14. Fluorine Lawyers and Government Dentists: the fluoride deception by
Christopher Bryson from archive.org
Fluorine
Lawyers and Government Dentists "A Very
Worthwhile Contribution" Although big corporations have long used
the U.S. government's medical
assurances about fluoride safety to defend themselves in fluoride-pollution cases, no
collaboration between industry and the
federal promotion of fluoride has ever been acknowledged. However, Robert Kehoe s papers show precisely
such collusion, detailing how the
fluoride research of the National Institute of Dental Research,
ostensibly conducted to prove
water fluoridation "safe," was covertly performed in concert with industry, which was aware
that the medical data would help
their Fluorine Lawyers battle American pollution victims and workers in court. THE REYNOLDS METALS Company employed a legal
strategy during the Martin case that
would become a staple in American
courtrooms. Five years had elapsed since the Federal Security
Agency administrator, Oscar Ewing,
the former Alcoa lawyer, had endorsed
https://www.blogger.com/null public water
fluoridation on behalf of the Public Health Service, which was under the FSA's jurisdiction.
During the 1955 Martin trial in Portland,
Reynolds reminded the court of fluoride's "beneficial"
effects. Fluoride was being added
to toothpaste, and 15,000,000 Americans
now consumed more fluoride through their drinking water than the Martins had been exposed to, Reynolds's
attorneys said. "This court has
thus found to be "poisonous' an amount of fluorine FLUORINE LAWYERS AND
GOVERNMENT DENTISTS 177 which scientific and judicial opinion has
unanimously found harmless,
Reynolds s lawyers argued. The only thing not explained is how the Martins could have suffered injury from
something harmless to the rest of
mankind," they added)
Robert Kehoe also understood how public water fluoridation helped industry. His endorsement was featured
in the profluorida-tion booklet,
Our Children's Teeth. That booklet was simultaneously distributed to
New York parents and to the judges
on the Martin Appeals Court.' "The question of the public safety of fluoridation is non-existent from
the viewpoint of medical
science," he assured parents and judges alike.' Privately, however, Kehoe was not so sure. "It is
possible that cer tain insidious
and now unknown effects are induced by the absorption of fluorides in comparatively small
amounts over long periods of time," he had told industry in 1956. 4 And in 1962 Kehoe told Reynolds
s medical director, James
McMillan, that there remained "a basic question concerning the non-specific effects of prolonged exposure to
apparently harmless quantities of
fluoride ( this by the way is the thing on which George Waldbott bases his entire campaign against
fluoridation). 5 Kehoe and
his Kettering Laboratory continued to soldier for water fluoridation during the 1950s and
1960s, assailing fluorida-tion critics as
windbags and windmills. Kettering toxicologists Francis Heyroth and Edward Largent were prominent members
of National Academy of Sciences
panels that endorsed fluoridation. And in 1963 the Kettering Laboratory published an influential
bibliography of the medical literature
favoring fluoridation, entitled The Role of Fluoride in Public Health:
The Soundness of Fluoridation in
Communal Water Supplies. Kehoe
saw how fluoride safety studies performed by government dental researchers helped his industry patrons
in court. Farmers and workers
would have a much harder time successfully suing corporations for fluoride pollution if the U.S. Public
Health Service had performed its own
studies and then vouched for the chemical's safety. "The results of
such [dental] investigations are
highly advanta geous," Kehoe explained to the corporations sponsoring his fluoride work at Kettering, in
that the problem [of proving
fluoride safe] exists outside of industry, thereby involving situations in which the 178 CHAPTER FOURTEEN economic factors tend
to be of different type and significance than those which are often alleged to be active in the industrial
world, and often involving
investigators who are not subject to accusations of bias based on industrial associations.' Kehoe approached the Public
Health Service in April 1952 on behalf of
the industries sponsoring his fluoride research, to ask that the health
agency perform additional fluoride
safety studies.' I was requested by the group [of industries], for whom I have acted as a spokesperson and
chairman, in the consideration of
this work, to approach your division of the U.S. Public Health Service, with the idea of
determining whether or not an investigation of that type might not be conduced by the Service, Kehoe
wrote to Dr. Seward Miller.' Government proved cooperative.
The top medical investigator at the
National Institute of Dental Research, Dr. Nicholas Leone, was
especially helpful. In August
1955, for example, during the Martin trial, the public servant Dr. Leone spoke with a senior
attorney for Reynolds, Tobin
Lennon, who also was a member of the Fluorine Lawyers Committee, directing Lennon to a federal safety
study on fluoride that Leone had
recently concluded in Texas.
