here about flouride, if you're not convinced it's slow death

in a tube, i have more.

Hari Om

Rob

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking

new landscapes but in having new eyes.

Marcel Proust

..

Fluoridation Revisited

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.

Santa Barbara News Press - " Fluoride Fantasy " - Feb. 2, 2001 -

....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.

Willamette Week (Oregon) - " The F Word " - Feb. 21, 2001 -

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

----------

----

DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENT:

This is not a new article, as it was written in 1993, but is still just as

valid today. For more information about water fluoridation see some of the

links below.

If your water is fluoridated, a reverse osmosis water filter can be used to

get rid of most of it.

In addition to not drinking fluoridated tap water, I would strongly urge

everyone who lives in a fluoridated community to become active in trying to

get rid of it. Contact your local government officials and tell them that

you don't want this industrial waste added to the water that you and your

family has to drink.

Currently, about 60% of the drinking water in the US is fluoridated. Only

about 10% of the water in the UK is fluoridated and most of the remainder of

Europe is fluoride-free.

There is presently legislation or referendum pending on the fluoridation

issue is several areas of the US, including Oregon, Washington State,

Hawaii, Pennsylvania, and many other areas as well. For more information on

what is happening on a local level around the US and the rest of the world,

please see the Fluoride Action Network's Campaign Update Page.

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