Epilogue Blind to the Truth? the fluoride deception by Christopher
Bryson from archive.org
Epilogue Blind to the Truth? Fifty years after Dr.
Harold Hodge signed off on fluoride safety at Newburgh, we learned of a potentially disastrous
biological threat posed by another
class of fluorine chemicals known as perfluoro-chemicals (PFCs).
PFCs are different from the
fluorides discussed throughout the rest of the book, both in their chemical composition and in their toxicity.'
But just like the fluorides in our
toothpaste, PFCs — which include such brand names as Teflon, Gore-Tex, and Stainmaster — are an almost ubiquitous
presence in our lives, found in numerous
household products and employed in
hundreds of industrial applications. And, once again, like fluoride, the
story of how the toxicity of PFCs
has been investigated or, more accurately, how that information has been suppressed, includes a disturbing
link to the nation's nuclear
program. ON MAY
16, 2000, the giant Minnesota-based industrial corporation 3M made a startling and historic
announcement: it was " voluntarily" withdrawing one of America's best-known household products,
Scotchgard, from the market. With
no current replacement available for the popular fabric protector and dirt repellant, and associated
products, an estimated $320
million worth of 3M sales was being washed away. "Sophisticated testing capabilities," 3M
explained in a press release, ". . . show that this persistent compound, like other
materials in the environment, can be
detected broadly at extremely low levels in the environment and in
people. All existing scientific
knowledge indicates that the presence of these https://www.blogger.com/null EPILOGUE 231 materials at these
very low levels does not pose a human health or environmental risk. 3M deserves great credit for identifying this problem
and coming forward voluntarily,
announced the EPA Administrator, Carol
Browner, in response.
In truth, 3M had come forward about as "voluntarily" as a
cornered tomcat in an alley.
Behind the crafted public-relations spin of the 3M announcement lies a trail of exposed workers, a potentially
profound threat to human health, a
global environment once again polluted with a fluorine chemical, decades of corporate delay, and a staggering economic threat to a fluoropolymer
industry with $2. 5 billion dollars
in international sales. 2
It was DuPont that first recognized the commercial potential of organofluorines. By mass-producing
refrigerant gases in the 1920S
that combined fluorine, carbon, and chlorine (CFCs), the
corporation generated a
twentieth-century financial windfall.' The Manhattan Project quickly commandeered the wizardry of DuPont's
fluorine engineers during World
War II, using its radical new supersecret PFC oils and seals to lubricate and protect the government
machinery in the Oak Ridge gaseous
diffusion plant. ( The per in perfluorinated means that the hydrogen atoms in a normal hydrocarbon chemical
bond have been fully replaced with
fluorine atoms. The chemical symbol H-C
becomes F-C. That lock -tight fluorine-carbon clasp produced ultradurable chemicals that protected
the government machinery from even
elemental fluorine's corrosive powers.) After the war a cornucopia of wondrous new household products based on fluorocarbon
technology — including plastics,
aerosols, pharmaceuticals, waterproofers, pesticides, specialized lubricants, and firefighting foams —
soon tumbled from the laboratories
and vast research programs that had been assembled by industry and the U.S. military.' The ability of the man-made
PFC molecules to resist water,
oil, and highly corrosive chemicals,
made them the unseen servant for a host of modern creature
comforts. Today the same types of
PFC polymer chains that once helped
process uranium hexafluoride for the Manhattan Project carry fast-food French fries for McDonalds in
greaseproof wrappers and allow
spills to be wiped from carpets impregnated with DuPont s Stainmaster 232 EPILOGUE fabric protector. "It allows us to do
so much which we now take for
granted," said British scientist and fluoride historian Eric Banks.
He dubbed fluorine the enabling
element, for the bounty it con-tributes to modern living.
However, just like DuPont's CFC refrigerants — which were once thought safe and inert but then tore a
hole in the ozone layer — the manufacture
and use of Scotchgard and other PFC chemicals may have very definite human health risks. By
the end of the twentieth century not
only had millions of tons of durable CFCs soared high into the
stratosphere, but their PFC
cousins had quietly penetrated deep into our bodies and blood. In 1996 the scientists Theo Colborn and John Peterson
Myers and the journalist Dianne
Dumanoski published Our Stolen Future, examining the ways synthetic chemicals can mimic hormones and disrupt
biological growth and development.
The book was one of the most important
scientific warnings of the modern era and prompted a government
review of the "endocrine
disrupting" potential of such chemicals. Incredibly, however, it contained not a single
reference to PFCs. "We were not aware of them," Dr. Colborn told me. "These did not come
on the radar until about six years
ago." How could this
have happened, scientists such as Colborn want to know. How could the toxicological significance of an entire
class of industrial chemicals
evade scientists for half a century, slipping under their radar and into our lives and bodies
without an alarm bell sounding? "The
[PFC] story is a public embarrassment to scientists and regulatory
agencies around the world,"
said a University of Toronto researcher, Scott Mabury. "We know less about
orga-nofluorine compounds in the environment in the year 2000 than we knew about chlorinated hydrocarbons when
Rachael Carson wrote her book in
1960. That is pathetic. It is pathetic that [such] a compound could reach such high concentrations in human blood
tissue and nobody know that it is
bio-accumulative and that it is very persistent." As with fluoride, however, the
problem has not been a lack of
information on the health effects of PFCs. Instead, the problem is that
the research data about PFC
toxicity has not been shared with other scientists, federal regulators, or the public. DuPont, for example, has
long known that its PFC chemicals
pose a potential
EPILOGUE
233 health risk to workers and
consumers. At least two company workers were killed and many others sickened while making Teflon during
the war (see chapter 4). Following
the wartime deaths, and fearing lawsuits from exposed employees and local citizens, the Manhattan
Project's Dr. Harold Hodge from
the University of Rochester visited DuPont's Haskell Laboratory in 1944 to discover what DuPont knew about the
toxicity of its organofluorines.'
Following Hodge's visit to DuPont, organofluorines were promptly given a high research priority by the
Rochester team. The bomb-program
toxicologists were warned that in some cases the toxicity of the organofluorines was worse than
that of fluoride.' But for years,
though Rochester scientists knew that organofluorines were a
threat, almost nothing appeared in
the medical literature about the toxicity of these important chemicals. Instead, although health worries continued, the
temptation to exploit PFCs for
profit proved overwhelming. A 1955 DuPont company document entitled "Teflon — Health Hazards
in Heating" notes that if Teflon is
"heated above 400 degrees F (204 degrees C) . . . small quantities
of harmful compounds are given
off... . Consequently adequate ventilation must be provided at such temperatures. The concentrations of
the volatile products necessary to
produce harm have not been precisely established since it has not been possible to duplicate in animal tests
the symptoms observed in
humans" (emphasis added)! Nevertheless, on January 23, 1958, a Minneapolis lawyer, Harold D. Field,
sought the medical advice of the
Kettering Laboratory's Dr. Robert Kehoe. Field had a client who wanted
to sell Teflon-lined pans in the
United States, he explained. " DuPont has warned our client," Field wrote Kehoe, "that there
may be some danger in the use of
Teflon for this purpose." And later that year Dr. Albert Henne of Ohio State University contacted Kehoe.
A Belgian company, Union Chimique
Beige, also wanted to sell Teflon pots and pans in the United States, he told Kehoe. Henne had made
some inquiries on the company's
behalf. "You may
be interested to learn that ... DuPont ... seems to have started a rehabilitation' campaign for
fluoride in the food business,"
Henne told Kehoe. He had friends in the legal department at Frigidaire (the unit of General Motors
that sold Freon-filled refrig-
erators), Henne reported. They had assured him that "the sale of 2 34 EPILOGUE coated skillets does
not require the formal permission of the Food and Drug Administration. As a precaution, however, would Dr.
Kehoe act as a competent witness
in case of a lawsuit? Henne asked. Kehoe agreed.' Where are the Atomic Energy Commission studies on the
tox-icity of PFCs? As the Teflon
gold rush got under way and nonstick pans became a fixture in our kitchens, it was not until 1968 — two decades
after the Manhattan Projects
Division of Pharmacology had made researching organofluorine toxicity a cold-war priority — that another
University of Rochester fluoride
scientist, Dr. Donald Taves, published the first data showing that organofluorines were accumulating in human
blood. 10 Taves was a colleague of
Dr. Harold Hodge, whose scientists at the University of Rochester had warned in 1946 that
organic fluorine compounds appear to
be more toxic than the fluoride ion." And although Taves even
measured PFCs in his own body, he
nevertheless issued a firm reassurance as to the toxicological significance of his disconcerting discovery.
Other chemicals are usually not
toxic in blood concentrations similar to those found here for organic fluorides." (At the same
time Taves was also collaborating with
one of the nuclear industry s big fluo-rocarbon suppliers, 3M.) Even today, retired in northern
California, those Rochester reflexes
remain strong. Dr. Taves agrees with the current safety reassurances
from 3M and DuPont: because
fluorine and carbon form such a stable bond, their presence in the human body in low doses is of little
health concern. "I'm not so
sure that they needed to take Scotchgard off the market," Taves said. "That is a very inert
chemical.'" Similar
safety assurances paved the way for the penetration of PFCs into our homes and industry. As a
result, while the global PFC industry is
now a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, scientists are playing catch-up — filling a fifty-year void in
the published data on PFC toxicity. In
her 1962 book, Silent Spring, scientist Rachel Carson explained how so-called persistent organic pollutants
(POPS), such as DDT or PCBs, can
pass through the food chain from fish and birds to humans. 13 In the
same manner PFCs can accumulate in
the human body. The battle over PFCs is
shaping up as what may be the Silent Spring of the early
twenty-first century." EPILOGUE 235 "It is the most
important chemical pollutant issue I know of, says former 3M scientist Rich Purdy who, frustrated
with 3M s lack of commitment to
tackle the PFC issue, resigned in 1999 after nine-teen years of work
with the company." PFCs are
having an adverse impact on wildlife and possibly humans right now, Purdy adds. I think they rival the
significance of the chemicals that
Rachel Carson pointed to, adds a Michigan State scientist, Brad Upham. "I am personally
puzzled as to why there is not much more
concern about these compounds. (In an interview in September 2002 Upham told me that there had never been
a formal request by the National
Institutes of Health for scientists to submit proposals to study the
toxic effects of PFCs.) The strength of the
carbonfluorine bond in PFCs means that these chemicals can last a very long time. Researchers fear that
millions of people maybe absorbing
the fluorine compounds through treated
carpeting, clothing, and furniture and from industrial waste from factories that produce Teflon and
similar products. The PFC known as
perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), found in Scotchgard, redefines the meaning of persistence, notes the
University of Toronto s Scott A.
Mabury. It doesnt just last a long time; it likely lasts forever." 16 The global reach of PFCs was
revealed in the late 1990s, when 3M
measured the level of PFC chemicals in blood samples taken from
across the United States and in
Europe. The company compared the results with older blood samples taken from Korean war veterans in the
1950s, predating 3M's introduction
of Scotchgard. These samples, in comparison, were uncontaminated by the chemical.' Researchers from the
University of Michigan have also
found PFCs in mink, eagles, arctic polar bears, and albatrosses in the Pacific Ocean. 18 "The occurrence of
[such chemicals in] albatrosses
suggests the widespread distribution of [the chemical] in remote locations," the scientists
reported. 19 Perhaps most
disturbingly, the environmental "sink" — or final resting place — of many PFCs is the
blood, where they bind to protein
and then accumulate in the liver and gallbladder. 20 (Unlike DDT or PCBs, which accumulate in body fat and
soil, PFCs are resistant to fat or
water. That is what makes them such good waterproofers and fabric protectors.) It can be like global
warming, Rich Purdy told 236 EPILOGUE me. What we produced twenty years ago, we
still haven t harvested those effects
yet. The peak hasnt hit. The
corporate suppression of information about the human health risks from PFCs was spelled out in internal
documents of the DuPont Company
only made public in 2002. According to medical studies and memos (reaching as far back as April 1981),
DuPont researchers had recorded
birth defects in children born to PFC workers at its Teflon plant
in Parkersburg, West Virginia. The
documents, which were posted on the
Internet by the activist Environmental Working Group (EWG) in Washington, DC, revealed that the eyes
of some DuPont workers' children
were malformed and that there was widespread contamination of the
local drinking-water supply by the
PFC chemical used to make Teflon,
perfluorooctanoic acid [PFOA]. 21 Scandalously, and almost
certainly illegally, DuPont never
reported the birth defects nor the drinking-water contamination to the EPA or the local community. 22 The EPA has grown increasingly concerned about PFC
toxicity. 23 In May 2003 the
agency formally asked DuPont to explain why the West Virginia drinking-water and birth-defect data had never been
reported to the federal
regulators. DuPont's attorney, Andrea V. Malinowski, wrote back, arguing that the birth defects
could not "reliably" be linked to PFCs — and therefore did not require that the EPA be
informed — and that the levels of
PFCs in drinking water were too low to tell the public about. 24 That's a simple falsehood, claimed the
EWG, which wants DuPont criminally
punished for its actions. 25 The EWG says that DuPont clearly saw the possibility that PFC exposure
was linked to the birth defects.
Indeed, the company had first examined the health of worker's babies
after receiving a 3M laboratory
study in March 1981, which showed that PFOA caused eye defects in rats. According to a DuPont document,
DuPont's review of children's
health had been conducted to answer "a single question" — "does C-8 [PFOA] exposure cause abnormal
children?' "We
definitely do have concerns based on the toxicity data that has been submitted," noted Mary
Dominiak, the chair of the fluo-rocarbon
work group at EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics. I
cant really go further than that
because we are currently in the process of updating the hazard assessment. EPILOGUE 237 The willingness of the EPA to review the
human health risks from PFCs comes
at the same time that federal regulators are also studying the basic issue of fluoride safety, promising to
revisit the battlefields of a
half-century of pitched conflict over water fluori-dation and
industrial fluoride pollution. On
Tuesday, August 12, 2003, in a cramped room in the National Academy of Sciences building in Washington, DC, a
newly formed panel of the National
Research Councils (NRC) Committee on
Toxicology listened to fluoride safety reassurances from the Centers
for Disease Control. They also
heard a lengthy criticism of existing safety standards from chemistry professor Paul Connett, a
spokesperson for the activist
lobbying group Fluoride Action Network. At issue is the EPA's official standard for how much fluoride
should be permitted in the public
water supply. In 1993, despite a hornets nest of protest from some of
its own scientists, the EPA
decided to maintain the maximum contaminant level (MCL) at the level it had set in 1 984 — 4 parts per
million. Included in that
decision, however, was the caveat that the official standard could be revised if additional scientific
studies raised further doubts about fluoride safety. At the public hearing in Washington, Paul Connett
pointed out that several new
studies had been published since 1993, including Phyllis Mullenix s animal experiments at the
Forsyth Dental Center, more recent
studies from China that have found similar central-nervous-system
effects in human beings, and an
EPA study that reported that fluoridated water helped to carry aluminum into rats' brains, producing
Alzheimer s-like lesions.' According to longtime observers
of America's fluoride wars, it is
possible that a sea change in federal policy toward water fluorida-tion
may be taking place. Harold Hodge
was once the chairman of the NRCs
Committee on Toxicology; as recently as 1993 the NRC fluoride panel
had rubber-stamped his assurances
of fluoride safety. But the new panel
includes scientists and academics — Kathy Thies sen and Tom Webster,
for example — who have all
questioned the wisdom of water fluoridation; another member, Robert Isaacson, was part of the team that
linked fluoride and aluminum to
the Alzheimer-like lesions in rat brains. Bette Hileman, a reporter for Chemical and Engineering
News who attended the hearing,
stated that Paul Connett s presentation was even greeted with applause 238 EPILOGUE from the panel. This
is highly unusual at an NAS/NRC meeting, Hileman remarked. I would be very surprised if the new NAS report
turns out to be a repeat of the
one in 1993. The situation has changed." But the fluoride lobby remains powerful. In the United
Kingdom the Labour government of
Prime Minister Tony Blair is promoting legislation that would give private water utilities immunity from
fluoride -related lawsuits, in a
bid to encourage them to fluoridate more communities. For these water companies, such immunity is
a key legal requirement if they
are to proceed with more fluoridation. In 1996 the toothpaste
manufacturer Colgate made a £1000
payment to Sharon and Trevor Isaacs, of Highams Park, Essex, whose son Kevin suffered from dental fluorosis.
Colgate acknowledged no liability
for the dental damage, although there were hundreds of pending cases of British children with
fluorosis-damaged teeth seeking
compensation. The Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported that "Water companies have fought
against fluoride amid fears of
litigation." 28
A great deal is at stake in the NRC review, certainly more than at
first meets the eye. The pressure
on the EPA to tighten safety standards for water will inevitably bring fresh scrutiny for industrial
fluoride users. As Alcoa's Frank
Seamans and his band of Fluorine Lawyers knew, the federal government s support of water fluoridation was
extraordinarily helpful to
corporate America, bolstering industry's legal defense against workers' and citizens' claims of
industrial fluoride poisoning. The reverse is also true. If the government admits that fluoride in
water is not as safe as they had
once reassured us, then industry's fig leaf is jeopardized. So will the EPA lower the boom on
the industrial fluoride polluters? It
still doesn't look good. The agency's August 2003 ruling on air
pollution, which allows some
17,000 industrial facilities to escape the pollution-control requirements of the Clean Air Act, means
that big fluoride polluters, such
as coal-burning power stations and aluminum smelters, can continue to vent tens of thousands of tons of
hydrogen fluoride gas over our
homes and farms. It is
America's industrial workers that most need the protection of regulators. The 1970 Occupational
Safety and Health Act guarantees
citizens a safe workplace. But eight years before that law was EPILOGUE 239 signed, the Kettering
dog study showed that inhaled fluoride causes lung and lymph-node damage. The recent unearthing of
that long-buried study prompted
two leading toxicologists, Robert Phalen
and Phyllis Mullenix, to claim that the current standard for occu- pational exposure to fluoride is almost
certainly too high. And with the
recent report that emphysema — a key injury in Robert Kehoes fluoride -breathing dogs — is much more
prevalent among industrial workers
than once imagined, the inability of federal standard-setters to locate a single animal study to justify
their current safety standard is
especially concerning. 29
Industry will in all likelihood fight any revision to the water
fluoride safety standard. This
fierce desire to maintain the existing permissive standards was suggested by the presence of several
representatives from the EPA's
pesticide division at the NRC public meeting. Dow Chemical is currently using sulfuryl fluoride as a
pest fumigant to replace the
ozone-depleting methyl bromide. If the fluoride safety standard for
water is toughened, Dow's efforts
to lobby the EPA to allow increased fluoride residues on our fruit and vegetables will almost certainly
be challenged. As Paul
Connett notes, replacing methyl bromide with sulfuryl fluoride is a dubious proposition. "In
animal studies it damages the white matter in the brain," Connnet explains. "So Dow is proposing
to replace a chemical that causes
holes in the ozone layer with one that causes holes in the brain! Some trade-off." 30 POSTSCRIPT ARVID CARLSSON I AM A pharmacologist and my
interest in the fluoridation issue goes back to the sixties, seventies, and eighties when the addition of
fluoride to the public water
supplies was discussed in Sweden. During that period I studied the scientific literature and
the arguments for and against water
fluoridation thoroughly. My conclusion was clear: Fluoride is a pharmacologically very active compound
with an action on a variety of
enzymes and tissues in the body already in low concentrations. In concentrations not far above those
recommended it has overt toxic actions.
Fluoride added to the drinking water can prevent caries to some extent but it can do so at least as efficiently
when applied locally. Moreover, local
treatment, preferentially via toothpaste, is more rational, because the caries-preventive action is exerted
directly on the erupted teeth. The
previous belief that its action is limited to an early period before
the eruption of the teeth, is not
correct. The systemic action of fluoride via the blood before tooth eruption can lead to damage of the
enamel, and mottled teeth. This
side effect, as well as other toxic actions of fluoride, is very much reduced when fluoride is applied
via toothpaste. The addition
of fluoride to water supplies violates modern pharmacological principles. Recent research has revealed a
sometimes enormous individual
variation in the reponse to drugs. If a
pharmacologically active agent is supplied via the drinking water,
the individual variation in
response, which is considerable even when the dosage is fixed, will be markedly increased by the
individual variation in water
consumption. In addition, this measure is ethically questionable and unnecessarily expensive. When the
fluoridation issue was debated in
Sweden several decades ago I took part in the public debate, and we managed to convince the Swedish
Parliament that the addition of fluoride
to the water supplies should be rendered illegal. Similar decisions
have been taken in most European
countries. There is to my knowledge no evi- POSTSCRIPT 241 dence to suggest that dental health in
Europe is worse than in the United
States. During the past two
decades water fluoridation has not been debated much in Sweden, and I have not followed the scientific
literature in this area closely. I
have now read several chapters in Christopher Brysons book and have found them quite interesting. Christopher
Bryson is an excellent narrator,
and he reports on recent research previously not known to me. Especially I am intrigued by the story about Phyllis Mullenix and her animal research on the
influence of fluoride on behavior
and brain development. I am not surprised by the resistance that Phyllis Mullenix so unfortunately
experienced. Novel and surprising
observations are often met with disbelief by the scientific community, and in this case the
prestige of influential people is probably
an additional factor. It is
my sincere hope that Christopher Brysons apparently thorough and comprehensive perusal of the scientfic
literature on the biological actions
of fluoride and the ensuing debates through the years will receive
the attention it deserves and that
its implications will be seriously considered. Dr. Arvid Carlsson, 2000 Nobel Laureate for Physiology or Medicine (for discoveries
concerning signal transduction in
the nervous system)
FOLLOW WERE good enough to grant me interviews, and their comments are reproduced
throughout: David Ast, July
16, 1997, July 31, 2002, and August 1, 2002 Eric Banks, April 23, 2001 Edward L. Bernays, December, 1993 Eula Bingham, July 15, 2002 George Blackstone, February 25, 2002 Lisa M. Brosseau, July 22, 2002 Georg Bran, March 19, 2001 Audrey Carey, January 2, 2002 Robert J. Carton, September 21, 2002 Theo Colborn, December 9, 2002
Mike Connett, February 7, 2004
Maria Constantini, March 22, 2002
Pamela DenBesten, February 13,
2001 Mary Dominiak, September 12,
2002 John Fedor, May 10, 2001 and
October 28, 2001 Hymer Friedell,
October 29, 2001 Margaret B. W.
Graham, May 14, 2002 Dan Guttman
November 8, 2001 John "Jack" Hein, March 21, 2001 William Hirzy, September 16, 2002
John Hoffman, July 27, 2003 Glen Howis, March 25, 1993 Allen Hurt, October 27, 2001 Donald E. Hutchings, June 13, 2002 Jerry Jones, October 20, 2000 Joe
Kanapka, November 27, 2002
Kuranthachalam Kannan, September 12, 2002 Allen Kline, March 24, 1993 Arnold Kramish, October
12, 2001, and July 26, 2003 Edward Largent Jr., February 11,
2002 NOTE ON
SOURCES 243 Hardy Limeback,
September 26, 2002 Henry Lickers,
spring 1993 Joseph L. Lyon,
December 4, 2001, and August 8, 2002 James MacGregor, November 19, 2002 Judith MacGregor, June 25,
2002 Arjun Makhijani, May
25, 2001 Ekaterina Mallevskia,
August 6, 2002 William J.
Marcus, June 14, 2001 Scott
Mabury, September 13, 2002 Sal Mazzanobile, November 27, 2001 James Bruce McMath, September 13,
2001, and March 1, 2002 Gabrielle
V. Michalek, January 20, 2004 Paul
Morrow, November 19, 2003
Phyllis J. Mullenix, multiple occasions including filmed interview February 20, 1999 Olive Mullenix,
May 19, 2001 Ralph Nader, spring 1993
Antonio Noronha, summer 1997 Stata
Norton, May 19, 2001 Robert E.
Osterberg, November 13, 2001
Michelle Peace, June 2, 2002 Diane
Peebles, October 22, 2001 Robert Phalen, March 26, 2002 Henry Pointer, October 27, 2001 Gloria Porter, October 28, 2001
Dick Powell, April 23, 2001 Rich
Purdy, September u, 2002 Karin
Roholm, May 2001 Philip Sadder,
March 23, 1993 Ted Schettler, June
12, 2002 Bill Schempp, March 24, 1993
Gladys Schempp, March 24, 1993 Steve Silverman, June 18, 2002 John L. Smith, October 27, 2001 George David Smith,
May 8, 2002 Karen Snapp,
December 1, 2001 Lynne Page
Snyder, May 4, 1998 J. Newell Stannard,
December 3, 2002
244 NOTE
ON SOURCES James
Swindoll, March 4, 2002 Donald
Taves, June 27, 2002
Kathleen M. Thiessen, June 27, 2001, and August 12, 2002 Brad Upham, September 11, 2002 Henry Urrows,
June 10, 2002 Sam Vest, June 24,
2001 Tommy Ward, October 20, 2000 Tom
Webster, May 31, 2002 Ken Weir, September 17, 2002 Alan Williams, October 20, 2000 Two archives were the main
sources of documentary information for this book. The first, the University of Cincinnati's Medical
Heritage Center, houses the
unpublished medical studies of the Kettering Laboratory of Applied Physiology and the papers of
its director, Robert Arthur Kehoe.
This archive is cited here as the RAK Collection. The second, which houses the
archives of the Manhattan Project and the
Atomic Energy Commission, is the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The Atlanta branch
of NARA is cited here as the
Atlanta Federal Research Center (FRC). Documents from the
President's Advisory Committee on
Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE) — a
primary source of information on the University of Rochester and
Harold Hodges human experimentation
— are also deposited at NARA. The papers
of the S-l Executive Committee of the Office of Science, Research,
and Development (OSRD) are located
in NARA's Record Group 227.
Additional Manhattan Project and AEC files came from the Oak Ridge Operations Information Office (ORO) and
courtesy of the primary research
of Pete Eisler of USA Today. Joel Griffiths and Clifford Honicker also uncovered documents from the Manhattan
Project and the AEC, most notably
on the Peach Crop Cases, in the personal papers of General Leslie Groves, on file at NARA. Additional AEC
papers were retrieved by Honicker
from the University of Rochester. In the text and notes, documents from these researchers and
sources are cited as: "via Honicker
and Griffiths." Documents from online search
engine-derived archives of the
Department of Energy's Human Radiation Experiments Information NOTE ON SOURCES 245 Management System are
noted here as HREX. The
papers of fluoride historian and ADA pamphlet writer Don and McNeil are at the State Historical
Society of Wisconsin in Madison. At that
same archive is an important collection of documents from Alcoa on the early history of fluoride research in
the United States. The
National Security Archive at George Washington University houses the supporting documents for John
Marks's book on CIA drug
experimentation, Search for the Manchurian Candidate (New York: Times Books, '979) The court record of the Martin trial is located in
NARA Record Group 276, Boxes 5888
to 5890. The files of the
Buhl Foundation relating to its early funding of dental research at the Mellon Institute are at the Senator
John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional
History Center in Pittsburgh.
The papers of Ruth Roy Harris on the history of the National
Institutes of Dental Research are
in the History of Medicine Division at the National Library of Medicine.
The Rockefeller Archive Center in Sleepy Hollow, New York was a source for information on Kaj Roholm's
trip to the United States, on
early funding of dental studies at the University of Rochester, and
on the Committee to Protect our
Children's Teeth. The files of the
Carnegie Corporation in New York City provided information on the early history of dental research in the
United States. The Truman
Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri, houses the personal papers of Oscar Ewing and the
papers of the President's Materials
Policy Commission, also known as the Paley Commission. Documents on the history of the
Industrial Hygiene Foundation are
located at the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh, with additional papers
from the Mellon Institute
deposited at Carnegie Mellon Library. Charles Kettering's personal papers are at the
Kettering University in Flint,
Michigan, in the Richard P. Scharchburg Collection. The online archive of the Environmental Working Group
was a primary source for documents
relating to the history of perfluo-rinated chemicals, and for the archives of the Chemical Manufactures
Assocication (CMA). 246 NOTE ON SOURCES Unpublished information on the Donora
disaster came courtesy of the late
Allen Kline of Webster, Pennsylvania. An extraordinary resource was the web site of the
Fluoride Action Network
(www.fluoridealert.org), with its comprehensive and accessible collection of medical studies, news
reports and analysis.
Transcripts from the George Bareis, et al vs. Reynolds Metals trial in Arkansas which took place during
October 2000 in the Saline County
court, were kindly provided by the law offices of James Bruce
McMath. Finally, Martha
Bevis of Houston, Texas was able to furnish me with an extraordinary library of information on
the history of the fight against
fluoridation in the United States. NOTES Epigraphs
1. "Muskie Hearings": Hearings before a subcommittee on air
and water pollution of the
committee on public works of the U.S. Senate, 59th Congress, June 7-15,
1966 (Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office), pp. 1 13-343. Note on Terminology 1. For volatility: "At atmospheric pressure C-216
may combine with almost all
known elements, with almost explosive rapidity, giving off extreme
heat." Manhattan Project
Memo, "Safety and Health Conference on Hazards of C-216 (Code for Fluorine)" To: Safety Section
Files. RHTG Classified Doc, 1944-94, Box 166, Building 2714-H, Vault #82761. Such violence
also makes fluorine difficult to isolate. Although it is the thirteenth-most abundant element in the earth's
crust, it was not until 1886 that a
French scientist, Henri Moissan, was finally able to segregate the
volatile element. R. E. Banks,
"Isolation of Fluorine by Moissan: Setting the Scene," J. Fluorine
Chem., vol. 33 (1986), pp.
1-26. 2. J. Emsley et al.,
"An unexpectedly strong hydrogen bond: Ab initio calculations and spectroscopic studies of
amide-fluoride systems," J. Am. Chemical Soc, vol. 103,(1981), pp. 24-28. 3. The National Research Council, for example,
"uses the term "fluoride'
as a general term everywhere, where exact differentiation between ionic
and molecular forms or between
gaseous and particulate forms is uncertain or unnecessary."
Biological Effects of Atmospheric
Pollutants: Fluorides (National Academy of Sciences, 1971), p. 3. Acknowledgments 1 . Said Ralph Nader: "Once
the U.S. government fifty years ago decided to push fluoridation, they stopped doing what Alfred North
White-head once said was the cardinal principle of the scientific method, and that is to leave options open
for revisions, and it became a
party line, it became a dogma, and they weren't interested in
criticism."
Introduction 1. L.
Tye, The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations
(New York: Crown, 1998). 248 NOTES TO INTRODUCTION
/ PP. XVIII— XXII
2. From 1957 to 1968, fluoride was responsible for more damage claims
than all twenty other major
air pollutants combined, according to U.S. National Academy of Sciences member Edward Groth. N. Groth,
"Air Is Fluoridated," Peninsula Observer, January 27-February 3, 1969. See chapter 15 for a list of
fluoride damage suits and
comparison with other air pollutants. 3. See chapters 7, 9, 10, and n. 4. For fluoride synergy, see A.
S. Rozhkov and T. A. Mikhailova, "The Effect of Fluorine-Containing Emissions on Conifers," The
Siberian Institute of Plant Physiology
and Biochemistry, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
trans. L. Kashhenko (Springer-
Verlag, 1993), excerpted on the Fluoride Action Network website. Also, Herbert E. Stokinger et al.,
"The Enhancing Effect of the Inhalation of Hydrogen Fluoride Vapor on Beryllium Sulfate Poisoning in
Animals," UR-68, University
of Rochester, unclassified; and N. Groth, "Fluoride Pollution,"
Environment, vol. 17, no. 3
(April/May 1975) pp. 22-38. For "Greatest health advance," see A
Century of Public Health: From
Fluoridation to Food Safety, CDC, Division of Media Relations, April 2, 1999. For "Pollution and
chemical poisoning of children," see chapters 1, 2, and 16. 5. See chapter 3. 6. See chapters 9 and 3. 7. See chapters 4 through 8. 8. Wall Street Journal, September 27, 2001, section A,
p. 1. 9. See chapters 9
through 16. 10. The papers
of Dr. Harold Hodge of the University of Rochester are closed. Archibald T. Hodge to Mr. J. B.
Lloyd, University Archives and Special Collections, Hoskins Library (University of Tennessee), July 7, 1996:
"Regarding your letter of June
19, 1996, concerning my father Harold C. Hodge's archives, they will be
deposited in total at the
University of Rochester Medical Center when a room dedicated to his files
is ready." Those of Dr. Ray
Weidlein, director of the Mellon Institute, are missing. Gabrielle V. Michalek, the head of
archive centers at Carnegie Mellon University, which holds some of the Mellon Institute papers, explained
to me that Weidlein had instructed
a previous archivist to "throw the papers in the Dumpster." For more
on blackballing, see chapter
12. 11. Nile Southern
interviewed by Russ Honicker, transcript supplied by Honicker.
12. See chapter 12.
13. Holland discontinued fluoridation in 1976. Water fluoridation was
discon- tinued in West
Germany after 19505. B. Hileman, "Fluoridation of Water,"
Chemical and Engineering News,
vol. 66 (August 1, 1988), pp. 26-42. It was also banned in the former East Germany following
reunification. 14. "A
systematic review of public water fluoridation," The York Review, NHS Centre for Reviews and
Dissemination, University of York (2000). For the 65 percent reduction in cavities claim, see Oscar
Ewing's rationalization for national water fluoridation: Oscar Ewing, "Oral History Interview
," by
N0TEST0CHAPTER1/PP. XXII— 5 249 J. R. Fuchs of the Truman Library, Chapel
Hill, NC, April and May 1969
( interview available online).
15. Interview with Paul Connett, posted on the Fluoride Action Network
website. 1 6 For example,
"Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental SfolTcfielMM^ 2001. G. L. Waldbott, A. W. Burgstahler, and
H. L. McKinney, Fluoridation: The Great
Dilemma (Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press, 1978), 149-151. Chapter 1 1. Jack Hein, author interview,
March 21, 2001. Reluctant to give me a formal interview, Hein nevertheless made several comments that have
been incorporated here. Mullenix
had been teaching at Harvard and doing research in the laboratory of Dr. Herbert Needleman, who was famous for
proving that low levels of lead in gasoline would harm children's intelligence. 2. Hein told the British TV
journalist Bob Woffinden in 1997 that the compound had been invented by a German chemist,
Willy Lange, who was work ing in Cincinnati. A chemist from the Ozark Mahoning company, Wayne White, had
then brought MFP to Rochester.
According to Hein, "When Wayne White first came to Rochester with the compound, Harold Hodge looked at it and
said, "Well, I wonder if it's a nerve gas or is it going to prevent tooth decay?'" (tape time code,
04.31.15, 1997). See also the
important essay discussing the ability of fluoro-chemicals to inhibit
enzyme activity. Willy Lange (The
Procter and Gamble Company), "The Chemistry of Fluoro Acids of Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Group
Elements," Fluorine Chemistry, vol. 1 , ed. J. H. Simons (New York, NY: Academic Press,
1950), 125. 3. Hein was also
a luminary in such influential dental organizations as the International Association for Dental Research (IADR).
According to Phyllis Mullenix, he had
raised funds to build a Washington headquarters for IADR. 4. Hein had been a graduate
student under Harold Hodge at the University of Rochester in the 1950s. He told the British TV
journalist Bob Woffinden, " We got involved with fluoride because Harold Hodge was interested from his
connection over at the Manhattan
Project." Interview tape time code 04.26.49, 1997. 5. V. O. Hurme, "An
Examination of the Scientific Basis for Fluoridating Populations," Dent. Items of Interest, vol. 74
(1952), pp. 518-534. 6.
Commemorative plaque at the annex entrance, noting that the industrial
donors listed had "insured
completion." Also, p. 7 of Forsyth Dental Center brochure, undated: "from 1969 through 1979
... federal support for the research programs at Forsyth increased threefold and support from industrial
grants increased twofold."
7. Wall Street Journal, June 13, 1986, p. 25. 8. Ibid. 250 NOTES TO CHAPTER 1 / PP. 5-15 9. Letter of
recommendation from Mehlman on Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry letterhead,
May 31, 1992. "Of the many scientists with whom I have worked, I consider Professor Mullenix
to be one of the most talented I have known. I have the highest regard for her scientific ability and
integrity," Melman added.
10. In 1994 Phyllis Mullenix sued the dental center alleging, among
other things, sexual discrimination.
The suit was settled out of court under
terms which neither Mullenix not Forsyth are permitted to discuss. Although Mullenix will not discuss her
lawsuit, Karen Snapp is blunt
about the "dark side" of Forsyth, describing "an old boys
club" where chauvinism and
bad science mixed freely. She described to this writer sev eral instances of crude sexual
harassment at Forsyth and the occasionally sloppy professionalism of some of her colleagues. "I
would not describe the atmosphere
[at Forsyth] as being highly scientific," she said. "It was very strange, it was very
uncomfortable. There were totally incompetent people there who were doing quite well because they played
the game. They kind of decided
what the results were going to be. If they did not get the result, they would either modify
the experiment to give them the
result, or just forget about it." Chapter 2
1. Harold Hodge died on October 8, 1990. 2. The New York Times, December 16, 2002, obituary of
Florence S. Mahoney. 3. In
the 1920S in the United States, for example, between 11 and 16 million out of
22 million school children had
defective teeth. Similar conditions were found in the United Kingdom. "In the England of the
past the teeth were not as frail or as troublesome as today," Sir James Crichton-Brown told dentists in 1
892, after describing the many studies
that had found uniformly bad teeth among British children. Dental health
in 192os, estimate of the Joint
Committee on Health Problems of the National Educational Association and the AMA, cited in
letter from Dr. William Gies to Dr. F. C. Keppel of the Carnegie Corporation, November 18,
1927, Dental Research Program, Box 121, Carnegie Grants Ilia, Carnegie Archive Collection. For United
Kingdom, see J. Crichton-Browne,
"An address on tooth culture," Lancet, vol. II (1892), p.
6. 4. J. S. Lawson, J. H.
Brown, J. H. and T. I. Oliver, Med. J. Aust, vol. (1978), pp. 124-125. Cited in M. Diesendorf,
"The Mystery of Declining Tooth Decay," Nature, vol. 32 (July 1986), pp. 125-129. Falling
dental-decay rates presented a dilemma for some in the United States, it seems. A researcher at the Forsyth
Dental Center apparently warned, "Recall
the European data, for example, which shows declines in caries which are occurring without fluoridation and,
indeed, seem to rival the effects obtainable with fluoridation. This could easily become ammunition for the
antifluoridationists." Cited in
e-mail to
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2 / PP. 15-16 251 Hardy Limeback dated May 15, 2003, from
Myron Coplan, of Natick, MA, who
explained that he had received the comments directly by mail from the office of Paul DePaola at the Forsyth
Center in the early 1980s. 5. See
especially J. D. B. Featherstone, "Prevention and Reversal of Dental Car ies: Role of Low Level
Fluoride," Community Dent. Oral Epidemiol., vol. 27 ( 1999), pp. 31 — 40. Also,
"Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United
States," Fluoride Recommendations Work Group, CDC Linking fluoride to
better teeth was not a new idea. As early as 1892 there had 6. been medical speculation that because
fluoride was found in dental enamel,
it was necessary for strong teeth. In 1925 scientists at Johns Hopkins
University tested that theory by
feeding rats fluoride. They were disappointed; the fluoride made the teeth weaker, not stronger.
They found, "contrary to our expectations, that the ingestion of fluorine in amounts but little above those
which have been reported to occur
in natural foods, markedly disturbs the structure of the tooth." E.
V. McCollum, N. J. E. Simmonds,
and R. W. Bunting, "The Effect of Addition of Fluorine to the Diet of the Rat on the Quality of the
Teeth," J. Biol. Chem., vol. 63
(1925), p. 553. In 1938 the biochemist Wallace Armstrong of the
University of Minnesota may well
have contributed to the confusion. He reported that teeth with fewer cavities had more fluoride in
them. W. D. Armstrong and P. J. Brekhus,
"Chemical Composition of Enamel and Dentin. II. Fluorine
Content," J. Dent. Res., vol.
17 (1938), p. 27. That data
was, in turn, cited by Gerald Cox (whom we will meet in the next chapter) along with Dean's work and his
own, permitting him to conclude that "the case for fluoride should be regarded as proved." That
was not the conclusion of the
editorial writers at the Journal of the American Medical Association
(JAMA), who noted after reading
Dean's study that "the possibility is not excluded that the composition of the water in other
respects may be the principal factor." Dean also said that other differences in the mineral
composition of the water in the study
cities — especially calcium and phosphorus — were a factor that should
not be overlooked. H. T. Dean,
" Endemic fluorosis and Its Relation to Dental Caries," Public Health Reports, vol. 53 (August
19, 1938), p. 1452. Cited in G. L. Waldbott, A Struggle with Titans (New York: Carlton Press, 1965), p. 13.
But in 1963 one of the three
planks in Cox's argument collapsed when Wallace Armstrong realized that he had gotten it wrong — increased
fluoride in the teeth was a function of age and his earlier simple equation of fewer cavities and greater fluoride
content was therefore invalid.
"Age as a factor in fluoride content was not then (in 1938)
appreciated." W. D. Armstrong
and L. Singer, "Fluoride Contents of Enamel of Sound and Carious
Teeth: A Reinvestigation," J.
Dental Res., vol. 42 (1963), p. 133. Cited in Waldbott, A Struggle with Titans, p. 119. As we
shall see, fluoride's ability to poison enzymes has long been fingered by scientists as a main pathway of its various toxic
effects. 7.
252 MOTES
TO CHAPTER 2 / PP. 17-20 8. Fluoridation has been routinely used by
bureaucrats to win tax dollars for
the NIH and private research institutions. For example, while seeking
funding for the entire NIH,
Director Dr. Harold Varmus said in 1994 testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor,
Health and Human Services, Education and
Related Agencies, that fluoridation had been the most cost-effective
health advance in the history of
the NIH. Cited in letter from Gert Quigley of the Forsyth Institute to
National Affairs Committee
Cohorts, American Association for Dental Research, April 25, 1994. The Quigley memo, presumably reflecting
how Varmus's comments had once again
endorsed the worth of funding fluoride dental research, is titled
"It couldn't have been better
if we had written the script." The following month, May 1994, Mullenix was
fired from Forsyth. 9. P. M. Mullenix, P. K.
DenBesten, A. Schunior, and W. J. Kernan, "Neuro- toxicity of Sodium Fluoride in
Rats," Neurotoxicology and Teratology, vol. 2 ( 1995), pp. 169-177. (Teratology means "the study of
malformations.") 10.
Letter from Harald Loe, NIDR, to Jack Hein, October 23, 1990. 11. The mixed messages continued.
Another official 1996 communication to Mullenix from NIH, rejecting a grant application, nevertheless
stated, "The proposal addresses an
extremely important question related to public health — whether the
officially recommended safe levels
of fluoride intake pose risks of adverse health effects, especially impairment of central nervous
system function." Cheryl Kitt, PhD,
Neurological Disorders and Stroke, to Mullenix, "Clinical Sciences
Special Emphasis Panel,"
August 15, 1996. 12. That
was not the impression of Professor Albert Burgstahler. The University of
Kansas chemist was a member of the
official review committee that examined Mullenix's proposal for NIH funding for further studies. He is also the
author of several scientific
papers and books on the injurious health effects of small amounts of
fluoride and is a past president
of the International Society for Fluoride Research. Dr. Burgstahler blamed
fear of a "loss of face"
at the Public Health Service and among other scientists on the review committee for rejecting her research
request. In a letter, July 11, 1996, Burgstahler wrote to Dr. Antonio Noronha of the NIH,
"You are well aware of the enormous amount of controversy and sensitivity to loss of face that surrounds
the issue of the Mullenix proposal
and the very upsetting character of the work she has published on the 5oth anniversary of the start of
fluoridation in the United States and Canada." He asked, "If any member of the Special Review
Committee were to have given a more favorable rating to the proposal, and their names became known to
those in funding-decision levels
of the USPHS ... might they not risk jeopardizing further funding from
the USPHS for having supported a
proposal for research that has already revealed serious errors in USPHS thinking and policy regarding the
health hazards of current levels of fluoride exposure in the general population?" NOTES To CHAPTER 3 /
PP. 23-31 253 13. M. Hertsgaard and P. Frazer, "Are
We Brushing Aside Fluoride's Dangers?" Salon.com, February 17, 1999, http://www.salon. com/news/1999/o2/17news. html. 14. Tony Volpe and Sal
Mazzanobile, who had attended the fluoride toxicity meeting in Jack Hein's office, were installed
as Overseers. Forsyth Dental Center brochure, undated, p. 10.
15. Hodge's boss, Manhattan Project Captain John L. Ferry, is the memo's
author. Colonel Warren approved
the request the same day and allocated a budget of $7,500. Md 3, Md 700, General Essays, Lectures,
Medical Report, Box 34, Manhattan Engineer District Accession #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG 326.
(Hodge's two-part research
proposal, however, listed as an enclosure " Outline — proposed
research project — nervous effects
of T and F products," is missing from the files.) At Rochester during the cold war,
"The toxicology studies were very comprehensive. They were looking for toxic effects on the bone, the blood,
and the nervous system. . . .
Without the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb, we wouldn't know
anywhere near as much as we do
about the physiological effects of fluoride." Interview with Bob Woffinden and Mark Watts, Channel Four
(UK) Transcript, 1997.
Chapter 3 1 . Family
data from Danish newspaper clippings in Roholm family scrapbook, read in translation by Roholm's
daughter-in-law, Karin Roholm. Personal meeting in New York, May 2001. 2. Brun was then ninety-five years old. He published a
paper with Roholm on fluoride
excretion in workers' urine. Nordisk Medicin, vol. 9 (1941), pp. 810 -
814. Also found at: George C.
Brun, H. Buchwald, and Kaj Roholm, "Die Fluorausscheidung im Harn bei chronischer Fluorvergiftung von
Kryoli-tharbeitern," Acta Medico Scandinavica, vol. CVI, fasc. Ill (1941). Citation,
photocopy of paper, and several Roholm biographical details provided by Donald Jerne of the Danish Library of
Medicine. 3. J. H. Simons,
ed., Fluorine Chemistry, vol. IV (New York and London: Academic Press, 1965), p. vii. 4. Fluorine Chemistry, vol. IV, p. viii. Roholm's memberships
included The Society for Health
Care, The Younger Doctors' Committee for Continuation Courses in Socialized Medicine, The Danish Association for
the Prevention of Venereal Disease, a
Committee to Organize a Permanent Hygiene Exhibition, and the
Pharmacopeial Revision Committee.
Letter to author on January 3 1 , 2002, from Donald Jerne, medical adviser, The Danish National Library of
Science and Medicine. 5.
Letter from Frank J. McClure (U.S. National Institute of Dental Research) to 6.
Lisa Broe Christiansen (Roholm's
daughter) on September 19, 1956. (Let-ter provided to author by daughter-in-law Karin Roholm.) 7. For history of
cryolite exploitation, see K. E.
Roholm, Fluorine Intoxication: A Clinical-Hygienic Study, with a Review of
the Literature and Some 254 NOTES TO CHAPTER 3 /
PP. Experimental
Investigation (London: H. K. Lewis and Co. Ltd., 1937) and R. K. Leavitt, "Prologue to Tomorrow: A History of
the First Hundred Years in the Life of the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company" (The
Pennsylvania Salt Company, 1950).
The Danish state owned the Greenland cryolite. There were only two
buyers, the Oresund Chemical Works
of Copenhagen and the Pennsylvania Salt Company of Philadelphia, who held a valuable monopoly for Danish
cryolite in the United States and
Canada. 7. P. F. Moller
and Sk. V. Gudjonsson, "Massive Fluorosis of Bones and Liga- ments," Acta radio, vol. 13
(1932), p. 269. 8. Kaj
Roholm, Fluorine Intoxication, pp. 192 and 205. 9. Ibid., pp. 150, 202, 143, and fig 26. to. Ibid., pp. 142-143, and 178.
The U.S. nuclear worker Joe Harding, who suffered from fluoride poisoning, might have
recognized this kind of skeletal poisoning; bony outgrowths covered Harding's palms and feet. No American
doctor diagnosed these bony
outgrowths as a symptom of fluorine intoxication, despite Harding's work
in the fluoride gaseous diffusion
plant. See chapter 18. See also Joe Harding interview: In 1970, I also began noticing
and developing something else that was very unusual and new. I had always had perfectly normal and good
fingernails and toenails and never
any trouble with them. But, along during the summer and fall of 1970, I got some sore places on the
balls of my thumb tips and fingertips,
where your fingerprints are, that felt like I had maybe stuck a thorn or
a splinter real down deep into
them. When I would rub my other finger over it, I could feel it way down in there, but yet I
couldn't see anything. These kept getting a little more sore, and finally, when the soreness got up near enough
to the surface, I kind of dug in.
I found something kind of like a piece of fingernail sticking through there. This was very, very
painful. I would trim it off back just about as deep as I could reach. It would come back again. It really
didn't dawn on me for sure just
what this might be at first. But, it didn't take too long till I began to realize that from over on the other
side, near the base of my regular fingernails, I was growing fingernails straight through my fingers and
coming out on the wrong side. This
was pretty painful. I had these on my thumbs and three or four of my fingers. This was the beginning
of another very unusual thing for me,
which I will talk more about later. ... In 1971, then, I was still
working in the 35 control room,
and knee and lungs and hemoglobin in my blood all about the same, skin slowly worse, this
fingernail business a little worse, and by this spring, I first noticed that I had something
sore under the arch of my right foot. And then I had something getting sore up on the top of the arch bone
of my right foot. As time got on,
I discovered, I suppose you would call these toenails growing out from under the arch of my right foot,
and out under the peak of the arch bone of my
NOTES TO C H A P T E R 3 / PP. 32—33 255 right foot. It was pretty hard for me to
keep my shoe tied very tight on that
one, and I had to keep digging these things out. (Interview with
Dolph Honicker, tape 13.) 11. Roholm, Fluorine
Intoxication, pp. 138-139. The Dane especially noted an ill ness called neurasthenia, a condition
defined as "an emotional and psychic
disorder that is characterized by impaired functioning in interpersonal
rela tionships and often by
fatigue, depression, feelings of inadequacy, headaches, hypersensitivity to sensory stimulation
(as by light or noise), and psycho
somatic symptoms (as disturbances of digestion and circulation)"
(ref on pp. 178 and 193).
Definition in Webster's New World Collegiate Dictionary (New York: Pocket Star Books, 1990). 12. While this field had been
"little explored," Roholm added, "it is extremely probable that fluorine acts on the
metabolism in various ways and that the symptoms of chronic intoxication have a complicated genesis."
Roholm, Fluorine Intoxication, p.
286. 13. J. Crichton-Browne,
"An Address on Tooth Culture," Lancet, vol. 2 (1892), p. 6. Crichton-Browne wrote, "I think it
well worthy of consideration whether the
reintroduction into our diet, and especially into the diet of
childbearing women and of
children, of a supplement of fluorine in some natural form ... might not
do something to fortify the teeth
of the next generation."
14. E. V. McCollum, N. J. E. Simmonds, and R. W. Bunting, "The
Effect of Addition of Fluorine to
the Diet of the Rat on the Quality of the Teeth," J. Biol. Chem.,vol. 63 (1925), p. 553. 15. For more fluoride in bad
teeth, see K. E. Roholm, Fluorine Intoxication, p. 150. In mother's milk, ibid., p. 199. Earlier speculation from J.
Crichton-Browne "An Address on Tooth Culture," was tested experimentally and rejected by
McCollum, Simmonds, and Bunting in "The Effect of Addition of Fluorine," J. Biol. Chem. Roholm cited
both references in his
bibliography. The folk notion persisted, however, that fluorine might
help teeth. See the suggestions
that apparently followed the Alcoa chemist H. V. Churchill's announcement that fluorine caused dental mottling.
"At the very meeting where Churchill announced his discovery of large amounts of fluorine in a water supply
which caused ugly mottling of
teeth a chemist from Hollywood, California, said he felt there must be a
threshold point up to which
fluorine was desirable. ... In June 1931, a fellow townsman of Churchill's, a dentist, suggested that
fluorine might prevent dental cavities." Donald McNeil, The Fight for Fluoridation (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1957), p. 37. 16
Roholm, Fluorine Intoxication, p. 315. 17. Ibid., p. 321. Further, "Every form of
fluorine ingestion is counter-indicated in children when the permanent teeth are calcifying,"
Roholm wrote on p. 31 1. 18.
Ibid., vi. Also, e-mail, March 8, 2001, to author from Donald Jerne,
medical advisor, Danish National
Library of Science and Medicine. 256 NOTES TO CHAPTER 3 / PP. 33-35 19. Volcanic activity
in the United States also brings fluoride to the surface. The Old Faithful geyser in
Yellowstone National Park shoots forth steam and water poisoned with extraordinarily high levels of
fluoride (20 ppm.) See: J. Cholak, "Current Information on the Quantities of Fluoride Found in Air,
Food, and Water" (Kettering
Symposium, 1957), RAK Collection. 20. In North Africa, scientists blamed fluoride in the
soil for crippling local
people, Roholm learned. Speder: L'Osteopetrose generalize out
"Marm-morskelett" n'est
pas une maladie rare. Sa frequence dans l'intoxication fluoree." J.
Radiol. Electrol., vol. 20 (1936),
p. 1, and J. Belgo Radiol., vol. 140 (1936). In parts of the world today such skeletal fluorosis is endemic. In
India, for example, thousands of fresh-water wells drilled by the United Nations during the International Water
Decade of the 1980s — to improve
local access to clean water and better sanitation — have instead produced
a public-health crisis, with many
thousands now suffering from skeletal fluorosis. " The problem is enormous,
unbelievable," noted Andezhath Susheela, of the Fluorosis Research and Rural Development Foundation
in Delhi. Quoted in Fred Pearce, "Wells That Bring Nothing But Ills," Guardian (UK), August 2,
1998. See also, Omer Farooq, BBC
correspondent in Hyderabad, "Indian Villagers Crippled by Fluoride,"
BBCi, UK Edition, News Front Page
News, April 7, 2003. 21.
Roholm, Fluorine Intoxication, p. 297. 22. H. Ost, "The Fight Against Injurious
Industrial Gases," Ztschr. Agnew. Chem. ,vol. 20(19o7),pp. 1689-1693. 23. K. Roholm, "The Fog
Disaster in the Meuse Valley, 1930: A Fluorine Intoxi- cation," J. Hygiene and
Toxicology (March 1937), p. 131.
24. "In the industrial smoke problem investigators have been
interested mostly in the very
frequent occurrence of sulfurous waste products ... but little in
fluorine," Roholm remarked.
But fluorine compounds were much more toxic that the sulfur compounds, he explained, while
"man is more sensitive to fluorine than other mammals." K. Roholm, "The Fog Disaster in the
Meuse Valley, 1930: A Fluorine
Intoxication," p. 126. Also, G. L. Waldbott, "Fluoride Versus
Sulfur Oxides in Air
Pollution," Fluoride, vol. 7, no. 4 (October 1974), pp.
174-176. 25. "The
immense masses of soot and dust emanating from the works have served to promote condensation.
Fluorine compounds must have been present in dissolved form in microscopic particles of water and
consequently in a very active and
easily absorbable form." He added, "It is quite probable that
the affection from which these
people suffered was an acute intoxication by gaseous fluorine compounds emanating from certain factories in the
region." K. Roholm, "The Fog Disaster in the Meuse Valley," p. 126. 26. Ibid., p. 133. 27. H. Christiani and R. Gautier,
Am. Med. Legale, vol. 94 (1926), p. 821. Cited in F. DeEds, "Chronic Fluorine Intoxication: A Review,"
Medicine, vol. XII, no. 1 (1933).
Roholm, Fluorine Intoxication, pp. 38-39. P. Bardelli and C. Menzani,
"Richerche sulla fluorosis
spontanea dei ruminanti," Ann. DTgiene, vol. 45 NOTES TO CHAPTER 3 I PP. 35-37 257 (1935) , p. 399. For worker
conditions, see A. W. Frostad, "Fluorforgiftning hos norske aluminiumfabrikkarbejdere,"
Tiskr. F. Den norske I acgefor, vol. 56 (1936) , p. 179. Both cited in Roholm. 28. Roholm, Fluorine
Intoxication, p. 37. 29.
Roholm, "The Fog Disaster in the Meuse Valley," p. 136. 30. Roholm, Fluorine
Intoxication, p. 310. "Physicians should be obliged to notify all diseases acquired while working
with fluorine compounds. This is only
practiced in USSR and Sweden, where all occupation diseases are notifiable." Roholm notes the Soviet practice
approvingly: "In the labour legislation of the USSR great consideration is given to personnel working with
fluorine compounds (shorter days,
extra holidays, lower pension age, increased pension in the event of invalidity)." See, however, the
probable unhappy fate of gaseous diffusion workers in Russia's nuclear program, in David Holloway, Stalin and
the Bomb (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1994), pp. 189-195. 31. Roholm, Fluoride Intoxication, p. 321. Drug
reference at p. 311. 32. The
Buhl foundation gives grants for education, economics, recreation, and social research. It was established in
1927 by Henry Buhl Jr., owner of Pittsburgh's Boggs and Buhl department store. Weidlein wrote to Charles Lewis,
director of the Buhl Foundation,
on March 25, 1935: "This investigation was in its origin a part of the
Sugar Institute's Industrial
Fellowship work but this phase of that problem is no longer related to sugar." Folder 8, Dental Study
1935, Box 32, Buhl Foundation Records, Library and Archives Division, Historical Society of Western
Pennsylvania. 33. The estimate of
Gauley Bridge deaths is conservative, according to Martin Cherniak's
epidemiological study in his The
Hawks Nest Incident (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986). For both the scale of the legal threat
facing corporations and the key role of the Mellon Institute, see especially D. Ros-ner and G. Markowitz,
Deadly Dust: Silicosis and the
Politics of Occupational Disease in Twentieth-Century America
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1991). For the essential obfuscatory and public relations
role of the Mellon Institute in
the silicosis debate, see also Rachel Scott, Muscle and Blood (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc.,
1974). 34. John F. McMahon
to Ray Weidlein, January 16, 1939, Carnegie Mellon Archives, cited in Deadly Dust, p. 107. 35. See chapter 4 of Deadly Dust
for fuller description of Ray Weidlein's key leadership role in forming the Air Hygiene Foundation
and shaping its agenda. The
Foundation — renamed the Industrial Hygiene Foundation in 1941 —
would continue to exert a powerful
corporate influence in the national debate over air pollution and occupational hazards, including a key early
role in the Donora tragedy. 36. E. R. Weidlein, "Plan
for Study of Dust Problems," cited in Deadly Dust, p. 108. 37. Paul Gross, Lewis J. Cralley, and Robert T. P.
DeTreville, "Asbestos Bodies:
Their Nonspecificity," Am. Industrial Hygiene Assoc. J. (November-December 1967), pp. 541-542. 258 3 / P. 38 38. An excellent
discussion of the role of Paul Gross and the Mellon Institute in the asbestos story — including
the dissent of his fellow scientists — can be found in Rachel Scott, Muscle and Blood, pp.
185-189. 39. For scale of
asbestos damage awards, see New York Times, December 31, 2002, section C, p. i. Further,
recent big asbestos court trials, which have awarded huge sums to plaintiffs, have cited
Industrial Hygiene Foundation documents. 40. Alcoa's Francis Frary sat on the membership
committee, and the prominent
fluoride attorney Theodore C. Waters was a member of the Air Hygiene Foundation's legal committee. An August 30, 1956,
letter to Waters from Alcoa's attorney Frank Seamans illustrates their mutual interest in fluoride:
" You will recall the occasion of our meeting together in Washington with a group of lawyers who
have clients interested in the
fluorine problem, at which time we were discussing the U.S. Public Health Service." Waters was also sent information on the
1953 Kettering Fluoride Symposium. See note attached to symposium program, in Kettering files, RAK
Collection. 41. Dr. Paul
Bovard, "Radiologic Considerations," Symposium on Fluorides, May 13, 1953, paper, p. 2, in
Kettering Institute, RAK Collection. 42. G. D. Smith, From Monopoly to Competition: The
Transformation of Alcoa (
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 165 and 175. 43. Russell D. Parker,
"Alcoa, Tennessee; the Early Years, 1919-1939," The East Tennessee Historical Society, vol. 48
(1946), p. 88. Also, "It was in the hot pot- rooms of the South Plant — in the smelting or reduction
process — that blacks were to be
employed on a permanent basis." Smith, From Monopoly to Com petition, p. 176. Conditions at Massena
were so horrendous for workers, and
management was so indifferent to their fate, that one young MIT
graduate, Arthur Johnson, quit in
disgust, he told Smith. Also, in May and June 1948, scientists from the Kettering Laboratory at the University
of Cincinnati dis covered serious
injury and disability among workers in another Alcoa plant, at Niagara Falls, New York. The factory
had been producing aluminum since
1912. The investigators confirmed just how dangerous the Alcoa plant
had long been. "There can be
no doubt that hazardous exposure to fluorides is ( and for years has been) present," stated a scientist
for Kettering, Dr. Wil liam Ashe.
He studied 128 men in the "pot" room where the aluminum was smelted: "The most outstanding
characteristic of this group," Ashe reported, " is the occurrence of 91 cases of
fluorosis of the bone." At least thirty-three of these X-rayed workers "showed evidences of disability
ranging in estimated degree up to
loo percent," Ashe concluded. His findings paralleled Kaj Roholm' s study of cryolite workers in Denmark.
Serious tooth decay, gum disease,
and heart problems were common in the Alcoa workers; the scientists added that "an abnormal amount of
lung fibrosis among the employees of the
pot room was found." Also, "one sees hypertrophic changes in
bone along the shafts of the long
bones, along the crests of the ilia, the ribs, and the rami of the ischium, in the form of
stalagmite-like excrescences which appear
similar to changes seen in experimental animals with bone fluorosis.
The NOTES TO
CHAPTER 3 / P. 39
259
interosseous membranes are often ossified. These changes, in no way
related to arthritic processes,
are believed to be due solely to fluorosis and to indicate that changes about joints may be
expected in this disease. Therefore, when
one finds, in cases of severe fluorosis of the bone, limitation of
motion of the elbow and the X-ray
reveals exostoses of unusual density about the elbow, one is probably entirely justified in concluding that the
deformity and dysfunction are due
to fluorosis, and that disability exists in association with and because of this disease, whether or
not the man is aware of it, and
whether or not he continues to do his job at the plant." Aluminum
Company of America, Niagara Falls
Works Health Survey, p. 13, File 4, Box 82, RAK Collection. The Kettering team included the scientist
William F. Ashe, who five months
later would lead the confidential Kettering investigation of the Donora air pollution disaster. Ashe
would receive secret autopsy blood tests
from Donora victims, performed by Alcoa, showing high levels of
fluoride. The membership of
committees of the National Research Council is a guide to some of these relationships: Both Frary
and Kettering were members of a 44.
Joint Committee, for example, representing the NRCs Science
Advisory Board, advising on
railway policy. Other members were Frank Jewett, vice president, AT&T; E. K. Bolton, chemical director,
DuPont; John Johnston, director of
research, U.S. Steel; and Isaiah Bowman, chairman of the NRC and director of the American
Geographical Society. Charles Kettering papers, Office Files, Box 96, 87-n.2-296b, and 296f, Scharchburg
Archives. Frary was also a poison
gas expert, making phosgene poison for the Oldbury Chemical Company in Niagara Falls, before working for the
U.S. Army during 45. World
War I and then joining Alcoa. See G. D. Smith, op. cit. Also, Margaret B. W. Graham and Bettye H. Pruitt,
R&D for Industry: A Century of Techni
cal Innovation at Alcoa (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1990). F. DeEds,
"Chronic Fluorine Intoxication — A Review," Medicine, vol. XII, no.
1 (1933). On industry, F. DeEds:
"The possibility of a fluorine hazard should, 46. therefore, be recognized in industry where this
element is dealt with or where it
is discharged into the air as an apparently worthless by-product. For
instance it has been shown by
Cristiani and Gautier that the gases evolved at alumi num plants, using cryolite as a raw material, contain
sufficient quantities of fluorine
to cause an increased fluorine content of the neighboring vegetation, and that cattle feeding on such
vegetation develop a cachetic condition," p. 2. His reference is to H. Cristiani and R. Gautier, Am. Med.
Legale, vol. 6 (1926), p. 336.
Further, DeEds calculated that each year 25,000 tons of pure fluorine was "pouring into the atmosphere"
from the U.S. superphosphate fertilizer
industry alone. He was concerned about where all the fluorine added to
soil as phosphate fertilizer ended
up. "Assuming an average fluorine content of 4 percent for phosphate rock, and that 75 percent of the
fluorine remains in the
superphosphate used as fertilizer, it is seen that 90,000 tons of
fluorine are being added annually
to the top soil. This sizeable quantity gives pause for thought of the potential toxicities
concerned therewith." DeEds did not 26o NOTES T o CHAPTER 3 / P. 39 include the 1933
report of thickened bones in Danish cryolite workers, by P. F. Moller and Sk. V.Gudjonsson, which prompted
Roholm's massive study and determination of fluorine intoxication. P. F. Moller and Sk. V. Gudjonsson,
" A Study of 78 Workers
Exposed to Inhalation of Cryolite Dust," J. Ind. Hyg., vol. 15
(1933), p. 27. 47. One of
those studies had been done by Alcoa's H. V. Churchill, who found dental mottling and high levels
of fluoride in the well water of Bauxite, Arkansas. Churchill's study was reported in 1931, the same year H.
Velu in North Africa and the
Smiths in Arizona made the same discovery. (Very curious are the
apparently unsuccessful efforts by
"Pittsburgh interests" to fund the Smith study in Arizona. That fragmented history is related in
McNeil, The Fight for Fluoridation, p. 3 1 .) H. Velu, "Le Darmous (oudermes)," Arch Inst.
Pasteur d' Algerie, vol. 10, no. 4 1 (1932). 48. "As requested in your letter of June 8th, we
have questioned three of our
local dentists as to the prevalence of cases of mottled enamel in
Massena. All of the dentists
stated that they have treated such cases here." Exchange of letters
between V. C. Doerschuk, Massena
Works, and H. V. Churchill, Aluminum Research Laboratories, June 1931, in Alcoa letters, McNeil
Collection, Wisconsin Historical Society. 49. See exchange of letters between H. V. Churchill
and C. F. Drake of the City of
Pittsburgh Bureau of Water, June 1931. Drake had noted the
"Pittsburgh spasmodic
fluorine content which appears to have no explanation." He informed
Churchill that "an industrial
plant not far from New Kensington had been discharging fluorine in the Allegheny River. The officials of that
plant discontinued such discharge when
requested." Several glass and steel plants were in the vicinity of New
Kensington. H. V. Churchill
responded, tellingly, "the presence of fluorine in water is apparently
not necessarily proof of
industrial contamination since it occurs in small amounts in so many water supplies." (In Alcoa
letters, McNeil collection, Wisconsin Historical Society.) In 1950, Alcoa was fined for dumping
fluoride waste at Vancouver, Washington, into the Columbia River, Seattle Times, December 16, 1952. ( Cited in
Waldbott et al., Fluoridation: The
Great Dilemma (Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press, 1978), p. 296.) 50. The following decade, an
English scientist, Margaret Murray, would call similar dental mottling found near an aluminum smelter
in the United Kingdom "neighborhood
fluorosis." M. Murray and D. Wilson, "Fluorine Hazards,"
Lancet, December 7, 1946, p. 822.
Referring to studies near an aluminum factory in Scotland, they wrote, "In
the same part of Inverness-shire
we found that the local water supply had a very low fluorine content (0. 2 ppm), but we observed
"moderate" dental fluorosis in the milk teeth of young children whose homes lay within
the district contaminated by vapours from the factory chimneys. Such a condition in the temporary dentition
is usually associated with a high
maternal intake of fluorine. Children using the same water, whose homes lay
outside the affected area, did not
show the mottled enamel." N OTES TO CHAPTER 3 I P. 39 261 Mottled teeth in
children in the factory town of Donora, Pennsylvania, in 1948 was also blamed by Philip Sadtler on fluoride
smoke and fumes ( author interview),
an association that was confirmed around the country by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA)
in 1970. The USDA report states: "Where ever domestic animals exhibited fluorosis, several
cases of human fluorosis were reported, the symptoms of which were one or more of the following: dental
mottling, respiratory distress,
stiffness in the knees or elbows or both, a skin lesion, or high levels of F
in teeth or urine [six references
cited]. Man is much more sensitive that domestic animals to F intoxication." R. J. Lillie, "Air
Pollutants Affecting the Performance of
Domestic Animals. A Literature Review," Agricultural Research
Service, U.S. Dept. Agric.
Handbook, no. 38o (Washington, DC, August 1970). Mottling was also seen in children living near DuPont's
wartime fluoride operation at
Penns Grove, New Jersey. A scientitst active on the Manhattan Project, Harold
Hodge, was quick to blame fluoride
in water supplies. Roholm reported dental mottling in the children of fluoride workers. Their
mothers had transported it from the workplace in breast milk. See Fluorine Intoxication, p. 199. The Cornell
veterinarian Lennart Krook also
sent me photographs of mottled teeth from children on the Akwesasne Mohawk reservation, near the Reynolds
aluminum smelter in upstate New York. The
notoriously close-knit international aluminum industry could follow
accounts of litigation following
World War I, which alleged fluoride dam-age 51. outside an aluminum smelter in Switzerland. They
could read the slew of new medical information about chronic health effects, summarized by DeEds. Or they
could look inside their own
factories. A 1932 study published in English had found
"fluorosis" in cryolite workers in Denmark. (P. F. Moller and Sk. V. Gudjonsson, "Massive
Fluorosis of Bones and
Ligaments," Acta radiol, vol. 13 [1932], p. 269.) Sickness was
reported in a Norwegian aluminum
smelter in 1936: A. W. Frostad, "Fluorforgiftning hos norske aluminiumfab-rikkarbejdere," Tiskr.
F. Den norske Legefor, vol. 56 (1936), p. 179. The following year an investigation at DuPont found
"high" fluoride levels in workers' urine. (Letter from Willard Machle, MD, of the University of
Cincinnati to Dr. E. E. Evans, Dye
Works Hospital, Penns Grove, New Jersey, December 28, 1937, DuPont file, Kettering Papers, RAK Collection.) And
a confidential 1948 study of Alcoa's plant at Niagara Falls, New York, confirmed that horribly crippled
workers were the result of a
fluoride dust hazard that had existed for years. Alcoa may also have
faced liability in its flurospar
mines. The Franklin Fluorspar Company was an Alcoa subsidiary (see Mellon's Millions, The Biography of a
Fortune: The Life and Times of Andrew
W. Mellon, by Harvey O'Conner [New York: Blue Ribbon Books, Inc., 1933],
P . 390). Fluorspar miners in
Hardin County, Illinois, wrote to Alice Hamilton about their plight. See Deadly Dust, 8o, fn lo: D. Rosner
and G. Markowitz. The entire issue of how
much fluoride contributed to industrial silicosis, or how much fluorosis
was misdiagnosed as silicosis, is
beyond the scope of
262 3 /
P. 40 this book.
Fluoride was widely used in the foundry place and is found in much mineral ore. 52. By the end of 1935 Gerald Cox's tooth study at the
Mellon Institute was not
going well. Despite the spring press release trumpeting the imminent
discovery of a "factor"
preventing decay, Cox's data still "did not reveal any positive
effects," he stated in a
confidential memo to the Institute's director, Ray Weidlein. On March 24,
1936, almost a year after his Buhl
Foundation study had begun, Cox reported to Weidlein that feeding a milk extract, known as XXX
liquor, to rats had failed to find the positive results claimed in the previous year's press release.
"The data at that time did not reveal any positive effects," Cox told Weidlein, and required
therefore "intensive work to
re-score all of our sets of teeth. With the new and discriminating
system, we have been able to show
some positive effects." In April 1936, following Francis Frary's
September 1935 suggestion that
fluoride had a role in dental health, Cox announced to his Buhl Foundation sponsors that he was
proposing to "investigate the effects of dietary fluorine on caries susceptibility." See
Mellon Institute Special Report, April 6, 1936, "A study of Tooth Decay," marked Confidential.
Cox later claimed, somewhat confus-ingly, that the XXX liquor had contained enough fluorine "to explain
the beneficial effects of the early experiments in which it was fed to the mothers." Buhl
Foundation Records, Box 33, Folder
7, Dental Study 1936, Library and Archives Division, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. 53. The letter linking Alcoa's
Francis Frary to Gerald Cox's historic suggestion that fluoride was responsible for good teeth was found in
McNeil's personal papers. Cox to
author Donald McNeil, August 19, 1956. "The first time I ever gave fluorine a thought was in answer
to a question of Dr. Francis C. Frary,
who was at that time and until about three or four years ago, Director
of Research at Alcoa. He asked if
our finding, — I was the speaker in the Sep tember 1935 meeting of the Pittsburgh Section of the
American Chemical Society — of
less caries in rats from mothers on XXX liquor could be due to fluorine." File ADA 53-56, McNeil
Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society. Whether this is indeed the first time Cox wondered
about the usefulness of fluoride
in preventing tooth decay is not clear. It is clear, however, that the
aluminum industry had been mulling
the idea for a while. In the 193 1 letter to C. F. Drake, cited above, H.
V. Churchill of Alcoa stated that
fluorine in low doses "may be positively beneficial." 54- E. R. Weidlein, Ind. Eng. Chem.,
News Ed., vol. 15 (1937), p.147. See also G. J. Cox, "Experimental Dental Caries. I. Nutrition in Relation
to the Development of Dental
Caries," Dental Rays, vol. 13 (1937), pp. 8-10, and
"Discussion," JAMA, vol. 113
(1938), p. 1753. 55.
Cox et al., "Resume of the Fluorine-Caries Relationship," Fluorine
and Dental Health, Publication of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, no. 19 (1942): "The first experimental
results, using sodium fluoride were obtained in August 1937." NOTES TO CHAPTER 3 / PP. 40-41 263 56. P. C. Lowery to
C. F. Kettering, April 25, 1936, filed by letter and year, Office Files, Personal
Correspondence, Scharchburg Archive. 57. DuPont had become so wealthy selling munitions
during World War I that the company
had bought a controlling interest in General Motors. The giant enterprise was only pried apart in the
1950s, following federal antitrust action. 58. D. Rosner and G. E. Markowitz, Deceit and Denial:
The Deadly Politics of
Industrial Pollution (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2002). 59. "Organized
Opposition ... Particularly by the American Standards Asso ciation and the New York City Fire
Department," Report on Operations of
Kinetic Chemicals, Inc., from 1930 through 1943, p. 15. Including
"History of Development of
Fluorine Chemicals from 1928 through 1930," for pre sentation to the General Motors Policy
Committee, by Donaldson Brown.
Prepared by E. F. Johnson and E. R. Godfrey, October 1944. Files of
Charles Kettering, Scharchburg
Archive. Also, "Freon
... coming in contact with open flames will decompose and you get a certain amount of fluorine and a
certain amount of chlorine, and you also,
just by happen-stance, get a slight amount of phosgene." Direct
examination of DuPont director
Willis Harrington, chairman of Kinetic Chemicals. United States vs. DuPont, Civil Action No. 49 C-1071,
p. 3922 (U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, 1953). There were other concerns, as well. The
manufacture of Freon required huge
quantities of the extraordinarily corrosive and toxic hydrofluoric acid,
and "high" levels of
fluoride were soon reported in DuPont workers' urine. Willard Machle, MD, of
the University of Cincinnati to
Dr. E. E. Evans, Dye Works Hospital, Penns Grove, New Jersey, December 28, 1937, DuPont file, Kettering Papers,
RAK Collection. 6o. Kehoe et al.,
"A Study of the Health Hazards Associated with the Distribution and Use of
Ethyl Gasoline" (April 1928),
from the Eichberg Laboratory of Physiology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, National
Archives RG 70, 101869, File 725; cited in Rosner and Markowitz, Deceit and Denial, p. 313. Kehoe's essential
hypothesis, that low levels of
lead in blood were safe and normal, was undercut in the late 196os by the
scientist Clair Patterson of the
California Institute of Technology, who examined polar ice and concluded that industrialization had
greatly increased lead in the human environment. Kehoe's defense of lead safety was dealt a coup de grace in
the 19705 by Harvard's Herbert
Needleman, whose studies with children showed lead to be far more toxic
than Kehoe had claimed. For Kehoe's contribution to
industry profitability, see L. P. Snyder, ""The Death Dealing Smog Over Donora,
Pennsylvania': Industrial Air Pollution, Public Health, and Federal Policy, 1915-1963 1994 PhD
thesis available from University
Microfilms. See especially chapter 5. Also, J. L. Kitman, "The
Secret History of Lead," The
Nation, March 20, 2000. See also chapter 8 of this book for further discussion of lead. 264 NOTES TO CHAPTER 3 /
PP. 41^2 61. W.
F. Ashe, "Robert Arthur Kehoe, M.D.," Archives of Environmental
Health, vol. 13 (August
1966), p. 139. Cited in Snyder.
62. Ethyl had been established by Standard Oil and General Motors to
market TEL. 63. "Studies of the
Combination Products of Di-Fluoro-Dichloro Methane" and " Notes on the Toxicity of Decomposition
Products from Dichlorodi-
fluoromethane" in Kettering Unpublished Reports, vol. I.d., RAK
Collection. Kehoe dismisses the
risk from phosgene, arguing that the presence of irritating HF acid would force prompt evacuation from the
danger zone. He does not address
the risk to firefighters or to subjects unable to flee the gases. 'The only experimental situation which
has been found to be responsible for
the production of significant proportions of phosgene in the
decomposition products of CC1 F
was the result of rapid discharge of the refrigerant in high concentration, through the flame of an
oil fire in an enclosed chamber —
that is, the conditions were those of a conflagration. Situations
which correspond to those which
might develop from a leak in a home or build ing, are uniformly found to produce such relatively low
concentrations of phosgene, that
no amount of dilution of the decomposition products could eliminate the irritating and warning
properties of the acids without elimi
nating the toxic effects of phosgene." At a private three-day "Symposium on Fluorides"
given for industry at the Kettering
Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati in May 1953 Kehoe discussed
details of secret human
experiments he had performed to test Freon's toxicity for the U.S.
government during World War II. He
had used himself as one of the gas-chamber test subjects. (See: General Work on Project P.D .R. C. 377
(S E C R E T) for the Office of Scientific Research and Develop ment, U.S. Government Washington, DC,
7_15_43 unpublished Volumes 1-d,
RAK Collection.) Freon produced "unconsciousness after some minutes
of exposure to concentrations of
the order of magnitude of a percent or more," Kehoe recounted. He added, "As the
subject of the experiments carried out at the higher concentrations, I was alarmed, fleetingly, at the point of
rapid ebb of consciousness, being
convinced that the observers outside the chamber were not aware of what
was happening to me. Another
subject, exposed to much lower concentrations, had considerably less assurance than I and became apprehensive
and aggrieved ... he became quite
sure that we were exposing him to a risk which he felt we were concealing from him. "I describe these as yet unpublished
experiments," he told the gathered industry doctors, "since it is something you, as physicians,
should know. It is believed, generally,
that exposure to Freon 12 is of negligible importance, and that the
material is quite harmless. The
significance of the matter relates primarily to the repairman, who can get into situations involving the escape of
the material from equipment into small enclosures. Such a workman may become unconscious and receive serious
physical injury, or even be
killed. It is not true that this is a harmless material. " Kehoe left
unexplained why the repairman
himself should not have the information NOTES TO CHAPTER 3 / PP. 42^3 265 on Freon toxicity.
Several of the papers given at the symposium were later published. Kehoe's was not. 64. Kehoe died in November 1992,
at the age of ninety-nine. An obituary in the Cincinnati Enquirer, November 29, 1992, noted that he
had retired from the Laboratory in
1965. 65. W. Langewiesche,
'American Ground," The Atlantic Monthly (July-August 2002), pp. 44_79. Also published
in full as American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center (New York: North Point Press, 2002). 66. Numerous and multiple
phosgene injuries were reported as a result of chlo- rofluorocarbon decomposition by the Manhattan Project.
Chlorofluorocar-bons were used in
massive quantities in the K-25 plant at Oak Ridge. Freon caused deaths and injuries in the home, too:
"Dahlman encountered two
[poisoning cases] resulting from heating fluorocarbons above the
decomposition temperatures. In the
first case, a mechanic operated with an acetylene torch on a refrigerator leaking Freon 12. He
developed dyspnea, vomiting, and malaise and required hospital treatment for five days. In the second, an
agricultural worker sprayed his
bedroom with aerosol Freon fly spray. He then switched on the electric heater and went to bed. During the
night he developed vomiting, diarrhea, and malaise and died on the following day." T. Dahlmann;
Nord. Hyg. Tidskr., vol. 39
(1958), p. 165. Cited in R. Y. Eagers, Toxic Properties of Inorganic
Fluorine Compounds (Amsterdam and
New York: Elsevier, 1969). (DuPont's New Jersey Chamber Works plant also was blamed for poisoning local
farmers and workers with fluoride
pollution in the 194os.) The ozone-depleting gas was scheduled to be phased out by the 1987 Montreal
Protocol. 67. One Kettering
study monitored fluoride levels in DuPont workers' urine and confirmed that "these
results have been high." Letter from Willard Machle, MD, of the University of Cincinnati to Dr.
E. E. Evans, Dye Works Hospital, Perms
Grove, NJ, December 28, 1937, Report on Operations of Kinetic Chemicals,
Inc., from 1930 through 1943, p.
17, RAK Collection. Including " History of Development of Fluorine Chemicals from 1928 Through
1930," for presentation to
General Motors Policy Committee, by Donaldson Brown. Scharchburg Archive. Freon sales again skyrocketed higher during World War
II, with Freon used as a coolant
in the K-25 gaseous diffusion plant and as a propellant in DDT antimalaria bug bombs. 68. W. Machle et al., 'The Effects of the Inhalation
of Hydrogen Fluoride. I. The
Response to High Concentrations. 2. The Response to Low
Concentrations," J.
Industrial Hygiene, vol. 16, no. 2 (1934), p. 129; and vol. 17, no. 5
(1935), p. 221. 69. The
Advisory Committee on Research in Dental Caries (Daniel F. Lynch, chairman; Charles F. Kettering,
counselor; and William J. Gies, secretary), Dental Caries: Findings and Conclusions on its Causes and Controls.
Stated in 195 Summaries by
Observers and Investigators in Twenty-five Countries, The Research Commission of The American Dental
Association (New York, 1939). 266 NOTES TO CHAPTER 3 / P. 43 70. P. C. Lowery to
C. Kettering, Kettering Office Files 1937, "L", 87-11, 1-412, Scharchburg Archive. 71. 'Armed with a letter from Dr.
Weidlein of Mellon Institute to Mr. A. W. Mellon, he ]Friesell] went to Washington to enlist the support of
the Public Health Service. Mr.
Mellon referred him to Surgeon General Cummings." Letter from H. V.
Churchill of Alcoa to Dr. Frederick
McKay of the Rockefeller Foundation, May 20, 1931, discussing the role of H. E. Friesell, dean of the
University of Pittsburgh's Dental School. Alcoa Documents, Wisconsin Historical Society. Friesell sought to
have naturally occurring dental
fluorosis studied in Arizona, by University of Arizona scientists H. V.
and Margaret Smith (far from the
industrial centers of the East).
See also the letter of August 6, 1930, from C. T. Messner of the Public
Health Service to Friesell:
"You are probably aware of the fact that the U.S. Public Health Service is a Bureau in the Treasury
Department therefore, it might be advisable, especially as our Secretary is from your city, to also urge
his endorsement of this program.
The slightest interest on his part would influence the Service to a great
degree in taking up this problem.
I am sure you will hold this statement in strict confidence . . . after your letter is received here I
will keep you advised as to how things are going along." File 9, Box 2, McNeil Collection, Wisconsin
State Historical Society.
The following year, in the spring of 1931, the same Captain C. T.
Messner at the Public Health
Service told H. Trendley Dean he would be studying mottled enamel. Dean stated that he was
"assigned" to conduct the epide-miological studies that resulted in the key "fluorine caries
hypothesis," — the scientific basis for U.S. water fluoridation. See Don McNeil interview with Dean, May
3, 1955, in File 13, Box 2, McNeil
Collection, Wisconsin State Historical Society. 72. How long Alcoa had known that
fluoride produced dental mottling is not clear. (Alcoa was also concerned that the bad teeth
in its company town of Bauxite would be linked to aluminum salts and further tarnish the public image of
aluminum kitchenware. See McNeil,
The Fight for Fluoridation, p. 27.) Perhaps it was coincidence that the
Alcoa chemist H. V. Churchill's
1931 correlation of bad teeth with fluoride-contaminated well water in the company town of Bauxite
appeared in the scientific press just weeks before separate studies confirming fluoride's link to mottled teeth
were also published (by Smith and
by Velu). What is certain, however, is that as soon as fluoride's links to mottled teeth were public knowledge,
Alcoa privately confirmed that dental fluorosis was also found near its aluminum smelter in Massena, New
York. See earlier note. 73.
H. T. Dean, "Chronic Endemic Dental Fluorosis (Mottled Enamel),"
JAMA, vol. 107 (1936), pp.
1269-1272. 74.
"Ordered" and "hunch" quoted from Don McNeil interview with
Dean, May 3, 1955. Dean told
McNeil that in 1931, before he began his work, he "had a hunch"
there would be fewer cavities in
mottled teeth. McNeil Collection, Box 2, File 13. It is not known how Dean arrived at this hunch.
Nor NOTES TO
CHAPTER 3 / PP. 43^4
267 is it
known whether Dean had been ordered to "discover" some good news
about fluoride. Of interest,
however: the man who gave Dean his marching orders, the PHS's C. T. Messner, was the same
official who, five years later, met in Detroit with the Freon gas magnate Charles Kettering. This meeting
helped to produce the book Dental
Caries, which also favorably introduced many dentists to fluoride. Indeed, Dean's "hunch" flew
in the face of a study done at John Hopkins in 1925 by E. V. McCollum, who was hopeful that
fluoride would strengthen teeth but had
instead concluded that "the results showed, contrary to our
expectations, that the ingestion
of fluorine, in amounts but little above those which have been reported to occur in natural foods, markedly
disturbs the structure of the teeth." E. V. McCollum, N. Simmons, J. E. Becker, and R. W. Bunting, J.
Biol. Chem., vol. 63 (1925), pp.
553-561. 75. H. T. Dean,
"Endemic Fluorosis and Its Relation to Dental Caries," Public Health Rep., vol. 53 (1938), pp.
1443-1452. Also H. T. Dean et al., "Domestic Water and Dental Caries," Pub. Health
Rep., vol. 56 (April If, 1941), pp. 756-792. Dean was cross-examined in the 1960 Schuringa vs. Chicago lawsuit, to
enjoin the city from fluoridating
water supplies. According to the critic Dr. Richard G. Foulkes, Dean,
under cross-examination by Mr.
Dilling and aided by F. B. Exner, a radiologist and critic of fluoridation, was forced to admit that
his early studies of Galesburg, Quincy , Monmouth, and Macomb and his later studies in twenty-one cities of
7,257 children, did not meet his
own criteria of "lifetime exposure" and "unchanged water
supply" and were, therefore,
worthless. Dr. Exner prepared an "Analytical Commentary" on
Dean's testimony. Exner
"refers to the transcript and exhibits that show that not only were
the basic criteria lacking in
Dean's work, but also random variations found in both high and low
fluoride areas cancelled out any
'benefits' that appeared in the high fluoride vs. lower fluoride cities,"according to Foulkes.
State of Wisconsin Circuit Court Fond Du Lac County Safe Water Association, Inc., Plaintiff, vs.
City of Fond Du Lac, Defendant Case No. 92 CV 579, Affidavit of Dr. Richard G. Foulkes in Support of
Motion for Summary Judgment.
76. G. J. Cox, "New Knowledge of Fluorine in Relation to the
Development of Dental Caries."
J. Am. Water Works Assoc., vol. 31 (1939), pp. 1926-1930. PHS regulations for 1939 stated, for example:
"The presence of ... fluoride in excess of 1 ppm . . . shall constitute grounds for the rejection of
water supply." PHS, "Public Health Service Drinking Water Standards," Public Health Rep.,
vol. 58 (1943), pp. 69-1 1 1 (at p.
8o). A tenfold margin of safety required that fluoride in water be no
higher than 1 part per million,
water works engineers agreed. H. E. Babbitt and J. J. Doland, Quality of Water Supplies in Water Supply
Engineering. 3rd Edition (New York: McGraw Hill, 1939), p. 454. Cited in Waldbott et al., Fluoridation: The
Great Dilemma, p. 302.
268 NOTES
TO CHAPTER 4 / PP. 46-47 Chapter 4 1 . Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New
York: Touchstone, 1986). On
p. 605 Rhodes quotes the French chemist Bertrand Goldschmidt, who wrote that the Manhattan Engineering District
was "the astonishing American creation in three years, at a cost of $2 billion, of a formidable array of
factories and laboratories — as large
as the entire automobile industry of the United States at that
date." On congressional
secrecy, L. Groves, Now It Can Be Told (New York: Da Capo, 1962), p.
362. 2. Lt. Col. E. Marsden
to Gen. Groves, December 3, 1943, Memorandum, " Obtaining of Information from C.W.S. on Phosgene,
Fluorine, and Fluorine
Compounds": "It is requested ... for the Medical Section of
the Manhattan District to be in
full possession of all the information on phosgene, fluorine, and fluorine
compounds that is presently in
possession of the War Department." File EIDM D-2-b. MD 723.13 Memo to the Commanding General, Army
Service Forces, Washington, DC, December 3, 1943, from Brigadier General L. R. Groves: "It is
requested that Colonel Stafford L.
Warren, M.C., be authorized to contact the Chief, Chemical Warfare
Service, to obtain all information
that may be available in the files of the Chemical Warfare Service ... on
the detection of, and protection
against, phosgene, fluorine, and fluorine chemicals." EIDM D-2-a. 3. The enrichment factor was 1.0043. Rhodes, The Making
of the Atomic Bomb, p. 340.
At first, the K-25 plant produced only partially enriched uranium, which was further enriched at Eastman Kodak's
Oak Ridge Y-12 plant and then transported as uranium tetrafluoride to Los Alamos. See also Rhodes, 552,
553, and 602. 4. Uranium
hexafluoride quantities: "Considerable amounts of special fluo- rinated chemicals will be
supplied to the K-25 plant," including "Uranium hexafluoride 33 tons per month — required by October
1944." See "Functions of Madison Square Area," Md 319.1, Box 26, Report Madison Square
Accession #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta
FRC, RG 326. Also memo, "Storage Facilities at the Site For C-616,"
where Captain L. C. Burman, Corps
of Engineers, notes a "2150 lb daily requirement" for hexafluoride.
Md 3, Md 700, General Essays,
Lectures, Box 34, Manhattan Engineer District Accession #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. Work
force and power consumption: AEC Handbook
on Oak Ridge Operations (1961), Oak Ridge Public Library. 5. Fresh air: University of
Chicago, Metallurgical Laboratory, October 30, 1942, Memorandum to C. M. Cooper from R. S. Apple. Also,
memorandum: " Medical
Considerations of Work in the Pilot Plant, Philadelphia Naval Yard"
from Col. Warren to Rear Admiral
Mills, October 25, 1944. C-216 refers to the substance referred to as
"fresh air." Md 702.1,
Medical Exams Specimens, Box 54, Medical Considerations Accession #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG
326. "Madison Square
Area functions as the Materials Section of the Manhattan District to obtain special materials. The
principal projects are the location, procurement and refining of uranium ore, preparation of uranium NOTES TO CHAPTER 4 /
P. 47 269 oxide, uranium
hexafluoride and uranium metal, and production of fluori-nated hydrocarbons." "Functions of
Madison Square Area," Md 319.1, Box 26, Report Madison Square Accession #4nn 326-85-005,
Atlanta FRC, RG 326. How well the fluoride secrets were kept, at least from foreign governments, is unclear.
The Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs had
worked on fluorine diffusion at the University of Birmingham in England
and spent several crucial months
in New York in 1944 with the British Diffusion Mission. He gave the Russians key details of the U.S.
fluoride diffusion process, including information about the top-secret sintered nickel barriers
through which the gas diffused. See Holloway, Stalin and the Atomic Bomb, p. 104. 6. See Rhodes, 494 for K-25 size
and complexity. See L. Groves, Now It Can Be Told (New York: Da Capo, 1962), pp. 114-115 for corrosion and
need to " condition"
equipment. Also, at an October 23, 1942, presentation to the S-i
Committee of the OSRD, a precursor
to the Manhattan Project, Mr. Z. G. Deutsch of the Standard Oil company, which was building a pilot
centrifuge plant to separate uranium at
Standard's Bayway refinery in Linden, NJ, stated, "AH development
work, toward a design of plant for
the separation of our isotopes has visualized working with a single material — uranium hexafluoride."
He added, "The principal objection to it is its extreme chemical reactivity." See Manhattan District
History, Book I, vol. 4, chapter
14. 7. On October 19, 1943,
top doctors from the Manhattan Project met in Captain John L. Ferry's Madison Square Area offices in
New York. Harold Hodge from the
University of Rochester was there. So were several doctors from Du Pont,
Chrysler, and the Kellex
Corporation, as well as the top medical officers for the Manhattan Project, including Col. Stafford
Warren. Their secret agenda: "fluorine hazards to workers." Pure fluorine
"would consume the skin and flesh," of exposed men, the doctors were warned. Ordinary protective
clothing was "not satisfactory." A fluorine explosion would produce a terrifying mix of hydrofluoric
acid and "oxygen
fluorides." The acid burn might go undetected for twelve hours but
would be followed by "extreme
pain." Eventually the fluoride "penetrates to the bone, and then will spread along the bone and require
amputation," the doctors were told. No one was then certain what the oxygen fluorides might do. Memo:
Safety and Health Conference on
Hazards of C-216 [code for F] October 19, 1943, Oak Ridge Records Holding Task Group Box 166 Building
2714-H, Vault, #82,761. See
also, for UF6, Union Carbide Safety Bulletin No S-l, June 16, 1945. UF6 breaks down into HF and uranyl fluoride
[UO F ]. The latter, the bulletin notes, "has an action both as a surface irritant and as a poisonous
agent acting internally." "When
inhaled as a fine dust or fume, it readily goes into solution on the
moist linings of the respiratory
tract from which it is readily absorbed ... all of the UOF absorbed from any surface is eliminated by the
kidneys, which causes kidney damage." "Deep penetrating burns" were produced by surface skin
exposure to hydrolysis products,
HF and UOFz, Safety Reports, Bulletins, Box 55, Accession #4nn
326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. 270 NOTES l'O CHAPTER 4 /
Pp. 47-49 8.
"Prior to the existence of the District, elemental fluorine was a
laboratory curiosity."
The Manhattan District Official History, p. 3.13, Book 1 General, vol. 7, Medical Program. For most
reactive element, R. E. Banks, "Isolation of Fluorine by Moissan: Setting the Scene," J.
Fluorine Chem., vol. 33 (1986), pp. 3-26. For action on steel, above reference, "Memo: Safety and Health
Conference on Hazards of C-216"
[code for F], October 19, 1943. "Mild steel valves and pipes have
been used [to handle fluorine] but
it seems that any impurity or foreign substance in the pipe or valve may
be the activating agent to start a
reaction. Dr. Benning [from Du Pont] exhibited a steel valve . . . which had been consumed by
action of C-216. The heat generated by the reaction is tremendous and a considerable flash hazard is
present as the reaction is almost
instantaneous."
9. These companies and their roles are described in greater detail in
The Man- hattan District
Official History, Book 1, General, vol. 7, Medical Program. 10. The liquid was named after
Professor Joseph Simons of Penn State
University, who invented a process known as "electro-chemical
fluorination, " which used
electricity to replace the hydrogen with fluoride in hydrogen- carbon bonds, producing fluorocarbons.
(After the war the technology
would be licensed to the 3M corporation, which would use it to
make, among other things, the
fabric protector Scotchgard. See chapter 17.) See J. H. Simons, ed., Fluorine Chemistry, vol. 1 (New York:
Academic Press, 1950) , p.
423. 11. H. Goldwhite, J.
Fluorine Chem., vol. 33, p. 113.
12. See "Report on the Fluoro Carbon work" by Harold Urey,
September 26, 1942, S-l
files. Further, see Goldwhite. See also Industrial and Engineering Chem., Vol. 39. no. 3, p. 292. 13. For example, 35,000 pounds a
month of "polytetrafluorethylene" (Teflon); 1, 600,000 pounds of "hexafluorxylene";
and 1,400 lbs of "fluorinated lubricating oil." For delivery schedule of fluorocarbons, see
"Functions of Madison Square Area," Md 319.1, Report Madison Square, Box 26, Accession #4nn
326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG 326.
14. Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb; p. «.Dick Powell author
inter- view; and also
Goldwhite, J. Fluorine Chem., above reference. 15. Groves, Now It Can Be Told, p. 8. 16. The plant was built in the
basement of the Schermerhorn Laboratory in January 1943. Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb,
p. 494. 17. "Initiation
of Medical Program for Project at Columbia University," Friedell to the District Engineer, U.S.
Engineer Office, Manhattan District, January 20, 1943. 18. Capt. John Ferry to Col.
Stafford Warren, November 10, 1943; and Capt. John Ferry to the Area Engineer, Columbia Area, July 14, 1944.
"It would be diffi cult to
prove that his illness had not been aggravated by his fume exposure," Ferry concluded in Spelton's case.
Illness of Mr. Christian Spelton, Md 726.2, Occupational Diseases, Box 55, Accession #4nn 326-85-005,
Atlanta FRC, RG 326. For pulmonary
fibrosis as symptom, see Roholm, Fluorine Intoxi cation, p. 150. NOTES TO CHAPTER 4 / PP. 49—51 271 19. On teeth falling out, see New York
Operations Research and Medicine Divi- sion, Correspondence 1945-1952, Box 28-47, Box 36
,"Du Pont File," Atlanta
FRC, RG 326. For Priest's fluorine work at Columbia, see Industrial
and Engineering Chem., March
1947. 20. Princeton account
at Md 319.1, Ferry Report Medical, Box 25, Accession #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG 326.
For Iowa State, case of Max Rankin see Md
702.1, Medical Exams Specimens, Box 54, Accession #4nn 326-85-005,
Atlanta FRC, RG 326. For case of
Dr. Oscar N. Carlson, report of Allan P. Scoog: Carlson had worked at Ames since 1943. He worked with
beryllium fluoride. Multiple
hospitalizations were followed with a diagnosis of "diffuse fibronodular pathologic process throughout both
lungs . . . occupational fibrosis." Medicine, Health and Safety, Beryllium, July 1951-December 1951. NARA
II. The gassed Purdue researchers
had lung injuries resembling those in soldiers exposed to the World War I poison gas phosgene. Capt.
John Ferry to Col. Stafford Warren,
May 22, 1944. Also, Capt. John Ferry to Col. Stafford Warren, June 23,
1944, Md 319.1, Report Medical
Ferry, Box 25, Accession #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. 21. Memorandum to Col. Warren from Capt. John Ferry,
November 15, 1943, "
Visit to DuPont": "The prevailing opinion is that the
irritating properties of the HF
also formed, will not be a satisfactory guide against the toxicity of the oxyfluoride." "DuPont"
File, New York Operations Research and Medicine Division, Correspondence 1945-1952, Box 28-47, Box 36,
Atlanta FRC, RG 326;
"DuPont," Box 14, Accession #72C2386, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. 22. Memo to Col. E. H. Marsden
from Col. Warren. January 6, 1945, "Safety of Operations at S-5o," C-616, Box 28, Accession
#72C2386, Atlanta FRC, RG
326. 23. "One is
impressed," noted Captain John L. Ferry, senior medical officer for the Madison Square Area, "by
the similarity between these cases and persons dying from work in beryllium plants." He reminded his
boss that "one explanation of
the beryllium deaths was that they resulted from exposure to beryllium oxyfluoride." Capt.
Ferry to Col. Warren, February 2, 1944. " Fatalities Occurring from a By-Product of
T.F.E.," Md 729.3, Safety Program Protection Against Hazards, Book', 6/25/42-7/31/44, Box 55, Accession
#4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG
326. 24. Dr. G. H. Gehrman,
DuPont Medical Director, to Capt. Ferry, May 5, 1944. Md 319.1, General Essays, Lectures, Medical Report,
Box 34, #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta
FRC, RG 326. 25. Capt. Ferry
to Col. Warren, February 2, 1944. "Fatalities Occurring from a By- Product of T.F.E." Also,
DuPont was reluctant to have the government test " their own commercially developed material since
several of the components thus far
identified give good promise for commercial uses other than that
contemplated here." District
Engineer Ruhoff to Dr. H. T. Wensel, Clinton Engineer Works, March 30, 1944, Documents 366 and 367,
RG 227.3.1. 26. Capt. Ferry
to Col. Warren, February 2, 1944. "Fatalities Occurring from a By- Product of T.F.E." 272 NOTES TO CHAPTER 4 /
PP. 51 — 53 27.
Richard Powell, "Fluorine Chemistry: The ICI legacy," in Fascinated
by Fluo- rine (Amsterdam and
New York: Elsevier, 2000). He quotes the visiting ICI scientist J. H. Brown on p. 345. 28. Kramish, A., "They Were
Heroes Too," Washington Post, December 15, 1991. 29. The secret facility was a pilot version of the
massive S-5o "thermal diffusion" factory being readied at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The
plant at Oak Ridge appears also to
have presented considerable fluoride health risks to workers, according
to the official history. Each time
a new hexafluoride cylinder was attached to the S-5o equipment, "the danger of breathing UF6 and of being
burned by it in this operation is considerable. " The Manhattan District Official History,
Book 1, General, vol. 7, Medical Program, p. 3.22. 30. Conant had responded to Col. Warren's request for
information, sending him
reports on fluoride from the Chicago Toxicity Laboratory, and OSRD
Report #3285 "The Toxicity of
Compounds Containing Fluorine." Conant to H. T. Wensel, October 6, 1943, RG 227.3.1, Document #0398, and
Ruth Jenkins ( Conant's secretary) to Wensel, February 15, 1945, RG 227.3.1, Document #0341. Conant sought
to keep specialized information
about fluoride out of scientific journals during the war. He wrote to the editor of the Journal of the American
Chemical Society, Arthur Lamb, on December 29, 1943: "I should appreciate it if you would send any
papers concerning fluorine
compounds to me if they are submitted in the future, and I will try and
get in touch with the more
conservative reviewers." Document 01 14, RG 227.3.1. 3 1 . TDMR-628 (Technical
Division Memorandum Report from Edgewood Arsenal) cited p. 20, OSRD Report 3285. "Among the effects noted
were photophobia, headaches ... as
well as difficulty and pain in accommodation." 32. Low concentrations of the organic compound cited
produced "marked weariness, very
strong mental depression, reluctance for any physical effort. Quite
distinct periods of nervous
irritation difficult to control, followed by periods of physical and
mental exhaustion, drowsiness and
giddiness." Sporzynski Y.5682 May 5, 1943, cited in OSRD Report 3285, p. 37. 33. E. C. Andrus, D. W. Bronk, G.
A. Carden Jr., et al., eds., Advances in Military Medicine, 2 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown,
1948), p. 561. See also Fascinated
by Fluorine, p. 347; and author interview with former Imperial Chemical
Industries (ICI) scientist Dick
Powell. 34. J. Conant to Dr.
H. T. Wensel, Clinton Engineering Works, October 6,1943. RG 227.3.1 Document 0398. 35* Author interview, July 27,
2003. 36. Capt. Joe Howland,
"Studies on Human Exposure to Uranium Compounds," in Harold Hodge and Carl Voegtlin, eds.,
Pharmacology and Toxicology of Uranium Compounds, with a Section on the Pharmacology and Toxicology of
Fluorine and Hydrogen Fluoride
(New York: McGraw Hill, 1949), p. 1005. The official history of the Manhattan Project, like Gen. Groves,
gives a conflicting account of the disaster. On p. 5.3, Book VI, Section 5, it states only that " several
persons were injured." However,
Book I, vol. 6, p. 3.19 notes that, NOTES TO CHAPTER 4 I PP. 54—55 273 "Douglas P.
Meigs died as a result of burns due to steam. The Aetna, insurance carrier for Fercleve [the contractor],
was not permitted to investigate the cause, nor the scene of the accident, but was permitted to make a
routine dependency investigation.
After complete facts were available to the Insurance Section, the insurance carrier was instructed to
make payment as awarded to Meigs's widow by the Bureau of Workmen's Compensation, State of
Pennsylvania." 37. A.
Kramish, "They Were Heroes Too," Washington Post, December 15,
1991. Kramish told me that
the Manhattan Project officer, "Dusty" Rhodes was sent to silence the press. The Philadelphia
Record may have gone to press before he
arrived, Kramish thinks. The following morning the newspaper reported
that two "specialists"
had been killed in an accident. "Gas was released," the
newspaper added. 38. Leslie Groves, Now It Can Be
Told (New York: Da Capo, 1962), p. 121. 39. Washington Post, December 15, 1991. 40. At one beryllium factory in
Ohio doing secret fluoride work for the Man- hattan Project, skin lesions and a crippling lung
disease called berylliosis produced
an employee turnover rate of loo percent each month. Captain Mears to
Major Ferry, July 30, 1945. He
reports on "chemical dermatitis . .. resulting from the fluoride compounds entering through a
hair follicle, contaminating a wound, or
through a puncture wound by a sharp crystal. In these cases a papule
develops slowly with some of the
lesions ending in ulceration taking months to heal. Some of the workmen's hands and forearms are
covered with inflamed hair follicles,
papules, and depressed sharply circumscribed scars." Md 319.1,
General Essays, Lectures, Medical
Report, Box 34, Accession #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. 41. "Never before had such quantities of
elemental fluorine gas been handled
daily," wrote a Manhattan Project doctor, Herbert Stokinger, who
saw the daily health risk to
American workers. "Continuous exposure to low concentrations from unavoidable losses from the equipment
was a source of considerable concern," he added. Hodge and Voegtlin, eds., Pharmacology and Toxicology
of Uranium Compounds, p.
1024. 42. "Fluorine:
Precautions to be Observed in Handling, Shipping and Storage." Manhattan Project Official
History, Occupational Hazards, Book 1, General. 43. Herbert Stokinger reported that animal deaths were
seen in laboratory experiments at
o.3-mg/cu m for fluorine. Hodge and Voegtlin, eds., Pharmacology and Toxicology of Uranium Compounds, p. 1033.
Also, "The toxicity of
oxyfluorides occurring from the liberation of fluorine in the atmosphere" was given a high
priority for research. Memo to Col. Warren from Capt. John L. Ferry, November 29, 1943, Md 3, Md 700,
General Essays, Lectures, Medical
Reports, Box 34, Manhattan Engineer District Accession #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. That toxicity data, only
declassified in 1994, is truly spectacular. While exposure of laboratory animals to 0.5 parts per million of
pure fluorine for
274 55 NOTES TO CHAPTER 4 /
P. thirty days
was considered "safe," a similar, microscopic quantity of oxygen
fluoride "was lethal after 14
hours," the scientists reported. See "Detailed Duties of Harold Hodge," list of
"problems" and "results" encountered by the Rochester
Division of Pharmacology and
Toxicology. Folder 2, Box SOF01B219, ACHRE, RG 220; also, C-212 [code for oxygen fluoride] — i
ppm killed all animals (rats and mice), in "Toxicity of C-6i6, C-212 and C-216" ' Memo
to Files' by Capt. B. J. Mears. Medical Crops, Md 3, Md 700, General Essays, Lectures, Medical Reports, Box 34,
Manhattan Engineer District
Accession #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. (By comparison, this tox-icity appears at least as bad as
the World War I poison gas phosgene, which was also found in the bomb plants, as a result of the heating of
Freon.) The Chemical Warfare
Service had reported to Col. Stafford Warren that, when exposed to
phosgene, "mice succumb to
chronic exposure of one part per million.") Memorandum for the Files, "Subject: Survey of Phosgene
Effects" by Stafford Warren, February 23, 1944, A2, Box 26, Accession #72C2386, Atlanta FRC, RG
326. Although the Manhattan
Project had given a high priority to the experimental investigation of such oxyfluorides, the official and
published work does not mention the
results — perhaps a worrisome omission, given that the scientists
suspected that the compounds might
be encountered in the vicinity of bomb plants. The standard text, Pharmacology and Toxicology of Uranium
Compounds, edited by Carl Voegtlin and
Harold Hodge, has no mention of oxygen fluoride. Also, for evidence that
scientists suspected oxygen
fluoride would be encountered by citizens and workers, after an industrial hygiene survey at Harshaw
Chemical in Cleveland in May 1947, Rochester scientists reported that "the results are on the low
side, since the efficiency of the
sampling procedure we used is not too good for fluorine and oxyfluoride;
if considerable quantities of
these two gases were present in the air, we probably missed a part of
them." See Pharmacology
Report #558, The University of Rochester Atomic Energy Project, Box S09F01B227, ACHRE, RG 220. "HF is a protoplasmic poison
with great penetrating power and causes deep-seated burns that heal very slowly. . . . When HF
comes into contact with the skin, a burn results. If HF is not removed, it tends to keep
penetrating with the production of a deep, slow-healing painful ulceration." Capt. John L.
Ferry to Dr. Ralph Rosen, Kellex Corp, January 24, 1944, Md 729.3 Safety Program Protection Against Hazards, Book 1, 6/25/42-7/31/44,
Box 55, Accession 44. #4nn
326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. Also, the chemical was described by Dr. Stokinger as "possibly the
greatest single source of minor incapacitation of workers" in the bomb plants. Hodge and Voegtlin,
eds., Pharmacology and Toxicology
of Uranium Compounds.
Confirmed in author interview with the ICI fluoride scientist Dick
Powell. Such
"conditioning" was a massive industrial undertaking. The uranium hexafluoride gas was so corrosive that
thousands of pumps, blowers, and
piping first had to be treated with either chlorine trifluoride, or
elemental
45. NOTES
TO CHAPTER 4 / P. 56
275
fluorine, leaving a thin film of fluoride on the machinery, protecting
it from future corrosion. Joe
Harding likened the process to "seasoning the interior of process equipment, like some people have heard
of ~burning-in' an old cast iron skillet." Memorandum to U. David Goldring from Birchard M. Brund-age
1st Lt., Medical Corps, July 13,
1945. "Subject: S-5o Medical Check-ups": Item I. "Definitions 1.
Conditioning Area — Building in
which parts and apparatus to be used in the Process Area are treated chemically before being placed in
operational use." Item II. "Conditioning shop operator — handles the chemical preparation
of equipment before it is handled for
operations. He also cleans used equipment before its reconditioning and
reuse in operations." Item
III. "Hazard Classifications. 1. Most serious. A. Transfer room operator. B. Conditioning shop
operator." S-5o, Box 14. Also, "Conditioning of Equipment," Manhattan Project
Official History, book VI, p. 5.17.
46. Joe Harding interviewed by Dolph Honicker, undated transcript
supplied by his son, Cliff
Honicker. 47. Stokinger et
al., The Enhancing Effect of the Inhalation of Hydrogen Fluoride Vapor on Beryllium Sulfate
Poisoning in Animals, UR-68 University of Rochester, unclassified, June 13, 1949. Also, "Fluoride materials
are undoubtedly significantly more
toxic from the standpoint of acute disease than any other beryllium material now being handled at
the Luckey plant." Memo from Merril
Eisenbud to W. B. Harris, 2/27/51, Box 3353, MHS 2 Beryllium,
Ger-mantown DOE History Archive.
Eisenbud also estimated that 50 micrograms of beryllium — inhaled as beryllium fluoride — had
"produced acute disease in three
individuals" in just twenty minutes, and that "to produce
injury by phosgene in a comparable
period of time one would have to inhale approximately 50 milligrams!" Health Hazards from
Beryllium, Merril Eisenbud, speech presented at a meeting of the American Society for Metals, Boston,
March 1954. Document DOE
#051094-A-312, ACHRE, RG 220.
48. For deaths: M. Eisenbud, "Origins of the Standards for Control
of Beryllium Disease
(1947-1949)," Environmental Research, vol. 27, no.l (February 1982). By
June 1949 Robert Hasterlik, the
top doctor at Argonne National Laboratory, reported about sixty death from beryllium. Physics
Today (June 1 949), p. 14.
For sickness: "By far the greatest number of cases occurred in the
fluoride handling
operations," noted one government report on sickness at the Brush
Beryllium Company in Lucky,
Pennsylvania. Memo from Merril Eisenbud to W. B. Harris, stamped February 27, 1951: "Acute
Beryllium Tox icity — Brush Beryllium Company — Lucky Experience," Div. Biology and Medicine, folder MHS 2
and Beryllium, Box 335, RG 326. At
Brush Beryllium Plant in Lorain, Ohio, "In July, 1947, 24 percent of
employees in the beryllium metal
department were stricken with dermatitis or respiratory disease, compared to 6.4 percent for all other
departments. The apparent increase in rates may possibly be explained by the shifts in production to pure
metals as the result of AEC
contracts." Bob Tumbleson, "Public Relations Problems in
Connection with Occupational
Diseases in the Beryllium Industry." 276 NOTES TO CHAPTER 4 / P. 56 The Rochester Atomic
Energy Project's Industrial Hygiene Section surveyed the Brush Beryllium Company in Lorain,
Ohio, in December 1946 and found up to 64.1 mg/m3 fluoride, with particle sizes below o.i micron (a
crucial factor in determining
toxicity). "The authors conclude that the relatively high fluoride
concentrations obtained in the
surveyed areas are of particular significance since they may represent a hazard
by themselves and also suggest a
combined action with beryllium. Further study of this factor is suggested, especially near the beryllium fluoride
furnace where the relative
fluoride concentration was moo times that of beryllium." Bob
Tumbleson, Public and Technical
Information Service. "Public Relations Problems in Connection with Occupational Diseases in the Beryllium
Industry," p. 18, Medicine, Health and Safety— Beryllium (1947-1948), RG 326. 49. Memo from Bob Tumbleson to
Morse Salisbury, "Current Status of the Beryllium Problem," January 26, 1948.
"Although the four neighborhood cases appeared at Brush in Lorain, the reporter from the
Cleveland PRESS interviewed [AEC official] Wyndecker at Clifton, Painesville. . . . Wyndecker tried to
quiet him by saying that a large
part of their work was being done for AEC and hence was secret." RG
326 Medicine, Health and Safety —
Beryllium ( 1947-1948) National Archive. 50. Turner reported: "Control experiments with
electrolytic dust produced with fluorides, but in the absence of Beryllium, caused the same symptoms and
mortality. It is evident,
therefore, that electrolytic dust owes its toxicity primarily to the
halogen radical [fluoride] and not
to its content of Beryllium." Robert A. N. Turner, Resident Safety Engineer, Madison Square Area,
Manhattan Engineer District, "The Toxicity of Beryllium and Its Salts," p. 2, "Oak Ridge
Copy," Box 39, Accession #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. 51. Robert A. N. Turner, Resident Safety Engineer,
Madison Square Area, Manhattan
Engineer District, "Poisoning by Vapors of Beryllium
Oxyfluorides," p. 1, "Oak Ridge
Copy," Box 39, Accession #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. 52. See Rochester AEP, minutes of
"The Second Progress Meeting on Beryllium Toxicity," February 5 and 6, 1947. Also, "The
First Progress Meeting on Beryllium Toxicity": 0.5 mg/kg of "5BeO-7BeF2" killed
rats, while 0.75 mg/kg of intravenous beryllium fluoride and beryllium oxyfluoride killed rabbits.
"Injection of beryllium oxyfluoride ... caused histologic damage to the kidney probably as a result of the
fluoride moiety." (5.0 mg/kg
BeS04, beryllium sulfate, killed rats.) This meeting produced a crucial
determination of a permissible
limit of 1.5 mg of beryllium compound (underlined in original) per 10 m3 of air. By not specifying which
compound, public notice was not made of the specific and more toxic nature of the fluoride compounds, it seems.
Indeed, just days later, the head
of the Rochester AEP, Herbert Stokinger, made a recommendation of 1.5 mg
of beryllium per 10 m3 to the AEC
for the "Maximal permissible Limit of Exposure to Beryllium. " He does not mention
nor cite the fluoride toxicity results but rather uses figures from the beryllium sulfate
compound, which Rochester had NOTES TO CHAPTER 4 / P. 57 277 determined to be ten
times less toxic. Stokinger adds, "The suggested level permits an easily attained limit both as regards
ventilator and ventilating system." H. E. Stokinger to Fred Bryan, February i8, 1947,
Rochester, 400.112 (Pharmacology) Beryllium, Box 48, New York Operations Office, 68Foo36, Accession #4kr
326-83-010, Atlanta FRC, RG
326. Also, researchers at
Rochester and at the PHS did not find much toxic effect, chronic or acute, with pure beryllium,
which fact allowed industry to deny that there was any great problem from beryllium poisoning. A hint at the
agenda of the Rochester group and
of Dr. Harold Hodge in particular comes from one of the leading scientists
on beryllium toxicity, Dr. Harriet
Hardy. "Those responsible for the medico-legal affairs of the AEC should consider the problem of
the disability involved in the growing group of individuals with chronic beryllium disease," she writes
and adds that "cases of chronic
beryllium poisoning are being uncovered daily from a variety of remote and
apparently slight beryllium
exposures." However, Hardy writes, while "The chronic disease is certainly our most pressing problem,
and at present the whole weight of the Rochester work, if I understood Dr. Hodge, is on the acute
manifestation. ... I cannot understand
the defeatist attitude about producing chronic changes in animals with
beryllium compounds sufficiently
approximate to the human pathology." Dr. Hardy to Dr. Warren " Recent trips to Cleveland and
Rochester," September 13, 1949, DOE Open-net #1153735.
"Thus, we have a kind of explosive action with the formation of
fluorine in status nascendi,"
Turner stated. "Hence the deeper and most important, more prolonged
action of this gas in comparison
with that which we see following the inhalation not only of oxides of nitrogen and chlorine but
also vapors of fluorine or hydrofluoric acid," p. 6 "The action of the fluorine in
such conditions is especially strong and prolonged," Turner adds, "which in fact
conditions the specificity of the picture of poisoning by Beryllium oxyfluoride." Robert A.
N. Turner, Resident Safety Engineer, Madison Square Area, Manhattan Engineer District "Poisoning by
Vapors of Beryllium
Oxyfluorides."
Although the Maximum Allowable Concentration (MAC) for UO ,F had been
officially set by the government
at 50 micrograms of uranium per cubic meter, nevertheless, "the lowest concentration of these compounds
that will give a uniformly positive response in all animals has not been critically established." Hodge
and Voegtlin, eds., 53
Pharmacology and Toxicology of Uranium Compounds, p. 2203. Hodge's
researchers produced renal
injury in a dog at even 50 micrograms/cu m. Dogs were judged to have "unusual susceptibility."
Also, Harold C. Hodge and Carl Voegtlin at the University of Rochester to Lt. Col. H. L. Friedell at
Oak Ridge, April 26, 1945. Md 3, Md 700,
General Essays, Lectures, Box 34, Manhattan Engineer District Accession
#4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG
326. "Uranyl fluoride is considered one of the most toxic uranium compounds," wrote Harold
Hodge, Pharmacology and Toxicology of Uranium Compounds, 54. 278 NOTES TO CHAPTER 4/ P. 57 p. 33. Also, "It
was envisioned that exposures of human beings to this compound would occur mostly by inhalation and
almost solely to the fumes, UO FO and HF,
produced upon its release into the air. Such exposure might take the
form of either accidental high
concentrations for a relatively short time, possibly repeated several times during a month, or of low level,
continuous exposures throughout the period of employment arising from the loss of small amounts of
material from systems containing
UF6." Pharmacology and Toxicology of Uranium Compounds, p. 1492. Dangerous levels of fluoride were
quickly detected in K25 plant workers' urine. In the early summer of 1952, for example, almost io percent of
employees tested had too much
fluoride in their bodies, doctors reported. And the poisoning was getting
worse, "the result of an
increase in the magnitude and frequency of individual exposure to fluoride and fluorinated
compounds," officials added. Of S35 workers, 58 tested. "Sanitized version of K-25 Plant
Quarterly Report for Fourth Fiscal Quarter April I- June 30, 1952," p. E-9, ORFi00()6o5,
Oak Ridge, DOE Public Reading Room.
55. Letter to Ralph Rosen of the Kellex Corporation, which built the
K-25 plant. Ferry told Dr.
Rosen it was "likely" that the concentrations of gas would be at or
"near" the level set for
chronic exposure. (However, the MAC for UO F was then set at 150 micrograms per cubic meter. That level
was reduced to 50 micrograms in 1948, although University of Rochester scientists found kidney damage in
dogs at that level too; see note
53 above. No information was found on whether the conditions inside the cold
trap chamber changed after 1948 as
the MAC was raised.) Captain John L. Ferry to Dr. Ralph Rosen, Kellex Corporation, June 16, 1944
Safety Program Protection Against Hazards, Book 1, 6125/42-7/31/44, Md7293, Box 55, Accession #4nn
326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. A
similar hazard faced workers at the Harshaw Chemical plant, who made uranium hexafluoride for shipment to
Oak Ridge. " Workmen inhale 616 [code for hexafluoride] when disconnecting the receivers from the reactors,"
noted a report. "A cloud of
hydrolyzed 616 escapes during this operation and is not entirely vented,"
the memo added. Memo from Capt. B.
J. Mears, the Madison Square Area, October 11, 1945, to Captain Fred A. Bryan, Medical Section, Manhattan District,
Oak Ridge Tennessee. Subject:
Urinalysis on Harshaw Chemical Company Workers. 56. Tape-recorded interview with Joe Harding. 57. Several accounts mention the
noise and heat inside the gaseous diffusion plant. An early report determining how long men could
tolerate working in the "cells"
notes temperatures of n8 degrees F and states that "Entrance into a
cell which is in operation is a dramatic
experience to the uninitiated, apt to be associated with some emotionalism. The noise within the cell
might be responsible for part of the light headedness experienced, although the symptom is also
recognized as a result of severe
heat exposure." "Permissible Work Periods in Cells," Box
9, Accession #72C2386, Atlanta
FRC, RG 326. 58. Accidents
were frequent at K-25. For example, "On April 1, a release occurred in Building K- loo4-A
when a cylinder containing 2 559 grams of uranium NOTES TO CHAPTER 4/ PP. 58-59 279 hexailuoride became
overheated during a material transferring operation, releasing the entire contents of the cylinder."
Sanitized version of K-25 Plant Quarterly Report for Fourth Fiscal Quarter April I-June 30, 1952. In ORF Ioo6o5
Oak Ridge DOE Public Reading Room.
Also, "On December 30th [ 1953] ■ • . a total of 2,506 pounds of uranium hexafluoride . . . was released [ when
a cylinder failed], contaminating all of Building K-27 ... the gas was spread widely before the ventilating
system could be shut down."
K-959-Plant Quarterly Report for Second Fiscal Quarter, October 1
-December 31, 1952, p. C-12, in
ORF 18729, Oak Ridge, DOE Public Reading Room. 59. Another worker, Sam Ray of Lucasville, Ohio, told
Congress in September 2000 that "Compressors would malfunction and process gas (UF6) would
leak to the atmosphere. On one occasion, it was so bad that it looked like a fog moving up the mile long
building. . . . We have had many
small releases that were never reported, as well as documented large
releases. Inside of the withdrawal
room we had a major release. There were green "icicles' hanging in the room from crystallize uranium
hexafluoride." He also told them that" process gases were routinely vented to the atmosphere"
and "fluorine gases from the plant stack area were frequent and resulted in numerous complaints from
workers in the area, especially
during temperature inversions." Compensation for Illnesses Realized
by Department of Energy Workers
Due to Exposure to Hazardous Materials. Hearing before the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims
of the Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives Io6th Congress, serial no. 132, p. 210. 60. Col. Stafford Warren to Dr.
Fred Bryan, September 24, 1947, DOE stamp 000019, ACHRE, RG 220. 61 . Report of Meeting of Classification Board During
Week of September 8, 1947,
Box S09F01B22, ACHRE, RG 220. See also handwritten letter in ACHRE
files from an unnamed fluoride
worker who worked at Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, in the 195os. He writes: "In
the early years we used to talk
about young people dying from cancer and leukemia that worked at the
plant and wondered if it was due
to working there." DOE document #0000 lo, Box So9olB146, ACHRE, RG 220. 62. An additional five workers were poisoned by
"fluorine analogs of phosgene," plant operators at Union Carbide claimed, caused by
"pyrolysis of fluoro-carbons
and fluorolubes." Phosgene can be produced when Freon gas is
exposed to very high temperatures.
"Summary ofK-25 chemical hazards," RHTG Ioiool, Box 219, RG 326. The document was only
declassified in 1997-"Poisoning" was one of the health effects reported at K-25, along
with respiratory irritation, burns, and
dermatitis. 63. Work
Report for June 1944 To: The Chief of the Medical Section, U.S. Engi- neer Office, Oak Ridge,
Tennessee; From: 2nd Lt. Richard Tybout, Corp of Engineers, Medical Section. Document via Pete Eisler, USA
Today. 64. "A distinct
hazard does exist in Area C" that left the Atomic Energy Com- mission "very
vulnerable," Kelly concluded. The government especially feared "pulmonary damage" in
workers. While safety levels for uranium 280 NOTES TO C H A P T E R 4 / PP. 59-61 hexafluoride had been
set at 40 micrograms per cubic meter, tests showed that on September 30, 1944, dust levels in Area
C were as high as 9,130 micro-grams per cubic meter — 228 times the official tolerance level. March
1,1945, letter to Harshaw manager
Fred Becker from Richard Tybout, 1 st Lt. Corps of Engineers Medical
Section, via Pete Eisler. 65. Roholm, Fluorine
Intoxication, p. 26. 66.
Analysis of the kidney tissue of one of the victims by the University of
Roch- ester confirmed severe
fluoride damage. "The pathological changes in the kidney are accounted for by the overwhelming dose
of HF and the acute asphyxia." Capt. B. J. Mears to the District Engineer, Manhattan District, Oak
Ridge (Attention: Major J. L.
Ferry.) November 1, 1945. Oak Ridge Operations Records Holding Task
Group. Classified Documents
1944-1994, RHTG document #38,658, ORoo34167, Box 214, Vault, Bldg. 2714-H. 67. Rochester kidney report: "This report is of
particular interest because (name
redacted) was employed in the C-616 [uranium hexafluoride] plant and his
duties required him to remove the
receiver from the reactors. It is in this procedure that the employees come in contact with a cloud
of PG [process gas] ... he was exposed to
C-616 to the same extent as any other single employee." Capt. B. J.
Mears to the District Engineer,
Manhattan District, Oak Ridge (Attention: Major J. L. Ferry.) November 1, 1945. Oak Ridge Operations
Records Holding Task Group, classified
documents 1944-1994, RHTG document #38,658, ORoo34167, Box 214, Vault,
Bldg. 2714-H. 68. P. Dale and H. B. McCauley,
"A Study of Dental Conditions in Workers Exposed to Dilute and Anhydrous Hydrofluoric Acid in
Production," December 31,
1943, File G-118, New York Operations Research and Medicine Division, Correspondence 1945-1952, Box 28-47,
Atlanta FRC, RG 326. Also,
on race: "Specimens showing large amount of T [code for uranium] are usually from the colored
employees," noted an October 1945 memo from Manhattan Project Capt. B. J. Mears.
"Because of their lack of personal responsibility," Mears complained, "this officer
recommended that these specimens be collected before the employee starts to work." Of
course, if workers gave urine specimens before their shift began, it would have the effect of
measuring and recording lower levels of toxic exposure than they were actually receiving. Capt. Mears discriminated
between the black workers and
"employees who can be trusted." They were allowed to give urine
at the end of their shift. Perhaps
more importantly, those "trusted" workers, "consistently show T values well below 1 mg per
liter." Memo from Capt. B. J. Mears, the Madison Square Area, October If, 1945, to Captain Fred A. Bryan,
Medical Section, Manhattan
District, Oak Ridge Tennessee. Subject: Urinalysis on Harshaw Chemical
Company Workers, via Pete
Eisler. 69. P. Dale and H.
B. McCauley, J. Am. Dent. Assoc., vol. 37, no. 2 (August 1948), p. 132. 70. Fedor formed a union safety
committee, then contacted the Ohio Division of Safety and Health and persuaded that office to do a
study of conditions in
NOTES TO CHAPTER 4 / P. 61
281 the
fluoride plant.The state inspectors found fluoride levels as high as 6 and even
18 ppm. State regulation permitted
3 parts per million. In 1949 Fedor submitted the first motion to an American Federation of
Labor national convention, seeking greater union involvement in occupational safety issues. Author interview, October 2001. 71. Despite multiple warnings from federal and state
government, the industrial
accidents, and pressure from John Fedor's safety committee, Harshaw's
management seemed strangely
unmoved. "Our plant hourly safety committee has been quite concerned about our HF problems, and I
believe are exaggerating them, as I believe the hazards in Area C have been exaggerated," Vice
President C. S. Parke wrote to the AEC
official W. E. Kelly on February 3, 1948. "I speak somewhat as a
layman, but we have manufactured
HF fluorides for forty years. It is only lately that occupational disease has been suspected. Two of our men are
reputed to have fluorosis, but nobody can tell us how this has harmed them. In fact, the inference by some doctors
is that they have benefited.
Certainly the situation is nothing to get alarmed at." C. S. Parke
to W. E. Kelly, February 3, 1948.
AEC document via Pete Eisler. 72. Secretly the government was intensely interested in the medical fate of the
Area C workers. When the plant finally closed in 1952, AEC doctors proposed covertly "keeping tabs"
on former employees — without
letting the men and women know why they were being watched. "The
ultimate objective is to determine
the incidence of lung cancer . . . to justify the current M.A.C.'s
[maximum allowable concentrations
in the other AEC plants]," Dr. Roy E. Albert, the Assistant Chief of the Division of Biology and
Medicine, explained in a 1955 letter to the University of Rochester's Dr. Louis H. Hempleman. "We
have racked our brains for any
useful subterfuge in carrying out the study but none came to mind which
could possibly hold water for any
length of time," he added.
The subterfuge they used in the end to examine former workers at
the Cleveland City Hospital was
explained to a hospital doctor, Dr. Robert R. Stahl. "To putit baldly," Albert wrote Dr.
Stahl on August 1, 1955, "Ithinkwe are fundamentally interested in the autopsy data, the
examination program being a mechanism to keep tabs on the people involved in the survey." Extreme
care was needed. If too much
medical data were gathered from the workers, "there would be a
distinct risk of stimulating
lawsuits against the Atomic Energy Commission," Dr. Albert emphasized to Dr. Joseph T. Wearn at
the School of Medicine at Western Reserve
University in Cleveland, who would supervise the "study." The plan fell through. Dr. Stahl
was appalled when he read the AEC proposal. He pushed the government men away, with an admonition about
medical ethics. "The project
protocol ... grossly misrepresents the type of information that AEC is apparently attempting to obtain,"
Dr. Stahl told Dr. Albert. "Basically," he added, "a health survey is being used as a
"front' for obtaining such autopsy data . . . since this is the basic motive involved neither Dr. Scott nor
myself are interested in such a project." The AEC had wanted to keep the men's records secret.
"Allow me to remind you," Stahl added, "that a physician has a legal responsibility toward any
patient seen to keep this patient's records in his files." File 092694-a, Box So95olB 196, ACHRE, RG
220. One disturbing aspect
of this proposed study is the number of people who appear to have known of the gravity of the
workers' exposure. For example, a May 7, 1953 memo to the Executive office of the CDC, from Alexander D.
Longmuir, chief of the PHS
Epidemiology Branch, states, Thursday morning I received a telephone
call from Dr. Roy E. Albert,
Medical Officer, New York Operations Office, AEC, 70 Columbus Avenue, New York City. Dr. Albert
called me at the suggestion of my personal friend, Dr. David D. Rutstein, Professor of Preventive Medicine
Harvard Medical School, because he
felt we might be interested in a proposal he had to make. His proposal was the desirability of a follow up of
between 400 and 600 employees of the Harshaw Chemical Company in Cleveland, Ohio. These employees were
exposed for a period of from one
to three years in 1945, *946, and 1947 to 600 times the tolerance dose of radioactive dust, resulting from the
processing of uranium and radon. ... In view of reports from Europe, that uranium miners suffer an
exceptionally high incidence of
cancer of the lung, Dr. Albert and his advisory groups recommend that
these employees also be studied
for the same condition." Memo cc'd Dr. Roy E Albert and Dr. Alexander Gilliam. Medicine Health and Safety,
AEC, RG 326. Stafford L.
Warren, The Role of Radiology in the Development of the Atomic Bomb, p. 856. DOE Opennet accession
#NV0729o54« In the official review
of the material releases from Oak Ridge and the relationship to community health effects, fluoride
emissions were not even 73 considered, an omission that concerned at least one top scientist.
Letter to Dr. Kowetha A. Davidson, Chair Oak Ridge Reservation Health Effects 74 Subcommittee, Oak Ridge
National Laboratory, from Kathleen
M. Thiessen, ' PhD Senior Scientist, SENES, Oak Ridge, January 16, 2001 . Re:
Oak Ridge Reservation Health
Effects Subcommittee and review of the Oak Ridge Dose Reconstruction. Thiessen wrote that "there are a number
of contaminants that were never
evaluated quantitatively during either the Oak Ridge Dose Reconstruction
( 1 994_2ooo) or the preceding
Phase I Dose Reconstruction Feasibility Study (1992-1993). ... [It is clear . .
. that the fluorine and fluoride
releases from K-25 alone were very large. ... It is my professional opinion that the historical fluorine
and fluoride releases from the K-25 and Y-12 sites should be assessed quantitatively, both with
respect to the amounts of material used and released, and with respect to the potential health
implications for off-site individuals." cc: Rear Admiral Robert Williams, ATSDR, Mr. Jack
Hanley, ATSDR. Paducah began
production in 1954 At Portsmouth, Ohio, which opened in x 954, "the quantity of fluorine to be released was
steadily increasing and that this fluorine could not be contained in any holding drum, but must be
vented to keep
the cascade in proper operation." Memo to H. L Caterson to K. H. Hart,
'Venting of Fluorine from the
X-326 Building, October 3, 1955, 1089/120" cited in Arjun Makhijani, Bernd Franke, and Milton
Hoenig, Preliminary Estimates of Emissions of Radioactive Materials and Fluorides to the Air from the
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion
Plant, 1954-1984(unpublished), p. 19. 76. Several of the Area C workers referred to the
bridge damage and to the paint tarnishing on cars. The Sierra Club filed a lawsuit for $9,960,000 in
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court
alleging "fluoride fumes from the plant at -woo Harvard Ave., SE over
the past twenty-two years, have
destroyed the nearby Harvard Dennison Bridge." National Fluoridation News (January-February,
1971), p. 2. 77-
Pharmacology Report #558) Monthly Progress Report for June 1947, Box
S09F0IB227, ACHRE, RG 220. 78. AEC Monthly Status and
Progress Reports, July 1949 via Pete Eisler, USA Today. The same document notes the
"disastrous Donora episode of last winter." 79. Sadtler told me that after World War II, "I
was lecturing to the American Chemical Society in Cleveland . . . [on] "smoke, dust,
fumes and fellow travellers.' . . . And a
lawyer came up to me and said the judge wants to do something for the
monsignor in a certain section of
Cleveland. And we agreed that I would investigate. ... I did find out that Harshaw Chemical was letting off,
I believe, HF." 80.
"At the present time, at least to percent of the fluorine generated for
use in the manufacture of
uranium hexafluoride is unavoidably lost in the vent gases from the process. The recovery of this fluorine
has become of prime importance since the
expansion of the uranium hexafluoride manufacturing facilities to the 48
tons of uranium per day production
level. The estimated cost of the vented fluorine will amount to $400,000 per year based on the above
percentage lost and a cost per pound of so. 65." Memo, "Recovery of Fluorine from Feed Plant Vent
Gases," March 2, 1955, 0E1 14753,
ORF18718 for plant damage. Both in Oak Ridge DOE Public Reading
Room. For dumping, see Capt.
Bernard Blum to Lt. Col. Luvern W. Kehe, "Contamination of Water in Poplar Creek," August
to, 1945, Md 319.1, General Essays, Lectures, Box 34, Manhattan Engineer District Accession #4nn 326-85-005,
Atlanta FRC, RG 326. 81 .
See also Chapters 5 and 8. For accounts of pollution in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, see 'The Peach Crop
Cases." See also, for litigation, E. J. Largent, Fluorosis: The Health Aspects of Fluorine Compounds
(Columbus, OH: Ohio State
University Press, 1961), p. 124. "Claims of damage to plants and
animals appeared in almost epidemic
numbers along the Delaware River in the Philadelphia area in 1944 and 1945... Since the beginning of this
same period of time, a series of claims of fluoride induced damage have appeared in Tennessee." 82. "Fluorine is an
extremely toxic and hazardous chemical. There are three potential liabilities associated
with its release to the atmosphere. The first 284 NOTES TO CHAPTER 4 / PP. 63-66 and most significant
is the potential effect on agriculture crops and livestock in the surrounding area. . . . The second
significant liability is a hazard to personnel in the immediate area, both employees and the general public. The
maximum allowable concentration of
fluorine in the air as recommended by the national advisory group, the American Conference of Governmental
Industrial Hygienists, is o.i part per million. Any appreciable release of fluorine to the atmosphere will
in all probability result in some
concentrations in excess of this level. Although concentrations considerably
in excess of this level can be
tolerated without permanent injury, a basis for complaint and possible legal action does exist."
Letter A. J. Garcia to C. L. Becker, " Fluorine Air Pollution at GAT Plant Site, August 30,
1954, 1089/124." Cited in Arjun Makhijani et al., Preliminary Estimates. 83. A. Stern, Air Pollution (New York: Academic Press,
1962), p. 391. 84. J. G.
Rogers et al., Environmental Surveillance of the U.S. Department of Energy Portsmouth Gaseous
Diffusion Plant and Surrounding Environs during 1987, April 1988, (ES/ESH-4/V4), 18. See also Makhijani, Franke,
and Hoenig, Preliminary Estimates
of Emissions of Radioactive Materials and Fluorides, p. 20. Also, for later HF releases at
the Portsmouth, Ohio gaseous diffusion plant, although Ohio had no standards for gaseous fluorides:
"As of 1986, Kentucky's seven
day ambient air standard was .8 microgram HF/m3 ... in comparison data
recording sheets from 1973 show
individual fluoride measurements as high as 5 micrograms/m3. 1982 and 1983 measurements also
exceeded the above standard, with the maximum off-site average monthly concentrations of fluorides as HF
around the plant varying between
1.94 and 6.09 microgram/m3 in 1982, and between 1.83 and 15.1 microgram/m3 in 1983." Cited in Makhijani
et al., Preliminary Estimates, p. 21. Chapter 5
1. Three years later Harold Hodge would look out over another
spectacular view as an
official observer of the 1946 atomic bomb blast at Bikini Atoll in the
South Pacific. H. Hodge, J. Dental
Res., vol. 26 (1947), pp. 435-439.
2. Md 600.914, Progress Reports Rochester, Box 47, Accession #4nn
326-85- 005, Atlanta FRC.RG
326. 3. Priorities were
determined by combining the rating of: "(1) the toxicity and (2) the number of persons who had real or
potential exposure to each compound." The top toxicological priorities were (uranium compounds) U0 ,.F2
and (nonuranium) F, and HF. Harold
Hodge and Carl Voegtlin, eds., Pharmacology and Toxicology of Uranium Compounds, with a Section on the
Pharmacology and Toxicology of Fluorine and Hydrogen Fluoride (New York: McGraw Hill, 1949), historical
foreword, p. 5. 4. Hein
interview with Bob Woffinden, timecode 04.21.13, 1997. 5. Hodge was a lead author with
R. E. Gosselin, R. P. Smith, and M. E. Glea- son of Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products, 5th
ed. (Baltimore, MD: Williams and Wilkins,
1984). NOTES TO
CHAPTER 5 / PP.
285 6.
"Harold C. Hodge, 1904-1990, Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeu- tics: Oral Biology: San
Francisco." In Memoriam. E. Newborn et al., University of California, web posting. 7. Biographical details in P.
Morrow et al., "Profiles in Toxicology — Harold Carpenter Hodge (1904-1990)," Toxicological
Sciences, vol. 53 (2000), pp.
157-158. 8. A once
secret document, "Detailed Duties of Dr. Harold C. Hodge," lists the problems his Pharmacology Section
helped to solve. One problem, the "
necessity of stated daily maximum intake of fluoride to avoid
poisoning," was solved at the
Conference on Fluorine Metabolism at the Hotel Pennsyl vania in New York in January 1944.
Hodge was one of the experts who set
the maximum allowable concentration of "6 ppm as project allowable
expo sure per day" (emphasis
in original). Folder 2, Box So9F01B219, ACHRE, RG 220.
Hodge was elsewhere also clearly conscious of the health toll the war's
haste imposed upon workers. For
example, in April 1945 he explained to Col. Hymer Friedell the reasons for increasing the maximum allowable
con centration of uranium
tetrafluoride and several other uranium compounds in bomb factories from 150 to 500 micrograms of uranium
per cubic meter of factory air. It was an
"emergency war measure to expedite industrial production," he
explained, "a compromise
between the air concentration which can be maintained during maximum production and the chance of
injury to plant workers." Carl Voegtlin and Harold Hodge to Hymer Friedell, April 26, 1945. (Voegtlin
was the retired head of the
National Cancer Institute at the University of Rochester during the
war.) This measure was
implemented, directly affecting the work environment of thousands of Manhattan Project industrial workers.
Col. Warren explained the new standard more bluntly: "In view of the extreme difficulty in
maintaining concentrations of 150
micrograms per cubic meter in industry, it is felt that such a change
will be of definite benefit in
expediting the war effort." Warren to the Area Engineers, June 1945.
Both documents in Mm 3, Md 700,
General Essays, Lectures, Box 34, Manhattan Engineer District Accession #411n 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC,
RG 326. 9. A key text is
Hodge and Voegtlin, eds., Pharmacology and Toxicology of Uranium Compounds. See also, J. H.
Simons, Fluorine Chemistry, vol. IV, by
Harold C. Hodge and Frank A. Smith (New York: Academic Press, 1965) supported in part by a contract with
the U.S. AEC at the University of Roch
ester Atomic Energy Project.
10. Hodge and Voegtlin, eds., Pharmacology and Toxicology of Uranium
Compounds, historical foreword, p.
1 . 1 1 . Hein interview
with Mark Watts for Channel 4 Television in the United Kingdom. Interview recorded for "Don't
Swallow Your Toothpaste," a program that aired in June 1997. 12. Lansing Lamont, Day of Trinity (New York:
Atheneum, 1985), p. 251: " The
specter of endless lawsuits haunted the military." See also
Groves's memo,
286 NOTES TO CHAPTER 5/ P. 67 cited in chapter 4,
note 2, asking for toxicity data. According to the Harvard professor Phillip Drinker, a member of the AEC Stack Gas
Committee and an AEC litigation consultant, "In 1947 AEC was apprehensive about dam-age suits from personnel
allegedly injured by radiations or
by exposure to various chemicals used." Phillip Drinker to Dr. Thomas
Shipman, Health Division Leader,
Los Alamos, November 14, 1950, Medicine Health and Safety, RG 326. For insurance, see article for Aetna's internal
magazine The Aetna-izer, submitted by
Vice President Clifford B. Morcom to Col. K. D. Nichols, August 31, 1945
for review. 'The billion-dollar
atomic bomb plant at Oak Ridge, Term., is probably the most interesting
and important of the large number
of war projects on which the Aetna Casualty and Surety Company provided coverage in whole or
in part, in the last few years. ... As a result of this need for iron-clad secrecy, the
representatives of the Manhattan Project could not even hint to us, or to anyone else, as to what the
product of the Clinton Engineer Works was going to be, or what exposures or hazards there
would be in its manufacture. It was manifestly impossible for us to provide insurance on any
regular basis in view of these circumstances; but the government had asked for our help, and we were anxious to
comply." The following passage
is scratched out: "in essence, the plan placed the facilities of
our organization at the disposal
of our policyholders; and, in return for this, the Government agreed to
reimburse us for any losses we
might sustain." Aetna, Office of Public Information 1944-1957 Box 12,
Accession #73Ao898, Atlanta FRC,
RG 326. For Travelers, see
memo to Col. Warren from Capt. Ferry, March 25, 1944, "Conference in Wilmington, loth March 1944."
Five DuPont officials, two majors from the Manhattan Project, and Mr. Wm. M. Worrell of the Travelers Insurance
Co. "Item 3. In a number of
instances, men working on construction have been exposed to fumes from
processes which give off HF in
concentrations sufficient to make them leave their work temporarily. In at least one case illness followed the
exposure." Md 700.2, Univ. of Rochester ( Medical), Box 54, Accession #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta
FRC, RG 326. Groves, Now It
Can Be Told, p. 57: 'To facilitate the handling of claims not resulting from a major catastrophe a special fund
was established. This fund was placed under the control of du Pont so that it could continue to be available
for many years." And on March 28,
1944 at a conference on Extra-Hazardous Insurance attended by the
military officials and industrial
contractors readying the K-25 plant, Kellex management stated that they
were "especially
concerned" about the health risk from fluoride exposures. The K-25
employees were, accordingly,
defined by a simple criterion, their exposure to fluoride, and categorized "into three (3) groups; those having
regular, casual or no exposure to C616 and C216 [codes for uranium hexa-fluoride and fluorine
gas]." At the conference Col. Warren was informed that" the decision was made by
Kellex officials that the names of all employees would be submitted to the [Manhattan Project's]
District Insurance Sec-
NOTES TO CHAPTER 5/ P. 67 287 tion, with estimates of the amount of
their exposure." Memo to Col. Stafford Warren from Capt Ferry, April 4, 1944. "Conference on
Extra-Hazardous Insurance 28 March
1944." Md 337, New York Meetings and Conferences, Box 30, Accession
#4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG
326. 13 Several of the Manhattan Project's biggest industrial contractors had been badly exposed to worker
lawsuits before the war. In the
mid-1930s Union Carbide — now running the K-25 gaseous diffusion plant
at Oak Ridge — had endured congressional
scrutiny and legal claims following the Gauley Bridge silicosis deaths. DuPont, too, had won cruel
headlines in the early 1 9305 from the
New York press following an epidemic of death and injury at its New
Jersey terra ethyl lead
plants. Bomb-program
officials also recalled the prewar litigation and public scandal over female workers who had died
following their employment at the U.S. Radium Corporation in Orange, New Jersey, their jaws eaten by
cancer after licking radium from
the brushes they had wetted to paint luminescent watch dials. See, for
example, "Review of
Document" by L. F. Spalding of the Insurance Branch to Charles A.
Keller, Declassification Officer,
February 5, 1948: "We have reviewed ["Biochemical Studies Relating to the Effects of Radiation
and Metals" by Samuel Schwartz] from a nontechnical point of view and although it is conceivable
that the contents thereof might
arouse some claim consciousness on the part of former employees we are
unable to predict that the Commission's
interests would be unjustifiably prejudiced by its publication. However, in the event latent disabilities due
to exposures reported in this
document should result in publicity similar to that which arose out of
the "radium dial' industry,
the public relations division would be involved." Document S09FO lb22,
File DOE 120994-AA #1 ACHRE, RG
220. See also Hodge, J.
Dent. Res., vol. 26 (1947), pp. 435-439. 'These women, despite all safeguards, persisted in
tipping on their tongues the brushes they were using to apply radium paint to airplane dials. Those
unfortunate enough to retain lethal
amounts of radioactive material died of cancer from radium deposited in
the bones; deaths were recorded
five, ten, fifteen years later." For an excellent summary of the radium dial painters, see Eileen
Welsome, The Plutonium Files (New York: Dial Press, 1999), p. 47.
See for example, The Medical Section has been charged with the
responsibility of obtaining
toxicological data which will insure the District's being in a favorable position in case litigation develops
from exposure to the materials," Col. Stafford Warren to Dr. John Foulgar of DuPont's Haskell Laboratory in
a letter dated August 12, 1944 Box
25, Accession #72C2386, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. Also, it appears that some studies were simply not performed,
or at least that data were not published.
Where are the published studies of the toxicity of oxygen fluoride, a
chemical that Hodge's team
referred to as " the most toxic substance known" and was listed as a
high priority for bomb program
investigation? Where are the chronic studies on the various fluorocarbon compounds being used in
the diffusion plants? The reluctance 288 NOTES l'O CHAPTER 5 / P. 68 of Hodge's team to perform
such studies, which of course better resembled the actual conditions workers faced, was a
frustration of Harvard University's Harriet Hardy, a leading beryllium researcher. "The chronic disease is
certainly our most pressing problem,
and at present the whole weight of the Rochester work, if I understood
Dr. Hodge, is on the acute
manifestation.... I cannot understand the defeatist attitude about
producing chronic changes in
animals with beryllium compounds sufficiently approximate to the human pathology." Dr. Hardy to Dr.
Warren, "Recent trips to Cleveland and Rochester," September 13, 1949, DOE Opennet #1
153735. 15. Col. Stafford
Warren, Memorandum to the Files, "Purpose and Limitations of the Biological and Health Physics Research
Program," July 30, 1945, p. 3, Medical and Health Problems, Box 36, Accession #72C2386, Atlanta FRC, RG
326. 16. Lt. Col. Hymer
Friedell, Memo, "Future Medical Research Program," Feb- ruary 26, 1946, is found as the
third item in a file located at 0712317 in the Department of Energy's HREX electronic search
engine. 17. The Rockefeller
Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation had funded broad programs of dental research at
Rochester, Yale, and Harvard during the
Depression, seeking to improve the terrible condition of teeth in the
United States. There is no
indication in the files seen by this author that the prewar granting was anything other than
philanthropic in nature. For
Hodge's resume, see his testimony before Cong. Wier. HR 2341: "A Bill
to Protect the Public Health from
the Dangers of Fluorination of Water." Hearings Before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign
Commerce, House of Representatives, 83rd
Congress, May 25, 26, and 27, 1954, p. 470. "Since 1937 I have been
continuously engaged part time as
a consultant toxicolo-gist for a number of industrial companies." 18. Hodge links to Eastman from
author interview with toxicologist and Roch- ester alumnus Robert Phalen. 19. The University of Rochester's Manhattan Project
medical budget included specific
funding for Rockefeller projects. Rochester Organizational Chart. Also, ESSO labs, Standard Oil, and the
Rockefeller Institute were working
on various projects, including the hexafluoride gas centrifuge.
"PB authorizations as of
March 9, 1942, 1/14/42 Standard Oil Development Co. " Centrifuge method of separation leading
to design of plant' PB #2 amount
$loo,000"' and "3/9/42 Standard Oil Development Co.
"Pilot Plant Building' PB #12
$250,000." Doc #310, Records of Section S-l Executive Committee, RG 227.3.1. The Carnegie Institute of
Washington had fluoride interests, as
well. It investigated liquid thermal diffusion with Philip Abelson as
early as 1941, in a precursor
project to the Philadelphia Navy Yard project, which was itself a prototype of the S-5o complex
at Oak Ridge. Amato, I., "Pushing the Horizon. Seventy-Five Years of High Stakes Science and
Technology at the Naval Research
Laboratory." See also
Harold Urey, Program Chief, Columbia University to James Conant, January 19, 1942: "I wish to
recommend that a contract be drawn NOTES TO CHAPTER 5 / PP. 69-70 289 to the Rockefeller
Institute for Medical Research, New York, NY for work on the separation of the uranium isotopes by
the mobility method, this work to be done under the direction of Dr. Duncan A Maclnnes and Dr. Lewis G
Longsworth." And November 19,
1942, to Dr. Wensel from Urey: "I have asked the Rockefeller
Institute people under Dr.
Maclnnis to do some work on the chemical separation work ... I wonder if
it would be possible to amend
their contract." Doc #336, Records of Section S-l, Executive Com- mittee, RG 227.3.1. 20. Col. Warren to Dr. John
Foulger Box 25, Accession #72C2386, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. 21. Much of this account was
cowritten with Joel Griffiths and first appeared in 1997 in various alternative media outlets, including
Earth Island Journal, eventually
winning a 1999 Project Censored Award. 22. Garfield Clark was measured at 25.6 ppm blood
fluoride, 01 lie Danner at 31.0 ppm.
Farmer Willard Kille, diagnosed by his doctor as fluoride poisoned, had
15.0 ppm. Report submitted by
Philip Sadtler, December 11, 1945. In Groves papers, NARA. That these levels are high can be seen from
H. Hodge and F. A. Smith, Fluorine Chemistry, vol. IV, p. 15. (The New York Examiner's office made available
for autopsy the bodies of fatal
fluoride poisonings from 1935 to 1949. Those data showed fluoride blood
levels of between 3.5 and 15.5
ppm.) 23. The company's
giant Chamber Works at Deepwater, New Jersey, near the mouth of the Delaware River, has long handled some
of the company's most dangerous chemicals, with workers and the local community traditionally paying the
price. During World War I as many
as 1 0,000 workers had been employed there making munitions and poison
gas, according to G. Colby, DuPont
Dynasty: Behind the Nylon Curtain (Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, 1984), p
.195. Referring to
World War I aftermath, Colby writes, "In DuPont's Deepwa-ter, New Jersey, plant across the river from
Wilmington, workers died from poisonous fumes of the lethal benzol series, their bodies turning a steel blue.
At the Penns Grove, New Jersey,
plant workers were called ~ canaries': picric acid had actually dyed
their skins yellow. Picric acid
poisons the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract, attacks the
intestinal tract, and destroys the
kidneys and nerve centers." In the 1920S several Deepwater workers had also been killed and
hundreds injured in an horrific and months-long episode, dubbed by the New York press "the
loony gas" poisoning, as DuPont began making the highly toxic gasoline additive tetra ethyl lead (TEL). Salem
County, where the plant is
located, had the highest rate of bladder cancer for white males in the
United States from 1950 to 1969,
according to the National Cancer Institute. Also, the New York Times' Mary Churchill learned in January 1975
that since 1919, 330 employees at the plant had contracted bladder cancer. See also the testimony of Willis F. Harrington, former
Chair of DuPont's Kinetic
Chemicals, United States vs. DuPont (1953), p. 693. United States
of 290 NOTES TO C H A P T E
R 5 / PP. 70—72
America vs. E. 1. DuPont de Nemours, General Motors, United States
Rubber, et al., Civil Action No.
49 C-lo71, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, before Judge LaBuy,
April 13, 1953, p. 3798. For Manhattan Project employees during World War II, William C. Bern-stein,
Captain Medical Corps. Memorandum
To Colonel Stafford L. Warren, Chief Medical Section. November 3, 1944. Subject: Report on Medical
Section in Wilmington, Delaware. November 3, 1944, Box 14, Wilmington Area, Accession #72C2386, Atlanta
FRC, RG 326. (Note attached from
How-land, " total engaged in work of Manhattan District 1 122.") 24. William C. Bernstein, Captain
Medical Corps. Memorandum to Colonel Stafford L. Warren, Chief Medical Section. November 3, 1944. Subject:
Report on Medical Section in
Wilmington, Delaware. November 3, 1944, Wilmington Area, Box 14, Accession #72C2386, Atlanta FRC, RG
326. 25. B. J. Mears,
Captain, Medical Corps, Assistant. Medical Clearance on Termi- nated Madison Square Area
Contracts. To: The District Engineer, Manhattan District, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. (Attention: Major
J. E. Ferry). October 5,
1945, Medical Clearances, Terminated Madison Square Contracts, Box
36, Accession #4nn 326-87-6,
Atlanta FRC, RG 326. 26.
William C. Bernstein Captain, Medical Corps, Memorandum to Col. Stafford L. Warren, Chief, Medical
Section, Subject: Occupational Disability Cases Observed. November 3, 1944, Wilmington Area, Box
14, Accession #72C2386, Atlanta
FRC, RG 326. 27. To
Stafford Warren, Subject: Supplementary Report of Medical Examination at X- Works [code for Chamber
Works] February 2, 1945, Wilmington Area, Box 14, Accession #72C2386, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. 28. William C. Bernstein,
Captain, Medical Corps. Memorandum to Col. Stafford L. Warren, Chief Medical Section. November 3, 1944.
Subject: Report on Medical Section
in Wilmington, Delaware. November 3, 1944. Wilmington Area, Box 14, Accession #72C2386, Atlanta FRC, RG
326. 29. "Memorandum to
the files, Subject: Recapitulation of Work Accomplished During Temporary Duty at X
Works." 1st. Lt. Birchard M. Brundage, February 17, 1945. 30. Memo to Capt. B. Brundage (through Col. Warren),
November 23, 1945 (draft
version, accompanied by handwritten notes detailing other "nuisance
claims") . General
Correspondence, Box 36, New York Operations Research and Medicine
Division, Accession #72C2386,
Atlanta FRC, RG 326. 31.
Hodge to Warren, March U, 1946. Md 700.2, Division of Rochester, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. For volume of
fluoride in air pollution, see example, "In the Kinetics plant, Mr Knowles described the
practice of ten years back in which SiF4 was vented to the air. SiF4 is quite poisonous."
Hodge to Warren, May 1,
1946, cc Lt. Col. Rhodes, Crop Contamination (New Jersey), Box 33,
Acces sion #72C2386, Atlanta FRC,
RG 326. 32. Hodge to Warren,
May 1, 1946, cc. Lt. Col. Rhodes, Crop Contamination ( New Jersey), Box 33, Accession
#72C2386, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. NOTES TO CHAPTER 5 / PP. 72—75 291 33* Lt. Col. Cooper
Rhodes memo to General Nichols, "Subject: Conference with Mr. Willard B. Kille." March 25, 1946.
Groves Papers, NARA, via Griffiths and
Honicker. 34*
Conference on Fluorine Residues, February 12,1946, Groves Papers, NARA,
via Griffiths and Honicker. 35. Cooper B. Rhodes, Lt. Col.
"Memorandum for the Files. Subject: Peach Crop Cases (Kille et al. vs. DuPont), 2 May 1946. . .
. Cc: General Groves, General
Nichols." Groves Papers, NARA, via Honicker and Griffiths. 36. Groves to the Commanding
General, Army Service Forces, Pentagon Build- ing, Washington, DC, August 27, 1945, Groves Papers,
NARA. 37. Gen. Groves to
Sen. McMahon, February 18, 1946, Groves Papers, NARA. 38. The note to Groves's senior deputy includes a
response, dated February 25, 1946.
"General Groves: That firm of consulting chemists has been employed
by the plaintiffs in the
"peach crop' suits against DuPont, and Mr. Sadtler has been very active in gathering evidence to present
on behalf of the plaintiffs in those suits." Groves Papers, NARA, via Honicker and Griffiths. 39. Multiple taped author
interviews with Philip Sadtler, March 1993. Also, account from The Chemist (1965), pp. 349-350;
that the Sadtler firm had testified on
behalf of Coca-Cola to say that cocaine was not a chemical ingredient of
the beverage. 40. Sadtler recalled that one of
the agents he had met in the New Jersey orchards later gave an account of their wartime
sleuthing to the media. Joseph Mar-shall, "How We Kept the Atomic Bomb Secret," Saturday Evening Post,
November to, 1945, includes the
following story: "Once, in an East Coast city, Agents Harold Jensen and Harold Zindle were maintaining
constant surveillance of an individual under suspicion of being involved with enemy agents." The
Post story does not give the name
of the person being tailed but reports that the government agents believed
the "subject . . . apparently
suspected he was under surveillance," and so they built a fence to block escape from the house
via the rear. The published account concludes, "It is presumed that the subject is still wondering why
his neighbor decided to put up the
fence so suddenly, and his neighbor is wondering why the subject did. And Security is still wondering whether the
subject is a spy." Sadtler told this writer that he had no idea he was under surveillance but that on one
occasion, "I decided to take
the car rather than the train and I jumped the fence so they did not see
me come out." Sadtler was
gutsy. He rented a plane and flew over the DuPont works, to investigate the pollution, further
displeasing authorities. Author interview. 41. Interview with Joel Griffiths, first published in
Griffiths and Bryson, "Fluoride,
Teeth, and the Atomic Bomb," Waste Not: The Reporter for Rational
Resource Management, September
1997. 42. File. Lt. Col.
Cooper B. Rhodes, "Kille et al. (12 Separate Cases) vs. DuPont." February 13, 1946, Groves Papers,
NARA. 43. Groves to the
Commanding General, Army Service Forces, Pentagon Building, Washington, DC, August 27, 1945. Groves
Papers, NARA.
292 NOTES
TO CHAPTER 5 / PP. 75—80 44. Gen. Groves to Sen. McMahon, February
18, 1946, Groves Papers, NARA. 45- Giordano interviews conducted in 1997 by Joel Griffiths and Clifford
Hon-icker on a trip to the peach
orchards. Clemente interview conducted by telephone and e-mail with the
author in 2002. 46. C. A.
Taney Jr., Major, Corps of Engineers, to William C. Gotshalk, Sep- tember 24, 1945, cc. General
Groves, in Groves file on New Jersey pollution, NARA, via Joel Griffiths. 47. William Gotshalk to Maj. C. A. Taney, U.S.
Engineer Office, New York,
NY, August 28, 1945, Groves Papers, NARA. 48. Maj. C. A. Taney to Gen. L. R. Groves, June I, m
Groves Papers, NARA. 49"
Thiessen, interviewed several times for this book, is a senior scientist
with SENES Oak Ridge, Inc.,
Center for Risk Analysis. She is the author of Summary Review of Health Effects Associated with Hydrogen
Fluoride and Related Compounds. U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, December 1988. 5o. Lt. Col. Cooper B.
Rhodes, "Memorandum for the
Files. Subject: Peach Crop Cases, Kille et al. vs. DuPont, May 2, 1946, Cc: General Groves, General
Nichols." Groves Papers, NARA, via Honicker and Griffiths. Chapter 6 1. Time, April 24, 1944, p.
43. 2. D. B. Ast, "A
Plan to Determine the Practicability, Efficacy, and Safety of Fluorinating
a Communal Water-Supply, Deficient
in Fluorine, to Control Dental Caries," in W. J. Gies, ed., Fluorine in Dental Public Health
(New York: New York Institute of Clinical Oral Pathology, 1945), p. 44. Ast's paper was delivered at a symposium of the New
York Institute of Clinical Oral
Pathology, New York City, October 30, 1944. According to the editors of
Fluorine in Dental Public Health,
"Dr. Ast's address (pp. 40-45) states the basis for, and the procedure in, the effort in the State
of New York to determine, in a comprehensive and extended research, whether mass prevention (control) of
dental caries (under the conditions
stated in the preceding paragraph) is attainable without inducing toxic
effects elsewhere in the
body," p. 6 (emphasis in the original). See also F. McKay, Fluorine
in Dental Public Health, p. 18,
"Newburgh has become another "biological experiment station,' in which the rationale is
applied directly to humans without previous laboratory experiments on animals." 3. Memorandum "Summary of
Conference with Colonel Nichols," dated New York City, July 23, 1943, notes, "5. Agreed to farming
out Fl and HF toxicity experiments
to Dr. Fairhall of the U.S. Public Health Service, Bethesda, Mr [left blank] through Dr. Wenzel — with
experiments outlined by Drs Hodge
and Ferry." Thus, the Manhattan Project is secretly directing the
wartime PHS fluoride studies.
Bomb-program medical planners, including Drs. Hodge, Friedell, and Warren, decided on August 31, 1943,
that there was need for an
"orientation conference on fluorine toxicity under auspices of the U.S. Public Health Service or
OSRD." New York Operations Research NOTES TO CHAPTER 6 / PP. 8o-83 293 and Medicine
Division, Correspondence 1945-1952, Box 36, RG 326. The conference transcripts are in a file in
the same box coded "G-H8." 4. James Conant, Chairman NRDC, to Mr. J. J. Townsend,
Public Health Service, Bethesda,
MD, September 25, 1943; and Townsend to Conant, September 29, 1943, Documents 295 and 296, Records of
Section S-i Executive Committee, RG 227.3.1. 5. Transcript of Metabolism of Fluorides Conference,
main session, Hotel
Pennsylvania, New York, NY, January 6, 1944, Dr. Neal, p. 24, via Pete
Eisler, USA Today. 6. Ibid., Dr. Calvary, Chief of
the Division of Pharmacology, FDA, p. 22. On animal tests, see Memo to Safety Section files, Joseph
Faust, Assoc. Engineer (Safety)
January 14, 1944, Oak Ridge Reading Room, ORO #1304. 7. Transcript of "Metabolism of Fluorides"
Conference, main session, Hotel
Pennsylvania, New York, NY, January 6, 1944, via Pete Eisler, Ast
comment at p. 27. (Interviewed by
me in 1997, David Ast said that he could not remember having attended the New York conference.) 8. Memorandum to The Area
Engineer, Rochester Area, Rochester, NY. Subject: Funds for Incidental Expenses of Meeting on "Fluoride
Metabolism," December 31,
1943. John L. Ferry, Md 123 (729.3), File labeled G-l 18 (c), Az, Box
36, Accession #72C2386, Atlanta
FRC, RG 326. 9. "I
think it would be a definite step forward if we forgot about definite limits
and called them "control
limits, — stated Helmuth Schrenk from the U.S. Bureau of Mines. Committee on Fluoride
Metabolism, Round Table Discussion During
Luncheon Period, continued in the Evening, January 6, 1944. All of these
quotes come from the same
lunchtime conference transcript. Transcript in file labeled G-l 18 (c), A2, Box 36, Accession
#72C2386, Atlanta FRC, RG 326.
10. E. R. Schlesinger, D. E. Overton, and H. Chase,
"Newburgh-Kingston Car
ies-Fluorine Study II. Pediatric Aspects — Preliminary Report," Am.
J. Public Health (June 1950), p.
725. u. "It is
unknown," for example, complained Captain Peter P. Dale of Harold
Hodge's Division of Pharmacology,
in September 1945, "what the critical levels of T, F or "V storage in man are [codes for
uranium, fluoride, and plutonium], or whether they may have a potentially deleterious effect. Are such factors
as the age, sex and the physical
and chemical properties of the reagent important?" "Dental
Research Program" Memo to
Stafford L. Warren, September 24, 1945, from Capt. Peter P. Dale, Capt., DC AUS. 12. D. E. Gardner, F. A. Smith,
and H. C. Hodge (with D. E. Overton and R. Feltman) UR 200 Quarterly Technical Report (October 1, 1951— December
31, 1951), University of
Rochester, "Fluoride Concentration of Placental Tissue," p. 4.
"D. E. Overton of the
Newburgh Fluorine Demonstration secured the samples from patients in that city." Published
version in Science 115 (February 22, 1952), p. 208. 13. Memo to Lt. Col. Hymer Friedell from Capt., Henry
L. Barnett, February 8,
1946, "Organizational Plan for Manhattan District Personnel
Assigned
294 NOTES
TO C H A P T E R 6 / PP. 83-84
to Japanese Report." Barnett had also seen the Trinity explosion,
and been among the first to detect
the fallout cloud. Lansing Lamont, Day of Trinity ( New York: Atheneum, 1965), p. 244. An H. "C"
Barnett is listed in charge of "special studies" at the University of Rochester, "Organization Chart
of the Manhattan Department, University of Rochester," in Harold Hodge and Carl Voegtlin, eds.,
Pharmacology and Toxicology of
Uranium Compounds, with a Section on the Pharmacology and 'Toxicology of
Fluorine and Hydrogen Fluoride
(New York: McGraw Hill, 1949), p. lo6i. Still another member of the Newburgh Technical Advisory
Committee, a Columbia University
biostatistician, John Fertig, may have been connected to the bomb
program. Fertig did war work for
the Office of Scientific Research and Development ( OSRD), the same federal bureaucracy that had sired the
atomic bomb. American Men of Science, 9th and loth editions.
14. For Howland's fluoride work: F. A. Smith, D. E. Gardner, and H. C.
Hodge, " Investigations
on the Metabolism of Fluoride," J. Dent. Research (October 1950), p. 596: "We are indebted to Dr. J.
Howland for taking the Rochester blood samples." (The study is a comparison of the fluoride
levels in blood and urine in Newburgh and
Rochester.) Also, Howland wrote "Studies on Human Exposure to
Uranium Compounds," which
investigated the Philadelphia Navy Yard blast, blaming "the fluoride ion" for injuries. Hodge
and Voegtlin, eds., Pharmacology and Toxicology of Uranium Compounds, p. 1005: Howland had helped to assemble
the atomic bombs on the Pacific
island of Tinian, then surveyed the aftermath with his Rochester
colleague, Capt. Barnett. 15. Eileen Welsome, The Plutonium
Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War (New York: Random House, 1999). Capt.
J. W. Howland was selected as
Assistant Head of the Division of Biological and Health Physics Research of
the Medical Section. "The
Manhattan District Official History," Book 1, General, vol. 7, Medical Program, p. 5.17. 16. Similarly, Ast could not recall a documented 1946 trip to
New Jersey with Harold Hodge
after the war, to study the poisoned children near the DuPont uranium hexafluoride plant. Author interview,
1997. 17. "Fluoride
Metabolism: Its significance in Water Fluoridation" J. Am. Dent. Assoc., vol. 52 (March 1956), p.
307. 18. As medical
director, Capt. Friedell had been well aware of the Manhattan Project's concern about
fluorides. On January 20, 1943, for example, after visiting the War Research Laboratories at Columbia
University, where a small-scale fluoride
gaseous diffusion plant had already been built, he reported that
"The primary potential sources
of difficulty may be present in the handling of uranium compounds . . . and
the coincident use of fluorides
which are an integral part of the process." "Initiation of Medical Program for Project at Columbia
University," January 20, 1943, Friedell to District Engineer. Friedell had also investigated fluoride
poisoning in workers at the Harshaw
Chemical Company in Cleveland.
19. "Information that fluorides are not hazardous" would have
been especially helpful to
the bomb program's Legal Division, suggested Friedell. NOTES TO CHAPTER 6 /
PP. 84-87
295 20.
Author interview, December 3, 2002.
21. Dean's epidemiological studies in the 19305 had given key scientific
support to the idea that
fluoride may play a role in dental health. As the PHS's key fluoride expert, Dean attended at least one
Newburgh Advisory Committee meeting. 22. G-10 file, Correspondence 1945-1952, New York
Operations Research And
Medicine Division, Box 38, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. 23. Also in the G-to file is a
letter from Rochester's Harold Hodge to Dr. Edward S. Rogers of the New York Department of Health,
requesting more bone X-rays of
Newburgh and Kingston children. "This would give us a good check on
. . . whether the general
development, especially the skeletal development, in the two cities is comparable," Hodge
explained. Similar information was then being sought from workers in the wartime bomb factories, where
bone X-rays were an early warning
of fluoride poisoning. "The purpose of X-raying the Newburgh children was, to pick up any toxic
effect which would manifest itself in bone changes." Conference with members of the Technical
Advisory Committee on Fluorination
of Water Supplies, June I, 1944, G-10 File. 24. G-10 file, Correspondence 1945-1952, New York
Operations Research And
Medicine Division, Box 38, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. 25. Dean's opposition
"constituted a strong minority expression" Chairman Hodge noted. New York's leading dental
official, David Ast, was furious at the Public Health Service expert's behavior that day. "It upset me
a great deal," commented Ast.
More than half a century later, Ast stills feels double-crossed by Dean.
Ast had been planning the Newburgh
experiment for more than a year. "I had conferred with him about the Newburgh study and he had
encouraged me," Ast told me. Taped author interview, July 31, 2002. Ast was then "almost
too." While he said that he knew
Hodge had "something" to do with the Manhattan Project, he
attributed Dean's flip-flop on
public-health concerns to career ambition. Behind the scenes a furious scramble was taking place to be the
first to add fluoride to the United States' water. Dean had been planning his own fluoridation experiment, Ast
said. "He was going to do it
in Michigan. He wanted to get in before I could." 26. In an enthusiastic letter to
Dr. William Davis of the Michigan Bureau of Public Health Dentistry, Dean makes no further mention of
the worrisome potential
"toxic effects" he had feared in Newburgh. "Let me know what you
think of actually getting started
on this proposition," he wrote to Davis on July 14, 1944. "I still think Grand Rapids would
probably be the most desirable place for the fluorination." Money would be no problem, Dean
suggested. "You would
probably have little difficultly in obtaining this from a foundation,
for instance the Kellogg Foundation,"
he wrote to Dr. Davis. Frank J. McClure, Water Fluoridation: The Search and the Victory (Bethesda, MD: U.S.
NIDR, 1970), p. 112. 27. "Let no one think that
any one of us would seriously consider exposing the population of a city of 165,000 [Grand Rapids'
population in 19441 to a possible
hazard of an unknown risk," the Chief Dental Officer for the
PHS, 296 NOTES TO C H A P T E
R 6 J PP. 87-92
John Knutson, told the Michigan State Dental Society in 1953. J. W.
Knutson, "An Evaluation of
the Grand Rapids Water Fluoridation Project," J. Michigan State
Medical Sc., vol. 53 (1954), p. 1
0 0 1 . Cited in McClure, Water Fluorida-tion, p. n o . 28. Multiple interviews with
author. First published in Griffiths and Bryson, " Fluoride, Teeth, and the Atomic
Bomb," Waste Not: The Reporter for Rational Resource Management (September 1997). 29. Progress Report No. 1 of
Contract No. W-74ol-eng-49 at the University of Rochester (report of the work for period May 1,
1943, to December31, 1943, submitted by Andrew H. Dowdy, M.D., Director), Box 800018227, ACHRE, RG
220. 30. "DuPont"
File, New York Operations Research and Medicine Division, Correspondence 1945-1952, Box 28-47, Box 36, Atlanta
FRC, RG 326. For Priest's fluorine work at Columbia, see multiple papers in Industrial and Engineering
Chem. (March 1947). 31. P.
Dale and H. B. McCauley, "Dental Conditions in Workers Chronically Exposed
to Dilute and Anhydrous
Hydrofluoric Acid," JADA, vol. 37, no. 2 ( August 1948). First presented at the twenty-fifth general
meeting of the International Association of Dental Research, Chicago, June 21-22, 1947. 32. See chapter 4, notes 72 and
73. 33- The published study
acknowledges the "assistance and suggestions of Drs Harold C. Hodge, ... in the preparation of this
paper." The unpublished version is via Griffiths and Honicker. 34. Division of Safety and Hygiene, March 1, 1949,
John H. Fluker, Superin- tendent,
Division of Safety and Hygiene, Columbus, OH, In Re: Harshaw Chemical Company. Memo, via John Fedor. 35. "Tabulation of results
obtained from measurements of urine samples collected from workers at the Harshaw Chemical Company from 6 to
13 December 1 945." Report
No. 5373- From Capt. B. J. Mears to Mr. F. A. Becker, Harshaw Chemical
Company, Md 319.1, General Essays,
Lectures, Medical Report, Box 34, #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. Chapter 7
1. J. Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind
Con- trol (New York: Times
Books, 1979). 2. See Subproject
46 of John Marks collection at the National Security Archive. There is a second document in these
files noting an interest in fluoride. A
redacted November 29, 1949, letter discusses chemicals best suited to
kill people. "One of these,
sodium fluoacetate, when ingested in sufficient quan tities to cause death does not cause characteristic
pathologic lesions nor does it
increase the amount of fluorine in the body to such a degree that it can be detected by quantitative
methods." See Box 4, file titled "Document Indexes Abstracts and Documents," Marks Collection,
National Archive. 3.
"Those present at the meeting were Drs. Dowdy, Bale, Fink, McKann,
Bas- sett, Hodge, and others
representing the Rochester Group, Capt. Bryan NOTES TO CHAPTER 7 / PP. 92-93 297 representing Col.
Warren's office, and W. Langham representing the Santa Fe group." Folder 4, Box SoFolB230,
ACHRE, RG 220. 4.
"Distribution and Excretion of Plutonium Administered Intravenously to Man," September 20, 1950,
Division of Health and Biology, Folder 5, Box SoFolB23o, ACHRE, RG 220. 5. Welsome, The Plutonium Files, p. 475. 6. Details of those government
experiments were declassified in 1994. On June 5, 1945, for example, a University of Rochester
letter marked "Secret" details plans for "increasing the human metabolism studies." Ten
additional patients are scheduled for
"injection with T [code for uranium]," the letter states.
"The preparation and analysis
will be done by Dr. Hodge," notes the author, Dr. Andrew Dowdy, to
Dr. W. F. Bale, of Rochester's
"Special Problems Division." The letter is cc'd to Dr. Hodge.
Dr. Andrew Dowdy to Dr. W. F.
Bale, Special Problems Division. University of Rochester intramural correspondence, Box SoFolB23o, ACHRE,
RG 220. The following year,
1946, Hodge was given direct responsibility for the experiments. L. H. Hemplemann and Wright H. Langham,
"Detailed Plan of Product
Part of Rochester Experiment." This document has a section called
" General Plan of the Rochester
Experiment" at p. 5, which details Hodge's involvement in the uranium experiments. Document marked 9000528,
Box So9FolB23o, ACHRE, RG 220.
7. The document, titled "Detailed Plan of Product [code for
plutonium] Part of Rochester
Experiment," includes a section on other human experiments. The medical director, Stafford Warren, had
determined that "fifty subjects" were needed, ten for each substance, the document explained,
"in order to establish, on a
statistically significant number of subjects, the metabolic behavior of the hazardous material,
product [code for plutonium], radium,
postum, tuballoy [code for uranium] and lead." Under the subheading
"Per sonnel and Distribution
of Responsibility," a single name is listed for the uranium experiments: "Harold
Hodge." Both patient accounts are from University of Rochester Monthly Progress Reports, for April
1947 (M-1968) and February 1947
(M-1954), Box S09FolB230, ACHRE, RG 220. An internal Rochester report on the experiments,
"The Tolerance of Man for
Hexavalent Uranium," noted that for the final subject, the
alcoholic, the experiments had
been successful, and that the "rise in urinary catalase and protein"
from the man's liver suggested
that, for uranium exposure, "tolerance had been reached." Samuel Basset, Albert Frenkel, Nathan Cedars,
Helen Can Alstine, Christine Waterhouse,
and Katherine Cusson, " The Tolerance of Man for Hexavalent Uranium,"
Folder 4, Box SoFolB23o, ACHRE, RG
220. 8. Dr. Sweet wanted to
study whether uranium could be used in "therapy of brain tumors." See Bob Bernard,
interviewed by Newell Stannard in 1975, for Hodge link to uranium injections on Bill Sweet's patients at
Massachusetts General Hospital.
DOE Opennet #0026691. However, according to an inter nal report from the Union Carbide Nuclear company, the
Atomic Energy
298 NOTES
TO C H A P T E R 7 / PP. 93—98 Commission at Oak Ridge was
"concerned with the long-term radiological effect that enriched uranium may have upon
production employees who have inhaled dusts, mists and fumes of uranium." Accordingly, uranium injections
were given to Massachusetts
General Hospital patients following their tumor operations, in order to
obtain "data on the
distribution and excretion of uranium in these patients" and to
"determine the permissible
intravenous dose." S. R. Bernard and E. G. Struxness, A Study of
the Distribution and Excretion of
Uranium in Man, An Interim Report, ORNL-23o4, Box S09F01B294, ACHRE, RG 220. 9. Morgan interview, January 6,
1995, by Gil Wittemore and Miriam Bowling, p. 109, ACHRE, RG 220. 10. And as an early member of a group of scientists
known as the American Conference of
Government and Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), Hodge helped set standards
for the "threshold"
levels of chemicals and contaminants that millions of citizens breathe in factories and mills. 1 1 . Advisory Committee on Human
Radiation Experiments, Final Report
( Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1995). 12. The biomedical work had
continued during the cold war at the Rochester Atomic Energy Project (AEP), funded with millions of dollars from
the federal Atomic Energy
Commission. 13. In
the 1930s generally workers had contracted jaw cancer from licking their
brushes as they painted radium onto
watch dials. The poisoning was widely reported in the press and guided the Manhattan Project in its
insistence on secrecy to prevent similar lawsuits or bad publicity. For example, in a letter to Charles Keller of
the AEC Declassification Branch,
L. F. Spalding of the Insurance Branch contemplates declassifying a
medical document "Biochemical
Studies Relating to the Effects of Radiation and Metals" by Samuel Schwartz. Spalding warns that
"the contents thereof might arouse some claim consciousness on the part of former employees" and
writes that "in the event latent
disabilities due to the exposures reported in this document should
result in publicity similar to
that which arose out of the "radium dial" industry, the public
relations section would be
involved." When Guttman's team asked in 1995 for the files of the AEC Insurance Branch, he recalled, nobody
at today's DOE had even heard of the Insurance Branch. Finding the old documents was like "asking my
nephew for his grandfather's stamp
collection," Guttman said.
14. AEC Memorandum dated October 8,1947, to Advisory Board on Medicine
and Biology, "Subject:
MEDICAL POLICY," Document DOE #1019707, also marked RHTG Classified Docs, Box RHA 248-7 2 of 3,
Building 2714.H, Vault. Via Peter Eisler, USA Today.
15. "Questions of General Policy," November 16, 1943, Md 319.1
Report Medical Ferry Box 25,
Manhattan Engineer District Accession #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. See also Jack Hein interview
with UK journalist Bob Woffinden, at timecode 04:18:55 1997; "They also did extensive studies on NOTES TO CHAPTER 7 /
PP. 98-99
299 the
people working in the atomic energy plants that might be exposed to
fluoride." 16.
"Memorandum to Major J. L. Ferry, Manhattan District Oak Ridge, from Capt. B. J. Mears, July 5, 1945,
subject, Visit to E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co." "Preparation of the IBM cards will
be done by Dr. Evans [DuPont] after he has received his new equipment and the operators have been instructed by
Mr. M. Wantman [Rochester].... The
results of the statistical survey will be available only to the Medical Section of the Manhattan
District," Md 701, Medical Attendance, Box 54, Accession #4nn 326-85-005, Atlanta FRC, RG
326. 17. Whether fluoride
damaged kidneys, and whether fluoride in urine would therefore be a good measurement of occupational
fluoride exposure, was key information sought by the bomb program. (Extra fluoride was stored in the bones of
those injured patients, the
government scientists found.) AEC No. UR-38, 1948, Quarterly Technical
Report. Also cited in Kettering
Lab unpublished report, "Annual Report of Observations on Fluorides. October 25, 1954." Kettering did
similar experiments on patients with damaged kidneys, according to this report. 18. Special Report 454, "Report on the Work of the
Pharmacology Division,"
included in summarized subsection "The Toxicology of Special Materials,"
via Joel Griffiths. 19. Roholm to Col. J. P. Hubbard,
Public Health Section, Dagmarhus, July 20, 1945. Hubbard is probably an Allied occupation official. The
letter is in the files of the
Rockefeller Archive, Folder 2102, Box 310, RF RG2 713. Roholm explained
that he wanted to recontact H. T.
Dean at the National Institute of Health and Margaret C. Smith at the University of Arizona, who had
discovered that fluoride causes dental mottling. 20. Roholm to Frank J. McClure (U.S. National
Institutes of Dental Research), June 13,
1946. On Roholm's attitudes toward American health care: Danish
newspaper clipping in Roholm
family scrapbook, translated by daughter-in-law Karin Roholm. Personal meeting in New York, May 2001. 21. "Fluorine interferes
with the normal calcification of the teeth during the process of their formation," the U.S. Department
of Agriculture claimed in 1 939, "so that affected teeth, in addition to being unusually discolored
and ugly in appearance, are
structurally weak and deteriorate early in life. For this reason, it is
especially important that fluorine
be avoided during the period of tooth formation, that is from birth to the
age of 12 years . . . this dental
disease is found when water containing even as little as 1 part per million is used." Yearbook of
Agriculture (1939), p. 212.
"Fluorides are general protoplasmic poisons," the American
Medical Association warned in
1943, "probably because of their capacity to modify the metabolism of
cells by changing the permeability
of the cell membrane and by inhibiting certain enzyme systems.... The sources of fluorine intoxication are
drinking water containing 1 part per
million or more of fluorine. . .. Another source of fluorine
intoxication is from the fluorides
used in the
300 NOTES
TO CHAPTER 7 / PP. 99—102 smelting of many metals, such as steel and
aluminum, and in production of glass, enamel and brick." /AMA, vol. 123 (September 18, 1943), p.
150. Even the American Dental
Association had editorialized in October 1944, "our knowledge of
the subject certainly does not
warrant the introduction of fluorine in community water supplies,"
the association's magazine stated,
" we do know that the use of the drinking water containing as little as 1.2 to 3. 0 parts per million of
fluorine will cause such
developmental disturbances in bones as osteosclerosis, spondylosis and
osteopetrosis, as well as
goiter." ( Today, the EPA permits 4 parts per million of fluoride in
water, a standard vigorously
resisted by some EPA scientists, including the former senior toxicologist of the Office of Drinking
Water, Dr. William Marcus.) Marcus interview with author.
22. K. Roholm, Rejsebreve Indtryk Fra USA (Efteraar 1945); Ugeskrift For
Laeger, vol. lo8 (1946), pp.
234-243. 23. Ibid. Before
the war, Roholm recalled, "it was discovered that the concen- tration of fluoride; 1 milligram
of fluoride per 1 liter drinking water; causes mottled teeth amongst those who drink the
water, while the permanent teeth calcify, i.e., during infancy. The enamel become indistinct,
chalklike and sometimes dark colored and
fragile. The disease has since been discovered throughout the entire
world and continues to be a
serious problem of sanitary reasons, which makes it necessary to change
the water supply." 24. Ibid., pp. 234-243. 25. In early 2001 Roholm's
daughter-in-law, Karin, showed me a scrapbook of news stories collected by a family friend during his
lifetime. She translated them for me
over coffee at the New York YMCA at West Sixty-third Street. In his
address Roholm made a single
reference to fluoride. "In recent years, we have learned that a small quantity of the element fluoride in the
drinking water significantly seems to protect against caries," he said. Ugeskrift For Laeger, vol. no
(1948), pp. 221-226. Chapter
8 1. Jamie Lincoln Kitman,
"The Secret History of Lead," Part 1, The Nation ( March 20, 2000), in which a 1985
EPA study is cited for heart-disease deaths. Kitman wrote, "According to a 1988 report to Congress on
childhood lead poisoning in America
by the government's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry,
one can estimate that the
blood-lead levels of up to 2 million children were reduced every year to below toxic levels between 1970 and
1987 as leaded gasoline use was reduced. From that report and elsewhere, one can conservatively estimate
that a total of about 68 million
young children had toxic exposures to lead from gasoline from 1927 to
1987." 2. Humor and
ancestry; Interview with Edward Largent Jr. Arrogance: inter- view with Dr. Albert
Burgstahler. 3. Kehoe
testimony at Martin trial, p. 965.
4. For example, he was an associate editor of the American Medical
Associa- tion's Archives of
Industrial Hygiene and Occupational Medicine. NOTES TO CHAPTER 8 / P. 102 301 5. From 1925 to 1958
Kehoe was the medical director of the Ethyl Corporation, the partnership between Standard and
General Motors that distributed the
DuPont-manufactured antiknock gasoline additive known as tetra ethyl
lead (TEL). In 1966 he told
Congress that he "had been looking for 30 years for evi dence of bad effects from leaded
gasoline in the general population and had found none." Kitman, "The Secret History of
Lead." Kehoe's work would take
him to Germany immediately after World War II, from which he sent
home photographs of the Nazi death
camps. See also diary, RAK Collection. The German industrial conglomerate I. G. Farben had
operated the Auschwitz camp with
Hitler's SS. Before the war Farben had partnered in Germany and the United
States with Standard Oil. Shortly
before European hostilities broke out, Ethyl Corporation transferred the technology for making
TEL to its German partner, greatly aiding the Nazi war effort. According to Farben official August von Knieriem
at the Nuremberg war crimes trial,
"Without tetraethyl lead the present method of warfare would have
been impossible. The fact that
since the beginning of the war we could produce tetraethyl lead is entirely due to the circumstance that
shortly before, the Americans presented us with the production plans, complete with their know how." J.
Borkin, The Crime and Punishment
of I. G. Farben (New York: The Free Press, 1978), p. 78. 6. On April 17, 1952, Kehoe wrote
to Seward Miller — medical director of the Division of Industrial Hygiene, Public Health
Service — on behalf of nine corporations then sponsoring his fluoride research, to request that the PHS
perform some fluoride safety
studies on animals. The industry groups, Kehoe noted, "are
concerned mainly with the results
of exposure to fluorides in various occupations." These industries
included "The Pennsylvania
Salt Manufacturing Company, Aluminum Company of America, Reynolds Metals Company, Universal Oil Products
Company, American Petroleum Institute, Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation, Tennessee Valley
Authority, The Harshaw Chemical
Company, [and] Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Corporation." RAK Collection. 7. A great number of claims were settled out of court.
The following is a partial listing of
legal actions against U.S. corporations following the war, and during
the early cold war, in which
fluoride was suspected as a poison. These data are culled from press accounts
and this author's research. See
also E. J. Largent, "Fluorosis — The Health Aspects of Fluorine Compounds," for the difficulty of
comprehensively tracking the frequency and number of fluoride lawsuits. Also, M. J. Prival and F. Fisher,
"Fluorides in the Air," Environment, vol. 15, no. 3 (April 1973), pp. 25-32. "The number of out
of court settlements of claims of
fluoride damage to vegetation is impossible to determine, although it
certainly exceeds the number of
court-ordered payments."
1946. The "Peach Crop Cases" by New Jersey farmers in
Gloucester and Salem County,
claiming $430,000 against DuPont and the U.S. government. 302 NOTES TO CHAPTER 8 /
P. 102 1946.
Suit "exceeding half a million dollars" mounted against the
Pennsylvania Salt Company, Sun
Oil, and the General Chemical Company by some 4 1 farmers near the town of Delran, New Jersey, on the Delaware
River. Pennsylvania Salt was being sued along with Sun Oil and General Chemical for more than a
half-million dollars by as many as
forty-one different farmers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The farmers
claimed that they had been
poisoned by fluoride — their crops and farm animals killed. Downwind of
the Pennsylvania Salt Company's
plant in Cornwall Heights, built by the government during the war, lay a half-mile-square zone
just across the Delaware River, "where all trees have been killed." Another of the
company's fluoride plants in Easton, Pennsylvania, "revealed an almost identical picture of
damage." John H. Claypool to Edward Largent, 10/19/45; "Recently the first actions in
bringing suit have been taken in behalf of 26, out of an original 41, peach growers." Also
Largent to R. W. Champion, Harshaw Chemical, 4/25/1946, File 13, Box 32, RAK Collection. • Immediately postwar. A Philadelphia
gun club filed suit against the nearby Pennsylvania Salt Company. According to Philip Sadtler: "The Plant
had damaged the Philadelphia gun
club which was next door — that was a relatively simple case. The gun
club won because of my testimony,
and all I had done was gather some of the vegetation and measured the fluorine." Taped author interview,
March 23, 1993. • 1948.
Claims filed by a group of horticulturist farmers against phosphate
fertilizer manufacturers in
Bradenton, Florida, on the Gulf Coast, alleging agricultural damage. "They won a large
settlement," according to lead investigator Philip Sadtler. "The vegetation showed [damage] around the
edges. One farmer named the (claprood?) family grew a large number of gladioli which were shipped all over
the United States. For at least
two years they were ruined by the phosphate roasting. Therefore, I was
asked to go down to Bradenton to
investigate the problem. I took samples and came home and analyzed them. They were no different from [what
Sadtler had found in the fluorine poisoning from industry in] New Jersey. They won a large settlement. It
took several years but they got
repaid for what they had lost." • October 1948. Donora, Pennsylvania. Four and half
million dollars in legal claims
against U.S. Steel following some two dozen fatalities and thousand of
injuries, blamed by one
investigator on fluoride. The legal action did not focus on fluoride. •1949. Lawsuits filed against the
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) alleging fluoride pollution. For example, "In connection with the
plaintiffs living in the Columbia area who should be examined for possible fluorosis," Edward
Largent to Joseph C. Swidler,
General Counsel, TVA, Knoxville, Tennessee. Also, Kettering's William
Ashe performed a pilot study in
1950 of conditions at TVA's phosphate fertilizer plant at the Wilson Dam. While most of the men had worked in the
plant "a relatively short time NOTES TO CHAPTER 8 / P. 102 303 (a few months to 7
years; ay. 2.6 years)," X-ray and urine analysis of the men found widespread bone fluorosis, urine values
as high as 27.28 mgs of fluoride per liter, and concluded "I) There was a fluoride problem in the
fertilizer plants at Wilson Dam 2)
Some workmen are absorbing abnormal amounts of fluoride in quantities sufficient to produce fluorosis of the
bone." Ashe to Dr E. L. Bishop, Director of Health TVA, File 14, Box 15, RAK Collection. • 1950 Alcoa was fined for
dumping fluorides into the Columbia River. Airborne fluorides heavily contaminated the grass and animal forage
"which resulted in injury and
death to cattle" and a claim for $200,000 compensation, according to
newspaper accounts. "Oregon
Rancher asks $200,000 of Aluminum Company," Seattle Times, December 16, 1952. Cited in G. L.
Waldbott et al., Fluoridation: The Great Dilemma, p. 296. Alcoa had dumped between 1,000 and 7,000 pounds of
fluorides per month into the
Columbia before 1950, according to National Fluoridation News ( March-April, 1967), p. 3. • 1950. Mr. and Mrs. Julius
Lampert won suit against Reynolds' Troutdale, Oregon, plant for fluoride damage to gladiolus crops. Cited in
Waldbott et al., Fluoridation, p.
298, "Damages for Crop Burns," Lewiston (ID) Morning Tribune,
February 6, 1962. • Alcoa had compensated 141
farmers and cattle raisers in Blount County, Tennessee, prior to January 1, 1953, when another
suit charged that fluoride fumes had damaged farmlands and injured cattle. Cited in Waldbott, Fluoride,
p. 298, "Jury Decides Alcoa
Liability Ended in 1955," Knoxville (Tenn.) Journal, July 30, 1955. Cited
in Waldbott et al., Fluoridation,
p. 298, "Alcoa Sued for Nearly $3 Million," Knoxville (TN) Journal, October 29, 1970. • Also in Tennessee, by 1953
Monsanto was "faced with a number of claims for personal and property damage which total a considerable
amount" including "claims
for personal injury due to fluoride-containing effluents released from
the stacks of the plant at
Columbia owned by Monsanto." ( "Last week when Mr. Wheeler was in Cincinnati he talked briefly with Dr.
Heyroth about Monsanto's fluoride problems. As you know, Monsanto is faced with a number of claims for
personal and property damage which
total a considerable amount. These cases have accumulated over quite a period and have been pending for three
or four years. It now appears that they may come to trial this fall." R. Emmet Kelly, M.D.,
Monsanto's medical director, to Robert
Kehoe, July 7, 1953, File 26, Box 38, RAK Collection. Also: "Two
couples, a man and a wife in each
case, have filed claims for personal injury due to fluoride-containing effluents released from the stacks of
the plant at Columbia owned by
Monsanto .. . Symptoms described by the plaintiffs in part fit the description
of acute fluoride poisoning, in
part fit the description of chronic fluoride poisoning, and in part they appear so bizarre as
to fit neither." Memorandum of meeting held August 19, 1953 between Edward Largent, Dr. 304 NOTES TO CHAPTER 8 /
P. 102 Francis
Heyroth, Mr. John Jewell. Monsanto Chemical Company, and their attorney, Mr. Lon McFarland, August 20,1953, File
26, Box 38, RAK Collection. In
Utah, byl957, U.S. Steel had settled 88o 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. D. A. Greenwood, "Background
for Studies in Utah County."
Unpublished paper given at the 1957 Kettering Fluoride Symposium, File 17,
Box 42, RAK Collection. Another
figure states that the legal claims against U.S. Steel in Utah were for $30 million. C. Butler,
Discussion in: Proceedings: Nat'l. Conf. on Air Pollution, Nov. 18-2o, 1958 (Washington, DC: Government
Printing Office), p. 268. Also,
Prival and Fisher: "U.S. Steel paid $4 million to cattle ranchers
around its steel mill near Provo,
Utah, before spending $9 million on pollution control devices," citing
Chemical and Engineering, vol. 65,
no. 4, p. 66, February 24, 1958, and W. T. Purvance, Chem. Eng. Prog., vol. 55, no. 7 (July 1959), p.
49, . This writer did not delve into the legal papers surrounding these cases. However, a clue as to their
ultimate fate may be found in an essay by
Keith E. Taylor Esq., senior partner, Parsons, Behle, and Latimer, Salt
Lake City. He writes in 1982 of a
proceeding "of nearly 25 years ago [in which] farmers and ranchers,
approximately 300 strong, sought
damages in a Federal Court for claimed injury to thousands of cattle and sheep and to numerous types of
vegetation from fluorides emitted from an industrial facility." According to Taylor, Utah State
scientists examined a dairy cow, Ms. Penelope, "ear tag No. G-571023," that plaintiffs claimed
had been poisoned by fluoride; these scientists then "testified on behalf of the defendant, [and] came up
with opposite conclusions. They found no
evidence of fluorosis. The cause of her poor health was a wire that she
had ingested, which had punctured
her heart. . . . Except for that research . . . the result would probably have
been different. Cows like Penelope
would have continued to be diagnosed as dying of fluorosis. The farmers would not have had a
compelling reason to clean the nails and wire from cattle feed, and to correct the various other
problems that were contributing culprits. In the long run even the farmers would have been the
losers." K. E. Taylor " Research Needs — A Lawyer's View" in J. L. Shupe, H. B.
Peterson, and N. C. Leone, eds., Fluorides: Effects on Vegetation, Animals, and Humans (Salt
Lake City, UT: Paragon Press, 1983), p. 359. 8. At a gathering of industry scientists and profluoride dental
researchers in 1983, Seamans
explained how wartime production had propelled a wave of fluoride
pollution lawsuits against
industry. "After the German bombing of Coventry had knocked out the
English aluminum production,"
Sea-mans began, "President Roosevelt announced that America would
build 50,000 planes. This was an
unbelievable number and required a tremendous amount of aluminum, far more than existing
capacity could produce. Accordingly, through a government agency known as the Defense Plant NOTES TO CHAPTER 8 /
P. 103 305 Corporation, aluminum
smelters were built wherever the needed electricity could be obtained . . . one DPC plant was built
in the San Joaquin Valley of California.... "]here were, of course, no controls of any
kind on this plant. As you can expect, there was a great consternation in the San Joaquin
Val-ley. Vigilante committees were formed, and an injunction suit was filed. In August 1943, as a young lawyer
for Alcoa I was sent out there to
find out what the problem was all about.... Fortunately, Dr. Francis C. Frary,
who was then director of research
at Alcoa, had seen Roholm's book describing some of the consequences of cryolite mining in
Greenland and this led him to wonder whether fluorides were the culprit ... we all finally became
convinced that there had been undue
exposure to fluorides. Because we had the injunction suit and other
claims to handle, as soon as
possible we persuaded the Defense Plant Corporation to close the San
Joaquin Plant. Thereafter, over a
period of years we were able to settle all the cases, and thus the ~Riverbank, California' nightmare came
to an end. After this experience however,
knowledge quickly spread and soon we had claims and lawsuits around
aluminum smelters from coast to
coast. These required prodigious effort and great expenditures of time and money to settle. During the
course of events, many significant and extended lawsuits were tried. Some of the more crucial were the
Fraser case involving the
Vancouver, Washington, plant and the Hitch case involving the Alcoa,
Tennessee, Plant." Seamans
continued, " There was very little solid information on the subject about
what harm fluorides could do, what
harm they did not do and what the tolerance levels were for people." Accordingly,
"research was encouraged and supported at the University of Wisconsin, Utah State, Stanford
Research Institute, University of Tennessee, Kettering Institute, the Boyce Thompson Institute
for Plant research and other noted scientific centers." F. L. Seamans, " Historical, Economic
and Legal aspects of Fluoride," in Shupe et al., eds., Fluorides, p. 5. 9. Frank Seamans to attorney Theodore C. Waters,
August 30,1956. "You will
recall the occasion of our meeting together in Washington with a group
of lawyers who have clients
interested in the fluoride problem, at which time we were discussing the
U.S. Public Health Service. The
group, which in the past has consisted of representatives of Aluminum Company of Canada, Food
Machinery and Chemical Corporation, U.S. Steel, Kaiser Aluminum and Steel, Tennessee Corporation and
subsidiaries, Monsanto Chemical,
Victor Chemical, Reynolds Metals Company, T.V.A. and Alcoa has had some discussions with Dr. Kehoe
relative to some research and regarding the effect of fluorides on human beings." File 5, Box 76, RAK
Collection. 10. On the
relationship of Medical Advisory Committee to the Fluorine Lawyers, Seamans to Medical Advisory Committee,
April 16, 1957: "The legal
representatives of the several companies interested in the Kettering
Research project have agreed that
it would be advantageous if the principal liaison with Kettering were undertaken by persons of competent
technical back ground . . . [to]
conduct the necessary liaison between the Kettering Insti- 306 NOTES TO CHAPTER 8 /
PP. 103—105 tute
and the lawyers' group by a system of regularly scheduled visitations to
Kettering and regular reports to
the lawyer's group." File 17, Box 42, RAK Collection, n. Memorandum
on the Meeting of the Pittsburgh
Section of the Industrial Hygiene Association, April 30, 1946, marked "Confidential." 12. During the key wartime
Manhattan Project-sponsored "Conference on Fluoride Metabolism" at New York's Hotel Pennsylvania
on January 6, 1944, Largent was a
member of an inner-sanctum group of experts — along with Harold Hodge from the University of
Rochester — that had decided how
much fluoride U.S. workers could be "safely" exposed to inside
the giant wartime atomic-bomb
factories. 13. The phrase is
from Francis McClure of the National Institutes of Dental Research. Largent's human experiments, McClure
said, "provided much basic information not only for appraisal of industrial fluoride hazards but for
resolution of a public health hazard
which might be associated with use of fluoride drinking waters." F.
J. McClure, Fluoridation (N1H
publication, 1970 ), p . 2 0 0 .
14. From the 1933 level of 1.43 mg F/Kg, raised in 1944 to 7 mg F/Kg. K.
Roholm, Rejsebreve Indtryk Fra USA
(Efteraar, 1945); Ugeskrift For Laeger, vol. lo8 (1 946), pp. 234-243. 15. Mellon guests were told that fluoride air
concentrations of up to 4 parts per million had been found inside Alcoa plants, according to Dr. Lester
Craw-ley of Alcoa. Memorandum on
the Meeting of the Pittsburgh Section of the Industrial Hygiene Association, April 30, 1946. Stamped
"Confidential." File 13, Box 38, RAK Collection. 16. See note 7 above. Also, E. J.
Largent, Fluorosis: The Health Aspects of Fluorine Compounds (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1961),
p. 124. 17. "We have on
file in our laboratory evidence of bone changes in employees in manufacturing operations where there are
known atmospheric contaminations from
fluorides," Largent noted. Attending the Mellon conference might
help industry confront such
threats, Largent added. The aluminum industry, in particular, had long ago seen
the danger of workers' lawsuits
for fluoride exposure and had taken preemptive action. "It was in anticipation of such an
eventuality that Aluminum Company of America set out several years ago to obtain all possible data with which to
meet such a situation," Largent
told the Harshaw Chemical Company. Edward Largent to R. W. Champion,
assistant sales manager, Harshaw
Chemical Company, April 25, 1946, File 13, Box 38, RAK Collection. 18. Bovard announced at the Pittsburgh conference that
there was "no evidence to
prove that there was any relation between ankylosing spondylitis [the fus ing of spinal vertebra] and the
deposition of fluorides in the osseous tissue," Largent reported. Memorandum on the Meeting of the
Pittsburgh Section of the
Industrial Hygiene Association, April 30, 1946. Stamped
"Confidential." RAK
Collection Box 38 File 13. Bovard would regularly consult for the Ket- tering Laboratory and industry during
the cold war, helping the TV A, for NOTES TO CHAPTER 8 / PP. 105—106 307 example, in preparing
its 1953 report, "Study of Fluoride Hazards — Final Report — Project Authorization 408." 19. Edward Largent to Dr. S. C.
Ogburn Jr., manager, Research and Develop- ment Department, Pennsylvania Salt Company, May 8,
1946, File 13, Box 38, RAK
Collection. 20.
Memorandum on the meeting of the Pittsburgh Section of the Industrial Hygiene Association, April 30,
1946. Stamped "Confidential," File 13, Box 38, RAK Collection. 21. "Suggestions have been made both by Dr. Frary
and by some of the du Pont
group, including their medical director . . . that it might be advisable
for representatives of du Pont, Aluminum
Company, and Pennsylvania Salt to get together and to discuss carefully the whole problem."
Robert Kehoe to S. C. Ogburn Jr., Pennsylvania Salt Company, May 25, 1946, File 13, Box 38, RAK Collection. 22. Joel Griffiths
interview. 23. George Blakstone
said that Maurice and Elmo had both participated in the lead experiments. He recalled that Maurice
"would go in a chamber and inhale." Gentry Blackstone, who inhaled hydrogen fluoride gas, was also
" drinking something, I think,"
according to George.
24. "Summary of Investigations of the Metabolism of Fluorides by
Man and Dogs, " Nov. 1,
1950, Unpublished Reports, vol. 24 b, RAK Collection. 25. Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, Deceit and
Denial: The Deadly Poli-
tics of Industrial Pollution (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2002), p. no. 26. E. K.
Largent, P. G. Bovard, and F. F. Heyroth, "Roetgenographic Changes and Urinary Fluoride Excretion
among Workmen Engaged in the Manufacture of Inorganic Fluorides," Amer. J. Roentgenol, vol. 65
(1951), p. 42. 27. The
dueling European and American medical theories had an odd trans- atlantic symmetry. Both
scientists had studied workers handling cryolite, mined in the Danish colony of Greenland. Most of
Europe's cryolite arrived via Roholm's hometown port of Copenhagen, while an old Philadelphia Quaker firm,
the Pennsylvania Salt
Manufacturing Company, whose workers Largent studied, had been granted
sole rights to sell Danish
cryolite in the U. S. During World War U, when the Nazis occupied Denmark, Greenland was governed by the
Danish minister in Washington and a
committee of five advisers, one of whom was Leonard T. Beale, the
President of Pennsylvania Salt. R.
K. Leavitt, Prologue to Tomorrow: A History of the First Hundred Years in the Life of the Pennsylvania
Salt Manufacturing Company (The Pennsylvania Salt Company, 1950), chapter on fluorine, "Bad Actor
turns Patriot," p. 78.
28. From 1939 to 1944, for example, industrial consumption of the most
volu- minous fluoride
mineral, fluorspar, had more than doubled. It rose from 176,000 tons of fluorspar in 1939 to 410,000 tons in
1944. See Largent, Table 4, "The Occurrence and Use of Inorganic Fluorides." Paper given at 1953
Fluoride Symposium, in Unpublished
Reports 32b, RAK Collection. 308 NOTES TO CHAPTER 8 / PP. 106—109 29. National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 1975 DHEW/NIOSH- 76-103. Cited in "Summary
Review of Health Effects" EPA/600/8-89/oo2F, December 1988, pp. 3-5. 30. Largent spent a career
doubting Roholm. Roholm's findings were not " authenticated" and "cannot be generally
accepted," Largent insisted. The Dane had failed to show "a causal relationship" between
fluoride and injury, he told a Kettering roundtable of industry doctors. 1957 Kettering
Fluoride Symposium, Box 63, RAK Collection. 31. H. C. Hodge and F. A. Smith, Fluorine Chemistry,
vol. IV, p. 385. Also, " Largent's
research is often quoted as evidence that bone changes, of the kind
encountered in high fluoride areas
and in industry, are never associated with harm elsewhere in the human organism and therefore have no
significance." G. L. Waldbott, A Struggle with Titans (New York: Carlton Press, 1965), p.
289. 32. "When one
finds, in cases of severe fluorosis of the bone, limitation of motion of the elbow and the X-ray
reveals exostoses of unusual density about the elbow, one is probably entirely justified in
concluding that the deformity and dysfunction are due to fluorosis, and that disability exists
in association with and because of this disease, whether or not the man is aware of it, and whether or not he
continues to do his job at the
plant. " Aluminum Company of America, Niagara Falls Works Health Survey,
File 4, Box 82, RAK
Collection. 33. "An
exostoses (a bony outgrowth from the surface of the bone) on one of the bones of the right forearm and
some calcification of the ligaments of the lower vertebrae were noted" in Ira Templeton's
X-rays, according to Dr Smyth. He also found "In several instances bony outgrowths which seemed very much
like the bone changes seen by
Roholm in the monograph, 'Fluorine Intoxication,'" Largent told the
Pennsylvania Salt Company.
"On the basis of the data and the conclusions of that book alone, one would accept the presence of these
outgrowths as evidence of the existence of fluorine intoxication. The conclusions of Dr. Smyth, who used the
expression 'fluorine intoxication,'
in the interpretation of his findings, would seem to follow this
thesis," Largent added.
Edward Largent, "Report to the Pennsylvania Salt Company," May
8, 1948, File 13, Box 38, RAK
Collection. 34. Bovard to
Kehoe, February 28, 1946. Also, Bovard X-ray interpretation, Feb- ruary 19, 1946, File 13, Box 38,
RAK Collection. 35. J.
Russell Davey, M.D., to Pennsylvania Salt Co., In Re: Ira Templeton. January 31, 1947, File 13, Box
38, RAK Collection. 36. S.
C. Ogburn Jr., manager, Research and Development Department, Penn- sylvania Salt Company, to Kehoe,
February lo, 1947, File 13, Box 38, RAK
Collection. 37. Kehoe
to S. C. Ogburn Jr., February 12, 1947, File 13, Box 38, RAK Collection. 38. "Final Report of the
Results of Investigations Relating to Fluoride Metabo- lism Conducted Under the Sponsorship of
the Pennsylvania Salt Company."
Unpublished Reports vol. 24-a, Kettering Laboratory, p. 13, RAK
Collection.
NOTES TO CHAPTER 8 / PP. 109-1 12 309 39. Largent was familiar with Roholm's
research, of course, and knew about the subtle effects of fluoride poisoning. During the war, for example,
Lar-gent told a 1943 industry
conference at the Mellon Institute that "it seems probable that exposure
to fluoride dusts may be capable
of lowering the efficiency and well-being of workmen without inducing any very specific and dramatic
symptoms." Proceedings of the
Eighth Annual Meeting of Industrial Hygiene Foundation of America, Inc., November 10-11, 1943, p. 32. 4o. E. J. Largent, P. G. Bovard, and F. F. Heyroth,
"Roetgenographic Changes
and Urinary Fluoride Excretion among Workmen Engaged in the Manufacture
of Inorganic
Fluorides," Am. J. Roentgenol., vol. 65 (1951), p. 42. See 41. chapter 6 for the January 1944 fluoride conference
held at the Hotel Pennsylvania in
New York. 42. The Kettering
Laboratory's "investigation of the metabolism of fluorides in the human body" was funded in 1953
by Alcoa, Reynolds, Kaiser, Harshaw
Chemical, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, Universal Oil
Products, the Tennessee Valley
Authority, and the American Petroleum Institute. Kehoe to Seward E. Miller Medical Director, Division of
Industrial Hygiene, and
Hvdroaen 43. Fluoride,"
The Pharmacology and Toxicology of Uranium Compounds (New York: McGraw Hill, 1949), p. 1021.
(Stokinger was a former Kettering scientist who went to Rochester during the war. Largent called him Herb).
Also, in 1909 Ronzani had
done HF inhalation studies on animals. He found no harm at 3 ppm, during
a month's exposure, but was
unable to report the same at 5 and 7.5 ppm. The Kettering Laboratory had abstracted Ronzani in their
Kettering Abstracts series. .
Among the attendees were the medical directors of DuPont, Alcoa, and 44 TVA. Alcoa's attorney, Frank
Seamans, from the Pittsburgh firm of Smith, Buchanan, Ingersoll, Rodewald, and Eckert, was also in
attendance. File 13, Box 38, RAK
Collection. Largent had
suggested in 1943 that 1.5-2.00 mg/liter of fluoride in urine 45. might be associated with
deposition in worker's bones. "Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting of Industrial
Hygiene Foundation of America, Inc,"
November 10-11, 1943, p. 32.
"If there were any changes in the bone as a consequence of 3 ppm it
was 46. beneficial
deposition of fluoride, not harmful," he told writer Joel Griffiths. Griffiths interview. Largent, "Absorption and
Elimination of Fluorides by Man," Kettering Fluoride 47* Symposium 1953, p. 92. Also, Largent reported in the
unpublished "Industrial
Health Surveys in Plants Processing Inorganic Fluorides," that in
"a plant dealing with
hydrogen fluoride ... One man, who had an average urinary fluoride concentration of 9 mg. per
liter, gave evidence of a moderate increase in radiopacity." He continued, "If all threats of
medico-legal problems are to be
avoided it seems probable that average urinary fluoride levels must be
kept below 10 mg. per liter."
Fluoride Symposium, 11.1, RAK Collection. 310 NOTES TO CHAPTER 8 / PP. 1 12-1 13 8. See 2001 ACGIH
TLV, data summary for HF, "based on results of controlled 4 inhalation studies in human
volunteers" (Largent cited). ACGIH also cite E. Ronzani, "Influence of the Inhalation of
Irritant Industrial Gases on the Resistance of the Organism to Infectious Disease. Experimental
Investigations. II. Hydrofluoric Acid Gas, Ammonia, Hydrochloric Acid Gas," Arch. Hyg., vol. 70 (1909), pp.
217-269. Ronzani was prompted to
his studies because "disputes about the duties of factory and
workshop owners towards their
neighbors are brought to the court in rising frequency." He therefore sought a "no effect" level to
help resolution of such disputes. He studied animals at various concentrations of HF, including
7.5 ppm and 5.0 ppm, but was forced to go to 3 ppm to find a no-effect level over 3 1 days — little comfort
surely almost a century later for
workers breathing HF today at 3 ppm for all of a working life. In the NIOSH "Criteria
Document for a Recommended Standard: Occupational Exposure to Hydrogen Fluoride," Publication 76-143, it
is noted that Elkins had found
"workers in the etching process had nosebleeds as did welders
exposed to O.4-0.7 mg F/cu m who
were excreting 2-6 mg F/liter of urine . .. other workers exposed to 0.1-0.35
mg F/cu m and excreting, on the
average, 4. 5 mg F/liter reportedly experienced sinus trouble. The ACGIH suggested that the urinary
excretion values reported by Elkins seemed "inconsistently high' relative to airborne HF levels,
and that dietary F was suggested as a
possible factor." Citation, H. B. Elkins, The Chemistry of
Industrial Toxicology, 2nd ed.
(New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1959), pp. 71-73. The ramifications of the ACGIH
reliance on Largent and Ronzani can
perhaps be seen in the U.S. standard for HF occupational exposure of 2.5
mg HF/cu m, compared to other
countries (cited in NIOSH, above document, 1976): The (former) Soviet Union, 0.5 mg HF/cu m, Hungary
and Poland o.5 mg HF/cu m, (the
former) East Germany and Czechoslovakia,! mg HF/ cu m, and Bulgaria 1 mg HF/cu m. In that second interview, Largent
became aware that the interviewer Joel Griffiths might not view his experimental work
favorably. The verbatim exchange
continued as follows: 49.
EL: I never did develop osteofluorosis. JG: Excuse me?
EL: I never developed personally any aspect of osteofluorosis — you just
got through saying I
developed osteofluorosis. JG:
Because I think that is what you told me the last time we talked. EL: No — I would have talked about
skeletal deposition, and that is not osteo-fluorosis. JG: Well, skeletal deposition, right — that led to some
difficulties with your knees. EL:
Not in the slightest. JG:
Well, this doesn't seem to jibe with what you told me the first time. EL:
That's not true — I was developing
more like osteoporosis — I have arthritic difficulties in my extremities serious enough that the
right knee was
NOTES TO CHAPTER 9 / PP. 1 13-114 311 replaced with a prosthesis but that was
more on the side toward osteoporosis than
fluorosis — I didn't get enough to do me any good, I can tell you that.
[Osteosclerosis, thickening of the
bone, is a sign of a small amount of additional fluoride exposure; osteoporosis is an indication of
massive fluoride exposure, Roholm and others reported.]
JG: Because you said to me quite distinctly the first time that it was
osteo-fluorosis. EL: No. JG: And that fluoride can cause
this condition. EL: No. JG: And that as far as you were
concerned that was what it was.
EL: No. JG: And that
you believed it could have possibly come from the drinking water in the high school you attended in Fort
Ames, Iowa, back in nine-teen-whatever-it-was. EL: Yeah.
JG: And also that the fluoride that you absorbed in your experiments might
possibly have been a
contributing factor. EL: Factor —
what factor? JG: To the osteofluorosis. EL: I didn't have osteofluorosis — at
any time. JG: I see, because the
first time I'm certain that you said you did. EL: No — I don't think that I did. JG: In other words, you're not saying it now. EL: I don't know what I said
then, but if I said it then I was wrong. ... If you say I developed osteofluorosis I will
challenge that ... I didn't get enough fluoride to do me any good.
JG: Well, let me see if I can find the tape and see I'll see if I
misheard you. EL: You may not have
misheard me, but you may be able to correct me if I misspoke. 50. Fluoride appears to carry
aluminum over the blood-brain barrier; the alu-minofluoride complexes then damage the brain
structure. See esp. J. A. Varner, K. F. Jensen, W. Horvath, and R. L. Isaacson, "Chronic Administration of
Aluminum-Fluoride or
Sodium-Fluoride to Rats in Drinking Water: Alterations in Neuronal
and Cerebrovascular
Integrity," Brain Research, vol. 7 84 (1998), pp. z84-298. "There
are striking parallels between
al-induced alterations in cerebrovasculature [and] those associated with Alzheimer's disease and
other forms of dementia."
Chapter 9 1.
Collected by Dan Hoffman, "Three Ballads of the Donora Smog," New
York Folklore Quarterly, no. 5
(spring 1949), pp. 58-59. Quoted in Lynne Page Snyder, — The Death Dealing Smog over Donora,
Pennsylvania': Industrial Air Pollution, Public Policy, and Federal Policy, 1915-1963" (1994).
Available from UMI Dissertation Services. 312 NOTES TOCH APTER9/PP. 114—118 2. Bulletin No. 306,
Air Pollution in Donora, PA, Epidemiology of the Unusual Smog Episode of October 1948
(Public Health Service). 3.
Donora is often referred to as the worst recorded air-pollution disaster in
U. S. history. This may or
may not be entirely true. During a similar seasonal temperature inversion from November 12 to 22, 1953,
between 175 and 260 people were killed in
New York City from air pollution, according to Howard R. Lewis, With
Every Breath You Take (New York:
Crown Publishers, 1965), p. 19. Although there were numerous complaints of eye irritation and
coughing, the total number of New York deaths from the smog incident was only revealed later
by statistical analysis, Lewis writes. 4. A key source for this chapter is Lynne Page
Snyder's excellent ""The Death Dealing Smog over Donora.'" 5. The 1949 official Public
Health Service report, Bulletin No. 306, Air Pollution in Donora, PA, lists twenty
deaths. However, Snyder refers to "dozens" of deaths, p. viii. Residents report many additional deaths
in the weeks after the disaster. For example, "The death of an estimated loo people in the following
year was attributed to the smog.
Also, there were a lot of people who were affected in other ways. They
were sick with respiratory problems.
Internal illness and a couple of cases of blindness occurred." Account of former resident Joe
Battilana, submitted as a 1970 report to Professor Gerard Judd of Phoenix Community College. 6. Berton Roueche, article in The
New Yorker, September 30, 1950.
7. Roueche, case u, p. 51; and from PHS Bulletin No. 306. Ceh's name is
from The New Yorker
article. 8. Roueche, case 9,
p. 50 ; PHS Bulletin No. 306.
9. Author's taped interview, March 24, 1993. 10. Snyder, p. 25. 11. Roueche, p. 41. 12. Author's taped interview, March 24, 1993. 13. Recollections of Mayor John
Lignelli, who attended the game, in "Donora's Killer Smog Noted at 50," Pittsburgh Tribune,
October 25, 1998. See also PHS report
and Snyder, p. 27, for death tally. 14. Snyder, p. 28. 15. New York Times, November 1,1948; cited in Snyder,
p. 29. 16. Snyder, p.
33. 17. For employment data,
see Snyder, p. 35. For profit data, see Ross Bassett, " Air Pollution in Donora, PA"
(December 6, 1990), unpublished paper, pp. 1 1 , 21-41. Paper from Allen Kline. See also Paul
A. Tiffany, The Decline of American Steel: How Management, Labor, and Government Went Wrong (New York:
Oxford University Press,
1988). 18. The main
thoroughfare, McKean Avenue, was named for Andrew Mellon's banker James S. McKean, who had
brought Mellon and Donner together with coke baron Henry Clay Frick and whose combined investment of $20
million raised the first steel
works on the virgin site in 1901. Pittsburgh Press, NOTES TO CHAPTER 9 / PP. 1 18— 122 313 March 18, 1934,
Society Section, p. 11. Also, H. O'Conner, Mellon's Millions ( New York: Blue Ribbon Books,
1933). 19. Bassett,
"Air Pollution in Donora, PA." 20. Snyder, p. 71. Also, author interview with Bill
and Gladys Shempp. 21. E. K.
Roholm, "The Fog Disaster in the Meuse Valley, 1930: A Fluorine Intoxication," J. Hygiene and
Toxicology (March 1937), p. 126. Also, W. S. Leeuwen, "Fog Catastrophe in Industrial Section South
of Liege," abstracted in J.
Ind. Hygiene, vol. 13, no. 7 (September 1931), pp. 159-160 (abstract
section). 22. Sadtler
gathered vegetation from across the region, tested it, and found that fluoride pollution was endemic
and serious. "Buttonwood leaves had anywhere up to twelve hundred parts per million of fluorine,"
Sadtler noted. Further afield there
was much less fluoride in the environment. "To get clean air with
no fluorine damage, I had a friend
who was a professor at Penn State University and he picked up leaves for me and they had ten parts
per million," Sadtler said. Author interview. 23. Although coal was a source of fluoride, this
knowledge was poorly dissemi-
nated. (Francis Frary announced the discovery to the Air Hygiene
Foundation in 1946, as we saw in
chapter 8.) Roholm makes no mention of coal in his discussion of the Meuse Valley disaster, for
example. And the role that fluoride from coal may have played in the London smog disasters is almost entirely
ignored. 24. E. K. Roholm,
Fluorine Intoxication: A Clinical-Hygienic Study, with a Review of the Literature and Some
Experimental Investigations (London: H. K. Lewis and Co. Ltd, 1937), chapter 13. 25. When the senior U.S. Steel metallurgist Glen
Howis, who was born in Donora, had
a routine medical exam before attending Penn State, a college doctor
told him, "I can always tell
you boys from the valley from the looks of your X-rays. Your lungs are always clouded," Howis
recalled. Author interview in Donora. 26. The U.S. steel industry emitted 64,600 tons of
fluoride in "1968 or 1972," according to EPA figures, cited by the Canadian
National Research Council, NRCC
#16081, ISSN 0316-01 14. "Coal for power" is next at 26,000
tons, phosphate rock processing at
21,200 tons, and then aluminum smelting, at 16,230 tons. See similar data in "Summary Review of Health
Effects Associated with Hydrogen Fluoride
and Related Compounds" (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, December 1988). For characterization of fluoride
as "worst," see citations for fluoride toxicity and damage in chapter 15. For example:
"From 1957 to 1968, fluoride was
responsible for more damage claims than all twenty other air pollutants
combined." N. Groth,
"Air Is Fluoridated," Peninsula Observer, January 27-February 3,
1969. See also chapter 8, citations
on lawsuits against the steel industry, and chapter 15's reference to fluoride's synergistic
potential to worsen the toxicity of such pollutants as sulfur dioxide. 27. For fluoride's chronic health effects in Donora,
see account of resident Devra 314 NOTES TO CHAPTER9 / PP. 122 127 28. B. Davidson,
Collier's (October 23, 1948). But other air pollution experts, such as Harvard Professor Philip
Drinker, had scorned the idea that a Meuse Valley — type disaster could occur in the United States.
"We have no districts in which
there is even a reasonable chance of such a catastrophe taking
place," he asserted. P.
Drinker, Industrial and Engineering Chem. ( November 1939). 29. Medical exams of plaintiffs
by Kettering physicians, July 1950, William Ashe physician in charge. Box 5, RAK Collection. 30. Snyder, p. 28. 3 1 . Dudley A. Irwin, Aluminum
Company of America, minutes of meeting, Air Pollution Abatement Committee, the Chemists Club, New
York City, January 1 1, 1950. Minutes
of Manufacturing Chemists Association, from searchable database of the Environmental Working Group. 32. Oscar Ewing also led a
semisecret group of administration insiders known informally as the Monday Night Steak Group. These men
met most weeks at Ewing's Wardman
Park apartment in Washington, DC, to plot strategy and discuss government policy over dinner and cigars. Clark
Clifford, a military confidante and Truman favorite, was a regular at the Monday night meetings. See Ewing
interview and Clark Clifford's in
the Truman Library ( available online). 33. P. Healy, "The Man the Doctors Hate,"
Saturday Evening Post, July 8, 1950. 34. Ewing's war years were spent in a Washington hotel
suite with Alcoa senior
management, defending the company's strategic interests from upstart
companies such as Reynolds and
Kaiser, who were fighting Alcoa's nearly fifty-year monopoly on aluminum production. After the war
Ewing was invited to an intimate Washington dinner with Alcoa's president, Arthur Vining Davis, and senior
officials from the Alcoa
"family." Arthur Hall to Ewing, September 4,1945. Personal
Correspondence: August
1,1944-September 20, 1945.
35. In early 1947 Ewing was a special assistant to the attorney general.
He became FSA administrator
in August 1947. See oral history interview, Truman Library, available online. 36. Ewing to Ingersoll, June 30,
1947, Political File, Correspondence, Ewing Collection. Ewing helped family members gain from
trading fluoride. On July 8, 1946, he arranged a meeting for a relative, Thomas Batchelor, and Paul Collom,
president of the Farmers Bank of
Frankfort, Indiana, with President Allen B. Williams of the Aluminum Ore Company, in regard to " some
fluorspar property in Kentucky" that Collum had acquired. Personal Correspondence, Ewing
Collection. 37. Pittsburg
Press, November 3, 1948. John Bloomfield was no stranger to Donora. Twenty years earlier, as a public
official, he had helped American Steel and Wire attorneys to prepare a legal defense against
pollution-damage claims by area residents. His job had been to test air quality. Bloomfield now told
the newspaper that he recalled
that his old measurements in Donora had shown that industrial emissions
were safely diluted. Snyder, p.
40. NOTES TO
CHAPTER 9 / PP. 127-132
315 38.
"Therefore the Company comes to us." Kehoe handwritten note, with the word "Mr. Jordan"
(president of American Steel and Wire) at the top. Box 5, RAK Collection. 39. Snyder, p. 148. 40. On Schrenk's participation,
see "Committee on Fluoride Metabolism, Round Table Discussion During Luncheon Period, Continued in
the Evening, January 6,
1944." Conference on Fluoride Metabolism, Hotel Pennsylvania, New
York. File Labeled G-118 (c), Az,
Box 36, Accession #72C2386, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. Also, James Conant wrote to the Bureau of
Mines, at Col. Warren's request, to have
Schrenk go to the Rochester bomb program during the war. Conant to R. R.
Sayers, February 3, 1944, Document
#029 1 , Records of Section S-l Executive Committee, RG 227.3.1.
41. Snyder, p. 152.
42. Snyder, p. 152.
43. Chemical and Engineering News (December 18, 1948) and author
interview. The PHS report on
Donora did not find excessive dental mottling. Author visit to Donora in 1993 noted severe mottling.
For preexisting community health problems, see Donora resident Devra Lee Davis's When Smoke Ran Like
Water: Tales of Environmental
Deception and the Battle Against Pollution (New York: Basic Books, 2003). 44. U.S. Steel officials knew of the Meuse Valley
disaster and of Roholm's report
that blamed fluoride. Court Brief, "Evidence of
Foreseeability," Box 5, RAK
Collection. 45.
Snyder, p. 29. 46. Pete
Eisler, "Poisoned Workers and Poisoned Places," multipart series,
USA Today, September 6-8,
2000. 47. All
correspondence, Box 5, RAK Collection. 48. W.F.A to Dr. Kehoe, undated, RAK Collection. 49. Box 5, RAK Collection. 50. Ashe, of course, was well
acquainted with Alcoa officials and their concerns with fluoride. That summer he had performed an
investigation of health conditions
for Kettering in Alcoa's Niagara Falls aluminum plant and found
widespread injury and disability
in workers that he attributed to fluoride. Aluminum Company of America, Niagara Falls Works Health
Survey, File 4, Box 82, RAK Collection. 51. Not a conclusion shared by Phyllis Mullenix, who
said that if the fluorine
had been in soluble gaseous form, then it might readily have passed into
the blood, leaving no trace in the
lung tissue. 52. The meeting
had been arranged in advance through a family friend, Sadtler explained. Author interview. 53. After meeting directly with
the FSA in Washington, the CIO allocated $lo, 000 for the investigation. Oscar Ewing was close to
labor leaders and had been an
associate of Sidney Hillman, boss of the CIO. Hillman died in 1946. 316 NOTES TO CHAPTER 9 /
PP. 132—143 54.
PHS memorandum, November 16,1948: "Report of Investigation at Donora, Pennsylvania," to Chief of
Industrial Hygiene Division from Chief of the Field Unit, Duncan A. Holaday. PHS, Air Pollution
Medical Branch, Special Projects, Folder 542.1 (1956). National Archives. Chapter to
1. Snyder, p. 70. 2.
Author interview with Allen Kline, March 23, 1993. 3. "The Donora Smog Disaster," Hygia, The
Health Magazine (AMA), October 1
949. 4. Thomas Bell,
Out of This Furnace (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1941; reprinted Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh
Press, 1976), PP- 356-357, cited in Ross Bassett, "Air Pollution in Donora, PA," unpublished paper,
December 6, 1990. 5. Snyder,
p. 217. 6. Following the
smog, "Not a single adjustment was made in the production system — no pollution control
devices, nothing, and there was nothing ten years later," Allen Kline told me. 7. Snyder, p. 219. 8. Kehoe to J. G. Townsend,
Townsend to Kehoe, and data for Ashe, Box 5, RAK Collection. Also, Snyder, p. 258. 9. See chapter 9. 10. Air Pollution in Donora, PA,
Bulletin 306, USPHS, p. 161. n.
Box 5, RAK Collection. 12.
W. F. Ashe to E. Soles, July II, 1949, and Largent's report from August 8,
1 949, which found no mgs
f/kilo (dry basis) in elm leaves three quarters of a mile opposite the open-hearth furnace. Box
5, RAK Collection. 13. F. A.
Exner, "Economic Motives Behind Fluoridation," address to the
West-ern Conference of Natural
Food Associates, Salt Lake City, Utah, October 27, 1961. 14. Monessen Daily Independent,
November 18, 1949, cited in Snyder, p. 170. 15. She has evaluated the health threat from several
government Department of Energy
nuclear sites, including Oak Ridge. She wrote the government monograph
"Summary Review of Health
Effects Associated with Hydrogen Fluoride and Related Compounds." (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
December 1988). 16. So did
the Society for Better Living, which charged the mill with reducing
effluents during the test smog by
staggering the run of mill processes rather than performing them simultaneously, as was standard
practice. Snyder, p. 170.
17. Drinker, too, was well aware of the fluoride problem facing the AEC,
since he serviced the agency as a
litigation consultant on stack "waste gases." Phillip Drinker to Dr. Thomas Shipman, Health Division Leader,
Los Alamos, November 14, 1950. RG 326.
Medicine Health and Safety. NARA. NOTES TO CHAPTER 1 1 / PP. 144—149 317 18. A. Ciocco and D.
J. Thompson, "A follow-up of Donora ten years after: methodology and findings,"
Am. I. Public Health, vol. 51 (1961), pp. 155-64. H. Lewis, With Every Breath You Take, p. 201 19. Memorandum: "Discussion
with Mr. Rumford on his "Study of the Correlation of Meteorological Conditions and Morbidity
in Donora' during his recent one day visit to Washington," from Nicholas Manos, Chief
Statistician, Air Pollution Medical
Program, Division of Special Health Services, to Records File, November
18,1957, Box 13, File 542.1, RG 90
Records of the Public Health Service, Air Pollution Medical Branch Project Records, 1953-1960. 20. Snyder describes Rumford as a
"consultant." He is described as being " assigned" to Dr. Ciocco in the memorandum
"Mr. Rumford's Report on Donora" from Nicholas Manos, Chief Statistician, Air Pollution Medical
Program, to Chief, Air Pollution
Medical Program, January 29,1958, Box 13 File 542.1, RG 90 Records of the Public Health Service, Air
Pollution Medical Branch Project Records,
1953-1960. Chapter
u 1. In 1946 Congress passed
the Strategic and Critical Materials Stockpiling Act. In 2001 the Defense Nation Stockpile,
maintained by the Pentagon, held 112, 000 tons of fluoride in sites around the country. U.S. Geological
Survey, Minerals Yearbook, 2001. 2. The task force was known
formally as the President's Materials Policy Com- mission; its report was published in five volumes as
Resources for Freedom in June
1952. (An annex to this report, referred to in several commission
documents found in the Truman
Library, is not in the National Archives holdings, and researchers were not able to find a reference for
it. "The final report of the Paley Commission consists of only 5 volumes, all of which are open,"
stated an e-mail from NARA
archivist Tab Lewis, June 26, 2001.) 3. D. M. Lion, "Fluorspar, Draft Commodity
Study," marked "RESTRICTED," Box 12, Folder "Fluorspar," PMPC, Truman Library.
Fluorspar's use increased a
hundredfold from 1887 to 1950 — annual consumption from 5,000 short tons
to 426,000 thousand short tons. D.
M. Lion, "Commodity Studies, Fluorspar," NSRB 6109, Paley Commission, Truman
Archive. 4. Haman and
Anderson to PMPC. Haman noted especially "the comparatively new use of fluorspar in the production of
uranium hexafluoride for the manufacture of the atomic bomb." PMPC, Truman Library, Box 113,
Fluorspar. 5. D. M. Lion,
"Fluorspar, Draft Commodity Study." Also, H. Mendershausen,
" Review of Strategic
Stockpiling." Only 28,671 tons of bomb-quality "acid grade" fluoride was stockpiled in October
1951, just n percent of desired levels,
Menderhausen reported. PMPC, Truman Library. 6. Analysts were enthusiastic about the phosphate beds
as a source of fluorine. "If
economic methods can be developed and applied for recovering most of
this fluorine as a byproduct of
phosphate processing, the yield would amount to the equivalent of about 600,000 to 700,000 tones of loo
percent 318 NOTES TO C H A PTE R
11 / PP. 149-151
calcium fluoride . . . Such an annual increment would more than make up
our potential deficit to years
hence," the Paley Commission stated. "All the resources of technology must be enlisted to solve the problems
of assuring ample supplies of fluorspar, or fluorine containing materials," the report added.
Resources for Freedom, June 1952.
7. A. F. Blakey, The Florida Phosphate Industry (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press,
1973), p. 1 12 citing the Florida Air Pollution Control Commission. 8. Paul Manning to Donor M. Lion,
August 13, 1951, PMPC, Truman Library, Box 113, Fluorspar. 9. For an account of this longstanding battle, see A.
F. Blakey, The Florida Phosphate
Industry, citing the Florida Air Pollution Control Commission. Also interview with Philip Sadtler and
Congressional hearings chaired by
Senator Ed Muskie. Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution of the
Com mittee on Public Works of the
United States Senate, 59th Congress, June 7-15, 1966 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office), pp.
1 13-343. Paul Manning was
well aware of the scale of the fluoride-pollution problem around the country. He was an associate of
both Robert Kehoe and the head of the Fluorine Lawyers Committee, Frank Seamans, who invited him to
participate in the sponsored
research at the Kettering laboratory. "On behalf of our client,
Alcoa, I have for some time been
participating in an informal group of lawyers, all of whom have clients involved in fluoride claims of one kind
or another. ... I know that your company is interested in this problem to some extent and that conversations
have occurred between myself and
other Alcoa representatives and personnel of your company." Seamans
to Paul D. V. Manning,
International Minerals and Chemical Corporaton, August 30, 1956. File 76, Box 5, RAK Collection. 10. The Tennessee Valley
Authority was also interested. "A recovery system that would pay its own way should be attractive
... the present price of sodium fluosilicate and increased demand for it will very likely encourage more
manufactures to recover it"
said TVA's T. P. Hignett. PMPC, Truman Library, Box 113, Fluorspar. 11. Elias, Technology Reports, p.
9, PMCC, Truman Library, Box 130.
12. It was beyond my resources to probe deeply the Florida cold-war
uranium story. How much
additional fluoride was produced by such production, and whether money was saved by using fluorsilicic
acid as a water fluoridation agent remains to be reported. For Florida as source of cold-war uranium, see P.
Eisler, "Poisoned Workers and
Poisoned Places," USA Today, multipart series, September 6-8, 2000. Of
interest, two companies producing
uranium from phosphate included International Minerals and Chemical Corporation and the Olin
Mathieson Corporation. The former is cited in the text and notes above, while Olin was one of the
companies that joined Reynolds in
the amicus curie brief for the Martin trial appeal (see chapter 13). 13. Rebecca Hanmer, Deputy
Assistant Administrator for Water, to Leslie A Russell, DMD, March 3, 1983. NOTES TO CHAPTER 1 1 / PP. 151-153 319 14. D. McNeil, Fight
for Fluoridation,(New York: Oxford University Press, 1957), p. 209, II. 22. 15. "By the end of the fifth
year a reexamination of the school pupils in New-burgh and Kingston showed that the Newburgh
children had approximately 65 percent fewer cavities than the children of Kingston. The report of these
findings was made public over my
name ... ," Oscar Ewing, Oral History Interview with J. R. Fuchs of the
Truman Library in Chapel Hill,
North Carolina, April and May 1969. Truman Library. 16. Philip R. N. Sutton, Fluoridation; Errors and
Omissions in Experimental Trials
(Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1959), p. 49, for calcium in
water, citing E.W. Lohr and S. K.
Love., 1954, "The Industrial Utility of Public Water Supplies in the United States, 1952" (U.S.
Geological Survey), and United Kingdom
Mission Report, The Fluoridation of Domestic Water Supplies in North
America as a Means of Controlling
Dental Caries (London: HM Stationary Office, 1953). John A. Forst, MD, The University of the State of New York,
the State Education Department,
Albany, NY, Division of Pupil Services, to Dr. James G. Kerwin, the Department of Health, Passaic, New
Jersey, October 26, 1954. Via Martha Bevis. 17. See chapters 9 and io for Ewing's profile.
Clifford had helped to write the
National Security Act of 1947, which had authorized the CIA. See his
interview at the Truman
Library. 18. Letter from H.
V. Smith to George Waldbott, January 6, 1964, cited in A Struggle with Titans, p. 65 . See also,
"Beyond certain limits, fluorides are toxic and that the first evidence of toxicity manifests itself in
the form of mottled enamel,"
B. Bibby, "Effects of Topical Application of Fluorides on on Dental Caries." In Fluorine in Dental
Public Health (New York Institute of Clinical Oral Pathology Inc, A Symposium, 1944). 19. D. McNeil, Fight for Fluoridation, p. 74. 20. M. C. Smith and H. V. Smith,
"Observations on the Durability of Mottled Teeth," Am. J. Public Health, 30 (1940), p. 1050,
cited in Waldbott, A Struggle with
Titans, p. 12. 21. B. Lee,
"Boon or Blunder?" Toronto Globe and Mail, January 1954, cited in
G. L. Waldbott, A Struggle
with Titans, p. 1 1. 22.
Waldbott had emigrated to the United States in 1923. His father, Leo Wald- bott, barely escaped the terror
of Hitler's regime, in December 1938 joining George and an elder brother Emil in Detroit, Michigan. For
several generations the Waldbotts
had been important members of the community of Speyer, on the Rhine. Leo Waldbott was chairman of the Speyer
teachers' and cantors' club, and
treasurer of the local Jewish home for the elderly, which was burned to
the ground by the Nazis on
November io, 1938. "My Life Before and After Jan. 30, 1933," by Leo Waldbott, via Elizabeth Ramsay,
George Waldbott's daughter.
23. For pollen, "In Memoriam— G. L. Waldbott (January 14, 1898-July
17,1982)," Fluoride
vol. 15, no. 4 (1982); Contact Dermatitis (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1935); "Anaphylactic Death
from Penicillin," J. Am. Med. Assoc., 320 153—155 vol. 139 (1949), pp. 526-527; Time, March
7, 1949; "Smoker's Respiratory Syndrome," J. Am. Med. Assoc., vol. 151 (1953), pp. 1398-1400. 24. Edith Waldbott referred her
husband to the hearings chaired by New York Congressman James Delaney (Dem.) in February 1952,
before the House Select Committee to
Investigate the Use of Chemicals in Food and Cosmetics. (Congressman A.
L. Miller here exposed Oscar
Ewing's vested interest as a former Alcoa attorney.) She pointed to a January 1954 eight-part series called
"Boon or Blunder" in t h e Toronto Globe and Mail. She had also seen a Seattle Times story
of December 16, 1952, which detailed Alcoa's efforts to fund fluoride research, according to Waldbott, A
Struggle with Titans. The first
article Edith Waldbott gave her husband was James Rorty's "The
Truth About Fluoridation" in
The Freeman (Irvington-on-Hudson, NY: June 1953). 25. G. L. Waldbott, "Chronic Fluorine
Intoxication from Drinking Water," Int. Arch. Allergy Appl. Immunol., 7 (1955), pp. 70-74. "Incipient
Chronic Fluorine Intoxication from
Drinking Water," Acta Med. Scand., 156 (1956), pp. 157-168.
"Tetaniform Convulsions
Precipitated By Fluoridated Drinking Water," Confin. Neurol., 17
(1957), pp. 339-347. 26. G. L. Waldbott,
"Allergic Reactions to Fluorides," Intern. Arch. Allergy, 12 ( 1958), p. 347, and
"Urticaria Due to Fluoride," Acta Allergologica, 13 (1959), p. 456. 27. R. Feltman and G. Kosel, "Prenatal and
Postnatal Ingestion of Fluorides — Fourteen years of Investigation — Final Report," J . Dent Med.,
16 (1961), pp. 190-199. See also
double blind tests in Haarlem, Holland, by Moolenburgh and others. G. W.
Grimbergen, "A Double Blind
Test for Determination of Intolerance to Fluoridated Water (Preliminary Report)," Fluoride, 7 (1974), PP.
147-152. 28. The director of
the Forsyth Dental Infirmary for Children in Boston, V. O. Hurme, warned in 1952, "Medical
researchers have paid relatively little attention to the problem of chronic fluoride toxicosis." He
worried about fluoride's potential effect on teeth and gums. "Among the very inadequately
studied physical signs of fluoride toxicosis are inflammation and destruction of gingival and periodontal
(gum) tissue. Published and
unpublished observations by many men suggest rather strongly that
periodontoclasia ( gum disease)
may be induced by certain chemicals, including fluoride," noted Hurme.
V. O. Hurme, "An Examination
of the Scientific Basis for Fluoridating Populations," Dent. Items of Interest, 74 (1952): pp.
5i8-534. 29. G. W. Rapp,
"The Pharmacology of Fluoride," The Bur (April 1950). Cited in Walbott, A Struggle with Titans,
p. 19. 30. H. T.
Dean,"Chronic Endemic Dental Fluorosis," JAMA, 107 (October 17,
1936), pp. 1269-1273. Also, H. T.
Dean, F. S. McKay, and E. Elvove, "Mottled Enamel Survey of Bauxite, Arkansas Ten Years After
Change in the Common Water Supply," Pub. Health Rep, 53 (September 30, 1938), pp. 1736-1748. 31. H. C. Hodge and F. A. Smith, "Some
Public Health Aspects of Water Fluo- ridation," in James H. Shaw, ed., Fluoridation as
a Public Health Measure ( AAAS,
1954), and The Problem of Providing Optimum Intake for Prevention 321 NOTES TO CHAPTER 1 1 / PP.
155—156 of Dental Caries: A
Report of the Committee on Dental Health of the Food and Nutrition Board, Prepared by the Subcommittee on
Optimal Fluoride Levels ( NRC Publication
294, 1953). 32. Hodge
relied on the unpublished personal assertions of Alcoa's top fluoride expert,
Dr. Dudley Irwin, for his
frequently reiterated assurances that industrial workers, and by extension the general population, were
not being injured by fluoride. "In industrial populations, Irwin (REF: Irwin, Dud-ley. Personal
communication) has come to the conclusion
that if the urine contains less than 5 mg. per liter (presumably indicating
a fluoride intake of less than 5
to 10 mg per day), osteosclerosis never develops. On this basis, it can be predicted that persons
drinking fluoridated water and excreting
approximately 1 mg of fluoride per day will never develop
demonstrable osteosclerosis."
(Emphasis added)-H. C. Hodge, "Fluoride metabolism: its significance in water fluoridation," DADA, vol.
52 (1956) pp. 307-314. Such reassurances flew in the face of the work of Siddiqui (1955), for example, who
measured the urine F in skeletal
fluorosis: "The urinary fluoride excretion varied between 1.2 and 5.8 ppm
. . . The mean values for blood
and urinary fluoride were 0.34 and 2.75 ppm respectively." A. H. Siddiqui, "Fluorosis in
Nalgonda district, Hyderabad-Deccan," British Medical Journal (December to, 1955), pp.
1408-1413. There are a number of additional and obvious problems with relying on Dr. Dudley Irwin for
medical reassurances. The aluminum
industry was one of leading fluoride polluters in the country, with an enormous interest in "proving'
fluoride safe. And Alcoa in particular had failed to disclose a great deal of health information about fluoride.
For example, their discovery of
high fluoride levels in the blood of one of the Donora dead was never made
public (see chapter 9). Their 1948
study of aluminum workers in Niagara Falls, NY, in which high incidence of disability was
reported was also never disclosed (see chapter 3). Additionally, Dr. Irwin was the head of the Medical Advisory
Committee, which had been
constituted by the Fluorine Lawyers Committee in order to help industry fight
and defend against legal claims of
fluoride injury from workers (see chapter 8). Nor would the threshold injury level for skeletal
fluorosis be the only serious misstatement by Hodge relating to fluoride analysis. Astonishingly, and with
surely devastating consequences
for public health, he claimed, " Serious kidney injury or disease does
not interfere with fluoride
excretion, e.g., in rabbits given near-fatal doses of uranium (a kidney poison), in rats poisoned with
fluoride, in elderly patients and in children suffering from kidney diseases (Hodge and Smith 1954)."
H. C. Hodge. "Safety factors
in water fluoridation based on the toxicology of fluorides."
Proceedings of the Nutrition
Society 22 (1963), pp. 1 1 1-1 17.
33- D. McNeil, The Fight for Fluoridation, p. 184. 34. HR 2341 "A Bill to Protect the
Public Health From the Dangers of Fluorina-tion of Water." Hearings Before the Committee on Interstate and
Foreign Commerce. House of Representatives,
83rd Congress. May 25-27, 1954. Fred- 322 NOTES TO CHAPTER 1 1 / PP. 156—161 erick Exner of
Seattle and Dr. Veikko Hurme of the Forsyth Dental Infirmary also 36. Dietary Reference
Intakes for Calcium, Phosphorus, Magnesium, Vitamin D, and Fluoride. Institute of Medicine (Washington, DC:
National Academy Press, 1997), p. 311, citing Ft. C. Hodge and F. A. Smith, "Occupational Fluoride
Exposure," J . O c c u p . Med., 19
(1977), pp. 12-39.
Chapter 12 1.
"Outlook," November 22, 1991, BBC Word Service. 2. Although a favorite Bernays
strategy was to harness liberal ideals such as women's suffrage for clients, it was often done with cynical
or mercenary intent. Privately he
was contemptuous of those with average intelligence and won corporate clients by warning them
of the dangers of democracy and
socialism. See the account of his speech to oil executives: "Eddie
led the oil boys up to the brink
of the public ownership precipice, and let them look into the yawning abyss. Oh my, hold on tight!" E. L.
Bernays, Biography of an Idea:
Memoirs of Public Relations Counsel Edward L. Bernays (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965), p. 780. Bernays's "hallucination of
democracy" was described by writer Stuart Ewen as a hierarchical world in which "an
intelligent few" had the responsibility of "adjusting the mental scenery from which the public
mind, with its limited intellect, derives its opinions." S. Ewen, PR: A Social History of Spin (
New York: Basic Books, 1996), p. 10. 3. Bernays does not mention the fluoride campaign in
his autobiography, Biography of an
Idea. He was reluctant to discuss it with this author, at first denying
his involvement. When confronted
with his own prior admissions to the medical writer Joel Griffiths,
Bernays agreed to discuss several
aspects of his involvement. Second taped author interview at Bernays home, December u, 1 993. 4. L. Tye, The Father of Spin:
Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Rela- tions (New York: Crown, 1998); for Crisco: Procter and
Gamble file in ELB Archive,
Library of Congress.
5. E. L. Bernays, Propaganda (New York: Horace Liveright, 1928). 6. Chapter 11. 7. Bernays to Dr. Leona
Baumgartner, commissioner of health, the City of New York, December 8, 1960. City officials were
also advised by Dr. Edward A. Suchman, a social scientist employed by the Health Department, on how "to
obtain fluoridation by edict
rather than referendum" because, he explained, " the
opposition seems to get a better
reception from the public in any battle of propaganda or public
debate." E. Suchman to Dr.
Paul Densen, December 13, 1960. Fluoridation could be achieved, Suchman added, by
"a systematic targeted campaign
directed at those specific officials who had voted against fluorida-tion"
and by lobbying "ethnic
groups of political importance." E. Suchman NOTES TO C H A P T E R 12 / PP.
161-163 323 to Dr. Arthur Bushel,
Director of the Bureau of Dentistry, New York Health Department, February 9, 1961. Suchman suggests several
"courses of action." The
first: "Remove the fluoridation issue from the arena of public
opinion. Make the decision a
health ruling form the Board of Health and/or secure enough votes from the Board of Estimate to back up this
ruling." The second item: "Change the balance of public opinion so that the political leader can
be convinced that a large majority
of his supporters favors this action. This is difficult to do on a mass
basis, but should be possible in
terms of specific group pressures, especially from those groups carrying political weight. This
is behind our current attempt to determine the major ethnic groups of political importance in particular
communities." This memo is
cc'd to Leona Baumgartner, Paul Densen, and Edward Bernays. Leona Baumgartner file, ELB Collection,
Library of Congress. 8.
Baumgartner wrote Bernays: "The problem of equal time has been a continual headache with the networks. I don't
know what to do about this." Baumgartner to Bernays, February 14, 1961, Baumgartner file, ELB papers,
Library of Congress. He responded
on February 16, 1961. 9.
Robert Kehoe wrote, "The question of the public safety of fluoridation is
non- existent from the viewpoint
of medical science." Our Children's Teeth (New York: Committee to Protect our Children's
Teeth, 1957), p. 31. io. The committee received a $25,350 grant from Kellogg Foundation and "a
second" $2,500 grant from the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Bethuel Webster to Detlev Bronk, January 13,
1958. Folder 42, Correspondence,
Box 21, Detlev Bronk Collection, Rockefeller Archive, RG 303-U. 11. Beginning in May 1940, Webster had
been present at luncheon meetings of the
prestigious Century Association, an elite club of powerbrokers and
wealthy families, whose members
have included eight presidents of the United States. Those luncheons, "resulted in the organization of
the wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development, led by Centurions Vannevar Bush and James
Conant," according to a
chronicler of the group, William J. Vanden Heuvel. See "Franklin
Delano Roosevelt: A Man of the
Century," an address by William J. Vanden Heuvel to the Monthly
Meeting of The Century
Association, April 4, 2002, press release of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. Also, Webster worked with Vannevar Bush and Carroll L. Wilson
(the AEC's first general manager)
to help shape the direction of scientific research in the immediate postwar period. See J. D.
Kevles,"The National Science Foundation and the debate over Postwar Research Policy — A Political
Interpretation of Science — the
Endless Frontier," in R. L. Numbers and C. Rosenberg, eds., the Scientific Enterprise in America:Readings
from Isis (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1996), p. 313. Webster wanted to win the public battle for
fluoridation in New York and thus
persuade the entire nation. See Webster's letter to Robert Kehoe, asking
him to contribute to the Committee's
booklet: "Local authorities must be more than convinced. . . . For the good of the cause I hope you 324 NOTES TO C H A P T E
R 12 I PP. 163—164
will not be unduly modest . . . they must be furnished with irrefutable
evidence in a popular form to
protect them from criticism of the favorable action which we hope they will take. ... By conclusively
demonstrating to local authorities our ability to meet and demolish the opposition, fluorida-tion
and future public health measures may be saved from the impossible requirements of mass scientific
education, popular referenda, etc."
Webster to Kehoe, December 11, 1956, Box 42. File: "Committee to
Protect Our Children's
Teeth," RAK Collection.
12. Listening as Bronk dictated his contribution to Our Children's Teeth
was Shields Warren, the former
director of the AEC's Division of Biology and Medicine. Dr. Warren "was in agreement with all that I
have said," wrote Bronk in his contribution. Bronk was president of the Rockefeller Institute
for Medical Research. 13.
Bernays, Biography of an Idea, p. 380. 14. New York's Board of Estimate voted for
fluoridation after a marathon public hearing, which lasted for twenty hours. 15. Dr. J. Knutson, Assistant
Surgeon General, Chief Dental Officer PHS to E. L. Bernays, February 14, 1961, and Bernays to Knutson,
February 16, 1961, in Baumgartner
file, E. L. Bernays papers, Library of Congress. 16. In the summer of 1951, just one year after the PHS
endorsement, Dr. John Knutson —
then the top official at the National Institutes of Dental Health — summoned state dental directors to
Washington. It was time for a sales
pitch. The officials gathered at 9:40 AM in the Washington, DC, offices
of the Federal Security
Administration on Wednesday, June 6, 1951. Sitting in the meeting were the surgeon general,
Leonard Scheele, Katherine Bain of the
Children's Bureau, Phil Phair from the American Dental Association, and
a top official from the Kellogg
Foundation, Phil Blackerby.
The keynote speaker was Wisconsin's state dental director, Dr. Frank
Bull. He had recently fought a furious
but losing battle for fluoridation in the town of Seven Points. He now outlined a game plan for state
authorities. "Keep fluoridation from going to a referendum," advised Bull. "Are we trying to
promote this thing, or do we want to argue about it? When we are inviting the public in and the press
in, don't have anybody on the
program who is going to go ahead and oppose us because he wants to study
it some more. . . . You are like
any salesman," Bull told his fellow dental directors, " You have got to be positive." He added,
"Don't put any ifs, ands or buts, or maybes in the thing . . . you have got to get a policy that says
"Do it.' That is what the public wants, you know." Health officials had to choose
their words carefully, Bull advised. If asked, " Isn't fluoride the thing that causes mottled
enamel or fluorosis?" Bull suggested, "Tell them this, that at one part per million
dental fluorosis brings about the most beautiful teeth that anyone ever had. And we show them some
pictures of such teeth. We don't try to say that there is no such thing as fluorosis, even at 1.2 parts per
million, which we are
recommending, but you have got to have an answer. Maybe you have a
better one.... We never NOTES TO CHAPTER 12 /
P. 165 325 use the term
'artificial fluoridation,'" he added. "There is something about that
term that means a phony. . . . We
call it controlled fluoridation." Bull especially chided Katherine Bain of the
Children's Bureau. Fluoride
toxicity was probably the toughest issue facing promoters, he noted.
"I noticed that Dr. Bain used
the term "adding sodium fluoride.' We never do that. That is rat poison," Bull said. "You add
fluorides. Never mind that sodium fluoride business ... all of those things give the opposition
something to pick at, and they
have got enough to pick at without our giving them any more. But this
toxicity question is a difficult
one. I can't give you the answer on it." 17. Some of the best information on this spying comes
from the archive of author Donald
McNeil. While writing influential articles on fluoride for The Nation, among others, McNeil had
compiled an extensive list of antifluoride opponents. He was helped in his list-keeping by the American
Water Works Association. He had
written to its executive secretary Raymond J. Faust, on May 5, 1954, asking for the names of
fluoride opponents: "I have a dossier on every anti I have ever heard of in the country. This
includes even names and what
background I know about of a person who might only have writ ten a letter to the editor. By
collecting the background on EVERYONE I
hope to find a pattern which will eventually lead to an intelligent
labeling of the opposition"
(emphasis in original).
Faust wrote to McNeil in reply, "We have from time to time
developed some background
information on some opponents of fluoridation. I will send you a copy of the material we have produced,
however, it is sent to you with the understanding that it must be kept confidential or if used the source of
the material must not be made
public. We have been very careful to keep this material under lock and key
as you may well understand."
A document entitled "List of Rabid Opponents of Fluoridation" is found alongside. Faust to McNeil, May
13, 1954, File ADA 53-56, and ADA
Misc, Box 1, McNeil Collection, Wisconsin State Historical Society. 18. Science, vol. 1S3 (September
23, 1966), p. 1498. See also letter from Donald McNeil to Peter Goulding, Director of Public Information,
ADA, February 24, 1961. "Dear
Pete ... I see your powerful hand at work.... Today, along with your letter,
I received one from Dr. Van
Rensselaer Sill, Information Officer, Division of Dental Public Health and Resources, Department
of Health, Education, and Welfare. He
wrote to me care of The Nation, which was strange, but because of what
he said, I can only conclude that
he has been in touch with you or someone from the ADA. He said that he was interested in the
"paperback on the opponents' [a book McNeil was then shopping] and that he had "some material on these
learned gentlemen.' He hoped that
I would call on him for any of the information they had in their
offices." File 15, ADA
Correspondence 6o-63, Box 1, McNeil Collection, Wisconsin State Historical Society. 19. Several examples of
professional censure for opposing fluoridation are cited in G. L. Waldbott et al., Fluoridation: The
Great Dilemma ( Lawrence, KS: 326 NOTES TO CHAPTER 12 /
PP. 165—166
Coronado Press, 1978), p. 324. "In 1961 Dr. Max Ginns of Worcester,
Massachusetts was dropped from his
state dental society after he refused to discontinue use of a petition, circulated in 1953, which listed 119 dentists
and 59 physicians in Worcester who
opposed fluoridation.... [In 1962] the ADA House of Delegates voted to
uphold the expulsion." 20. F. B. Exner and G. L.
Waldbott, The American Fluoridation Experiment ( New York: Devin-Adair, 1957), p. 232, letter exchange
between John W. Knutson, assistant
surgeon general, chief dental officer PHS, and Mr. James Rorty. Feltman
was charged in his PHS grant,
according to Knutson, with deter-mining "the efficiency (in preventing dental caries) of the addition
of measured doses of fluoride salts to
pregnant women and children." His funding was cut off because he
had "not reached his
objective and was not likely to do so." Letter to Rorty from Knutson,
August 9, 1956. 21. Waldbott's books on fluoride
include Fluoridation: The Great Dilemma, with Albert W. Burgstahler and H. Lewis McKinney; The
American Fluoridation Experiment,
with F. B. Exner and James Rorty; and A Struggle with Titans. 22. B. Hileman,
"Fluoridation of Water," Chemical and Engineering News, vol. 66 (August 1, 1988), pp.
26-42. 23. Dr. Exner had
served six terms as secretary of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. For
McNeil's subterfuge, see File ADA 53-56, McNeil Collection, Wisconsin State Historical Society. 24. Irene R. Campbell, The Role
of Fluoride in Public Health: The Soundness of Fluoridation of Communal Water Supplies, A Selected
Bibliography, Supported by
Research Grant DE-ol493 (Formerly D-1493) from the National Institute of
Dental Research, Public Health
Service, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. As an example of the censorship in the
bibliography, there is not a solitary citation for the published works of Dr. George Waldbott discussing
fluoride's toxic effects in low
doses, nor of the published studies of French epidemiologist Lonel
Rapport, who linked fluoride in
water to mongolism, also known as Down syndrome. Rapport's work is discussed in Waldbott et al.,
Fluoridation. The following citation
of Rapport's work included: "Rapaport, I.: "Les opacifications
du crystalline mongolisme et
cataracte senile.' Rev. Anthropol. (Paris), Ser. 2,3: 133-135, 1957. "Contribution a 1'etude du
mongolisme. Role pathogenique du fluor.' Bull. Acad. Natl. Med. (Paris), 14o: 529 — 531, 1956.
"Contribution a 1'etude etiologique du mongolisme. Role des inhibiteurs enzymatiques.
Encephale, 46: 468—481, 1957. "Nouvelles recherches sur le mongolism. A propos du role pathogenique
du fluor.' Bull. Acad. Nat. Med.
(Paris), 143:367-370, 1959. "Oligophrenic mongolienne et ectodermoses congenitatles. Ann. Dermatol.
Syphiligr., 87: 263-278, 1960. "A propos du mongolisme infantile. Une deviation du metabolisme de
tryptophane ches es enfants
mongoliens. C. R. Hebd. Acad. Sci. 251: 474-476,1960. "Oligophrenic
mongolienne et caries dentaires.'
Rev. Stomatol. 64: 207-218, 1963." 25. From 1957 to 1973 the ADA received $6,453,816 from
the federal govern- ment,
according to Waldbott et al., Fluoridation, p. 294, citing "Directory NOTES TO CHAPTER 13 1
PP. 167—170
327 of
Dental Consultants and Executive Personnel and Representatives of the American Dental Association to National
Agencies and Societies," Bureau of
Public Information, Am. Dent. Assoc., October 19, 1955. Direct funding for fluoridation from the PHS is harder to
ascertain. According to S. J. Kreshover,
director of the National Institute of Dental Research, the Office of
Management and Budget
"advises that a breakdown of budgeted funds spent specifically on
such programs or portions of
projects dealing with fluorides is not available." Cited in National Fluoridation News, vol. 21.
no. 1 (October-December 1975), p. 4. 26. American Dental Association Radio Script, National
Children's Health Day, "
Fluoridation Fights Tooth Decay," ADA Duplicates, Box 1. 27. This note was found in Donald
McNeil's papers. It is marked "ADA Files." The newspapers identified as carrying the identical story
are listed as: Hot Springs, AR,
Sentinel Record, August 20, 1952; Lead, SD, Daily Call, August 19, 1952; Idaho Evening Statesman,
Boise, Idaho, August 18, 1952; Poplar
Bluff, MO, American Republic, August 21, 1952; Newton Daily News
(Iowa) reprinted in Boone, Iowa
News-Republican on August 22, 1952. The note is in a file marked "ADA duplicates," Box 1, McNeil
Collection, Wisconsin State
Historical Society.
Chapter 13 1. See
Reynolds Metals Company vs. Paul Martin. Appellant's Brief, Appeal from Final Judgements of the District
Court for the District of Oregon, Honor-able William G. East, Judge. May 14, 1956, p. 3. U.S. Court of
Appeals, 9th Circuit Ct. of
Appeals, San Francisco, Court Case Papers and Printed Mat-ter, Case
#14990, transcript of Record in
six volumes, Folder 14990-14992, Box 5888-589o, RG 276. 2. The attorneys were Frank
Seamans, for Alcoa; Gordon Martin, for Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation; E. J. Epielman,
Louis C. Viereck, and Lawrence A.
Harvey, for Harvey Aluminum; B. W. Davis, for West Vaco Chemical Division of Food Machinery and Chemical
Corporation; Lon P. MacFarland, for
Monsanto Chemical Company; and R. E. McCormick and Francis R. Kirkham,
for Olin Mathieson Chemical
Corportaion. Brief Amicus Curiae, In the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Rehearing en banc on Appeal
from Final Judgments of the
District Court for the District of Oregon, File 18, Box 63, RAK Collection. 3. At Harvard, Hunter had studied
with Dr. Philip Drinker. Reynolds Metals Company vs. Paul Martin, plaintiffs direct
examination, p. 471, US Court of
Appeals, 9th Circuit Ct. of Appeals, San Francisco, Court Case Papers
and Printed Matter, Case #14990,
transcript of Record in six volumes, Folders 1 4990-14992, Boxes 5888-589o, RG 276. 4. Testimony of Dr. Donald
Hunter, p. 492. 5. Ibid., p.
473. 6. Ibid., p. 475. 328 NOTES TO CHAPTER 13 /
PP. 171-175 7.
Ibid., p. 476. Hunter was an examiner at Cambridge University. Cambridge had been a fluoride poison gas
research center during the war. Sir Rudolph Peters also did his enzyme studies at Cambridge. R.
E. Banks, ed., Fluorine Chemistry at the
Millenium (Amsterdam and New York Elsevier, 2000), R. E. Banks (ed) p.
500.] 8. University of
Rochester, Progress Report for October, 1944-Abstracts, Dr. Harold Hodge, p. 478. "The results
indicated that the inhibition of esterase activity produced by T [code for uranium] was small compared with
that by C-216 [code for fluorine].
Thus 0.025 ppm C-216 caused the same percentage inhibition of esterase activity as too ppm T (33 percent).
From these results it is concluded that in a mixture of T and C-2 1 6 in which the amount (by
weight) of T is not more than 50-fold that of C-2 1 6 the effect of the T upon the activity of liver esterase can
be neglected." Also, "The useful range of this curve for determining C-216 concentrations was
from 0-0.5 ppm, C-216."
Document #S09F01B227, p. 19, ACHRE, RG 220. For a discussion of the role
of fluoride on enzyme inhibition,
and for comprehensive citations, see Waldbott et al., Fluoridation: The Great Dilemma. 9. Court of Appeals for 9th Circuit, , Brief Answer to
Petition for Rehearing, Appeals
from the Final Judgements of the District Court for the District of Oregon, p.
