Rosalie Bertell on Fluorides
by Rosalie Bertell, Ph.D., GNSH
November 1999"Fluorine gas is highly reactive, and with water in air forms hydrofluoric acid (HF), which is corrosive to all common metals and glass. Liquid fluorine is the most powerful chemical oxidiser and the most reactive non-metal" Arthur L. Knight, MD, in Occupational Medicine: Principles and Practical Applications, by Carl Zenz, Second Edition, page 540.The data shows that toxic metals and oxidisers like ozone, chlorine, fluorine all cause cell DNA damage and cause the T-cells and macrophages (a type of white blood cell) act to bio-concentrate these toxins into the lymph nodes. Also it shows that in the fluorine sections these oxidiser effects damage the mt DNA of the cell mitochondria (this means the DNA in the mitochondria, the cellular energy producer, which is inherited from one's mother) and this, in effect, powers-down the immune system cells. This is also connected to heart disease problems as well.
This is the knowledge that the Oak Ridge National (Nuclear) Laboratory uses, and which the US nuclear industry has known since the mid-80's but has covered up to hide the liabilities.
The major use of fluoride has been in the production of uranium hexafluoride for the nuclear weapon and power industry. Elemental liquid fluorine is also used as a rocket propellant, as is chlorine trifluoride and bromine pentafluoride. Dichlorodifluoromethane is a refrigerant. All of these compounds are serious factors in the problem of ozone depletion.
The US emits more than 100,000 tons of industrial fluoride a year in the nuclear and rocket industries, in the manufacture of steel, brick, tile, glass, porcelain, aluminium, fertiliser, and in the combustion of coal. When these emissions were uncontrollable in the Cold War nuclear production, there was a concentrated public relations effort to convince people that fluoride was a "benefit". This campaign was especially aimed at dentists.
Fluorine compounds are now found in nearly all-living things, including humans. They are in nearly all foods. The average intake in food is 0.2 to 0.3 mg a day, and many municipalities have increased this amount by another 1.0 mg a day in drinking water. Both insufficient amounts and excessive amounts of fluoride are harmful to human health. A lethal dose of soluble fluorine for an adult male is in the range of 1 gm. No estimate of the lethal dose for an embryo, fetus or child has been made. The fluoride found in most body tissues is usually bound to protein and it is not a part of the daily intake-excretion process.
Fluorine gas can be released from drinking water, and is readily absorbed by the lungs and the gastrointestinal tract. Normally the fluorine found in blood is only about 10% ionised (i.e. it is in an electrically charged and highly chemically reactive state). Excessive fluorine intake increases the ionised portion of fluorine in the blood, and the body "clears" this condition either by disposition of the fluorine in bone or by kidney excretion. This can cause a condition known as fluorosis, in which the normal level of fluorine in bone, about 0.1%, is increased by ten times to approximately 1.0%, and may be detectable by X-ray. Intake of more than 4 mg a day by an adult male begins to cause this storage in bone. For children in the developmental stage, excess fluoride is selectively taken up by the teeth. While insufficient fluoride can cause an increase in dental carries, excess in the developing stages of teeth can cause mottling (white or brown spots). At 1 ppm some children will have mottling, and at 4 ppm most children will have mottling.
From a letter written by John Ramington Graham, Counsellor at Law, St. Agathe, Quebec, dated 23 December 1995, to Mr. David Studer, Executive Producer of CBC Television in Toronto:
"I am a member of the Minnesota Bar, currently living with my wife, a member of the Quebec Bar, and our children, here in the Province of Quebec. I have practised twenty-eight years, largely in the fields of criminal and environmental law; was one of the founders and a professor in an accredited law school; practised before the courts of fifteen jurisdictions in the United States; and I have lectured on various legal and law-related subjects in both the United States and Canada.
I am informed that Len Greenall in British Columbia has sought to interest you in a documentary on artificial fluoridation of public water supplies. It so happens that I have been privileged to know Canada's two foremost physician experts on this subject, the late Benoit Burdock, M.D., whose committee under the environment ministry of Quebec led the government of this Province to suspend executive enforcement of the mandatory fluoridation law here on the grounds of public safety (salus populi est suprema lex); and, Richard Foulkes, M.D., who has similarly advised British Columbia. My part in this struggle includes my work as counsel for plaintiffs in celebrated suits to terminate artificial fluoridation in Pennsylvania and Texas, leading to judicial findings, never disturbed, that artificial fluoridation of public water supplies causes large-scale human cancer."From the Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science, Volume 61, Issue No. 2, 1987, Daniel Klem, Jr. Ph.D., Editor, Department of Biology, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA 18104, we read:
"Judge John P. Flaherty handed down his decree in the case of Paul Aitkenhead v. Borough of West View, No. GD-4585-78 on the Docket of the Allegheny County Court of Common Please, November 16, 1978, the following opinion: "Over the course of five months, the court held periodic hearings, which consisted or extensive expert testimony from as far away as England. At issue was the recent time-trend study of Dr. Burk and Dr. Yiamouyiannis, which compared cancer mortality in ten cities which fluoridated their water systems with ten cities which did not fluoridate over a period of 28 years, from 1940 to 1968. The study concluded that there was a significant increase in cancer mortality in the fluoridated cities. .... Point by point, every criticism made of the Burk-Yiamouyiannis study was met and explained by the plaintiffs. Often the point was turned around against the defendants. In short, this court was compellingly convinced of the evidence in favour of the plaintiffs...."See also: "A current Restatement and Continuing Reappraisal Concerning Demographic Variables in American Time-Trend Studies on Water Fluoridation and Human Cancer" by John Remington Graham, Dean Burk and Pierre Morin (Dean Burk Foundation, 4719 44th Street Washington DC 20016 and Centre Local des Services Communautaires, Fortierville, PQ G0S 1J0 CANADA). Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science 61:138-146, 1987.
