According to WWII-era documents uncovered by journalists Chris Bryson and Joel Griffiths, fluoride quickly emerged as the top chemical health hazard of the U.S. atomic bomb program. Their documents show that it posed a huge health threat to workers and the communities surrounding the manufacturing plants.
Moreover, they maintain that the initial “proof” that fluoride doesn’t harm people in low doses was actually fabricated by scientists working on the atomic bomb program after being ordered to come up with evidence that would be useful in any potential future litigation from those who were poisoned by the chemical. They also explained how the first lawsuits against the atomic bomb program were actually over fluoride damage and not radiation.
The biggest fluoride study was conducted from 1945 to 1956 in Newburgh, New York. The secret operation, which was known as Program F, saw tissue and blood samples collected from people living there through the New York State Health Department. After comparing the published version of the study and the original one, the journalists found evidence that the negative effects of fluorides were suppressed by the Atomic Energy Commission for reasons of “national security.”
In studies on animals carried out in the 1990s by Dr. Phyllis Mullenix at Forsyth Dental Center in Boston, fluoride was found to be a strong central nervous system toxin that could adversely affect brain functioning in humans even at low doses. Dr. Mullenix was rejected when applying for a grant to study it further by the National Institutes of Health and informed that fluorides do not affect the central nervous system.
This goes directly against a 1944 memo from the Manhattan Project which said: “Clinical evidence suggests that uranium hexafluoride may have a rather marked central nervous system effect…it seems most likely that the F [fluoride] component rather than the [uranium] is the causative factor.”
Dr. Harold Hodge, who was working on the Manhattan Project at the time, then requested a study on the effects of fluoride on the central nervous system. Although it was granted, the records of its results have gone missing.
It’s not a coincidence that Dr. Hodge was then called in 50 years later to “advise” Dr. Mullenix on her own investigations of the effects of fluorides. He never disclosed his past work on fluoride toxicity for the Manhattan Project to her, and she believes that he was enlisted to keep an eye on her and prevent her from sharing any damaging findings.
Dr. Hodge was also the author of a memo suggesting that fluorides be promoted as dental treatments after people started to consider lawsuits after a fluoride pollution incident that took place in New Jersey in 1944. On that occasion, the tomato and peach crops of farmers were destroyed and animals were crippled after widespread fluoride contamination downwind from the Deepwater plant where the first atomic bomb was being worked on. Declassified memos from an emergency meeting show they sought “evidence which may be used to protect the interest of the Government at the trial of the suits brought by owners of peach orchards in … New Jersey.”
So the next time someone tells you that fluoride in your drinking water is all about helping you maintain good dental health, keep in mind that there is so much more to the story.
Sources for this article include: