DR PHYLLIS MULLENIX
January, 1998.
Phyllis Mullenix, Ph.D., formerly of Harvard
University experienced the wrath of the industry
when she walked blindly into the fluoride fray as
part of her research program with Harvard's
Department of Neuropathology and Psychiatry. While
holding a dual appointment to Harvard and the
Forsyth Dental Research Institute, Dr. Mullenix
established the Department of Toxicology at Forsyth
for the purpose of investigating the environmental
impact of substances that were used in dentistry.
During that undertaking she was also directed by the
institute's head to investigate fluoride toxicity
......
For her toxicology studies Dr. Mullenix designed a
computer pattern recognition system that has been
described by other scientists as nothing short of
elegant in its ability to study fluoride's effects
on the neuromotor functions of rats.
THE "MIRACLE OF FLUORIDE" -or- A DIRTY INDUSTRY?
"By about 1990 I had gathered enough data from the
test and control animals," Mullenix continues, "to
realize that fluoride doesn't look clean." When she
reviewed that data she realized that something was
seriously affecting her test animals. They had all
(except the control group) been administered doses
of fluoride sufficient to bring their blood levels
up to the same as those that had caused dental
fluorosis [a brittleness and staining of the teeth]
in thousands of children. Up to this point, Mullenix
explained, fluorosis was widely thought to be the
only effect of excessive fluoridation.
The scientist's first hint that she may not be
navigating friendly waters came when she was ordered
to present her findings to the National Institute of
Dental Research (NIDR) [a division of NIH, the
National Institute of Health]. "That's when the
'fun' started," she said, "I had no idea what I was
getting into. I walked into the main corridors there
and all over the walls was 'The Miracle of
Fluoride'. That was my first real kick-in-the-pants
as to what was actually going on." The NIH display,
she said, actually made fun of and ridiculed those
that were against fluoridation. "I thought, 'Oh
great!' Here's the main NIH hospital talking about
the 'Miracle of Fluoride' and I'm giving a seminar
to the NIDR telling them that fluoride is neurotoxic!"
What Dr. Mullenix presented at the seminar that, in
reality, sounded the death knell of her career was
that:
"The fluoride pattern of behavioral problems matches
up with the same results of administering radiation
and chemotherapy [to cancer patients]. All of these
really nasty treatments that are used clinically in
cancer therapy are well known to cause I.Q. deficits
in children. That's one of the best studied effects
they know of. The behavioral pattern that results
from the use of fluoride matches that produced by
cancer treatment that causes a reduction in
intelligence."
At a meeting with dental industry representatives
immediately following her presentation, Mullenix was
bluntly asked if she was saying that their company's
products were lowering the I.Q. of children? "And I
told them, 'basically, yes.'"
The documents obtained by authors Griffiths and
Bryson seem to add yet another voice of
corroboration to the reduced intelligence effects of
fluoride. "New epidemiological evidence from China
adds support," the writers claim, "showing a
correlation between low dose fluoride exposure and
diminished I.Q. in children."
Then in 1994, after refining her research and
findings, Dr. Mullenix presented her results to the
Journal of Neurotoxicology and Teratology,
considered probably the world's most respected
publication in that field. Three days after she
joyfully announced to the Forsyth Institute that she
had been accepted for publication by the journal,
she was dismissed from her position. What followed
was a complete evaporation of all grants and funding
for any of Mullenix's research. What that means in
the left-brain world of scientific research, which
is fueled by grants of government and corporate
capital, is the equivalent to an academic burial.
Her letter of dismissal from the Forsyth Institute
stated as their reason for that action that her work
was not "dentally related." [Fluoride research--not
dentally related?] The institute's director stated,
according to Mullenix, "they didn't consider the
safety or the toxicity of fluoride as being their
kind of science." Of course, a logical question begs
itself at this last statement: why was Dr. Mullenix
assigned the study of fluoride toxicity in the first
place if it was not "their kind of science"?
Subsequently, she was continually hounded by both
Forsyth and the NIH as to the identity of the
journal in which her research was to be published.
She told The WINDS that she refused to disclose that
information because she knew the purpose of this
continual interrogation was so that they could
attempt to quash its publication.
Almost immediately following her dismissal, Dr.
Mullenix said, the Forsyth Institute received a
quarter-million dollar grant from the Colgate
company. Coincidence or reward?
Her findings clearly detailed the developmental
effects of fluoride, pre- and postnatal. Doses
administered before birth produced marked
hyperactivity in offspring. Postnatal administration
caused the infant rats to exhibit what Dr. Mullenix
calls the "couch potato syndrome"--a malaise or
absence of initiative and activity. One need only
observe the numerous children being dosed with
Ritalin as treatment for their hyperactivity to draw
logical correlations.
Following her dismissal, the scientist's equipment
and computers, designed specifically for the
studies, were mysteriously damaged and destroyed by
water leakage before she could remove them from
Forsyth. Coincidence?
Dr. Mullenix was then given an unfunded research
position at Children's Hospital in Boston, but with
no equipment and no money--what for? "The people at
Children's Hospital, for heaven's sake, came right
out and said they were scared because they knew how
important the fluoride issue was," Mullenix said.
"Even at Forsyth they told me I was endangering
funds for the institution if I published that
information." It has become clear to such as Dr.
Mullenix et al, that money, not truth, drives
science--even at the expense of the health and lives
of the nation's citizens.
"I got into science because it was fun," she said,
"and I would like to go back and do further studies,
but I no longer have any faith in the integrity of
the system. I find research is utterly controlled."
If one harbors any doubt that large sums of
corporate money and political clout can really
provide sufficient influence to induce scientists
and respected physicians to endorse potentially
harmful treatment for their patients, consider the
results published in a January 8th article of the
New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). The Journal
revealed their survey of doctors in favor of, and
against, a particular drug that has been proven
harmful (in this case calcium blockers shown to
significantly increase the risk of breast cancer in
older women). "Our results," the Journal said,
"demonstrate a strong association between authors'
published positions on the safety of calcium-channel
antagonists and their financial relationships with
pharmaceutical manufacturers."
When The WINDS asked Dr. Mullenix where she planned
to take her research, she said that she is not
hopeful that any place exists that isn't "afraid of
fluoride or printing the truth."
The end result of the dark odyssey of Phyllis
Mullenix, Ph.D., and her journey through the
nightmare of the fluoride industry is, essentially,
a ruined career of a brilliant scientist because
hers was not "their kind of science".
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