5, Folders 14990-14992. 10. Reynolds Metals Company vs.
Paul Martin. Plaintiffs direct examination, p. 500, U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit Ct. of
Appeals, San Francisco, Court Case
Papers and Printed Matter, Case #14990, transcript of record in six
volumes, Folders 14990-14992,Boxes
5888-5890, RG 276. 11.
Ibid., p. 492. 12. Ibid., p.
1913, deposition of Paula Martin.
13. Ibid., pp. 259 and 213, direct and cross examination of Richard
Capps. 14. Ibid., p.
245. 15. Ibid., p. 197. 16. See chapters 3 and 9. 17. Direct examination of Robert
Kehoe, Reynolds Metal Company vs. Paul Martin, pp. 995 and 997- 18. Robert Kehoe to Edward Largent, February 13, 1956,
File 5, Box 76, RAK
Collection. 19.
Manufacturing Chemists Association, Inc. Minutes of the Air Pollution Abatement Committee, November 2, 1955.
Via Environmental Working Group
searchable database. 20.
Appellant's Brief, Appeal from Final Judgments of the District Court for
the District of Oregon,
Honorable William G. East, Judge. May 14, 1956, p. 7. 21. Following the Martin trial, the company put
Largent directly on its payroll as
a health and environment consultant. In the years to come Reynolds and
its health consultants would be
preoccupied with another citizen protest, this time from Mohawk Indians on the Akwesasne reservation on
the New York-Canada border, who lived
downwind of a newly built Reynolds alu- NOTES TO CHAPTER 14 / PP. 177—178 329 minum plant and who
claimed that their health and economy were being destroyed by fluoride (see chapter 15). Chapter 14 1. Reynolds Metals Company vs.
Paul Martin. Petition for Rehearing en banc, p. 6, and Appellant's Brief, p. 32 Appeal from Final
Judgments of the District Court for
the District of Oregon, Honorable William G. East, Judge. May 14, 1956.
P. 3. RG 276, US Court of Appeals,
9th Circuit Ct. of Appeals, San Francisco, Court Case Papers and Printed Matter, Box 5888-589o, Folder 1 4990 to
14992, case #14990, transcript of
record in six volumes. 2.
The judges were told that Our Children's Teeth included "the statements
of one medical and
scientific expert after another, all to the effect that fluorides in low concentrations (such as are present
around aluminum and other industrial plants) present no hazard to man." Brief Amicus Curiae, In the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit, Rehearing en banc on Appeal from Final Judgements of the District Court for the District of
Oregon, p. 8, File 18, Box 63, RAK Collection. 3. Statement of Robert Kehoe, Our Children's Teeth, A
Digest of Current Scien-
tific Opinion Based on Studies of Fluorides in Public Water Supplies,
prepared by the Committee to Protect
Our Children's Teeth, Inc., submitted to the Mayor and the Board of Estimate of the City of
New York (1957), p. 3 1 . 4.
R. Kehoe, "Memorandum on the Present Status and the Future Needs,
with Respect to Information
Deriving from Observation and Investigation of the Behavior of Inorganic Compounds of Fluorine in the Animal
Organism," February 1, 1956,
File 5, Box 76, RAK Collection.
5. Robert Kehoe to James M. McMillan, September 20, 1961, cc: Mr.
Frank Seamans, Box 63, RAK
Collection. 6. R. Kehoe,
"Memorandum on the Present Status and the Future Needs, with Respect to Information Deriving
from Observation and Investigation of the
Behavior of Inorganic Compounds of Fluorine in the Animal
Organism," February 1, 1956,
File 5, Box 76, Kettering Files.
7. The corporations "which are concerned mainly with the results of
expo-sure to fluorides in
various occupations" included "The Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company, Aluminum Company
of America, Reynolds Metals
Company, Universal Oil Products Company, American Petroleum Institute,
Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical
Corporation, Tennessee Valley Authority, The Harshaw Chemical Company, [and] Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing
Corporation," Kehoe told the
Medical Director of the Division of Industrial Hygiene, Dr. Seward Miller. 8. "In a meeting a little while ago," Kehoe
wrote to Dr. Miller, "the question was raised, naturally, as to the long-term influence of
small quantities of fluorides, such
as those which might be taken in with drinking water, both in areas in
which fluorides occur in somewhat
unusual concentrations in the drinking water as well as those areas in which fluorides are
being added to community water supplies ... I feel that I should transmit to you the 330 NOTES 'CO C H A P T E
R 14 / PP. 178-179
opinions expressed by this group and by the industries for whom they
speak, not as a matter of their
right to request any activity on the part of the Public Health Service,
but rather as evidence of their
interest in a broad problem of public health," Kehoe wrote. "That this interest has been
aroused by their concern for the employees of their own companies, is a phenomenon which seems
to me to be of some public consequence." Kehoe to Miller, May 20, 1952, RAK Collection. 9. The Bartlett Cameron study
examined the health of n6 people in Bartlett and 113 from Cameron. George Waldbott noted that there was
no information about how much
fluoride the Cameron residents might have consumed in food, which had perhaps been grown in the nearby Bartlett area,
or elsewhere in Western Texas, known as a high fluoride region. Although the study reported no
"significant differences" in the health status of the two populations, there was a high incidence of
cataracts, bone changes, arthritis
and deafness in both communities, compared to the national aver-age. Also, mortality in Bartlett was 265 percent
higher in Bartlett than in Cameron. Furthermore, using data on just 116 individuals to justify adding
fluoride to the drinking water of 50
million people meant that, according to George Waldbott, "if 1 in 1
17 were to suffer ill effect from
fluoride in water, the number of those so afflicted among the fifty
million citizens would be 427,35
0-a sizable incidence. Thus the sampling in the Bartlett survey was far too small to assure the safety
of millions of people drinking fluoridated water. " G. L. Waldbott, A Struggle with Titans, p.
296. (Leone's Bartlett research was published as "Medical Aspects of Excessive Fluoride in a Water
Supply," Public Health Report, vol.
69, no. 10 (October 1954). Submitted as part of the amicus curiae brief
in the Martin trial, it was additionally
published as N. C. Leone, et al. 1955. "Review of the Bartlett-Cameron survey: A Ten- Year
Fluoride Study," J . Amer. Dent. Assoc., vol. 50, pp. 277-281. And Leone et al., Am J.
Roentgen, vol. 74 (1955), p. 874.
10. "This undoubtedly was the paper Dr. Leone referred to in our
long distance telephone
conversation while I was engaged in the trial of the Martin personal
injury case." W. T. Lennon to
Robert Kehoe, March 15, 1957, cc: R. W. Anderson, Alcoa, File 5/6, Box 76, RAK Collection. 11. Leone had given Lennon the
reference to a version of the Bartlett Cameron study, published as "A Roentgenologic Study of a Human
Population Exposed to
High-Fluoride Domestic Water" in Am. J. Roentgenology, Radium
Therapy and Nuclear Medicine, vol.
74, no. 5, November 1955. The paper included reference to an autopsy, Lennon wrote Kehoe.
"Evidently the autopsy was only complete to the extent of bone analysis as the paper contained
no comment on soft tissue. I was wondering whether or not you had any talks with Dr. Leone regarding
this autopsy and whether or not
any examination was made of soft tissue." W. T. Lennon to Robert Kehoe,
March 15, 1956, cc: R. W.
Anderson, Alcoa, File 5/6, Box 76, RAK Collection. 12. Dr. Leone to Dr. Irwin, letter sent on March 5,
1957, File 5/6, Box 76, RAK Collection. NOTES to CHAPTER 14 / PP. 179—182 331 13. D. A. Greenwood, "Background for Studies
in Utah County," paper given at the
1957 Kettering Fluoride Symposium. Greenwood was Professor of
Biochemistry and Pharmacology,
Utah State University. Another figure claims that the legal claims against U.S. Steel in Utah were
for $30 million. Butler C, Proceedings:
National Conference On Air Pollution, November 18-20, 1958, p. 268. 14. Leone was an unapologetic
propagandist for fluoride. For example, in 1983 he helped organize a conference at Utah State University. In
the proceedings he writes,
"Further publicizing the importance [of fluoride] in the treatment
of selected cases of osteoporosis
can help us achieve control of another facet of the fluoride problem. By emphasizing and appraising the older
members of our aging population as to the
beneficial aspects of fluoride at levels in the neighborhood of 5 mg per
day, we can make known the obvious
safety of fluoride levels at higher than the advocated (1 ppm) in the prevention of dental caries
in children. The process would thus give
supportive evidence as to the safety and desirability of fluorides in
human diets." J. L. Shupe, H.
B. Peterson, and N. C. Leone, eds., "Fluorides: Effects on
Vegetation, Animals, and
Humans" (Salt Lake City, UT: Paragon Press, 1983), p. 361. 15. Dudley Irwin to Frank
Seamans, March 13, 1957, 42.17, RAK Collection. 16. Reynolds Metals Comp vs. Yturbide, 258 F. 2d 321
(9th Cir.) cert. den. 358 U.
S. 840 (1958), p. 25.
17. Motion for Leave to File Brief Amicus Curiae, p. 2, and Brief, p. 5,
File 18, Box 63, RAK
Collection. 18. Kehoe notes
of meeting, Folders 18, 19, and 23, Box 63, RAK Collection. For the relationship of the Medical Advisory
Committee to the Fluorine Lawyers, see
Seamans to Medical Advisory Committee, April 16, 1957: "The
legal representatives of the
several companies interested in the Kettering Research project have agreed that it would be advantageous
if the principal liaison with Kettering
were undertaken by persons of competent technical background . . . [to]
conduct the necessary liaison
between the Kettering Institute and the lawyers' group by a system of regularly scheduled visitations to Kettering
and regular reports to the lawyer's
group," File 17, Box 42, RAK Collection. 19. Leone's Bartlett Cameron study, comparing two
Texas communities with low and
high natural fluoride in water, was cited. So was his work in Provo,
Utah, where U.S. Steel's giant
plant was being blamed for widespread injury to crops and livestock, and where Leone was serving
as a consultant to R. A. Call, who was
studying fluoride deposition in soft tissues. Leone was also working
with Harold Hodge and Frank Smith
at Rochester, studying the soft tissues of people who had died in areas with varying levels of
fluoride in water. Much of this work, including a summary of Call's work, was brought together in the 1957
Symposium at the Kettering
Laboratory and published by editor Philip Drinker in the Archives of Industrial Health, vol. 21 (1960). See
also Public Health Report., no. 8o (1965), pp. 529 — 538, for an expanded version of Call's report. In
regards to the Call study (Leone
was not 332 NOTES TO CHAPTER 14 /
PP. 183 — i85
publicly listed as an author or "consultant' on the work), George
Waldbott noted, "Their grants
were not renewed, according to Dr. Call's letter to the author, June 22,
1964. Therefore, the study of
ill-effect of airborne fluoride on kidney disease which their research had disclosed was
abandoned." G. L. Waldbott, A Struggle with Titans: Forces Behind Water Fluoridation (New York:
Carleton Press, 1965), p. 251.
20. The final ruling of the Appeals Court on absolute liability was a
victory for industry.
"This case can no longer be cited for the proposition that in a case of
this kind absolute liability
exists. Thus, the companies filing amicus curiae briefs at least succeeded in winning the major point
which they argued. This may be of doubtful value because of the view taken on proof of negligence but at least
we succeeded on this point."
Legal memo from Frank Seamans, sent to Robert Kehoe, June 13, 1958, File
18, Box 64, RAK Collection. 21. Ibid. 22. Kehoe to Willard Machle, May
29, 1956, Box 42; and Drinker to Kehoe, July 8, 1958, File 17, Box 42, RAK Collection. Chapter 15 1. Boscak, 1978. EPA report No.
epa-450/3-78-109. Cited in EPA, "Summary Review of Health Effects ... ,"
EPA/600/8-89/oozF (December 1988), pp. 3-5. It states, regarding HF manufacturing plants and additional
sources of industrial air exposure, "The figure is naturally higher when other fluoride or HF sources are
considered." 2. In
1975, 350,000 men and women in 92 occupations were exposed to fluorides.
National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health, 1975, DHEW/NIOSH-76-103. Cited in EPA, "Summary Review of Health
Effects," pp. 3-5. Also, 22, 000 workers were potentially exposed to hydrogen fluoride gas alone,
in 57 occupations. Criteria For a Recommended Standard . . . Occupational Exposure to Hydrogen Fluoride,
NIOSH DHEW/PUB/NIOSH-76-143, cited
pp. 3-5, EPA, "Summary Review of Health Effects." 3. Kehoe to Derryberry, January
9, 1956, File 18, Box 63, RAK Collection. 4. "Memorandum Concerning the Objectives of the
Investigative Program on the
Behavior of Fluoride in the Human Body and Concerning the Purposes and
Policies of the Kettering
Laboratory and the University of Cincinnati, in the Prosecution of This Investigative Program," Prepared
by Robert Kehoe, November 10, 1956. Box 42, RAK Collection.
5. Some 2,845 pounds a day of Reynolds's fluoride had spilled over the
Mar-tin ranch as hydrofluoric acid
gas and also as tiny particles of fluoride dust. Memorandum from Frank Seamans summarizing the finding
of the Appeals Court en banc, June 12, 1958, File 18, Box 63, RAK Collection. 6. R. Kehoe, "Memorandum on the Present Status
and the Future Needs, with Respect to
Information Deriving from Observation and Investigation of the Behavior
of Inorganic Compounds of Fluorine
in the Animal Organism," February I, 1956, File 5, Box 76, RAK Collection. 7. Ibid. NOTES TO C H A P T E
R 15 / PP. 186-187
333 8.
Minutes of the meeting of the Fluoride Committee on October 1 0 , 1956, at 1 0
. 00 A M in Room 207,
College of Medicine, Folders 18, 19, and 23, Box 63, RAK Collection. 9. Hosted by the Kettering Laboratory, the symposium
had been planned ear- lier
in the year at the May 20 meeting at the Kettering Laboratory, following
the Martin Appeals Court verdict.
It was arranged by Alcoa's Dudley Irwin, Robert Kehoe, and the government's Dr. Nicholas Leone as part of
their " strategic"
information plan. 10.
R. A. Kehoe, handwritten notes, "A World of Welcome on Behalf of the Kettering Laboratory," 1957
Fluoride Symposium, File 42, Box 17, RAK
Collection. 11. For
aluminum employees, see amicus curiae brief, Reynolds vs. Martin, p. 2. 12. Other papers on fluoride safety were given by NIDR
officials Nicholas Leone, Isadore
Zipkin, and Harold McCann. Another study by Richard A. Call on the effects of fluoride air pollution on
humans was being conducted in Utah. That
project had been explained by the NIDR's Dr. Leone, who described
himself as a
"consultant" on the project, to Alcoa's Dudley Irwin in a
letter of March 5, 1957: "As
you know, it has been proven beyond a question of a doubt that similar conditions have an effect upon
animals," wrote Leone. He explained that the Public Health Service was financing the human
studies " with funds supplied by another Bureau." They were being conducted in the laboratories
of the Mormon Latter Day Saints
Hospital in Provo, Utah. Urine levels were being recorded. The bones and tissues of individuals who died
suddenly were examined. "Inmates of a mental institution close by comprise the study material,"
Leone noted. The study of
forty-eight autopsied bodies that had experienced sudden death concluded
that "no histologic
abnormities attributable to fluorides were recognized." Nevertheless, 29.3 percent of the "major causes
of death" in the study area were listed as "respiratory tract" in origin, compared with just
5.9 percent in the control group.
Nicholas D. Leone, MD, Chief Medical Investigations NIDR, to Dudley A.
Irwin, MD, Alcoa Medical Director,
March 5, 1957, RAK Collection.
13. Kehoe to Dudley Irwin, Alcoa, December 4, 1959. "Dear Dudley:
The Symposium has been accepted
for publication by Phil Drinker in the [AMA] Archives [of Industrial Health] and it will appear
in the April or May number. It will be made available in one volume in reprints and, therefore, it is
now time to decide how and in what
numbers we wish to have it assembled. . .. I would suggest that the sponsors
be polled for the numbers of
copies they desire, that this information, together with the addresses to which the reprints and the
bill for them are to be sent, be forwarded to me, so that I can hand all of this, in a complete and
orderly manner, to Phil Drinker. The
sooner this is done the better it will be, I believe, since I would like to be
sure that the sponsors get just
what they want." File 1 7 , Box 42, RAK Collection. (The editorial board of the Archives of
Industrial Health included DuPont's John Foulger, the Mellon Institute's Helmuth Schrenk, the Kettering 334 NOTES TO CHAPTER 15 /
PP. 188-191
Institute's Frank Princi, and Herbert Stokinger, formerly of the
University of Rochester's Atomic
Energy Project.) The publication of the papers was part of the post-Martin strategy drawn up by Kehoe, Alcoa, and
Dr. Leone from the NIDR at their planing
meeting that spring. The collected papers appeared in the Archives of
Industrial Health, vol. 21
(1960). 14. Frank Seamans to
Robert Kehoe, April 16, 1957, File 17, Box 42, Kettering Files. 15. William Jolley died of colon cancer in the 197os,
the result of what Bingham and
Jolley's family believe was radiation poisoning from his earlier work at
the AEC's Mound Laboratory in
Miamisburg, Ohio. According to a July 15, 2002, author interview with Eula Bingham, Davis "had
worked up at Mound laboratory, the radiation laboratory up in Miamisburg, Ohio, Bill Jolley
worked up there also. Bill died of colon cancer in the seventies and his family tried to file
a lawsuit and they didn't get anything out of it. He got out of that job — they came here to the university
because they really were worried
about all the radiation up there." Bingham also believed radiation
killed Jolley: "I feel so,
too," she said.
16. An earlier draft of the report found in Kehoe's files records the
investigators' shock at the
results, and the discussion section notes that even the control animals had
been hurt by a small amount of
fluoride, to which they had somehow been exposed. "The principal findings in the lung were of
peri-bronchial fibrosis and scattered granulomatous (inflammatory) lesions. . .. The striking enlargement of the
tracheal lymph nodes was caused by
a hyperplastic lymphadenitis. In the lungs there was a strikingly large
amount of cholesterol, which, at
present, has no clear explanation. . . . Some degree of ' reaction to injury' was encountered even in the
lungs of the control dogs which sustained only a modest degree of incidental exposure to air borne calcium
fluoride." Folders 18-20, Box
63, RAK Collection.
17. Albert A. Brust, Director, Toxicology Division, to Dudley Irwin,
February to, 196o, cc: R. A. Kehoe
and R. K. Davis, File 17, Box 42, RAK Collection. 18. Industry's fear of lawsuits for emphysema damage
can be seen in a 1966 symposium at
the Mellon Institute in which the managing director of the Industrial
Hygiene Foundation, Robert T. P.
deTreville, MD, announced: "The Foundation's interest in emphysema
stems partly from the concern
reflected by its membership that the potential for abuse in the awarding of claims for compensation
could easily dwarf that for silicosis at its worst." Emphysema in Industry, Medical Series
Bulletin No. to, Mellon Institute Library. (See also Epilogue for discussion of emphysema in industry in
2003.) 19. Charles McCarthy
to Robert Kehoe, July 9, 1962, RAK Collection. 20. Dr. Arden Pope at the University of Utah
recommended Phalen. Pope described
Phalen as "honest and candid." 21. Two early influential members of ACGIH were Harold
Hodge and Jim Sterner. (Both had
attended the Conference on Fluoride Metabolism at the Hotel Pennsylvania.)
Hodge and Sterner were
bread-and-butter pragma-tists, in Phalen's opinion, forging compromise in the real world of industry NOTES TO CHAPTER 15 /
PP. 191-193
335
smokestacks and worker paychecks. "If I wanted to harm someone's
health, I would put their
breadwinner out of a job," Phalen said. "It has a greater health
effect dropping someone below the
poverty level than becoming a heavy smoker. These people realized the critical nature of someone
earning a living. They had seen the Depression. ACGIH decided it would establish limits that workers could
be exposed to and most workers,
the vast majority, not get ill . . . Harold was of that sort," Phalen
added. 22. "No studies
were located regarding respiratory effects in animals following inhalation of fluoride."
Draft Toxicological Profile for Fluorides 2001 (Department of Health and Social Services, Public
Health Service, ATSDR). p. 50.
23. ACGIH's current 2.5 mg/m standard is based on a 1963 paper by Dr. O.
M. Derryberry of the
Tennessee Valley Authority, a member of the Medical Advisory Committee that had shaped the original
Kettering research program.
24. "If it is a study that you are saying is very important and
clearly has some relevance,
I think it is unlikely that we would ignore it, so I think that you might
assume [that we didn't see it] . .
. but I can't say that for sure," Bros-sard added. Author interview, July 22, 2002. 25. Of significance is the report
by Laura Trupin, an epidemiologist at the Uni- versity of California, San Francisco, in the European
Respiratory Journal vol. 22, no. 3
(September 2003), that on-the-job exposure to dust or toxic fumes may
cause as many as five million
cases of a group of deadly lung diseases called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD.] According to
USA Today, "this study suggests that
workplace exposure to pollutants may be a more important cause of the
disease than previously suspected.
The new study found that workplace exposure may cause as much as 31 percent of all cases of
COPD, which kills more than 100,000 Americans each year." USA Today, August 26, 2003, Section D, p.
7. 26. "Compensation
for Illnesses Realized by Department of Energy Workers Due to Exposure to Hazardous
Materials" — Hearings before Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, September 21, 2000, Serial
No. 132, p. 147. 27. Ibid.,
p. 142. 28. Harding
recalled, "At any time, you could see that haze of smoke and smell a strong acrid odor, and you could
taste it in your mouth. So you were literally breathing and eating uranium-containing gases and
dusts and powder all the time." 29. For "Buchenwald," see J. G. Hamilton,
University of California, to Shields Warren, DBM, AEC, November 28, 1950
("Unfortunately, it will not be possible for me to be at the meeting on December 8"), Document
#DOE-o72694-B-45, p. 1, ACHRE, RG
220. 30. Congressional
testimony of Rep. Ed Whitefield of the State of Kentucky. " Compensation for Illnesses
Realized by Department of Energy Workers Due to Exposure to Hazardous Materials," Hearings before
Subcommittee on Immigration and
Claims, September 21, 2000. Serial No. 132, p. 123. 31. Ibid., pp. 234-235. 336 I NOTES TO CHAPTER 15 / P. 194 32. However, as of
August 2003, according to an Internet posting from the worker advocacy group, the Alliance for Nuclear
Accountability, "DOE has received over 17,000 claims requesting assistance with state
workers' compensation for occupational illnesses, but as of June 25 had processed only 45 claims
through its Physicians' Panels for a
determination, and none of these claims had yet been paid. DOE has advised
Congress that it expects it will
take another 5 years to work through its backlog of claims." 33* "The Link Between
Exposure to Occupational Hazards and Illness in the Department of Energy Contractor Workforce" (The
National Economic Council, 2000), p. 18. This study provided the scientific foundation upon which the
legislation was based. At Oak
Ridge, a K-25 worker, Sam Vest, watched his father sicken with chronic
fatigue syndrome. He watched an
uncle get cancer. Both had worked in the K-25 uranium production plant at Oak Ridge, and both died in their
fifties and sixties. Today they are
buried alongside each other in an Oak Ridge cemetery. Vest continued to
work at the plant during the
199os. He now has bladder cancer, arthritis, and memory loss, he asserts. He was placed on disability in 1998. He
describes Oak Ridge as "a tragedy," where sickness stalks former workers. "They all have joint
and muscular problems, skeletal
problems, a lot of them have memory problems similar to mine," says
Vest. "A lot of people have
respiratory problems." "Nobody wanted to work in the gaseous
diffusion buildings," Vest
added. "Deep down they knew they were being exposed to very hazardous chemicals, the HF and the
hexafluoride and all the other things." 34. Although the legislation and compensation process
did not create a special category for
fluoride injury, fluoride had played a leading role in hurting atomic
workers, Congress heard. One
government-funded study found that 20 percent of former gaseous-diffusion employees have chronic bronchitis
and/or emphysema. Exposure to "hydrofluoric acid and other powerful lung irritants in the gaseous diffusion
process played a significant
contributing role," in causing that illness, scientists said. Congressional
testimony of Steven B. Markowitz,
Director of the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems, Queens College, Flushing, NY, September 21,
2000, "Compensation for Illnesses Realized by Department of Energy Workers Due to Exposure to Hazardous Materials"
— Hearings before Subcommittee on
Immigration and Claims, September 2 1 , 2000, Serial No. 132, p. 163. 35. Other investigators, while seemingly aware that
hazards exist, are simply unwilling to
evaluate the risk communities and workers face from fluoride. Arjun
Makhijani, director of the
Institute for Energy and Environment Research and one of the nation's most
quoted nuclear-health experts,
told me that he had "made a decision not to go there" in
examining fluoride's health
effects, choosing instead to focus on the risks from radiation. He confirmed that little accounting has yet
been made of the health damage fluoride has inflicted on nuclear workers. "I don't know how to
begin thinking about this question. It is
a sleeper," Makhijani said. NOTES TO CHAPTER 15 / PP. 194—197 337 36. Richard Wilson
and John Spengler, eds., Particles in Our Air: Concentra- tions and Health Effects
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 212. 37. C. Schneider, Death, Disease,
and Dirty Power: Mortality and Health Damage Due to Air Pollution from Power Plants (The Clean Air
Task Force, October 2000). This
report is a summary of a fuller report done by Abt Associates for the
Clean Air campaign. On p. 5 it
states, "The Abt Associates report further shows that hundreds of
thousands of Americans suffer from
asthma attacks, cardiac problems and upper and lower respiratory ailments associated with fine particles from
power plants." Lung cancer
study cited in the New York Times, March 6, 2002, Section A, p. 14, from
JAMA study of same date. 38. Children breathe 50 percent
more air per pound of body weight than adults. Children make up 40 percent of all asthma cases, while
only 25 percent of the total
population. "Asthma: A Public Health Response" (U.S. CDC),
cited in Death, Disease, and Dirty
Power, p. 9. One study found
infants in high-pollution areas were 40 percent more likely to die of respiratory causes. Another found a 26
percent increase in the risk for sudden infant death syndrome. T. J. Woodruff et al., "The
Relationship Between Selected Causes of
Postneonatal Infant Mortality and Particu-late Air Pollution in the
United States," Environmental
Health Perspectives, vol. 105, no. 6 (June 1997); cited in Asthma: A Public Health Response. U.S. CDC; cited
in Death, Disease, and Dirty Power, p. 9. 39. New York Times, May 12, 2000, p. 32. 40. EPA Toxic Release Inventory
data— 1999 data, updated as of August 1, 2001. 41. For fluoride synergy, see A. S. Rozhkov and T. A.
Mikhailova, The Effect of
Fluorine-Containing Emissions on Conifers, trans. L. Kashhenko, Siberian
Institute of Plant Physiology and
Biochemistry, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Frankfurt: Springer- Verlag,
1993). Part of this text was excerpted on the Fluoride Action Network website. See also Stok-inger et al.,
"The Enhancing Effect of the
Inhalation of Hydrogen Fluoride Vapor on Beryllium Sulfate Poisoning in
Animals," UR-68, University
of Rochester, unclassified.
42. Florida: from the late 1940s through the 196os, multiple lawsuits
were launched against several
fertilizer manufacturers mining the state's rich natural phosphate beds. U.S. Senate hearings were prompted when
25,000 acres of citrus land in Polk County were damaged and 150,000 acres of pasture abandoned as
" fluorides gushed into the
orange-blossom-scented air.... As cattle ate the grass, they absorbed
fluorine into the bloodstream.
Teeth decayed, joints stiffened, and bones became brittle," the
Associated Press reported. Local
citizens were also injured, according to news reports. According to one news account in Florida's Polk and
Hillsborough County, "17 plants are clustered abound rich deposits of phosphate rock. Fumes from these
plants have destroyed 25,000 acres
of citrus trees and damaged vegetation for 50 miles in all directions. Cattle
in Polk county have suffered from
fluoro- 338
NOTES TO CHAPTER 15 / P. 197 sis and died and people have been
afflicted with sore throats and burning eyes and nosebleeds and respiratory problems. Millions of
dollars in damage suits have been filed against phosphate plants." Ned Groth, Pennisula Observer,
January 27-February 8, 1969. In 1966 the
Chemical Manufacturers Association mandated a decrease in airborne
fluoride emissions from the
phosphate industry in Polk County, from 17 tons to 9 tons per day, according to
Dr. D. R. Hendrickson, professor
of Sanitary Engineering, University of Florida. Cited in Manufacturing Chemists Association
minutes, January 26-28, 1966, CMA Archives, Document 085439, Environmental Working Group searchable database. Human effects were also claimed
by an attorney in Lakeland, Florida, A. R. Carver from the firm of Carver and Langston, whose
letter to Dr. Robert Kehoe refers to "air pollution litigation" on behalf of "A
man, his w i f e and two teenage children. They have been living for several years in close proximity; that
is to say, within a circle, the radius of which extends five miles, would include eight producing
super triple phosphate plants." May 8, 1956, A. R. Carver to Kehoe, RAK Collection. A Lakeland resident, Mrs. Harriet
Lightfoot, told the AP about the human effects of fluoride pollution: "It seemed as she came suddenly
awake that a strangler's hands were at her throat. Madly she gasped for breath. Her head was pierced by
a splitting pain. Her throat and
eyes burned." Pensacola News-Journal, December 18, 1966. See also the account "Death
in Our Air," reported in The Saturday Evening Post by Ben H. Bagdikian, "Donald McLean, of Polk
County, Fla, told a Senate subcommittee that since phosphate plants began putting seven tons of fluoride a day
into the air he has had to sell his
cattle and his citrus crops because cattle died, crops that used to
mature in 8o days now take 200,
barbed wire that used to last 20 years rots in 4, and he doesn't dare grow
vegetables for his family for fear
they will pick up the same chemicals that fall onto his pastures and groves.
"It eats up the paint and
etches glass, it kills trees, it kills cattle. It is an irritant to mucous membrane, and we have sore throats,
tears run out of our eyes, we sneeze, we have nosebleeds. Gentlemen, am I a fool to assume that
that stuff [is] injurious to humans?'" ( Date missing on article.) 1961, The Dalles, OR: Fairview Farms Inc. received
$300,000 from the Harvey Aluminum
Company's reduction plant because of damage to farmlands and animals. Orchardist W. J. Meyer and his wife
Mary Ann also received $485,000 for "willful damage" to cherry, apricot, and peach crops,
according to news accounts. ("Harvey Loses Fluoride Case," Hood River (OR) News,
October 29, 1970. Cited in G. L. Waldbott et al., Fluoridation: The Great Dilemma, p. 298. The company
argued that pollution reduction equipment would cost $15 million and require loo extra employees. National
Fluoridation News (March-April
1965), p. 3. • 1962, Vancouver, WA: Alcoa paid William Fraser s6o,000
and, in the same year, $20,000 to
Earl Reeder because of fluoride injury to their cattle on Sau- NOTES TO CHAPTER 15 /
P. 197 339 vies Island. Sauvies Island.
Portland (OR) Reporter, June 26, 1962. Cited in Waldbott et al., Fluoridation, p. 298. 1962, Contra Costa County, CA:
Cattle ranchers in California sued four chemical plants for damages to their herds. Ned Groth, Peninsula
Observer, January 27-Febraary 8,
1969. • Garrison, MT: Human
harm from fluoride pollution was alleged after the Rocky Mountain phosphate plant opened in
1963, with residents complaining of, among other symptoms, heart problems and asthma. Lawsuits for
$740,000 were filed. "Smog
Battle Ends in Montana Town," New York Times, September 17, 1967.
Cited in Waldbott et al.,
Fluoridation, p. 299. See also New York Times, December 1966: "It is charged among other things
that fluoride-laden smoke from the phosphate plant has caused malformations and deteriorating teeth in cattle
and horses, that trees have been
afflicted by cancerous growths and that people have developed symptoms
akin to bronchitis, sinus trouble
and heart attacks." See also, B. Merson, "The Town That Refused to Die," Good
Housekeeping, January 1969, lawsuits cited in National Fluoridation News, March-April 1965,
p.3. "People were made so ill that many were literally driven out of their homes," according to Ned
Groth in Peninsula Observer.
• 1968: Cominco American Phosphate Company in Douglas Creek was
successfully sued for $250,000. L.
Greenall, "Industrial Fluoride Pollution in British Columbia," Canadian Scientific Pollution and
Environmental Control Society, Vancouver,
mimeo, January 1971. Cited in M. Prival and F. Fisher, "Fluorides
in the Air," Environment,
vol. 15, no. 3 (April 1 973), pp. 25-32. • Columbia Falls, MT, 1970: Six damage suits for
$625,402 were filed on Sept 24 by
residents for alleged fluoride damage caused by the Anaconda Aluminum Company and the Anaconda Wire and Cable
Co, according to news accounts. A
week earlier a $21.5 million dollar action was filed against the two
companies by Dr. and Mrs. Loren
Kreck of Columbia Falls, and a suit filed by Mr. and Mrs. Harold Dehibom asked $1,650,000 from
the same defendants. National
Fluoridation News (September-October 1970) , p. 4. Tennesse, 1970: Reports of $3
million in fluoride claims against Alcoa. " Alcoa Sued for Nearly $3 Million,"
Knoxville (TN) Journal, October 29, 1970, Cited in Waldbott et al., Fluoridation, p. 298. • 1971: $9 million lawsuit in by
the Sierra Club against the Harshaw Chemical Company for fluoride pollution, which, the Club charged, had
corroded a main bridge over the
Cuyahoga River. • Ferndale, WA,
1972: $83,060 judgment by farmer against Intalco Aluminum Company in Ferndale, WA. R. Park, "The Italco
Trial," Bellingham (WA),
Northwest Passage March 20- April 2, 1972, cited in Prival and Fisher. • 1980: $150 million lawsuit
against Reynolds Metals and Alcoa, alleging fluoride injury to cattle on the New York-Canadian St. Regis
Reservation, during the period of
1960-1975, settled for $6.50,000. Karen St. Hilaire, "St. 340 NOTES TO CHAPTER 15 I
P. 197 Regis
Indians to Settle Fluoride Dispute," Syracuse Post Standard, January 8,
1985, cited in Griffiths
"Fluoride: Commie Plot or Capitalist Ploy?" Covert Action Information
Bulletin, no. 42 (fall 1992), p.
26. 43- Ned Groth, "Capitalist Plot? Air Is Fluoridated," Peninsula
Observer, January 27-Febraary 3,
1969. Also, Public Law 84-159 of the 84th Congress (1955) established the PHS's first
air-pollution program. "At the time Public Law 84-159 was implemented, fluorides constituted the
major industrial pollutant of immediate concern to agriculture," in "Six Years of Research in Air
Pollution: A review of Grants in aid, Contracts, and Direct Operations Sponsored by the Division of Air Pollution,
Bureau of State Services. July 1,
1 955, to June 3o, 1961." U.S. Department of Health, Education and
Welfare. 44. Agriculture
Handbook, No. 38o, published by the Agriculture Research Ser- vice of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (1970), cited in E. Jerard and J. B. Patrick, "The Summing of Fluoride
Exposures" Intern. J. Environmental Studies, vol. 4 (1973), pp. 141-155. "Whenever domestic
animals exhibited fluorosis, several cases of human fluorosis were reported, the symptoms of which were one of
more of the following; dental
mottling, respiratory distress, stiffness in knees or elbows or both, skin
lesion, or high level of F in
teeth and urine. Man is much more sensitive than domestic animals to F intoxication," that report
added. 45. Weinstein:
"Whereas threshold concentrations for ozone or sulfur dioxide that will produce an irreversible
effect [upon plants] were found to be generally above 0.05 ppm for exposure periods of about 7
days, and more than double that concentration and time for nitrogen dioxide, gaseous hydrogen fluoride could
cause a metabolic or physiologic
change and produce lesions on leaves of the most sensitive species at
o.OOi ppm (i ppb v/v, or o.8 Mg HF
ID') or less for similar durations of exposure. Only peroxyacetylnitrate, a constituent of photochemical smog,
can rival this extreme
phytotoxicity." Does fluoride have a role in acid rain? Weinstein, in
this report in 1982, wrote,
"Even less is known of effects of fluoride on soil structure and
chemistry, micro- and macro flora,
and on fluoride availability to the plant. Increased acidity in precipitation has heightened interest in these
subjects" (p. 53). Also, "There are huge gaps in our knowledge with respect to effects on
insects and other anthropods, soil microorganisms and aquatic flora and fauna" (p. 56). Weinstein's
comments were made at an
industry-funded conference of fluoride lawyers, government dentists, and
former bomb-program scientists,
held at Utah State University in 1982. L. H. Weinstein, " Effects of Fluorides on Plants and
Plant Communities: An Overview," in J. L. Shupe, H. B. Peterson, and N. C. Leone, eds.,
Fluorides: Effects on Vegetation, Animals and Humans (Salt Lake City, UT: Paragon Press, 1983), p. 54.
Attending this conference were
Frank Seamans, Nicholas Leone, Harold Hodge, Frank Smith, David Scott (a former director of the National
Institute of Dental Research), and B. D. Dinman, the vice president of health and safety for Alcoa. (Harold
Hodge, Nicholas Leone, and fluoride
lawyers NOTES TO
CHAPTER 15 / PP. 197-198 341 Frank Seamans and Keith Taylor organized
that industry-funded conference, the
book states.) 46. In
1966 Morris Katz, professor of atmospheric sanitation, explained at a Canadian National Conference on
Pollution and Our Environment why
atmospheric fluoride levels are measured in parts per billion, although
maximum permissible levels for
most atmospheric contaminants are calculated in parts per million. "Prolonged exposure to
ambient air with concentrations of less than 1 part per thousand million part of air by volume may create a
hazard. ... In this respect
fluorides are more than one-hundred times more toxic than sulfur
dioxide." Elise Jerard and J.
B. Patrick, " The Summing of Fluoride Exposures," Intern. J. Environmental Studies, vol. 4 ( 1973),
pp. 141-155; citation from p. 143. Also see, cited in Jerard, a report in Environmental Science and
Technology (August 1970) that
states fluoride " compared to other pollutants is toxic at much lower concentration (0.5 ppb) and also acts
as a cumulative poison. . . . Aside from the injury to vegetation there is a potential danger to animals
and even human beings feeding on
plants high in fluoride content." 47. According to historian Lynn Snyder, the U.S.
military had designed the National
Air Sampling Network. The network had, for example, measured protein in air as a marker for the presence of
biological weapons. L. P. Sny-der, The
Death-Dealing Smog, p. 58, n. 50. According to Groth, fluoride had been
one of the chemicals initially
reported. After pressure from New York Congressman Richard L. Ottinger, national monitoring of fluoride
pollution was reinitiated in 1968.
See Groth, "Capitalist Plot? Air Is Fluoridated." 48 Summary Review of Health
Effects Associated with Hydrogen Fluoride and Related Compounds," U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, December 1988, pp.
2-9. 49. Globally that
figure was an estimated 3.6 million tons in 1972. Ibid., Section 3, P. 2. 50. "Despite the fact that
the further litigation which was anticipated with appre- hension some years ago has failed
to appear, the industries are vulnerable in the field of occupational disease hazard and in the field of
community health relating to air
pollution." Robert Kehoe to Reynolds's medical director, James
MacMillan, September 20,1961, cc: Frank
Seamans, Box 63, RAK Collection.
51. See Taylor in Fluorides: Effects on Vegetation, Animals, and Humans,
p. 359. 52. The six criteria
pollutants were sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrocar- bons, nitrogen oxides, ozone, and
particulate matter. (Lead was added in 1978.) Air pollutants were listed as hazardous by EPA according to
whether those emissions, "can
be expected to result in an increase in mortality or irreversible illness," according to an EPA
official, D. F. Walters. In 1977 the U.S. Forestry Service asked EPA to fix a national ambient air quality
standard (AAQS) for fluoride, to
control fluoride damage in Montana. According to Walters, "EPA's reevaluation concluded that though
there may be a number of local problems with fluoride damage to sensitive species around 342 NOTES TO CHAPTER 15 /
PP. industrial
sources, the problem was not of a sufficiently national character to require
a NAAQS. [National Ambient Air
Quality Standard]." Also, for " permissive": "States may apply less stringent standards to
sources when economic factors or physical
limitations specific to those sources make less stringent standards
significantly more
reasonable," Walters added. D. F. Walters, "Regulatory,
Economic, and Legal Aspects of
Fluoride" in Fluorides: Effects on Vegetation, Animals, and Humans, pp.
351-358. 53. For D. F. Walters,
see ibid. Perhaps a telling illustration of how fluoride has been "disappeared" or whitewashed
as an air pollutant can be seen in the discussion surrounding the important study by Pope of the health
improvement in local citizens
following the temporary shuttering in the 198os of the U.S. Steel mill
in Provo, Utah. Although that
plant was sued in the 19505 for some $30 million for fluoride pollution, by the time of the Pope study that
history had so faded that there was little or no discussion of fluoride's role in the pollution-related
health effects proved by the Pope
study. C. A. Pope, " Respiratory Disease Associated with Community
Air Pollution and a Steel Mill,
Utah Valley," Am. J. Public Health, vol. 79 (May 1989), pp. 623-628. 54- The EPA concluded,
"Fluoride pollutants were highly located in the vicinity of major point sources, in contrast to the
other criteria pollutants which were more pervasive and widespread." See Walters, p.
351. 55- Reynolds had just
concluded the Martin trial and was commissioning fresh studies at Kettering. But according to EPA
official D. F. Walters, instead of instituting strict emission controls, it was not until the 197os — a full
decade after the plant was opened
— that pressure from Canadian officials and lawsuits from farmers forced Reynolds to begin to install
air-pollution control equipment. Ibid, Walters, p. 353. 56. J. Raloff, "The St.
Regis Syndrome," Science News, vol. 118 (July 19, 1980), p. 42. 57. B. Carnow and S. A. Conibear, "Airborne
Fluorides and Human Health,
Report to the St. Regis Band on the Implications of Airborne Fluoride
Contamination of Cornwall Island
for the Health of its People," January 1978. 58. The transborder International Joint Commission,
the U.S. Department of
State, the Canadian Department of External Affairs, Canadian Department
of the Environment, New York
State, and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment were variously involved in addressing the
dispute. See Walters, p. 353.
59. Curiously, in 1980 and 1981 the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and
Selikoff received two awards
totaling $446,975 from the National Institute of Dental Research to study "Long-term, low-level exposure to
environmental agents (human)." See NIH CRISP awards, Project #5P30ES00928-08 and ... 928-09. 60. "The increase noted in
cardiovascular and respiratory morbidity/mortality rates in the older population (and females in particular)
of the entire Band indicates a
possible adverse effect from environmental exposure." Also:
"The early infant mortality
appears significant. Moreover, the higher number of hospital admissions
. . . due to disease of the joints
and connective tissue
NOTES TO CHAPTER 16 / PP. 2 0 1 - 2 0 9 343 could be related to fluorine effect."
I. J. Selikoff, E. C. Hammond, and S. M. Levin, "Environmental Contaminants and the Health of the
People of the St. Regis Reserve,"
Fluoride: Medical Survey Findings (Environmental Sciences Laboratory,
Mount Sinai School of Medicine of
the City University of New York), vol. 1, pp. 342-343. 61. "Should
notable correlations between
fluoride exposure and adverse health effects be found in Selikoff s epidemiological study of Cornwall
Island residents, major changes in the way EPA looks at fluoride could result, including its
reclassification as hazardous," Science News, vol. 118 (July 19, 1980), p. 43. Chapter 16 1. The attorneys for the workers,
Bruce McMath and Steve Napper of Little Rock, Arkansas, had signed up a hundred of these clients, known as
the Beaty cases, for a claim
against Reynolds to be mounted following the first Bareis trial, which is described in the following pages. The
former group, which included Alan Williams and Jerry Jones (interviewed here), had been part of a team
that developed a chemical process
to dispose of the by-product waste of aluminum smelting. (The waste is called treated spent potliner
and is described in the chapter.)
2. Author interview with EPA's Steve Silverman, June 18, 2002. 3. Arkansas Business, January 12,
1998, p. 23. 4. The old
Reynolds Troutdale plant, which had injured the Martins, was des- ignated a Superfund site, for
example. 5. In the months
after the Benton trial, Alan Williams would have open-heart and back surgery and lose most of
his body hair. 6. Author
interview, June 24, 2002. 7.
