Ch. 6. How the Manhattan Project Sold Us Fluoride: the fluoride deception
by Christopher Bryson from archive.org
How
the Manhattan Project Sold Us
Fluoride Newburgh, Harshaw,
and Jim Conant's Ruse
For half a century assurances from the Public Health Service that
water fluoridation is safe have
rested on the results of the 1945
New-burgh-Kingston
Fluorine-Caries Trial, in which the health of children from the fluoridated town of
Newburgh, New York, were compared
for ten years with children from neighboring nonfluoridated Kingston. But recently declassified
documents link the wartime Public
Health Service's interest in fluoride to the Manhattan Project. And a
trail of papers showing how
bomb-program scientists from the University of Rochester secretly monitored the Newburgh experiment,
studying biological samples from
local citizens — and crudely manipulating at least one other wartime study of fluoride's dental and toxic
effects — suggests that Newburgh
was simply another cold war human experiment, serving the interests of the nuclear industrial state. https://www.blogger.com/null THE VIEW FROM the Old Firehouse on
Broadway in the city of Newburgh,
New York, is one of the more majestic in the Empire State. The boulevard climbs purpose-straight
through the center of town from
the valley below, and whipped by a January wind, a lone pedestrian
can see east across the mighty
Hudson River to a spine of rolling hills in the Connecticut distance. In the spring of 1945 the wind carried
the laughter of hundreds of excited
school children as they chattered their way to a free public-health clinic inside the Old Firehouse. Doctors
wanted to examine the children. HOW THE MANHATTAN
PROJECT SOLD US FLUORIDE 79 Newburgh had become only the second place
in the United States to
artificially add fluoride to public water supplies. Last week came news that fluorine
is to be tried out with whole towns as
guinea pigs, Time announced approvingly in April '944 The magazine suggested that, where fluoride was
found naturally in the groundwater,
"dentists' chief occupation is holding citizens' mouths open to
display their perfect teeth. ' It wasn't just teeth the doctors
were interested in. The
New-burgh-Kingston Fluorine-Caries Trial, as it was formally known, was considered the most extensive of the
several fluoride experiments then
being planned around the United States. Over a period of ten years a
team from the New York State
Department of Health would conduct a battery of psychological exams and X-rays on the Newburgh children,
plus measuring their blood, urine,
height, and weight. The information would be compared with data from children in the neighboring fluoride-free
town of Kingston, New York. The
news that Newburgh would host the experiment created a buzz among local citizens. The gritty, blue-collar
industrial town was home to a
large population of immigrant Italian Americans as well as African Americans who had come from the
South. Most considered themselves
fortunate to be early recipients of a new public-health measure. "I can remember a lot of
excitement as a young child," remembered a lifelong Newburgh resident and former Mayor, Audrey Carey,
who regularly attended the
Broadway clinic in 1945 as a child. Careys parents were poor, she explained. Her father became only the second
African American on the Newburgh
police force, and the family was grateful for the daughters free health checkups. In the front room there was a
dental chair and someone would check
your teeth and you would see the nurse," Carey recalled. "You
would have your height, your
weight [measured, and] they would do some urine. I can remember that occurring every month of
the year for a very long time.
The tests were designed to answer a simple safety question —
whether the chemical produced
nondental health problems (a medi cal agenda that, of course, was not publicized to local citizens). Are there
any cumulative effects —
beneficial or otherwise, on tissues and organs other than the teeth — of long-continued ingestion
of 8o CHAPTER SIX such small
concentrations ... [of fluoride]? the doctors explained to their colleagues in various academic
publications and conferences on the topic' Some of the most powerful voices in the nation were
asking similar questions about
fluoride's toxicity — with wartime urgency. Earlier in the fall of 1943 President Roosevelt s
science adviser, James Conant, had
organized a major Conference on Fluoride Metabolism, secretly
convened on behalf of the
Manhattan Project. The
conference was held on January 6, 1944, in New York City, and conference transcripts and letters from
Conant are among the first
documents that connect the atomic -bomb program to water
fluoridation and to the Public
Health Service (PHS).' Weapon makers wanted to use the health service as a wartime camouflage,
a fig leaf for the atomic bomb. In
a letter dated September 25, 1943, Conant explained to the chief of
the Division of Industrial
Hygiene, J. J. Townsend, that a "consultant" Dr. Stafford Warren would secretly provide
the conference financing. This
consultant, of course, was none other than Colonel Stafford Warren, the Manhattan Projects Medical
Director. It is sincerely
hoped that the Public Health Service will be willing to sponsor the conference and to send out
the invitations to the contributors
under its own letterhead, Conant wrote to Townsend. All the arrangements such as the selection of
the speakers will be taken care of by
Dr. Warren. The purpose of this letter," Conant added, "is to
assure you of the importance of
this symposium and of the real need for the information in connection with the war effort.
However, this picture of the purpose of
the meeting is for your information only, and it is desirable that the impression be given that the interest
is in industrial hazards only." Dr. Townsend replied that if the Public Health service
could review the agenda and
"the qualifications of the individuals who might be invited to attend ... the Surgeon General would be
very glad to call such a
conference. 4 On
January 6, 1944, a Whos Who of the wartime fluoride industry passed through the doors of New York's
Hotel Pennsylvania. Mingling were
the top medical men from the army and from the companies and universities building the atomic bomb,
including DuPont, Union Carbide,
Columbia, and Johns Hopkins. Also HOW THE MANHATTAN PROJECT SOLD US FLUORIDE
81 attending were Alcoa s
top fluoride expert, Francis Frary; Helmuth Schrenk from the Bureau of Mines; the biochemist Wallace Armstrong
from the University of Minnesota;
and Edward J. Largent from the Kettering
Laboratory. Dr. Paul
A. Neal of the National Institutes of Health outlined the critical importance of fluoride to the war
economy — and emphasized how little
doctors knew about health effects on workers. Aluminum, magnesium, refrigerants, aerosol propellants,
insecticides, phosphates for animal feeds, hydrofluoric acid ("especially its use as a catalyst in
oil refining ), and the employment
of fluoride fluxes among an estimated 150,000 welders were just some of the burgeon ing uses for
fluoride in the war effort, Neal
reported. There was a " definite need," he added, "for
careful, thorough investigation on
workmen who have been exposed for many years to fluorides. However, it has been postponed until after the
war since such an investigation
could hardly be made at this time without undue interruption of the output of these
industries." 5 The
conference organizers had made what seemed to be a surprising addition to the guest list: Dr. David
B. Ast, chief dental officer of the New
York State Health Department. Dr. Ast was then preparing to add sodium fluoride to the drinking water of
Newburgh, New York, in a stated bid to
improve dental health in children. Although the conference had been secretly arranged by the Manhattan
Project — whose industrial contractors
were concerned that workers in bomb factories would be poisoned by fluoride — the dental researcher
quickly justified his attendance at the
conference. Military officials and industrial contractors heard a
conference report that animal
tests were of doubtful value" in studying fluoride toxicity in humans, and that there was
confusion over amounts that "may
cause deleterious effects in adults." Dr. Ast then boldly
volunteered a solution.' He
suggested that researchers could examine whether fluoride in drinking water was harmful to people,
and thereby help to determine
whether the chemical posed a risk to workers in factories. The "accumulated effects of small
doses of fluoride in drinking water [could] be studied in the U.S.... [and that] evidence of the effects
of consumption of fluoride over
that period of time might [ become apparent], Ast told the conference.' Until such human fluoride studies could be done,
however, a
82
CHAPTER SIX
temporary workplace standard had to be fixed. Following the morning conference session, the Manhattan
Project had arranged a luncheon for ten
persons who will meet to set standards." It is not clear if the ten
men who met for lunch that day —
including the Public Health Services H. Trendley Dean, the researcher who had reported that fluoride found
naturally in water in some areas
of the country was associated with fewer
cavities — knew that their meal was paid for by the Manhattan Project.
But Harold Hodge knew: he paid the
tab with bomb-program funds. "It would be convenient if cash can be provided and delivered here by
Dr. Harold Hodge," the
Manhattan Projects Captain Ferry had ordered.' A sacrifice was needed from war workers, the lunch
team decided. Although earlier
that morning DuPonts Dr. A. N. Benning had described how i part per million of hydrogen fluoride in air etched
glass in two hours, the diners determined
that 6 parts per million of fluoride breathed in factory air would be the wartime fluoride
standard for an 8-hour workday, six days
a week. The existing 3-ppm threshold in several states was an
arbitrary figure not based on any
specific evidence, stated Dr. Carl Voegtlin of the University of Rochester, who chaired the lunch session. We
do not want to set up standards
that are so extreme on the lower side that it makes it hard to operate the plants, Voegtlin added, We
can say that in the absence of
definite evidence, we feel... [emphasis in original]. Francis Frary of the Aluminum
Company of America doubted whether
standards were even necessary. "The best guide is the individual
response," suggested Frary,
explaining that "I doubt in the case of man whether there is enough hydrofluoric acid in the air
that is comfortable to breathe that
would cause any damage." Hodge finessed the problem, suggesting that We can
also say that men working in
plants where we know the atmosphere is varied at all times, should by certain screening methods, be
protected. A lone dissent
drifted across the lunch table. "I should think that someone is going to be hurt by the long
exposure to the irritant," interposed Dr. Wallace Armstrong from the University of
Minnesota.' Following the
New York conference, as the giant gaseous diffusion plant secretly rose amid the virgin woodland at Oak Ridge,
Tennessee, planning for the
public-water-fluoridation experiment HOW THE MANHATTAN PROJECT SOLD US FLUORIDE 83 in Newburgh also
proceeded apace. A Technical Advisory Committee was selected to guide the New York Health Department. The
chairman of that expert committee,
it was announced, would be a pharmacologist from the University of Rochester, Dr. Harold Hodge. "Possible
toxic effects of fluoride were in
the forefront of consideration, the Advisory Committee stated.'" On May 2, 1945, the Hudson River
city became the second community
in the world to be artificially fluoridated. Over the next ten years
its residents were studied by the
New York State Health Department. Secretly, in tandem with the states public investigation, Hodge's
classified "Program F"
at the University of Rochester conducted its own studies, measuring how much fluoride Newburgh
citizens retained in their blood
and tissues — key information sought by the atomic bomb
program." Health Department
personnel cooperated, shipping blood and placenta samples to the Rochester scientists. The samples were
collected by Dr. David B. Overton,
the Department's chief of pediatric studies at Newburgh.'
Hodge was not the only scientist associated with the Newburgh experiment who had ties to the bomb
program. Dr. Henry L. Barnett, who
joined the Technical Advisory Committee after the war, was described as
a pediatrician. But Barnett had
also been a Manhattan Project medical
captain, sent to Japan following the nuclear bomb ings as a leading member of the Atomic Bomb Casualty
Commis-sion. 13 And Dr. Joe
Howland, who drew control samples of blood from residents of
Rochester, New York, where no
fluoride had been added to water supplies — for comparison with fluoride levels in the blood of Newburgh
citizens — was an especially
practiced human experimenter.' On April 10, 1945, for example, as chief of Manhattan Project medical
investigations searching for
information on the health effects of bomb program materials, Captain Howland had driven a plutonium-laden
needle into the arm of Ebb Cade,
an unsuspecting victim of a Tennessee car accident, who had the
simple misfortune of landing in
the Oak Ridge hospital.'
Although Dr. David Ast of the New York State Health Department clearly realized that water
fluoridation could give industry useful
information about fluoride s health effects on humans — as evinced by
his testimony at the Manhattan
Projects 1943 Conference on Fluoride
Metabolism (above) — today he maintains that he 84 CHAPTER SIX did not know about
the Manhattan Projects involvement at New-burgh. If I had known, I would have been certainly investigating why,
and what the connection was, Dr.
Ast told me.' The final
report of the Newburgh Demonstration Project, published in 1956 in the Journal of the American
Dental Association, concluded that
"small concentrations" of fluoride were safe for U.S.
citizens. The biological proof —
based on work performed ... at the University of Rochester Atomic Energy Project — was delivered by Dr.
