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PULP SCIENCE: When
does a scientist become a science fiction writer?
by George Glasser and Jane Jones
Picture the scenario, if you will. An establishment scientist is asked to
“rebut” the conflicting work of another scientist. What does he do? He
gathers together some other papers (by other scientists) which fit his own
preconceived notions. Other scientists are then expected to take on board
his paper on which to build even greater paper castles in the future. (It’s
a common theme.) This seductive approach to scientific enquiry all too often
leads to the establishment of a body of “hypothetical science” which remains
unproven.
Let us take, for example,
the 29-page “rebuttal”1 of two papers by Masters and Coplan,2,3 by two EPA
scientists Urbansky and Schock. The rebuttal is intended to shoot down the
possibility that lead associates with fluoride or fluorosilicates in
drinking water. The EPA article is, in essence, yet another verbose attempt
to defend water fluoridation.
Employing a dazzling
display of hypothetical equations and textual acrobatics, Urbansky and
Schock proclaim: “We think it useful to frame the issues recently raised
about adverse interactions between aqueous lead and fluoridation species, in
a question and answer format, to help water managers, scientists and
engineers understand and respond to them.” Unfortunately, rather than
explaining the reality of reactions in water to the aforesaid members of the
“lower orders”, the authors manage to spin themselves and their
long-suffering readers into an incomprehensible analytical web which defies
logic.
We (Glasser and Jones) have
no wish to enter into the defence or otherwise of the Masters and Coplan
papers, but are struck by the series of admissions by Urbansky and Schock on
the potential interactions of fluoride with other minerals and substances
found in drinking water.
The reality of such
interactions has long been recognised by international researchers which,
until now, have been consistently publicly denied by all supporters of water
fluoridation - including the EPA itself and other governments and government
agencies. These bodies have always insisted that there is no fluoride
interaction with any other substances in drinking water. They parrot the
refrain that “a fluoride ion is a fluoride ion is a fluoride ion” - and that
all fluoride ions are “free ions” in the water.
Masters and Coplan
postulated that fluorosilicates used in drinking water enhance the transport
of lead into the brain. Urbansky and Schock propose innumerable ways
purporting to show that lead interaction with fluoride or fluorosilicates
can not and does not occur. In their enthusiasm, they blow all
officially-accepted, preconceived theories about artificial fluoridation out
of the water.
For example, on page 7
(paragraph 1) of their article, long-awaited admissions are sandwiched
between two large tables showing (a) Cumulative stability constants for
fluorocomplexes and (b) Lead (II) equilibrium and constants:
“There are many metal
cations competing for the fluoride; therefore, the free fluoride available
to complex with the lead (II) ion is very small. In addition, most, if not
all, of the competing metal cations are in greater abundance than the lead
(II) by orders of magnitude ... That drinking water contains a substantial
fraction of fluoroaluminum complexes rather than free fluoride was
highlighted by Pitter4 [1985] as a concern because free fluoride is more
effective in protecting against tooth decay.”
On page 8 (para 2), they
reinforce this heretical deviation from the ‘party line’:
“However, in real water,
there are other metals competing for fluoride and other ligands competing
for lead (II). The competition of the other metal cations for fluoride as
a ligand substantially reduces the free fluoride concentration.”
The competition by aluminum
for fluoride was starkly and repeatedly revealed in three studies by Varner,
et al, showing that the action of fluoroaluminum in water results in
presenile and kidney damage in laboratory animals.
It was observed that the
animals who drank the aluminum/fluoride-laced water developed sparse hair
and abnormal, copper-coloured underlying skin which is related to premature
aging. Further autopsy results showed serious kidney abnormalities in
animals that drank water containing both sodium fluoride and aluminum
fluoride.
The Varner team said that,
“Striking parallels were seen between aluminum-induced alterations” in
cerebral blood vessels that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease and
other forms of presenile dementia. They concluded that the alterations of
the blood vessels may be a primary event triggering neuro-degenerative
diseases.
Describing themselves as
“astounded”, the researchers wrote: “Not only did the rats in the lowest
dose groups die more often during the experiment, they looked poorly well
before their deaths. Even the rats in the lowest dose group that managed to
survive the 45 weeks looked to be in poor health.”
The Varner studies caused
such alarm that the US Environmental Protection Agency requested the US
National Toxicological Program to commission new studies. (See “Dead rats
don’t talk”, http://home.att.net/~ gtigerclaw/dead_rats.html). To date, the
NTP has not undertaken any such studies.
NOTE: Aluminum sulphate is
commonly added to community drinking water supplies to clarify drinking
water at treatment plants.
On page 14, Section 6,
Urbansky and Schock concede just one paragraph on the fluoridation agent in
which they display the standard establishment misconceptions about H2SiF6
used in artificial fluoridation schemes. While stating that Hydrogen
Fluoride and Silicon tetrafluoride are removed as gases, they fail to inform
the reader that the above gases and other hazardous air pollutants are
generated and captured in the same pollution scrubbing equipment as
effluent. This pollution scrubber effluent is the artificial fluoridating
agent. They specifically claim that “no evidence has been put forth” that
hexafluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6) has become contaminated prior to use.
However, the EPA itself wrote in 1983:
“In regard to the use
of fluosilicic (fluorosilicic) acid as a source of fluoride for
fluoridation, this agency regards such use as an ideal environmental
solution to a long-standing problem. By recovering by-product fluosilicic
acid from fertiliser manufacturing, water and air pollution are minimised,
and water utilities have a low-cost source of fluoride available to the
communities.” (Rebecca Hanmer, Deputy Administrator, Office of Water,
USEPA in 1983 correspondence to Dr. Leslie Russell stating the USEPA
position on water fluoridation). (See “It’s Pollution, Stupid!” and
“Elixir”
http://home.att.net/~gtigerclaw/Stupid.html
http://home.att.net/~gtigerclaw/Elixir.html).
Attempts to uphold and
support artificial water fluoridation are
indefensible when any and all studies showing the
slightest potential for neurotoxicological damage
to people are ignored.
Further evidence of
contamination by other substances came directly from the National Sanitation
Foundation International (the “certifying laboratory” for hexafluorosilicic
acid). In a response to the Florida Department of Health, NSFI said that the
results of tests indicate that the most common contaminant detected in the
fluoridation product is Arsenic. They showed that the average Arsenic levels
in the fluoridation agent were well above the proposed Maximum Allowable
Level. They said that if the lower Arsenic Maximum Contaminant Level of 5
parts per billion is enacted, future tests of fluoridation chemicals may
result in “increased product failures”. This is itself an admission that
“product failures” already occur because of contamination by Arsenic alone!
(See “Arsenic in drinking water” http://home.att.net/~gtigerclaw/AWWA
PRESS.html).
Furthermore, because of the
findings of Varner, et al5, there is no excuse for anyone in the scientific
community to be unaware of the aluminum fluoride combination in drinking
water. Attempts to uphold and support artificial water fluoridation are
indefensible when any and all studies showing the slightest potential for
neurotoxicological damage to people are ignored.
EPA information regarding
the contaminants captured by the pollution scrubber equipment is readily
available in the public domain. Urbansky and Schock’s claims of the
improbability of product contamination are the result of either selectivity
or haphazardness. Such glaring errors and omissions destroy the credibility
of their entire article.
In the particular case of
water fluoridation chemicals and their potential interactions with other
constituents of water, all redundant hypothetical studies should be
consigned to the recycling bin.
It is now incumbent of
scientists to retire to a real laboratory to determine once and for all the
real interactions (or otherwise) of fluoride with other substances and
minerals in real drinking water, so that real people in the real world get a
real answer to these very real questions.
References
1 Edward T. Urbansky and
Michael R. Schock; Can Fluoridation Affect Water Lead (II) Levels and Lead
(II) Neurotoxicity? United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
Office of Research and Development, National Risk Management Research
Laboratory, Water Supply and Water Resources Division, Cincinnati, Ohio
45268 USA. Undated. 2000.
2 R.D. Masters and M.
Coplan. “Brain Biochemistry and the Violence Epidemic: Toward a ‘Win-Win’
Strategy for Reducing Crime” Super-Optimizing Examples: Across Public Policy
Problems, Stuart S. Nagel, ed., Nova Science Publishers, Inc, New York
(1999).
3 R.D. Masters and M.
Coplan, “Water Treatment with Silicofluorides and lead Toxicity”, Intern. J.
Environmental Studies 56, 435-449 (1999).
4 P. Pitter. “Forms of
Occurrence of Fluorine in Drinking Water”. Water Res. 19(3) 281-284 (1985).
5 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 784 284-298 1998 (Abstract
available at
Fluoride Journal).
George Glasser is an
American investigative environmental writer with a special interest in
Fluorine Pollution.
Jane Jones is the Campaign
Director of the National Pure Water Association Ltd (UK).
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