What has become of our youth?, page 3

In a growing number of geographical areas that begin and end with invisible county lines, the substance is almost impossible to avoid. Some of the hardest hit counties are located in Alaska, Colorado, Kentucky, Michigan and Mississippi.

As the old saying goes, when no other agent can be located as the cause for our problems, blame it on the water. "It must be something in the water," the saying has been said for ages, usually with a shrug and chuckle.

Perhaps it's time for us as individuals and as a nation to repeat this phrase again - this time as though our lives depended upon it, this time without a shrug and chuckle - and while we are at it, take a closer look at our water.

Maybe there is something in the water, after all.

* * * * * * * * *

The strange, corrosive, toxic but still controversial agent in the water is fluoride.

The atomic symbol for the negatively charged halogen known as fluorine is, simply, "F" or "F-." When the negatively charged ions - or anions - of fluorine gas combine with another element, a fluoride compound is formed. If the F combines with sodium (Na), for instance, the compound would then be known as sodium fluoride, or NaF. If it combines with calcium (Ca), the compound formed is calcium fluoride, or CaF. If it combines with arsenic, it becomes AsF. And so on.

Fluoride is a trace element in nature, but manmade fluoride compounds became grossly abundant as a result of the invention of weapons of mass destruction in World War II. Fluoride and uranium are key components in the atomic bomb, and fluoride is also a key ingredient in fluorinated organophosphate nerve agents, such as Sarin.

Radioactive uranium is naturally present in phosphate ore, but it must be "enriched" if it is to become a nuclear weapon or a reactor fuel. After the phosphate is mined, the uranium "yellow cake" is removed and sent to an enrichment facility such as the plant owned by the Department of Energy in Paducah, Kentucky. There, the uranium is fluorinated and uranium hexafluoride (UF6) is produced. Paducah's enrichment plant stopped making UF6 for weapons in the 1960s, and began creating it, instead, for commercial purposes as a reactor fuel.

Uranium fission was first discovered in the late 1930s by German scientists. In 1939, there was a reported fear that the Nazis were about to develop a bomb using uranium fission. In 1942, Americans began similar research, facilitated by the knowledge of scientists who had fled their own countries and moved to the United States. Thus, America was the first to achieve both creation - and use - of atomic weaponry in 1945.

That year, 1945, was one of many changes. With World War II over, 1945 marked the year in which the Nuremberg Trials began - trials that presumably reaffirmed the sanctity of life, and human rights - trials which would eventually address the atrocities of Nazi human experimentation.

As the world breathed a sigh a relief in knowing that the Nazi health officials' experimentation on human beings had been halted in Germany, 1945 marked the year that "public health officials" in America began their experimentation on human beings with water fluoridation.

In what would turn out to be the biggest human experimentation in history, sodium fluoride - NaF - was added into American's drinking water in selected communities under the medical claim that the F would prevent dental caries (cavities) in children. Those receiving this experimental, medicinal treatment in their drinking water, received it then as they do now: They are forced to ingest it, inhale it, bathe and shower in it, whether or not they want or even need this toxic chemical in their bodies.

As with all medicinal compounds - indeed, as with virtually everything on Earth - some individuals can be expected to have extreme side effects and allergic reactions. Individuals having severe allergic reactions to penicillin, poison ivy or peanuts are very likely to use common sense and avoid those substances. Unlike the penicillin, poison ivy or peanuts, however - in fact, unlike any other medicinal compound in history - over 60% of Americans at this time are now unable to electively avoid the F product unless they also can find a way to avoid their water. While the list of side effects from fluoride has been falsely minimized or completely concealed by fluoride promoters, the side effects are well documented. Side effects have been so severe that previously approved medications containing high-grade F compounds have been removed from the market by the FDA. (47, 48, 49, 50, 51)

In a recent paper authored by Myron Coplan, PE, and Roger Masters, PhD, a professor at Dartmouth, the authors discovered that a subtle but potentially lethal change in F additives took place shortly after the fluoride experimentation on Americans began. In 1947 instead of higher-grade NaF or sodium fluoride - silicofluorides, or SiFs, were substituted as the fluorinating compound in drinking water. This switch was carried out under the gross misconception that all F compounds are the same. As outlined in some largely ignored research, however, one part of SiF is substantially more potent than six parts of NaF. Despite this evidence, and despite the fact that it is now SiF rather than NaF primarily being used in American water fluoridation, Masters and Coplan found that "virtually all the extensive laboratory research on the biological properties and effects of fluoride in water has been performed using NaF rather than SiFs..." (52)

Merck gives the definition of silicofluoride as, "fluorosilicate is a compound of silicon and some other base with fluorine, such as sodium silicofluoride; fluorosilicates are sometimes used as insecticides, and are very toxic when ingested. Called also silicofluoride." (53)

While many are still assuming that the SiF compounds being added to drinking water are high-grade pharmaceuticals, the CDC's National Fluoridation Engineer has publicly stated that all fluoride compounds currently used for water fluorination are "byproducts of the phosphate fertilizer industry." (54)

Because of the toxic nature of this compound, the SiF being added to drinking water is an industrial waste that would otherwise have to be disposed of by the industry that created it, and it would have to be disposed of according to the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HAZMAT). Disposal of toxic substances under hazmat regulations, however, results in an expense for the industries.