No record could be found of anyone from this U.S. government agency ever helping the Martin family. Leone s study had examined people
living in two Texas towns, where
there were different amounts of natural fluoride in the water supply.
The town of Bartlett had between 6
and 8 parts per million in its water, while nearby Cameron had 0.4 ppm. Dr. Leone had given both towns a
clean bill of health, reporting in
1953 that no harmful significant differences were seen in the two populations. Although George Waldbott and
others had vigorously attacked the
study's scientific method and conclusions, the so-called Bartlett Cameron Study became, along with Harold
Hodges Newburgh study, a lynch-pin
of the government's case for water
fluoridation — medical "proof" that adding fluoride to water
would be harmless.' As the Martin trial hung in the
balance, the governments Dr. Leone
burned up the long-distance telephone lines to Oregon, answering questions from Reynolds's attorney
Lennon on the findings of the Bartlett
Cameron study. Dr. Capps had testified on Paul Martins behalf that fluoride had injured his clients liver,
so Reynolds s lawyer wanted information
about fluorides effects on such soft tissues." FLUORINE LAWYERS AND GOVERNMENT
DENTISTS 179 Although the Bartlett
Cameron study had not examined soft tissue, such data would soon be at hand, Leone reassured industry. New government-funded studies were in the
pipeline. And they spelled good
news for the Fluorine Lawyers. In the spring of 1957, as corporate
America awaited the Martin Appeals
Court verdict, Alcoa s Dr. Dudley Irwin
traveled from Pittsburgh to the sparkling new campus of the
National Institutes of Health in
Bethesda, Maryland, to meet directly with Dr. Leone and discuss the current status of the fluoride
problem." Irwin was the
medical coordinator for the Fluorine Lawyers Committee. Dr. Leone laid out the plans for
the new fluoride safety studies that the
federal dental agency was then readying. The two men then discussed
how those studies could be
presented to best suit our purpose," according to a March 5, 1957, letter Leone sent to
Irwin to thank him for his visit. In
particular Leone gave the Alcoa doctor details of a human autopsy
study then being conducted in
Provo, Utah, in which soft tissues were being analyzed. Leone was serving as a consultant to the Utah
study, he wrote, and he had
personally designed the autopsy protocol.' The interests of the Provo group, Leone explained in his
letter, relate directly to atmospheric
pollution of fluorides and its effects on humans. As you know, it has
been proven beyond a question of a
doubt that similar conditions have an effect upon animals.
Irwin paid close attention. Provo was the site of perhaps the most
serious litigation problem then
facing the Fluorine Lawyers. Since World War II, when a mighty steel plant had been located in the Utah
County valley, near the city of
Provo — far from any threat from Japa nese bombers — local farmers had been in an uproar over
pollution that they claimed had
decimated their cattle. By 1957 the Columbia-Geneva Division of
U.S. Steel had settled 880 damage
claims totaling $4,450,234 with farmers in Utah County. An additional 305 claims for a further
$25,000,000 were filed against the
company. 13 Nicholas Leone s
researchers, working on a PHS grant, were studying the soft tissues and bones of Utah County residents, he told
Irwin. Inmates of a mental
institution close by comprise the study material," he added. The Bethesda meeting between
Alcoa s fluoride doctor and the
government scientist went well. They made plans for a future 180 CHAPTER FOURTEEN rendezvous. In view
of the vast amount of material soon to be avail -able for publication, Leone concluded in his letter to Irwin, we
are all very enthused about a group
presentation at some carefully selected meeting in the near future. I believe we discussed that briefly while
you were here and I hope that you
have had opportunity to give further thought to the type of meeting that would best suit our
purpose. A one-shot presentation and
publication in a single issue or monograph should be of more value
than publication in a number of
publications.... Again, it was a pleasure seeing you and I hope we have the opportunity for further
discussions in the near future.
