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Epigraphs Note on Terminology Acknowledgments Introduction 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 Print- ing Office), pp. 113–343. 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 Con- ference 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 Pollut- ants: 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). 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 11. 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 Acad- emy 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 Col- lections, 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 Cen- ter 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 1950s. 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 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. 16. For example, “Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Con- trol Dental Caries in the United States,” Fluoride Recommendations Work Group, CDC (MMWR, vol. 50, no. RR 14, pp. 1–42), August 17, 2001. 17. 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 incor- porated 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 com- pound 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 pre- vent 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 Popu- lations,” 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 Cen- ter brochure, undated: “from 1969 through 1979 . federal support for the research programs at Forsyth increased threefold and support from indus- trial grants increased twofold.” 7. Wall Street Journal, June 13, 1986, p. 25. 8. Ibid. 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 1892, after describing the many studies that had found uni- formly bad teeth among British children. Dental health in 1920s, 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 IIIa, Carnegie Archive Collection. For United Kingdom, see J.
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