Page 1788 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 18 October 1989
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This article answers the questions, "What is fluoridation and its history", "What does it do", and "What is the truth behind the controversy".
What is fluoridation?
Fluoridation means the adjustment of 1 part per million (ppm) of fluoride to the water supply. This is claimed to reduce the number of dental caries (decay) for children. Adults do not benefit, as by age 12 teeth have been formed.
Before fluoridation, fluoride was used as a rodenticide and insecticide (a rat and cockroach poison) for some 40 years.
Since fluorine was identified 100 years ago and until the 1940s, it was always something to keep out of the environment.
From 1900 to the early 1940s widespread stock and crop poisoning by industrial fluorine wastes resulted in damage payouts of millions of dollars. The Aluminium Corporation of America (ALCOA) alone faced annual legal claims for millions.
The Amazing Events Leading to Fluoridation
In 1931 the connection between fluorine and mottling (the first visible sign of dental fluorosis - fluoride poisoning) was confirmed by Dr H.V. Churchill, Chief Laboratory chemist of ALCOA and reported to the US Public Health Service (PHS) which had to recognise fluorine as a POTENTIAL HEALTH HAZARD.
The PHS at the time was controlled by the Treasury whose chief was Andrew Mellon, owner of ALCOA.
In 1933 the PHS hired Dr H. Trendley Dean to survey those areas of the US where endemic fluorosis was common. In 1935 Dean reported that an amount that caused less than 10 per cent mottling (fluoride poisoning) of teeth was acceptable. He determined this amount to be 1 ppm, but by 1938 he had discovered that just over 1 ppm could cause mottling in 25-30 per cent of children.
In 1939 Dr Gerald Cox, a scientist, was hired by The Mellon Institute (Founded and controlled by the family of Andrew Mellon who owned ALCOA and controlled the Public Health Service) to look for a market for industrial fluoride wastes.
Dr Cox then proposed artificial water fluoridation as a means of reducing tooth decay. What better way to solve the huge and costly problem of
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