A Reynolds memo as read in deposition states, 'Alcoa expressed some
concern that the actual soluble
fluoride content in the kiln discharge is actually more than revealed — more than revealed by the
TCLP. We are aware of this, but TCLP is the procedure used." Plaintiffs exhibit 173, in George
Bareis, et al. vs. Reynolds Metals,
Saline County Court, Case 97-703-2. 8. In December 1997 the EPA finally reversed course
and reclassified the " treated"
chemical waste as toxic. It was the first time the agency had taken back
a delisting, said Peace. It was
far too late, however, for Scotty and Dianne Peebles and the several hundred Hurricane Creek workers
who had been breathing and handling
the fluoride waste for years. And it was too late for the local
environment, where thousands of
tons of toxic waste had been buried in two mighty landfills. Eventually nearly 225,000 tons of
treated potliner waste would be dumped in
unlined pits at the Hurricane Creek site, according to the Associated
Press, December, 2 1997. 9. Following the redesignation in
December 1997 of the treated potliner as a hazardous material, new safety and disposal criteria were
instituted. 10. The verdict,
OSHRC Docket No. 98-0057, was voided on December 14, 2001 on jurisdiction grounds. 344 NOTES TO CHAPTER 16 /
PP. 210—217 u.
Kehoe to James MacMillan, medical director, Reynolds Metals, September 20,
1961, Box 63, RAK Collection. 12. Nevertheless, as Mullenix
described the beagle study to the jury on October 20, 2000, McMath attempted to sneak in some
history and context. Hadn't the Reynolds study been done in the 195os, he asked Mullenix, "in connection
with some litigation they had going
at that time?" Johnson was ready. " Your Honor,
objection," he exclaimed. "We ruled on this in chambers, didn't we?" McMath retreated.
"I'll withdraw the question," he conceded.
13. In the end it seems that McMath's hunch about the jury was correct.
Polled after the trial, a majority
sided with Reynolds. The Benton claimants were simply looking for easy money, according to juror Marilyn
Schick. "It was a situation where [workers] were exposed to a lot of dust, but as far as the ALROC [the
name Reynolds had given to the
treated spent potliner] being toxic to them, I just wasn't convinced that it
was," she told me. But there were some jurors who
did lean in favor of the workers against Reynolds. "It was a big company not caring about some
low-class workers," said juror Sue Magness. "So what if it cost them some health problems — they
had to get the job done." She blames
the "excellent" Reynolds lawyers for portraying the plaintiffs
as "sorry" drunks and drug
addicts. "They weren't looking at them as people. They were looking
at them as just bringing this
lawsuit to get a buck. They didn't strike me that way," she added, about
the workers. Magness had wanted a
chance to talk with the other jurors and maybe influence them to rule in favor of the workers,
she said. "I can be pretty persuasive. Sometimes people don't pick up on things, and when you bring it up in
a jury room and they get to
thinking about it, they change their minds," she said. Chapter 17 1. "No deleterious systemic
effects have occurred," he added. HR 2341 "A Bill to Protect the Public Health From
the Dangers of Fluorination of Water," Hearings Before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign
Commerce, House of Representatives, 83rd
Congress, May 25-27, 1954, p. 470. 2. Philip R. N. Sutton, Fluoridation: Errors and
Omissions in Experimental Trials
(Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1959); "United Kingdom
Mission Report (1953): The Fluoridation
of Public Water Supplies in North America as a Means of Controlling Dental Caries"
(London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office); World Health Organization (1958) Expert Committee on
Water Fluoridation, First Report, Technical Report Series No. 146 (Geneva: World Health Organization);
New Zealand Commission of Inquiry,
"The Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies" (Wellington: Government
Printer, 1 957). 3. "I accept the whole of
the evidence given by Professors Hodge [and others]," Justice Kenny wrote in his ruling verdict,
which had the effect of imposing fluoridation on Ireland's entire population, a situation that remains to
this day. M. Stanley, "Fluoridation
of Public Water Supplies in Ireland," New NOTES TO C H A P T E R 17 / PP. 218—219 345 Jersey State Dental
Soc, vol. 37 (1966), p. 242, cited in Frank McClure, Water Fluoridation: The Search and the
Victory (NIDR, 1970), p. 275.
4. J. V. Kumar and P. A. Swango, Community Dent. Oral Epidemiol, vol.
27, no. 3 (June 1999), pp.
171-180, L. L. Lininger, G. S. Leske, E. L. Green, and V. B. Haley, "Changes in dental fluorosis and
dental caries in Newburgh and Kingston, New York," Am. J. Public Health, vol. 88, no. 12 (December
1998), pp. 1866-187o. 5.
Boston Globe, November 11, 1999; "Cincinnati's dental crisis,"
Cincinnati Enquirer October
6, 2002; Washington Post, March 5, 2002; and J. Kozol, Savage Inequalities (New York:
HarperPerennial, 1991). 6.
J. A. Lalumandier and R. G. Rozier, Pediatric Dentistry (January- February 1995), pp. 19-25, cited in
Medical Abstracts Newsletter, July 1995, p. 28. Also, the University of York's fluoridation review found
that up to 48 percent of children
in fluoridated areas in the United Kingdom had some form of fluorosis. M. McDonagh, et al. "A Systemic
Review of Public Water
Fluoridation," NHS Center for Reviews and Dissemination, 2000, Executive Summary, p. 3. 7. M. Teotia, S. P. Teotia, and
K. P. Singh, "Endemic chronic fluoride toxicity and dietary calcium deficiency interaction syndromes of
metabolic bone disease and
deformities in India: year 2000," Indian JPediatr., vol. 65, no. 3 ( May-June 1998), pp. 371-381. 8. The Australian scientist Mark
Diesendorf writes that "infants who are bottle fed with milk formula reconstituted with
fluoridated water . . . receive loo times the daily fluoride dose of breast-fed babies and at least 4-6 times
that recommended by medial
authorities for fluoride supplementation in unfluoridated areas."
M. Diesendorf and A. Diesendorf,
"Suppression by Medical Journals of a Warning About Overdosing Formula-Fed Infants with
Fluoride," Accountability in Research, vol. 5 (1997), pp. 225-237. Also, the chicken in infant
food can reach 8.38 micrograms per gram. J. R. Heil-man et al., "Fluoride Concentrations in Infant
Food," DADA (July 1997), p.
857. ( Mechanically boned meat can include higher fluoride content.
Fluoride concentrates in bone,
therefore when some of that bone is found in the " boned" meat, the fluoride content can rise.) 9. The American fluoride
researcher H. V. Smith, who codiscovered the fact that fluoride caused dental mottling, wrote,
"Mottling, no matter how mild, is an
external sign of internal distress," Letter from H. V. Smith to
George Waldbott, June 1 , 1964,
cited in Waldbott, A Struggle with Titans, p. 65. to. Christa Danielson, MD, Joseph L. Lyon, MD, et al.,
"Hip Fractures and
Fluoridation in Utah's Elderly Population," JAMA, vol. 268, no. 6
(August 12, 1992), p. 746. u. For
hip fracture rate, see U.S. National Research Council, Diet and Health ( Washington, DC: National Academy
Press, 1989), p. 121. For arthritis data,
see Newsweek, September 3, 2001, pp. 39-46. 346 NOTES TO C H A P T E R 17 / PP. 219—223 12. See, for example,
Y Li et al., "Effect of Long-Term Exposure to Fluoride in Drinking Water on Risks of Bone
Fractures," J. Bone and Mineral Research, vol. 16 (2001), no. 5, pp. 932-939. 13. M. T. Alarcon-Herrera et al.,
"Well Water Fluoride, Dental Fluorosis, Bone Fractures in the Guadiana Valley of Mexico,"
Fluoride, vol. 34, no. 2 (2001), PP.
139-149. 14. One
published account, quoting data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, reported that
bone fractures in male children and adolescents may be increasing. Joel Griffiths,
"Fluoride: Commie Plot or Capitalist Ploy?" Covert Action Information Bulletin, no. 42 (fall
1992), p. 65. 15.
Fluoridation Facts (published since 1956 by the American Dental Associa- tion). Paul R. Thomas, program
officer at the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences wrote in a March
18, 1991, letter to Dar-lene Sherrell, "The statement you quote from the ADA pamphlet on water
fluoridation — "The Academy
found that the daily intake required to produce symptoms of chronic
toxicity ... is 20 to 8o
milligrams or more . . . ' may be misleading." It was an easy lie to
perpetuate, however. For example,
even the "Recommended Daily Allowances for Fluoride" published in 1989 by the National
Academy of Sciences, stated that "chronic toxicity ... occurs after years of daily exposures
of 20 to 8o mg of fluorine, far in excess of the average intake in the United States." That, too, was
hugely disingenuous, conveying the
impression that toxicity was found only at this elevated threshold. 16. H. C. Hodge, "The Safety
of Fluoride Tablets or Drops," in Continuing Evalu- ation of the Use of Fluorides,
eds. E. Johansen, D. R. Taves, and T. O. Olsen, AAAS Selected Symposium (Westview Press, 1979), p. 255. 17. Review of Fluoride Benefits
and Risks (Public Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services, 1991), p. 45. 18. National Research Council,
Health Effects of Ingested Fluoride (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1993), p. 59. 19. South Carolina was suing the
EPA, objecting to the federal requirement to remove fluoride in water supplies that exceeded the
threshold. 20. Presented in
part as the David Murray-Cowie Memorial Lecture, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, October
12, 1951. Published in full in S.Z. Levine, ed., Advances in Pediatrics (New York: Interscience Publishers,
1955), pp. 13-51. 21. Safe
Drinking Water Committee, Drinking Water and Health (National Research Council, NAS, 1977), p.
389. 22. National Toxicology
Program (NTP) (1990), Toxicology and Carcinogenesis Studies of Sodium Fluoride in F344/NRats and B6C3fi
Mice (Technical report Series No.
393, NIH Publ. No 91-2848, National Institute of Environmental Health
Studies, Research Triangle Park,
NC). 23. W. Marcus,
"Fluoride Conference to Review the NTP Draft Fluoride Report," Memorandum dated May I, 1990,
from Wm. L. Marcus, senior science adviser, Office of Drinking Water (ODW), U.S. EPA, to Alan B. Hais, acting
direc- NOTES TO
CHAPTER 17 / P. 223
347 tor, Criteria &
Standards Division, ODW, U.S. EPA. See also: "Such a trend associated with the occurrence of a
rare tumor in the tissue in which fluoride is known to accumulate cannot be causally dismissed,"
Environmental Health Criteria, no.
227 (WHO 2002), p. 169. 24.
The Lancet, vol. 336, no. 8717 (September 22,1990), U.S. Department of Labor, Case # 92-TSC-5,
Recommended Decision and Order, p. 27. 25. There has been a great deal of information
associating fluoride with cancer.
Cancer has been experimentally linked to fluoride since the early
1950s, when Alfred Taylor at the
University of Texas in Austin found that cancer- prone mice drinking water containing 1 ppm NaF, and eating
food with a negligible fraction of
fluoride, developed mammary tumors at an earlier age than similar mice fed nonfluoridated water. A. Taylor,
"Sodium Fluoride in the
Drinking Water of Mice," Dental Digest, vol. 6o (1954), pp. 170-172.
Cited in Waldbott et al.,
Fluoridation: The Great Dilemma (Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press, 1978), p. 223. For cancer in fluoride workers and around fluoride
industrial plants, see A. J.
deVilliers and J. P. Windish, "Lung Cancer in a Fluorspar Mining
Community. Radiation, Dust, and
Mortality Experience," Br. J. Ind. Med., vol. 21 (1964), pp. 94-109; N. N. Litvinov, M. S. Goldberg,
and S. N. Kimina, " Morbidity and
Mortality in Man Caused by Pulmonary Cancer and Its Relation to the Pollution
of the Atmosphere in the Areas of
Aluminum Plants," Acta Unio Int. Contra Cancrum, vol. 19 (1963), pp. 74z-645, V. A. Celilioni, " Lung
Cancer in a Steel City [Hamilton,
Ontario]: Its Possible Relation to Fluoride Emission," Fluoride,
vol. 5 (1972), pp. 172-181, cited
in Waldbott et al., Fluoridation, p, 236. The late John Yiamouyiannis — a biochemist and
antifluoride activist, and a
retired National Cancer Institute biochemist, Dean Burke, reported more
cancer in fluoridated communities
in the United States. J. Yiamouyi-annis and D. Burk, "Fluoridation and Cancer: Age-Dependence of Cancer
Mortality Related to Artificial
Fluoridation," Fluoride, vol. 10 (1977), pp. 102-123. And J. Yiamouyiannis, "Fluoridation and
Cancer: The Biology and Epidemiology of Bone and Oral Cancer Related to Fluoridation," Fluoride,
vol. 26 (1993), pp. 83-96.
For bone cancer and fluoridated water, see A. Takahashi, K. Akiniwa, and
K. Narita, "Regression
Analysis of Cancer Incidence Rates and Water Fluoride in the U.S.A. based on IACR/IARC (WHO) data
(1978-1992)," J. Epidemiol., vol. If, no. 4 (July 2001), pp. 170-179, abstracted in Fluoride, vol. 34,
no. 3 (May 2001). In this study
the researchers found that "cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx, colon
and rectum, hepato-biliary and
urinary organs were positively associated with FD [fluoridation of drinking water] . This was also the case
for bone cancers in males, in line
with results of rat experiments." In 1991 the National Cancer Institute found that the
occurrence of osteo-sarcoma in
young males was, in fact, significantly higher in fluoridated versus
unfluoridated communities.
However, the researchers concluded that the 348 NOTES TO CHAPTER 17 I PP. 223—224 increased was
unrelated to water fluoridation. According to the U.S. Public Health Service, 'Although the increase in rates
of osteosarcoma for males during this period was greater in fluoridated than nonfluoridated areas,
extensive analyses revealed that
these patterns were unrelated to either the introduction or duration of
fluoridation." R. N. Hoover,
S. Devesa, K. Cantor, and J. F. Fraumeni Jr., "Time Trends for Bone and
Joint Cancers and Osteosarcomas in
the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results" ( SEER) Program, National Cancer Institute," in Review
of Fluoride: Benefits and Risks,
Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Fluoride of the Committee to
Coordinate Environmental Health
and Related Programs (U.S. Public Health Service, 1991), pp. F 1-177. Despite those assurances, similar
increases in bone cancer in young men were also found in New Jersey in a 1992 study. In that report,
between the years 1970 and 1989
the rate of osteosarcoma ( among ten- to nineteen-year-old males) was found to
be 3.5 to 6.3 times greater in the
fluoridated areas versus the unfluoridated ones. P. D. Cohn, An Epidemiologic Report on Drinking
Water and Fluoridation (Trenton, NJ: New
Jersey Department of Health, 1992). The latter two references are cited
on the Fluoride Action Network
webpage. 26. Interview with
Paul Connett, May 1998. This taped interview can be obtained from GG Video, 82 Judson Street, Canton, NY
13617. 27. The researchers
reported that fluoridated drinking water helped to carry aluminum to the brain in experimental
rats, producing "irregular mincing steps characteristic of senile animals." Autopsies revealed
brain damage. The data are "the
latest of several studies hinting at some link between aluminum in the
environment and Alzheimer's,"
according to the Wall Street Journal, October 28, 1992, section B, p. 6. Also, J. A. Varner, C. Huie, W.
Horvath, K. F. Jensen, R. L. Issacson, " Chronic A1F3 Administration: JX Selected Histological
Observations," Neuroscience Research
Communications, vol. 13, no. 2 (1993), pp. 99-104. R. L. Isaacson, J. A.
Varner, and K. F. Jensen,
"Toxin-Induced Blood Vessel Inclusions Caused by the Chronic Administration of Aluminum and Sodium
Fluoride and Their Implications for
Dementia," Neuroprotective Agents. Annals of the New York Academy
of Sciences, no. 825 (1997), pp.
152-166, J. A. Varner, K. F. Jensen, W. Horvath, R. L. Isaacson, "Chronic Administration of
Aluminum-Fluoride or Sodium-Fluoride to Rats in Drinking Water: Alterations in Neuronal and Cerebrovascular
Integrity," Brain Research,
no. 784 (1998), pp. 284-298.
28. Fluoride, the Pineal Gland, and Melatonin: An Interview with and
Presenta- tion by Dr.
Jennifer Luke. Videotape, length: 40 minutes. Available from GGVideo, 82 Judson Street, Canton, NY. GGVideo
[Grassroots and Global Video] (1999). 29. The Newburgh Times, January 27, 1954: "The
283 heart deaths in Newburgh
in the year were equal to a rate of 882 deaths per loo, 000 population.
This was more than the rate for
the nation as a whole, 507 per loo,000. It was also higher than the Middle Atlantic States, 590 heart deaths per
ioo,000."
NOTES TO CHAPTER 17 / PP. 224—226 349 30. For Michigan, see T. L. Hagen, M.
Pasternack, and G. C. Scholz, "Water-borne Fluorides and Mortality," Public Health Rep.,
vol. 69 (1954), pp. 450-454, cited in
Waldbott et al., Fluoridation, p. 158; see also p. 16o. For fluoride's
effect on chicken embryo hearts,
see also, J. D. Ebert, "The First Heartbeats," Scientific American, vol. 56 (1959), pp. 4-7: "At
low concentrations [fluoride] primarily
affects the heart. ... At any given stage of development ... the
locations of the cells destroyed
by fluoride coincide with the sites that have the greatest capacity to
form heart muscle, and with the
areas that have the greatest capacity for the synthesis of actin and myosin." 31. T. G. Reeves, Water Fluoridation:
A Manual for Engineers and Technicians ( U.S. Public Health Service, CDC Division of Oral
Health, 1986) and Water
Fluoridation; A Manual for Water Plant Operators (U.S. Public Health
Service, CDC Division of Oral
Health, April 1994), cited in M. Coplan and R. D. Masters, "Why Have U.S. Health Agencies
Refused to Test Silicofluorides for Health Safety?" (unpublished, 2001), via authors. 32. For risk of cancer at the
trace levels (up to 1.6 parts per billion) of arsenic found in water that is fluoridated by silicofluoride,
see Arsenic in Drinking Water:
2001 Update (National Academies Press, 2001). See discussion on p. 7
in Summary, of linear nature of toxic
effects at low doses. For lead, see R. D. Masters, M. J. Coplan, B. T. Hone, J. E. Dykes, "Association of
Silicofluoride Treated Water with
Elevated Blood Lead," Neurotoxicology, vol. 21, no. 6 ( December 2000), pp. 1091-1100. See also Chairman,
Subcommittee on Energy and
Environment, Cong. Ken Calvert (R-CA), May 8, 2000, letter to Carol
M. Browner, EPA
administrator. 33. Almost no
fluorspar is mined domestically. Of a reported 2001 consumption of 536,000 tons of fluorspar,
353,000 tons were imported from China. U.S. Geological Survey, Minerals Yearbook (2001). 34. Only a tiny fraction of the
recovered silicofluoride waste is now converted for use as industrial fluoride-4,7oo tons, for A1F3, for
aluminum smelting. U.S. Geological
Survey, Minerals Yearbook (2001). (The fluosilicic acid recovered from the phosphate industry must first
be converted into fluorspar, or aluminum
fluoride, before being reused by industry.) But the potential of the
Sunshine State as a source of
industrial fluoride remains. In 2001 65,200 tons of fluosilicic acid were recovered from the phosphate industry.
That's one-fifth of the nation's potential industrial fluoride needs, according the U. S. Geological
Survey. 35.
http://www.fluoride-journal.com/
36. University of Rochester, Progress Report for October,
1944-Abstracts, Dr. Harold
Hodge, p. 478. "The results indicated that the inhibition of esterase
activity produced by T [code for
uranium] was small compared with that by C-216 [code for fluorine]. Thus 0.025 ppm C-216 [code for fluorine]
caused the same percentage
inhibition of esterase activity as loo ppm T [code for uranium] (33 percent). From these results it is
concluded that in a mixture of T and C-216 in which the amount (by weight) of T is not more than 50-fold
that of C-216 the effect of the T
upon the activity of liver esterase can 350 NOTES TO CHAPTER 17 / PP. 226—232 be neglected." Also:
"The useful range of this curve for determining C-216 concentrations was from O-0.5 ppm,
C-216." Document #S09F01B227, ACHRE, RG 220. 37.
Twenty-fifth ISFR Conference Abstracts, Fluoride, vol. 35, no. 4 (2002),
p. 244. 38. A Century of Public Health:
From Fluoridation to Food Safety (CDC, Division of Media Relations, April 2, 1999). Epilogue 1. PFCs are "organic"
chemicals, which means that they are based on carbon. In a PFC chemical, the fluorine atom is joined
to the carbon molecule with a much stronger "covalent" bond, rather than the weak
"ionic" bond in fluorides. 2. In September 2000 EPA officials met with a lobbying
group known as the Fluoropolymer
Manufacturers Group, composed of DuPont and Dow Chemical, plus the giant European and Japanese chemical
manufacturers Elf Atofina and Asahi Glass
Fluoropolymers. The industry representatives impressed upon the EPA the
importance of PFOA chemicals in
scores of vital commercial products, upon which industries worth an estimated $25 billion depended, from
aerospace to automobiles to medical devices, according to records of that meeting. Despite "repeated
attempts," industry declared, there
had been "no success" in finding alternatives. 3. T. Midgley Jr. and A. L.
Henne, Ind. Eng. Chem. vol. 22 (1930), p. 542. On December 31, 1928, General Motors' Frigidaire
Division was issued the first patent for CFCs: US#1, 886,339. A new company called Kinetic Chemicals, owned
by DuPont and General Motors, was
incorporated on August 1, 1930. By 1935, 8 million new refrigerators had been sold in the United States, filled
with DuPont's patented "Freon" CFC gas. Global CFC production continued to soar; it
increased from 150,000 tons in 1960 to 800,000 tons in 1974.
4. The secret PFC called "Joe's Stuff that was delivered to
Columbia University in December
1940 was named after Professor Joseph Simons from Penn State University. Simons invented a process known as
"electro-chemical fluorination" which used electricity to replace the hydrogen with fluoride in
hydrogen-carbon bonds, producing
fluorocarbons. After the war the technology would be licensed to the 3M
corporation, who would use it to
make, among other things, the fabric protector Scotchgard. J. H. Simons, ed., Fluorine Chemistry, vol. 1
(New York: Academic Press, 1950), p. 423. T. Abe, "Electrochemical fluoridation as a locomotive for
the development of fluorine
chemistry at NIRIN, Nagoya," and John Colin Tatlow, "Fluorine
Chemistry at the University of
Birmingham: A Cradle of the Subject in the UK" in Fascinated by
Fluorine (Amsterdam and New York:
Elsevier, 2000), pp. 273 and 476. H. Goldwhite, J. Fluorine Chem., vol. 33, p. 113. Industrial and
Engineering Chem. vol. 39, no. 3 (March 1947), p. 292. 5.
Colborn has since learned that some organofluorines are "really
nasty" endocrine
disrupters, she told me in an e-mail. NOTES TO EPILOGUE / P. 233 351 6. "It would be
desirable," Col. Stafford Warren told Dr. John Foulger in a letter
dated August 12, 1944, "to
have the work on the toxicity of fluorocar-bons being done in your laboratory parallel the
investigations being made on similar compounds elsewhere. For that reason it would be appreciated if Dr.
Harold Hodge of the University of
Rochester could visit your laboratory in the near future and an exchange of ideas be effected.... The
Medical Section has been charged with the
responsibility of obtaining toxicological data which will insure the
District's being in a favorable
position in case litigation develops from exposure to the materials." Warren to Dr. John Foulger, Box 25,
Accession #72C2386, Atlanta FRC, RG 326. 7. In a document titled "Research Plans for the
Division of Pharmacology 1946-47," a
subsection, "Industrial Hygiene," lists item "k" as
"Investigation of the Nature of
Fluoride in Blood." Fluoride exists in blood in "an organic
and an inorganic state,"
while "organic fluorine compounds appear to be more toxic than the
fluoride ion," the research
summary noted. The Rochester team now planned "to investigate the nature of the compounds of fluorine
existing in the blood, devoting special attention to the so-called organic fraction." Additional
questions the bomb program
researchers wanted answered were as follows: An investigation of the possible relations between
fluorides, iodide and calcium
levels and the thyroid gland.
The effect of fluorine upon enzyme systems of the blood, particularly
by means of an in vivo
experiment. • The relation
between fluorine and non-diffusable (protein bound) blood calcium.
• How high can the blood fluoride level be raised before ill effects
are raised in animals. The document concluded:
"These experiments are intended to give fundamental information regarding the mode of
action and metabolism of fluorine in the system. The information would appear to be of value for the
following reasons.... Exposure to
fluoride is of industrial significance, particularly since the advent of
atomic energy programs," and
that, "the determination of base levels is of immediate practical value in the impending
litigation between the DuPont Co. and residents of New Jersey areas." DOE's HREX search engine, found at
0712317, document numbers
1075992. 1076012, 1076013. Where are the results of these experiments? ,. DuPont bulletin No. X-59a. "Two tvrjes of reaction have
been noted in humans as the result of acciden 8. tal inhalation of the products of heated polymer. 1) a
condition similar to metal fever;
and 2) a condition in which there may be an irritation of the lungs leading
to pulmonary edema." DuPont
bulletin No. X-59a. DuPont conducted human experiments giving volunteers Teflon-laced cigarettes to
investigate fume fever. J. W.
Clayton, "Fluorocarbon Toxicity and Biological Action," Fluorine
Chem. Reviews, vol. 1, no. 2
(1967), pp. 197-252.
352 NOTES
TO EPILOGUE / P. 234
9. Harold D. Field to the Kettering Laboratory, January 23, 1958. Albert Henne to Robert Kehoe, October 15,
1958. "Teflon Coated Cooking
Utensils," File 12, Box 15, RAK Collection. In the early 19305
Henne, a Belgian immigrant, had
invented a manufacturing process for the first CFC Freon gas. He had also done fluoride work for the Manhattan
Project. 10. Nature, vol.
217 (March 16, 1968), pp. 1050-1051. 1 1 . "Little has been published about the
metabolic handling and toxicology of perfluorinated fatty acid derivatives. Computer assisted literature
searches using Medline, Toxline and
Chemcon developed no information on these subjects." W. S. Guy, D.
R. Taves, and W. S. Brey,
"Organic Fluorocompounds in Human Plasma," Biochemistry
Involving Carbon-Fluorine Bonds
(American Chemical Society, 1976), p. 132. On the subject of collaboration, "3M got
concerned apparently," Taves told me. "They would come check with me periodically — they wouldn't tell
me what they were doing," he
said, "but they wanted to know what I knew." 12. Taves's 1976 observation that
"little has been published" on the toxicity of PFCs deserves scrutiny. During the cold
war Taves was a leading arbiter of
fluoride safety for the National Academy of Sciences. (Taves is listed
on p. 396 of the 1977 document
"Drinking Water and Health" by his initials as an author. This research was conducted
by the National Research Council
for the National Academy of Sciences and the EPA.) Donald Taves may
also have buried evidence of
fluoride's harm to humans on behalf of his Rochester colleagues, such as Harold Hodge, who worked for the nuclear
program. In 1963 another
colleague of Dr. Taves at Rochester, Dr. Christine Water-house, reported a case in which a patient at
the Strong Memorial Hospital, a female nurse, "convulsed, aspirated and died suddenly" following
kidney dialysis. Waterhouse and a
team of scientists watched as the forty-one-year-old nurse suffered a
collapse of her central nervous
system. "A bizarre neu-romuscular irritability characterized by a
twitching of the right arm with
occasional generalized convulsive seizures developed five days after the third dialysis," Waterhouse
reported. Kidney dialysis can greatly concentrate the amount of fluoride in blood, scientists
suspected. But the Waterhouse team never mentioned fluoride as a possible cause of the woman's symptoms or
death. L. H. Kretchmar, W. M.
Greene, C. W. Waterhouse, and W. L. Parry, " Repeated Hemodialysis
in Chronic Uremia," J. Am.
Med. Assoc., vol. 184, no. 41 (1962), pp. 1037-1044. Two years later Dr. Donald Taves reported the same
case in the medical literature. He
discussed the high levels of fluoride found in the patient's bones and
blood. He speculated as to a
possible "beneficial" effect from the fluoride. But Taves failed to
report that the patient had died
an hour after dialysis, that she had died in agony, and that the fatality
had been reported by his Rochester
colleague a year earlier. (He claimed that he was unaware of Dr. Waterhouse's JAMA paper in which
she reported the patient death. However, in the acknowledgments in his own work he thanked none other than
his colleague, Dr. Christine
Waterhouse.)
NOTES TO EPILOGUE / P. 234
353
"Did they tell you how the patient had fared?" I asked 'raves.
"No, I don't think I ever
heard," he said. "You were interested in fluoride and dialysis but
you didn't follow up or ask what
had happened to the patient?" I asked. " Right," Taves replied. (D. R. Taves, R. 'ferry, F. A.
Smith, and D. E. Gardner, " Use of
Fluoridated Water in Long-Term Hemodialysis," Chronic Uremia., J. Am.
Med. Assoc., vol. 184 [1963], pp.
1030-1031.) Both Rochester papers were funded by the U.S. Public Health Service. Neither mentioned the secret
AEC kidney studies on human
patients performed at Strong Memorial Hospital nor the government's interest in fluoride. Did Taves censor his paper at the
behest of Drs. Waterhouse and Hodge? In the 196os Dr. Waterhouse was at the center of cold- war human
experimentation, monitoring Harold
Hodge's Rochester patients who had been given plutonium injections. (See Eileen Welsome, The
Plutonium Files [New York: Dial Press,
1999]') "Waterhouse was uncomfortable with me publishing [the 1965
kidney paper]," Taves told
me. "She didn't want me to do any-thing that sounded antifluoridation. Just like Hodge
didn't. They were all biased that way. Hodge had gotten on the bandwagon of being in favor of fluoridation so
his blinders were up," Taves
added. Similarly, the
effects of fluoride on kidneys were another critical concern of the scientists overseeing health conditions
inside the nuclear factories, and
Rochester and Kettering researchers each performed multiple human
experiments. Hodge's researchers
performed secret human experiments in the 19405 at Rochester, giving fluoride to "patients having kidney
diseases" to determine how
much fluoride their damaged kidneys could excrete, according to
declassified papers. Extra
fluoride was stored in the bones of those injured patients, the government scientists found. Quarterly
Technical Report, AEC No. UR-38, 1948.
Also cited in Kettering Laboratory unpublished report, "Annual
Report of Observations on
Fluorides — October 25, 1 954." Kettering did similar experiments on patients with damaged
kidneys, according to the unpublished
report. 13. Again,
there is not a solitary reference to organofluorines in the book. 14. There may also be a link
between accounts of birds dying, injured humans, and carpets impregnated with fluorochemicals, such as
Scotchgard. In the early 1 990s
CNN and other media reported on families who claimed that they had been poisoned by newly installed carpets.
One family told the BBC (in an interview
conducted by the author) that their caged birds had died soon after the
new carpet arrived. See also U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit No. 94-1882 Sandra Ruffin; Catherine Ruffin, by and
through her Guardian Ad Litem, C. Timothy
Williford, Plaintiffs-Appellants, vs. Shaw Industries, Incorporated; Sherwin-Williams Company, Decided: July
16, 1998. "With their motion for
summary judgment, defendants submitted the affidavit of Larry D. Winter,
an analytical chemist for
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M). Mr. Winter specializes in the analysis of fluorochemicals such
as those used in the manufacturing
of 3M's Scotchguard carpets, the type involved in the present case." The case was
dismissed.
354 NOTES
TO EPILOGUE / PP. 235-236 15. Scientific American, March 1, 2001,
pp. 16-17. Also, when 3M announced
that the company was phasing out Scotchgard, the EPA praised 3M's
openness in sharing data about the
toxicity of PFCs. But Purdy is not so sure. As soon as the ecotoxicologist arrived at 3M in 1981,
he says he grew concerned about the impact of PFCs on the environment, proposing new testing. "I
could see that this could be a
potential problematic class of chemicals, and so did everybody else in
the ecological group," says
Purdy. "We were very suspicious that we were seeing the tip of an
iceberg. There was a proposal to
do a lot of different testing — and it wasn't done." Former Michigan State scientist
Kurunthachalam Kannan is not sure either about the 3M announcement in 2000 to phase out PFOS chemicals.
"I work closely with 3M so I
know what is really going on. But in terms of the words 'phase out,' when we
try to talk to them, their people
are not sure what it really means [laughs]. It is only a fraction of what they really manufacture in
terms of organofluorines." Author interview, 2002. Also on 3M's internal studies,
see the collection of documents in possession of the Environmental Working Group. In 1976, 3M company medical
tests showed that some employees
had levels of fluorocarbons in their blood as high as 30 parts per
million. Although those exposure
levels fell for a while, in 1984 blood contamination "remained constant or increased," according
to 3M documents. That situation prompted concern about "employee health" and "corporate
liability," according to the documents (thirteen tests showed values of over 10 ppm). Subsequently 3M workers
showed abnormal liver function
tests and "high kidney function tests," while other workers had
lung abnormalities, described as
"cases of pleural thickening." (Internal memo from 3M doctor Larry Zobel to D. W. Dworak
dated March 20, 1987, entitled "Medical Examinations.") Also, in the late 1970s, 3M ran
toxicity tests for the fluorocarbon PFOS
on rhesus monkeys. All the animals died. ( J. Morris, "Did 3M and
DuPont Ignore Evidence of Health
Risks?" Mother Jones, September-October 2001, online edition.) 16. Scientific American, March 1,
2001, pp. 16-17. 17.
"3M's Big Clean Up," Business Week, June 5, 2000 via online edition. 18. "3M's Big Clean
Up," Business Week, June 5, 2000; Scientific American, March 1,2001, pp. 16-17. 19. Kannan et al.,
"Perfluorooctane Sulphonate in Fish Eating Water Birds Including Bald Eagles and
Albatrosses," Environmental Science and Tech nology, vol. 35, pp. 3065-3070. 20. Scientific American, March 1, 2001, pp.
16-17. 2 1 .
http://www.ewg.org/issues/pfcs/
22. It is not the first time DuPont chemicals have been linked to eye
defects in children. In the
early 199os a DuPont fungicide marketed as Benlate was discovered to contain a fluorine chemical called
flusalizole, which was not licensed for use in the United States. Benlate provided one of the most disastrous
and expensive episodes in U.S.
corporate history. Some of the lawsuits blamed Benlate for causing children to
be born without eyes. NOTES TO EPILOGUE /
P. 236 355 DuPont has since paid
$1.3 billion in costs and settlements with farmers who used Benlate and whose crops were damaged.
In July 2003 the Florida Supreme Court also reinstated a $4 million jury award to the family of a boy
born without eyes, in what the
Associated Press described as "a birth defect linked to the
agricultural pesticide
Benlate." (Associated Press, July 3, 2002.) And although another
judge threw out a ruling that
DuPont had engaged in "racketeering," by allegedly concealing
evidence in the Benlate saga, a
similar case in Atlanta was settled when DuPont agreed to pay $2.5 million dollars to each of Georgia's
four law schools. Judge Hugh
Lawson explained that settlement made a statement about the importance of legal ethics, according
to the New York Times, January 2, 1 999, section A, p. 12. How much was learned about legal ethics is not
clear. DuPont was also accused of
destroying evidence in the West Virginia PFC litigation. "In April 2003
a Judge in West Virginia found
that in 2002, DuPont had destroyed evidence relevant to ongoing litigation on PFOA brought by
3000 citizens of West Virginia and Ohio." Press Release, Environmental Working Group, June 6, 2003. The billion-dollar DuPont/Benlate
debacle may be an example of one of fluoride's best-known chemical properties gone tragically awry. As
early as 1 949 the Atomic Energy
Commission reported that fluoride had a synergistic ability to boost the toxicity of beryllium. When fluoride was added,
twice as many rats were killed, according to experiments performed at the University of Rochester. (H.
Stokinger et al., "The
Enhancing Effect of the Inhalation of Hydrogen Fluoride Vapor on
Beryllium Sulfate Poisoning in
Animals," UR-68, University of Rochester, unclassified.) Similarly, during World War II, Hitler's chemists
discovered that fluoride could dramatically boost the toxicity of nerve gases. Sarin — the same gas used by Saddam
Hussein on the Kurds of Halabja
and used in the deadly subway attack in Tokyo — is a fluorinated chemical, named after the German scientists who
invented it. ( Fascinated by Fluorine, p. 515). Today drug companies know that adding even a single fluorine
atom to a drug molecule can boost
chemical potency. Numerous modern drugs now contain small amounts of fluoride, including the antidepressant
Prozac and the powerful antianthrax antibiotic Cipro. " Just one fluorine placed at a strategic site
in an organic molecule can hot up its
activity," says the English scientist Eric Banks. "The
opportunities for finding something
useful for society are truly mind blowing." Unfortunately, adding
fluorine to drugs may also make
them quite literally "mind blowing." Cipro, for example has
numerous reported side effects,
including central-nervous-system problems such as acute anxiety. And recently several
fluorine-containing drugs have been withdrawn because of their side effects, including: . Baycol, a
cholesterol-lowering drug taken by 700,000 Americans, and
linked to 3 1 deaths in the United States, with at least nine other
fatalities worldwide; 356 I NOTES TO EPILOGUE /
P. 236 ■ Cisapride ("Propulsid"), withdrawn in
2000 because it caused severe cardiac side effects;
■
Mibefradil ("Posicor"), withdrawn in 1998 after it was shown that in
patients with congestive heart
failure the drug produced a trend to higher mortality; ■ Flosequinan, withdrawn in 1993 after it was
shown that the beneficial effects on the symptoms of heart failure did not last beyond the
first three months of therapy. After
the first three months of therapy, patients on the drug had a higher
rate of hospitalization than
patients taking a placebo; ■ Astemizole (allergy drug), withdrawn in 1999
because it also became associated
with life-threatening cardiac adverse events; The "weight loss" drugs fenfluramine and
dexfenfluramine, withdrawn in 1997 because of serious adverse cardiac health effects, generating
almost a billion dollars in
lawsuits; • Tolrestat (antidiabetic),
withdrawn in 1997 after the appearance of severe liver toxicity and deaths; Temafloxacin
("Omniflox"), withdrawn in 1992. The antibiotic had caused
deaths and liver dysfunction; Grepafloxacin, removed from the
market in 1999 because of serious cardiac
events. (List
courtesy of Andreas Schuld and Wendy Small, Parents of Fluoride Poisoned Children [PFPC], Vancouver, BC,
Canada.) Fluoride's potential role
in drug toxicity has not been well studied. An expert on the withdrawn diet drug dexfenfluramine,
Dr. Kenneth Weir at the University of Minneapolis, said that he had no information on whether fluoride played a
role in that drug's toxic action on
the human heart. Central-nervous-system problems, such as depression,
were also reported among the
drug's unwanted effects. "It seems an intriguing question," notes Dr.
Weir, "if you broke it down
into its constituent parts, whether they would have a toxic effect." A
mighty paradox exists. Just as
fluoride performs some of the heaviest lifting in modern industry — but gets a glancing scrutiny from
regulators and health officials — it is also routinely added to drugs to boost their chemical effect
but mostly overlooked for its potential role in toxicity. Dr. Phyllis Mullenix points her finger at
the not-too-distant past. She believes the sweeping cold-war-era assurances on fluoride safety from such
scientists as Robert Kehoe and Harold
Hodge have left a "black hole" in our understanding of
fluoride's biological effects, and a
failure by regulators to consider the toxicity of fluoride compounds.
"Any drug that has a fluoride
component should be automatically red-flagged," Mullenix says. "It
simply is not done." 23.
"PFOS caused postnatal deaths (and other developmental effects) in
offspring in a two-generation
reproductive-effects rat study," EPA official Charles Auer noted in a May
16, 2000, e-mail, referring to the
PFC used in Scotchgard, "At higher doses in this study," the summary continued, "all progeny in
the first NOTES
TO EPILOGUE / P. 236
357
generation died while [at the lower level] many of the progeny from the
second generation died. It is very
unusual to see such second generation effects" ( emphasis in the original). The e-mail concluded,
"PFOS accumulates to a high degree in humans and animals. It has an estimated half-life of 4 years
in humans. It thus appears to
combine Persistence, Bioaccumulation, and Toxicity to an extraordinary degree. . . . EPA's preliminary risk
assessment indicated potentially unacceptable margins of exposure (MOE's) for workers and possibly the
general population."
DuPont has concerns about PFC toxicity, too. In the 199os, for example,
the company worried about the
cancer risk from PFCs. "We may have a product stewardship issue if we have a [Teflon] finish that contains
a suspect carcinogen," a 1994
Dupont document noted. "The worst-case scenario is that [PFOA] could
be classified as a large X'
carcinogen," a 1996 company memo added. Mother Jones, September-October 2001, online edition. That "scenario" may be
scientific reality. Working on a grant from the U. S. Air Force, Michigan State's Brad Upham collected
evidence that the PFOS and PFOA
fluorocarbons disrupt intercell communication, allowing potentially tumor-producing cells to multiply.
"We have very good reasons to think that they could contribute to cancer," the scientist told me.
(Author interview). 24.
Richard Hefter, chief, High Production Volume Chemicals Branch, USEPA, to
A. Michael Kaplan, director,
Regulatory Affairs and Occupational Health, DuPont Haskell Laboratory, May 22, 2003. Andrea V. Malinowski to
Richard Hefter, chief, High Production
Volume Chemicals Branch, USEPA, June 20, 2003. Ken Cook, president, EWG, to EPA Administrator
Christine Todd Whitman, April 11, 2003. 25. DuPont worries about a public-relations
catastrophe and has shied from media
attention regarding its blood-seeking fluorochemicals. When farmers
Wilbur and Sandra Tennant of
Parkersburg, West Virginia blamed PFC pollution from the DuPont factory for killing their cattle
and harming their health, DuPont asked U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin to prevent the Tennants from
testifying at an EPA hearing in
March 2000, according to court documents cited by investigative reporter Jim Morris at Mother Jones
magazine. (J. Morris, "Did 3M and DuPont Ignore Evidence of Health Risks?" Mother Jones,
September-October 2001, online
edition.) DuPont's
attorney, John Tinney, blamed Hollywood for the company's woes and for the necessity of a restraining
order against the farmers. "The court need look no further than the movies for practical
application," the lawyer told Judge
Goodwin, citing "the enormous success at the box office of Erin
Brockovich and A Civil
Action." The company, however, need not have worried. Although no restraining order was issued, media
attention was limited, according to Mother Jones. DuPont
also claims that there is no risk to Teflon workers. The company's recent employee monitoring has found no
elevation of PFOA-class chemicals in
employees directly involved in production, according to comments 358 NOTES TO EPILOGUE /
PP. 236-239 by
spokesperson Dave Korzeniowski in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. DuPont seems reassured by
that data. It was 3M's discovery of high PFOS levels in its employees, for example, that helped to lead to
the promised phase-out of
Scotchgard. "PFOS appears to behave differently from our
products," Korzeniowski
states. (R. Renner, Environmental Science and Technology, vol. 35, no. 7
[April 1, 2001], pp.
154A-16oA.) 26. Cited in
letter from Kenneth Cook, president of Environmental Working Group to Mr. Richard H. Hefter,
chief of High Production Volume Chemicals Branch, United States EPA, August 15, 2003. At web location www.ewg. org/issues/pfcs/2oo3o8 1 3/. The company also told workers
that "a female who has an organic fluorine level above background level should consult with her personal
physician prior to contemplating
pregnancy." Washington Works Proposed Communication to Females Who Had Worked in Fluoropolymers Area,
embedded as link in above letter. Cook to
EPA, August 15, 2003.
27. Q. Xiang et al., "Effect of Fluoride in Drinking Water on
Children's Intel- ligence,"
Fluoride, May 2003, J. A. Varner, K. F. Jensen, W. Horvath, and R. L. Isaacson, "Chronic Administration
of Aluminum-Fluoride or Sodium-Fluoride to Rats in Drinking Water: Alterations in Neuronal and
Cerebro-vascular Integrity," Brain
Research, vol. 784 (1998), pp. 284-298. 28. Sunday Telegraph, November 24, 1996. 29. L. Trupin et al., "The
Occupational Burden of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease," European Respiratory Journal, vol. 22, no. 3
(September 1, 2003), pp. 462-469.
30. March 18, 2002, comments submitted to the EPA, on
DowAgroSciences petition to
establish fluoride and sulfuryl fluoride tolerances for a large number (40)
of raw and processed foods.
Federal Register, February 15, 2002, U.S. EPA Docket control number PF-1068, submitted by Paul Connett, professor
of Chemistry, St. Lawrence U,
Canton, NY, and Ellen Connett, editor, Waste Not, Canton, NY.
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