Best personal regards. Sincerely Nicholas C. Leone, M.D. Chief, Medical Investigations, National
Institute of Dental Research.' The
government scientist enclosed a gift, a copy of a science-fiction
novel called The Pallid Giant by
Pierrepont B. Noyes. Alcoa s
doctor was jubilant at the letter. The government studies would show no harm from fluoride, he had
learned (almost certainly from Leone
himself). Irwin immediately contacted the Fluorine Lawyers
Committee boss, Frank Seamans in
Pittsburgh, forwarding to him a copy of the letter he had received from the NIDRs Dr. Leone. Thrilled at the
news from Washington, Alcoa s top
doctor explained to Seamans, in a letter dated March 13, 1957, exactly how the nations water fluoridation
program, and accompanying health
studies, might help American industry: These clinical investigations pertain to basic studies of
individuals residing in areas
where the fluoride content of the drinking water varies from 0.04 ppm F. to 8.o ppm F. You will appreciate that
this range of fluoride exposure
brackets the range in which a number of us are interested. I have reason
to believe the results of these
investigations will show no evidence of
deleterious effects due to fluoride absorption. The publication of these results will be a very worthwhile
contribution," wrote Irwin.
15 The obliging government
dental researcher, Dr. Leone, wanted to share the good news — with a restricted group of industry friends,
Dr. Irwin told Alcoa s lawyer. Dr.
Leone has given me his permission to supply copies of this letter to you for distribution to your group of "fluorine
lawyers' on a confidential
basis," he wrote Seamans.
Any jubilation in the ranks of the Fluorine Lawyers Committee, however, quickly turned to fresh panic.
The following month, on
FLUORINE LAWYERS AND GOVERNMENT DENTISTS 181 April 24, 1957, Judges Denman, Pope, and Chambers of
the Federal Appeals Court for the
9th Circuit in San Francisco upheld the lower District court ruling in the Martin trial. Their verdict was
that Reynolds Metals was guilty of
negligence and of poisoning the Martins with fluoride. In a gesture even more frightening for
industry, Judge Denman cited a legal
principle known as absolute liability. It meant that industry was responsible for resulting injury,
whether accidentally caused or not. "The manufacturer must learn of dangers that lurk in his
processes and his products, wrote
Judge Denman in his opinion upholding the District Court. It was the duty of the one in the position
of the defendant to know of the
dangers incident to the aluminum reduction process," the opinion
added. 16 Frantic, industry
scrambled back to the courts. The entire 9th Circuit Appeals court en banc (all judges on the Appeals bench, not
just a three-person panel) now
confronted a stunning spectacle, as six top U.S. corporations paraded before them, pleading for relief.
Alcoa, Monsanto, Kaiser Aluminum,
Harvey Aluminum, the Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation, and a division of the Food Machinery and
Chemical Corporation, each joined
Reynolds in attacking the Martin verdict, filing an impassioned amicus curiae friends of the court brief. One hundred thousand workers were
employed in the U.S. aluminum
industry alone, industry told the court, while seven aluminum smelters
in the Northwest were located in
inhabited areas similar to the Troutdale plant. Judge Denman s ruling had impossibly tightened the screws on
the economy and jeopardized the
nations cold war military strength, the
corporations argued. The necessity of a strong aluminum industry to national defense is known to all,"
their appeal noted. Judge Denman had
reached out and with one swift stroke branded the aluminum industry
and all industries involving the
use of fluorides, ultrahazardous," it added. The industry attorneys warned of "the tremendous impact of
this decision," and argued
that "if Judge Denman's opinion placing absolute liability on these industries is to stand, the financial
handicap so imposed may well impair
their financial stability. '
As industry s lawyers scrambled back to the courts, the governments
Dr. Nicholas Leone (from the
National Institutes of Health) hurried for an emergency meeting with industry officials 182 CHAPTER FOURTEEN at the Kettering
Laboratory. He was accompanied by no less than the Director of the National Institute of Dental Research, Dr.
Francis Arnold. On May 20,
1957-a month after the Martin verdict — the public servants met for a relatively confidential
discussion of the issues with Dr. Kehoe
and a Medical Advisory Committee of officials from the industrial corporations sponsoring the Kettering
Laboratory s fluoride research. (This
Medical Advisory Committee had been established on behalf of the Fluorine Lawyers Committee by Alcoa
attorney Frank Seamans.)"
Alcoa's Dudley Irwin opened the meeting. He began by reiterating
news of the Martin verdict. The
U.S. dental investigators and the company
officials reviewed the "weakness" of industry's position,
according to notes taken by Dr.
Kehoe. The group then discussed "the Martin case in relation to the community problems of air
pollution, water pollution and food
contamination and the position occupied by industry in creating a new environment characterized by potential
hazard to the public health,
according to Kehoe.