Hodge." Publicly the
safety verdict boosted federal efforts to promote water fluoridation. Privately the data was
also helpful to the nuclear weapons
industry, explained Hymer L. Friedell, the Manhattan Project's first medical director. Workers alleging
harmful exposure to fluoride would
now find it more difficult to sue the government or its industrial
contractors, Friedell stated.'
"Any claim about fluorides — here was the evidence that it was of no consequence," said Friedell. 19 "Anything that was evidence
of a no-effect' level was important
information," agreed the former Rochester scientist and
historian, J. Newell Stannard.
20 Although he claimed no
knowledge of the Medical Section's role in the Newburgh experiment, Hymer Friedell was not surprised
that bomb-program scientists had
been involved. "There may have been some things done that were not ever in the record," he
admitted. But there were
records. In the once-secret archives of the Manhattan Projects Medical Section, there exists an entire file on
New-burgh. Inside the file — coded
"G-lo by the U.S. Army — is a startling revelation: The top fluoride scientist for the U.S. Public
Health Service, Dr. H. Trendley Dean,
the man who later became famous as "the father of
fluoridation," had secretly
opposed the Newburgh fluoridation experiment, fearing fluoride's toxicity. 21 Dean's opposition was a potential disaster. News that
the leading fluoride scientist
from the PHS was against adding fluoride to Newburgh's water — on the grounds of toxicity —
would certainly have frightened the
Newburgh citizens, perhaps aborted the nations water-fluoridation program entirely, and eventually have
alerted nuclear workers to the
danger of handling fluorides. But Deans dissent was never made public.
Instead, Harold Hodge passed the
troubling news on to Colonel Stafford Warren at Oak Ridge:
Dear Staff: Hodge wrote on September 15, 1944. Here is a copy of
the current file relating to the
Kingston-Newburgh study. If desired, I would be glad to come down to your place and talk this problem over.
Sincerely, Harold. (Scrawled on
the letter in what may be Warrens handwriting is a note: Return to Medical Section files.")" Enclosed with Hodge s letter are
key documents detailing the planning
and protocol for the Newburgh experiment. The Manhattan Project was, indeed, deeply interested in public
water fluoridation. The papers include
letters from Hodge to Newburgh planners requesting additional
"bone" studies — key
information sought by the bomb program — and an agenda for a meeting of the Newburgh Technical
Advisory Committee, with the word
Warren scrawled across the top. 23 The G-io file also records Dean's opposition to water
fluoridation. His showdown with
the Newburgh planners occurred at 2:00 PM on April 24, 1944, at the Department of Healths offices
at 80 Centre Street in New York
City, according to the Advisory Committee meeting minutes sent to Colonel Warren.- Dr. Harold Hodge
chaired the meeting. Almost
immediately, a question of cumulative poisoning was raised. This is
the crux of the whole problem of
toxicity as it relates to this study," meeting minutes record.
Dr. Dean took the floor. The PHS expert explained that in parts of the country with high levels of groundwater
fluoride (8 ppm) he had seen
evidence of "toxic effects" in local residents, including
" bone changes" and
"cataracts." He wanted more time "to study lower concentrations
to see at what level the effects
disappear," he told the committee. Dean worried that fluoride posed a special risk to the elderly; he told
the committee that he feared
Newburgh's citizens might experience "cumulative effects past middle age." The govern ment
expert explained that if, for example, a
persons kidneys did not work well, that person would be at greater risk
for poisoning as more fluoride
accumulated in their body. According to the Technical Advisory Committee meeting minutes, an unanswered
question about the pending
experiment was what to look for in the way of 86 CHAPTER SIX evidences of early intoxication. Dr. Dean
recommended that both the child
and the past middle age groups be considered. With the renal impairment common to older age groups,
fluorine intake and output even in
small concentrations may not be balanced." But Hodge and his Newburgh team were anxious to
proceed. Much publicity had
already been given to the proposed experiment, recalled Dr. Edward S. Rogers of the New York State
Department of Health. Similarly,
another Advisory Committee member, Dr. Philip Jay from the
University of Michigan, felt this
was the propitious time for such a study from a psychological standpoint. Another Committee member alluded
to pressure from Washington policy
makers. While her own feeling was
conservative, noted Dr. Katherine Bain of the U.S. Department of Labor's Children's Bureau, "the
