Page 1789 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 18 October 1989
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disposing of toxic fluoride waste from Aluminium manufacture than getting paid to put it in the drinking water. What an incredible coincidence - ALCOA and the original fluoridation proposal.
In 1942, mainly as a result of Dean's work, the US PHS set 1 ppm as the maximum allowable concentration of fluoride in public waters. (The important thing to note is that this was not fluoridation, but a law preventing poisonous contamination of drinking water.)
Also in 1942, a British Medical Journal, Lancet, reported a study which showed not only could severe dental fluorosis occur in areas with natural fluoride concentrations of 1 ppm or less, but also appeared to show associated skeletal defects in children with poor nutrition. (Extension of time granted)
In 1944, an Attorney, Oscar Ewing was put on the payroll of ALCOA for an annual salary of $750,000. Some months later Oscar Ewing joined the Public Service to become Federal Security Administrator which made him head of the US Public Health Service on a salary of about $120,000. Another amazing coincidence, an ex-ALCOA employee taking a yearly salary cut of $630,000 to head the Health Department determining fluoridation.
In October 1944 the Journal of the American Medical Association published an editorial saying, "... the use of drinking water containing as little as 1.2 to 3 parts per million of fluorine will cause such developmental disturbances in bones as osteoscerosis, spondylosis and osteopetrosis, as well as goitre (enlargement of the thyroid gland causing a swelling in the front of neck)".
In 1945 the world's first proposed ten year artificial fluoridation experiment began in Grand Rapids, USA, with unfluoridated town of Muskegon being used as a control.
In 1949 the sugar industry, under strong criticism by the American Dental Association over the role of sugar in tooth decay, paid for research "to find out how tooth decay may be controlled effectively without restriction of sugar intake". Thereafter the sugar industry became a major supporter of fluoridation.
In June 1950 only half-way through the Grand Rapids Experiment, the US PHS under its chief, Oscar Ewing, "endorsed" artificial fluoridation as safe and effective, and encouraged its immediate adoption throughout the US. ALCOA would now have
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