In this follow-up document, the previous data was re-analyzed, adjusting for differences in age, race and sex between the twenty cities studied for long term exposure to or non-exposure to fluoridation. "It is concluded that artificial fluoridation appears to cause or induce about 20 to 30 excess cancer deaths for every 100,000 persons exposed per year after about 15-20 years."
At the 20th Conference of the International Society for Fluoride Research, held in Beijing, China, 5-9 September 1994:
"Mr. Yin Dakui, Vice-Minister of Public Health, in an opening address, presented statistics showing the extent of the problem. Among 1,230 counties of 29 Provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities where endemic fluoride poisoning has been found, almost 43 million people have dental fluorosis and 2.4 million have skeletal fluorosis. This out of a total population in effected regions of 100 million... The sources of fluoride producing problems in China are natural fluoride contamination of drinking water, atmospheric fluoride from coal burning, and fluoride in food such as corn, millet and wheat... Even though the water had been defluoridated to 0.8 ppm for almost a decade, many of the adults showed permanent signs of the disease: discoloured and malformed teeth, bowed backs, crippled legs, and paralysis. We were told that a number of those who were now able to walk with some difficulty had been bed-ridden.
"Children who had grown up in a low fluoride environment produced by water treatment still showed, on close examination, chalky white opacities in their tooth enamel - indicating that reducing levels to 1 ppm, still officially endorsed and recommended by WHO and accepted by China, is unsatisfactory. Dr. A.K. Shusheela, of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, stressed at the Conference that the aim should be to reduce fluoride to its lowest possible level.
"The Chinese recognize that there is a continuum of adverse effects of fluoride poisoning: chalk-like dental fluorosis (DF); discoloured DF; damaged DF, and skeletal fluorosis. Their studies show that the bone changes appear early and accompany three levels of DF and that crippling skeletal fluorosis is, for many, the end result of years of exposure and/or nutritional, especially calcium, deficiency.
"The Chinese, using observations from studies on both experimental animals and humans, showed the relationship between poor diet, particularly calcium deficiency, repeated childbirth, duration of exposure to fluoride and severity of effects... Some of these effects occurred at surprisingly low levels of fluoride. Some of which were within the range of total fluoride intake described in fluoridated areas of Canada and the U.S. They pointed to increase fractures; poor fracture healing and bone outgrowths (exostoses) as some of the skeletal defects. With regard to soft tissues, they pointed to the creation of neurological lesions (paralysis) by direct action of fluoride not only as a result of encroachment by bone and ligament changes on the vertebral canal. They demonstrated such adverse effects of fluoride on soft tissue as thyroid dysfunction; heart disease and abnormal ECG's; and cerebro-vascular disease. Their studies also showed an association of fluoride intoxication and lowered intelligence as measu red by IQ; chromosomal abnormalities; decreased immunity; increased senile cataracts and cancer. They reported higher infant death rates due to congenital abnormalities and higher death rates generally in endemic fluorosis areas. These reports confirmed many findings from India and South Africa.The Chinese scientists also reported variable synergistic effects between fluoride and aluminium, fluoride and arsenic, as well as fluoride and selenium. Papers were presented by scientists from India, Norway, Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Finland, Mexico, USA and Canada... Several stressed the environmental effects, including a paper presented on the possible impact of fluoridation on Pacific salmon species.
"To anyone auditing this conference there was no doubt that the deliberate addition of fluoride to drinking water and to our diet is a foolish, if not a criminal, act." from the notes of Richard G. Foulkes, M.D. and Anne Anderson, R.P.N., who attended the conference.
There is obviously a serious disagreement between the International Society for Fluoride Research (ISFR) and the World Health Organization (WHO) on the advisability of fluoridation of drinking water, which is also often used for irrigation of food crops. Some of the disagreement stems from the almost total reliance of the WHO on the advice of dentists, while the ISFR involves a variety of professional disciplines, including veterinarians, human and plant physiologists, biochemists, physicists, geographers, engineers and others, as well as dentists and physicians.
It is my opinion that the Precautionary Principle dictates immediate cessation of this ill-advised practice in Toronto. It may take years to change the WHO recommendation! The most vulnerable victims of this misguided policy are the embryo and fetus, the elderly and those already suffering from immune deficiency.