project had the approval of the Children s Bureau. (The Children s Bureau was financing the Newburgh
experiment.) Chairman Hodge
called a final Advisory Committee vote at 4: 15 PM, on whether to proceed with the experiment. Dean was the lone
voice in opposition. Dr. Dean did
not agree that the proposed program could be considered a perfectly safe procedure from a public health
point of view," the meeting
minutes record. Nevertheless, the committee voted in favor of the experiment to fluoridate Newburgh's
water. Shortly afterwards,
as wartime pressures mounted in that summer of 1944 Dean performed an unreported but spectacular flip-flop,
transforming himself from foe to
friend of water fluoridation. Just three months after giving Newburgh the thumbs-down, Dean announced that he now
favored adding fluoride to public
drinking water in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. He would be one of the lead investigators,
comparing children's teeth for ten
years with another neighboring nonfluoridated city, Muskegon. Six months later, on January 25, 1945,
America's great fluoride experiment
began. One hundred and seven barrels of sodium fluoride were delivered
to Grand Rapids, where, at 4:00 PM
city technicians gingerly began tipping it into the citys drinking water supply. Dean's wartime gyration was well
rewarded. In 1948 he was appointed
the first director of the National Institute of Dental Research, and in
1953 he took a senior position
with the American Dental Association. Until now Deans dissent on Newburgh has how the Manhattan project sold us fluoride
87 never been made public.
The government has long dismissed
claims that any of its scientists ever endorsed water fluoridation
despite reservations regarding its
safety.' When the scientist
and historian Newell Stannard was told of the once-classified correspondence between Hodge and his
Manhattan Project bosses on
Newburgh — as well as the military s involvement in the public water fluoridation experiment — he was
surprised but saw the logic. I
dont think [the military] was really interested in water fluoridation. I
think they were looking for
information on toxicity on fluorine, and fluorides," he said. But former Newburgh Mayor Audrey Carey is appalled at
the news that medical officials
from the atomic weapons establishment secretly monitored and studied her fellow citizens during the cold
war. "It is reprehensible; it
is shocking; it reminds me of the experiments that were done regarding syphilis down in Alabama
[in which African Americans were
not told that they had the venereal disease, so government doctors could study them]," she said in an
interview.' Now Carey wants answers
from the government about the secret history of fluoride and about
the Newburgh fluoridation
experiment. I absolutely want to pursue it, she said. It is appalling to do any kind of experimentation and
study without people's knowledge
and permission." Did
Harold Hodge and the Rochester bomb scientists suppress or censor adverse health findings from the
Newburgh study? There is some
indication that they did; however, as we shall see, prying information
from the University of Rochester's
cold war archive is no easy task, confounding the best efforts of a Presidential Commission in 1994. (For
a further discussion of censorship
and of Newburgh health effects today, see
chapters 7 and 17.)
Evidence that military censors did remove information about
fluoride's harmful effects can be
seen in another study performed by Rochester bomb-program scientists, published in the August 1 948 issue
of the Journal of the American
Dental Association. A comparison with the original, unpublished secret version found by the medical writer Joel
Griffiths in the files of the Manhattan
Projects Medical Section illustrates the ways cold war authorities censored damaging information on fluoride,
to the point of tragicomedy. 88 CHAPTER SIX In these files
Manhattan Project Captain Peter Dale at the University of Rochester reported in the second half
of 1943 on the preliminary results of
two dental investigations, a study of oral conditions among
laboratory fluoride workers at Columbia
University, and a study of dental conditions among workers exposed to dilute and anhydrous hydrofluoric
acid in production. The results from Columbia, where
scientists at the War Research
Laboratories were using fluoride to enrich uranium, were
disappointing, even worrying.
Fluoride did not prevent cavities, Captain Dale suggested. Of the ninety-five laboratory workers
examined, "the total number of tooth
surfaces filled and attacked by caries was not significantly altered by exposure to hydrofluoric acid
vapor," Dale reported. 29 The fluoride might have been producing a harmful effect. Dr. Homer Priest, a
leading fluorine scientist,
reported that his "teeth seemed to be deteriorating rapidly."
