Nexus - 0503 - New Times Magazine-pages

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The declassified documents resonate with a growing body of sci- these compounds is essential, it will be necessary to know in entific evidence and a chorus of questions about the health effects advance what mental effects may occur after exposure... This is of fluoride in the environment. important not only to protect a given individual, but also to pre- Human exposure to fluoride has mushroomed since World War vent a confused workman from injuring others by improperly per- II, due not only to fluoridated water and toothpaste but to environ- forming his duties." mental pollution by major industries, from aluminium to pesti- On the same day, Colonel Warren approved the CNS research cides, where fluoride is a critical industrial chemical as well asa program. This was in 1944, at the height of World War II and the waste by-product. US nation's race to build the world's first atomic bomb. The impact can be seen literally in the smiles of our children. For research on fluoride's CNS effects to be approved at such a Large numbers (up to 80 per cent in some cities) of young momentous time, the supporting evidence set forth in the proposal Americans now have dental fluorosis, the first visible sign of forwarded along with the memo must have been persuasive. The excessive fluoride exposure according to the US National proposal, however, is missing from the files at the US National Research Council. (The signs are whitish flecks or spots, particu- Archives. "If you find the memos but the document they refer to larly on the front teeth, or dark spots or stripes in more severe is missing, it's probably still c fied," said Charles Reeves, cases.) chief librarian at the Atlanta branch of the US National Archives Less known to the public is that fluoride also accumulates in and Records Administration where the memos were found. bones. "The teeth are windows to what's happening in the bones," Similarly, no results of the Manhattan Project's fluoride CNS explained Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry at St Lawrence research could be found in the files. University, New York, to these reporters. In recent years, paedi- After reviewing the memos, Mullenix declared herself "flabber- atric bone specialists have expressed gasted". "How could I be told by NIH alarm about an increase in stress frac- that fluoride has no central nervous tures among young people in the US. aro system effects, when these docu- Connett and other scientists are con- The declassified documents ments were sitting there all the cerned that fluoride—linked to bone time?" She reasons that the damage in studies since the 1930s— resonate with a growing body Manhattan Project did do fluoride may be a contributing factor. of scientific evidence and a CNS studies: "That kind of warning, The declassified documents add that fluoride workers might be a dan- urgency: much of the original ‘proof ' chorus of questions about the ger to the bomb program by improp- that low-dose fluoride is safe for chil- . . erly performing their duties—I can't dren's bones came from US bomb health effects of fluoride In imagine that would be ignored." But program scientists, according to this A she suggests that the results were investigation. the environment. buried because of the difficult legal Now, researchers who have and public relations problems they reviewed these declassified docu- might create for the government. ments fear that Cold War national The author of the 1944 CNS security considerations may have prevented objective scientific research proposal attached to the 29 April memo was Dr Harold y y P a} Prop’ P' evaluation of vital public health questions concerning fluoride. C. Hodge—at the time, chief of fluoride toxicology studies for the "Information was buried," concludes Dr Phyllis Mullenix, for- University of Rochester division of the Manhattan Project. mer head of toxicology at Forsyth Dental Center in Boston and Nearly 50 years later at the Forsyth Dental Center in Boston, Dr now a critic of fluoridation. Animal studies which Mullenix and Mullenix was introduced to a gently ambling elderly man, brought co-workers conducted at Forsyth in the early 1990s indicated that in to serve as a consultant on her CNS research. This man was fluoride was a powerful central nervous system (CNS) toxin and Harold C. Hodge. By then, Hodge had achieved status emeritus might adversely affect human brain functioning even at low as a world authority on fluoride safety. "But even though he was doses. (New epidemiological evidence from China adds support, supposed to be helping me," said Mullenix, "he never once men- showing a correlation between low-dose fluoride exposure and tioned the CNS work he had done for the Manhattan Project." diminished IQ in children.) Mullenix's results were published in The "black hole" in fluoride CNS research since the days of the 1995 in a reputable peer-reviewed scientific journal. Manhattan Project is unacceptable to Mullenix who refuses to During her investigation, Mullenix was astonished to discover abandon the issue. "There is so much fluoride exposure now, and there had been virtually no previous US studies of fluoride's we simply do not know what it is doing. You can't just walk effects on the human brain. Then, her application for a grant to away from this." continue her CNS research was turned down by the US National Dr Antonio Noronha, an NIH scientific review advisor familiar Institutes of Health (NIH), when an NIH panel flatly told her that with Dr Mullenix's grant request, told us that her proposal was "fluoride does not have central nervous system effects". rejected by a scientific peer-review group. He termed her claim Declassified documents of the US atomic bomb program indi- of institutional bias against fluoride CNS research "far-fetched". cate otherwise. A Manhattan Project memorandum of 29 April He then added: "We strive very hard at NIH to make sure politics 1944 states: "Clinical evidence suggests that uranium hexafluo- does not enter the picture."' ride may have a rather marked central nervous system effect... It seems most likely that the F [code for fluoride] component rather | THE NEW JERSEY FLUORIDE POLLUTION INCIDENT than the T [code for uranium] is the causative factor." The memo, The documentary trail begins at the height of World War II, in from a captain in the medical corps, is stamped SECRET and is 1944, when a severe pollution incident occurred downwind of the addressed to Colonel Stafford Warren, head of the Manhattan E.I. DuPont de Nemours Company chemical factory in Project's Medical Section. Colonel Warren is asked to approve a Deepwater, New Jersey. The factory was then producing millions program of animal research on CNS effects. "Since work with of pounds of fluoride for the Manhattan Project whose scientists THE NEW JERSEY FLUORIDE POLLUTION INCIDENT The documentary trail begins at the height of World War II, in 1944, when a severe pollution incident occurred downwind of the E.I. DuPont de Nemours Company chemical factory in Deepwater, New Jersey. The factory was then producing millions of pounds of fluoride for the Manhattan Project whose scientists 14 = NEXUS APRIL - MAY 1998 The declassified documents the environment.