This costly disposal dilemma - and its clever marketing remedy - was expertly summed up in a 1983 letter written by EPA's Rebecca Hanmer, (formerly the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Water), who stated that by putting the SiF waste into drinking water rather than disposing of it, an important financial savings is made for the industry. Miss Hanmer wrote that this industrial plan is "...an ideal solution to a long standing problem. By recovering by-product fluosilicic acid (sic) from fertilizer manufacturing, water and air pollution are minimized, and water authorities have a low-cost source of fluoride..." (55)

Ongoing research by Dr. Roger Masters' team revealed that the effect of SiF in young, growing boys differs from its effects on adult males. In juvenile males, ingested fluoride is not excreted from the body as efficiently as it is excreted from the body of adult males. It is this finding that perhaps explains why this substance might be creating an extreme reaction in boys. In addition, after comparing blood lead levels of over 400,000 children in communities using SiF-treated water, it was found that SiF water was also significantly associated with increased levels of lead in the children tested. This should be cause for alarm because the findings of other recent studies show a distinct correlation between blood concentrations of lead and unusual, aggressive behavior. (56)

Information published in 2003 detailed the findings of a controlled study funded by the National Institutes of Health. Researchers found in this study that elevated amounts of lead in the blood "may cause aggressive and even violent behavior." Dr. John D. Bogden, Professor of Preventive Medicine and Community Health participated in this study at the New Jersey Medical School. He stated, "The data of this study demonstrate that lead exposure enhances predatory aggression in animals, and provide support for lead exposure as a cause of aggressive behavior in humans." Among other researchers also participating in this study was Dr. Donald B. Louria, Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health. Dr. Louria stated, "The results support other recent investigations that have found associations between lead in blood or bones and delinquent and aggressive behavior in teenagers." (57)

In seeking further documented evidence regarding aggressive behavior and its association with SiF water, Dr. Masters contacted personnel in the EPA in 2000 and asked them if they had empirical, scientific data on the effects of SiFs on health and behavior. Robert Thurnau, Chief, Water Supply and Water Resources Division of the EPA responded. ". . . our answer is no." (58)

In spite of the increasing evidence pointing directly to a potential calamity stemming from massive fluoride poisoning, there remain outspoken groups that continue to advocate the blanket dosing of entire communities with still-untested, unapproved fluoridation. Among them is a group known as "Quackwatch."

Quackwatch is chaired by retired psychiatrist, Stephen Barrett, M.D. He and the Quackwatch associates have gathered together for the purpose of acting as both watchdog and instructor for the gullible, unlettered public. The group has apparently done some substantial instructing, because it claims to be one of the three most popular medical websites on the entire internet. Dr. also serves as a Fellow of the "Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal."

Quackwatch uses an FDA quotation to describe what, exactly, quackery or health fraud is, and it also provides the public with guidelines to help us more easily identify the "quacks" among us. According to Quackwatch, "The FDA defines health fraud as 'the promotion, for profit, of a medical remedy known to be false or unproven.'"

In reading through the reports published on Quackwatch, one will read claims that opponents to fluoridation have no supporting evidence to back their opposition to fluoridation. In fact, the only suspicions regarding F that seem to be embraced by Quackwatch are suspicions raised about individuals who oppose or question fluoridation. In one report that appears on Quackwatch, "Community Water Fluoridation in America: The Unprincipled Opposition," Michael Easley, DDS, another outspoken promoter of fluoride, refers to fluoridation opponents as "health quacks," and quotes from a 1983 paper which likens fluoride opponents to "parasites" who "steal undeserved credibility just by sharing the stage with respected scientists," all of whom (we are apparently to believe) are pro-fluoridation. (59, 60)

Quackwatch warns that one of the tactics of an "anti" (an opponent to the mass fluoridation of drinking water), is to use tactics based upon "those of Hitler," and to state that fluoride is the cause of an entire laundry list of problems. Quackwatch is correct about the laundry list. This is not a "tactic," however. It is a mere statement of facts.

Those who have dared to ask a few questions in spite of the potential risk of public humiliation by Quackwatch and other fluoridation promoters, have discovered information that flatly contradicts the information being generated by the promoters.

In a journal found in the National Library of Medicine, studies have shown that in doses as low as 3 mg per day, fluoride has produced toxic effects on male reproductive hormones. Despite what Americans are being told by fluoridation promoters, the negative effects of F upon both body and mind have not only been discovered, but they have also been duly reported, albeit in areas and texts that most Americans - including professionals - do not regularly access, subscribe to or read. (61, 62, 63, 64)

Perhaps the most amazing fact of all discovered by those daring to ask questions, is the fact that the F compound being added into our drinking water under a promised, medicinal claim, has not ever been approved by the FDA.

Representative Glenn Donnelson of Utah summed this fact up during the winter, 2003, National Conference of State Legislatures. When asked about fluoride he stated, "A major concern is that the Food and Drug Administration has never approved fluoride for safety or effectiveness . . . When a product, substance or chemical is added to the public water supply for the purposes of treating or preventing a disease, that chemical must have an approved health claim by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. To say that 'fluoridated water will decrease tooth decay' is an illegal health claim." (65)