Industry was vulnerable, Kehoe emphasized to the dental
researchers. He summarized the
Kettering investigation of the Alcoa plant at Massena, New York, where fluoride had disabled
workers. (The results of this study
had — and still have — never been published.) There was a need, Kehoe
told the NIDR's Nicholas Leone and
Francis Arnold, "for research of a basic type to establish the facts on which medical opinion can be
based so that irresponsible
medical testimony will be discouraged." The government men took their cue. Drs. Leone and
Arnold again laid out for industry
the several pending studies the NIDR was con -ducting. The science was ostensibly being
performed to demonstrate to the
public the safety of water fluoridation, yet for the anxious men at
the Kettering Laboratory that
spring day, there was a clear understanding that such medical studies could help polluters. 19 The conference
concluded with plans for an
ambitious strategy to shape the national scientific debate on fluoride by hosting "conferences,
symposia," compiling new medical
research "for dissemination or publication," and arranging
working sessions "to decide
what to do and in what sequence," according to Kehoe' s notes. FLUORINE LAWYERS AND GOVERNMENT
DENTISTS 183 On June 5, 1958, the
full Appeals Court in the Martin case gave some ground. It upheld the verdict that the Martins had been
poisoned and that Reynolds was
negligent, but it withdrew the earlier opinion that the legal theory of absolute liability applied.
The final decision was still
distressing, the Fluorine Lawyers Committee head, Frank Seamans, wrote to Kehoe in a melancholy note
eight days later. In an enclosed legal
summary of the ruling, dated June 12, 1958, he concluded that the
verdict will doubtless have great
significance in the further development of the fluorine problem." 20 There was, however, a solitary
ray of sunshine: perhaps the
rollback of the absolute liability verdict would help industry in the coming decades. We can now argue
that the Martin case went off on
its own particular facts and that it is not a ruling that an aluminum smelter is liable for damage regardless
of negligence," Seamans
wrote. 21 Seamans believed
that it was the visit and testimony of the English expert, Donald Hunter, that had delivered the knockout blow.
The English doctor had left a
perhaps disfiguring scar upon corporate America. "The court quoted from the testimony of Dr.
Hunter," Seamans wrote to Kehoe,
"and said that his testimony was worthy of credit and, in fact,
outstanding. These quotations from
the testimony of Dr. Hunter about the effects of fluorine on human beings are very unfortunate and may serve
to give such claims a push. Kehoe was bitter about the whole
affair. "I have rarely found myself in a more embarrassing situation than I was in the Martin
case," he told one of
Reynolds's other witnesses. And he complained to a friend, Philip
Drinker of Harvard s School of
Public Health, about the cleverness and histrionic character of Donald Hunters testimony. 22 The professor
commiserated. Hunters exhibition
was cheap cockney showmanship at a pretty low point, Drinker said. " Numerous friends in England have
told me he was for sale and he
certainly sold himself for this," he added. Dr. Kehoe would have his revenge. In the days after
the Martin verdict worried
industry its officials turned again to his Kettering Laboratory for help. Industry stood on a precipice.
The danger was clear — and so was the
solution. A powerful new scientific orthodoxy must be forged to
defeat workers and farmers like
Paul Martin and remove the threat from
independently minded medical experts such as Donald Hunter and Richard Capps. Buried Science,
Buried Workers
THE IMPLICATIONS OF the Martin verdict were frightening. Like that Oregon farming family who had been
poisoned by Reyn-olds s fluoride,
tens of thousands of U.S. citizens breathed fluoride fumes from nearby steel, aluminum, and coal-fired power
plants. A million more would soon
live within eight kilometers of eleven hydrogen fluoride
manufacturing plants.' And
hundreds of thousands of American men and women inhaled fluoride dust and gases each day at
work.' Industry's response
to the Martin verdict was explained by Robert Kehoe to the medical director of the Tennessee Valley
Authority (TV A) in January 1956.
You will remember our recent talk about the concern of representatives of the aluminum and steel
companies, over the outcome of the
Reynolds Metals suit, Kehoe wrote to Dr. O. M. Derryberry on January 9, 1956. That concern included
"perturbation of certain of the
sponsors over the medico-legal situation," he wrote. "A group
was assembled for a meeting with
me early in December," Kehoe told
Derryberry, "out of which came their request that ... I advise
them concerning a program of
investigation which might be enlarged in scope and accelerated in tempo so as to provide them with adequate
ammunition for handling similar
situations, as well as those that might arise from apprehension among their employees. " ; Kehoe's goal
was to "bring to an end the
litigation which threatens to occupy the time, attention, and economy of industry without benefit to
the health and welfare of their
employees or the public," he told his sponsors.' BURIED SCIENCE, BURIED WORKERS
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