Dr. Priest also told the Medical Section
that his gums bled more freely and that
there has been a progressive increase in the degree of slowness of
healing and of pain in the period
he has been doing this work.
30 The Columbia data were
never published in the scientific literature. But the results of the second dental study, on the laborers at
the Harshaw Chemical Company in
Cleveland, became an important piece of evidence for the idea that fluoride reduced cavities. 31 The study is
particularly illustrative. As we
saw earlier, work conditions at Harshaw Chemical Company were appalling. Two workers had been killed by
fluoride acid in 1945. So much
fluoride and uranium was escaping from the plant that the FBI had been called in. And the Atomic
Energy Commission proposed
secretly tracking former workers, to discover the incidence of lung cancer. 32 None of that was made
public, however. All that the medical
community learned about Harshaw and fluoride was from a study published in the 1948 issue of the
Journal of the American Dental
Association — a study "based on work performed ... for the
Manhattan Project at the Uni versity
of Rochester at the suggestion of Harold C. Hodge" — that reported that the men had better teeth.
When compared with the original
secret study, the published version reveals crude censorship and data distortion, according to the
toxicologist Phyllis Mullenix, who
read both versions. 33 89 • The secret version states that most of
the men had few or no teeth; they
were "in large proportion edentulous [toothless] or nearly
edentulous. This information,
however, was left out of the published version. The published study merely notes that the fluoride workers had
fewer cavities than did unexposed
workers. • The published
version omits the suggestion that fluoride was actually harming the mens teeth. While the secret version
states, " There was some
indication [teeth] may have been etched and pol ished by [the acid], and that exposure of the teeth to the
acid may have contributed to the
attrition observed, the public version,
instead, concocts an observation seen nowhere in the original. It states that strangely enough, dental
erosion or decalcification of
enamel and dentin commonly seen in workers exposed to inor ganic acids [fluoride] was not seen.
The published version omits
information about the harmful effect that fluoride may have had on teeth, ignoring physical evidence
that indicated otherwise. A
lie, commented Mullenix. The published version had simply reversed the original medical
observation that fluoride may have corroded and consumed the men's teeth, she said. • The published version implies
that the men were at fault for refusing to wear protective masks, instead preferring to chew tobacco or
gum for protection." The secret
study makes no mention of masks (and a later Ohio State study criticized Harshaw for not giving its
workers protective masks). • The published study states that
men "with clean mouths" had good teeth. Men "with neglected mouths" had "a peculiar
brownish deposit which seemed to
cover the enamel of the anterior teeth in large quantities." The secret version, however, makes no
distinction in the mens oral hygiene,
noting that all men, as a group, neglected their mouths." The
published report therefore makes
the bad, or discolored, teeth appear to be the workers fault. The dirty brown teeth were now a function of
the mens hygiene, Mullenix
remarked. In other words, [the censored study is] blaming the victim for not having a clean mouth. 90 CHAPTER SIX The published Harshaw
study helped to shift the national medical debate over exposure to industrial fluoride. Several studies during
the 1940S had already shown that
acid in an industrial environment hurt workers teeth, and Dr. Priests experience at Columbia University suggested
that the same was happening with
wartime fluoride workers. Now, said Phyllis Mullenix, instead of blaming fluoride for eroding teeth, with the help
of "a clever editing
job" the published study became a piece of dental propaganda that buries the American fluoride
worker. It totally changes
the viewpoint, Mullenix told me. This makes me ashamed to be a scientist." Of other cold war-era
fluoride safety studies, she asks,
Were they all done like this?
Recently, in Cleveland, a roomful of surviving Harshaw fluoride workers erupted in grim laughter when
told about Harold Hodges censored
dental study. I showed Allen Hurt the once-secret results of the
long-ago measurements of fluoride
in his urine, analyzed by AEC doctors at the University of Rochester; the fluoride was recorded at the
extraordinarily high levels of
17.8 mg/liter." Today he is plagued with arthritis, he says, while many of his Harshaw friends died
young of cancer. Nevertheless,
smiling a largely toothless grin, Hurt commented on the published
dental study: They had to come up
with something."
7 A
Subterranean Channel of
Secret-Keeping 
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