Barron
8th June 2010, 01:22
Book review here:
Concerns over fluoridated drinking water have long been derided as the obsession of McCarthyite cranks. But this muckraking j’accuse asserts that fluoride is indeed a dire threat to public health, one foisted upon the nation by a vast conspiracy—not of Communist agents, but of our
very own military-industrial complex. Investigative reporter Bryson
revisits the decades-long controversy, drawing on mountains of
scientific studies, some unearthed from secret archives of government
and corporate laboratories, to question the effects of fluoride and the
motives of its leading advocates. The efficacy of fluoridated drinking
water in preventing tooth decay, he contends, is dubious. Fluoride in
its many forms may be one of the most toxic of industrial pollutants,
and Bryson cites scientific analyses linking fluoridated drinking water
to bone deformities, hyperactivity and a host of other complaints. The
post-war campaign to fluoridate drinking water, he claims, was less a
public health innovation than a public relations ploy sponsored by
industrial users of fluoride—including the government’s nuclear weapons
program. Legendary spin doctors like Edward Bernays exploited the
tenuous link between dental hygiene and fluoridation to create markets
to stimulate fluoride production and to prove the innocuousness of
fluoride compounds, thereby heading off lawsuits by factory workers and
others poisoned by industrial fluoride pollution. Bryson marshals an
impressive amount of research to demonstrate fluoride’s harmfulness, the
ties between leading fluoride researchers and the corporations who
funded and benefited from their research, and what he says is the
duplicity with which fluoridation was sold to the people. The result is a
compelling challenge to the reigning dental orthodoxy, which should
provoke renewed scientific scrutiny and public debate.
“It is my sincere hope that Christopher Bryson’s apparently thorough and comprehensive perusal of the scientific 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.”—Arvid Carlsson, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize
in Medicine
“The Fluoride Deception reads like a whodunit. . . .We are left with compelling evidence that powerful interests with high financial stakes have colluded to prematurely close
honest discussion and investigation into fluoride toxicity.”—Chemical
& Engineering News
“Previous authors have presented the idea of a deception, if not an outright conspiracy, involving fluoride. What makes Bryson’s book unique is that it is an up-to-date account
supported by indisputable new evidence in the form of declassified
correspondence and exhumation of buried studies.”—Fluoride
“As with landmark titles, such as Silent Spring, Bryson’s book is bound to become a seminal volume.”—British Columbia Naturopathic
Association
With the narrative punch of Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action and the commitment to environmental truth-telling of Erin Brockovich, The Fluoride Deception leads us on a terrifying
journey through the history of the industrial use of fluoride, a
chemical substance that has risen steadily in status from a deadly
environmental pollutant responsible for injuring thousands to a key
component in the development of the atomic bomb to a staple ingredient
in toothpaste and drinking water all across the United States.
Christopher Bryson is an award-winning investigative reporter and television producer. After reporting on Guatemalan Army human rights abuses from
Central America in the late 1980s for the BBC World Service, National
Public Radio, and The Atlanta Constitution, he then won a George
Polk Award as part of the Jonathan Kwitny investigative team on public
television’s The Kwitny Report.
Concerns over fluoridated drinking water have long been derided as the obsession of McCarthyite cranks. But this muckraking j’accuse asserts that fluoride is indeed a dire threat to public health, one foisted upon the nation by a vast conspiracy—not of Communist agents, but of our
very own military-industrial complex. Investigative reporter Bryson
revisits the decades-long controversy, drawing on mountains of
scientific studies, some unearthed from secret archives of government
and corporate laboratories, to question the effects of fluoride and the
motives of its leading advocates. The efficacy of fluoridated drinking
water in preventing tooth decay, he contends, is dubious. Fluoride in
its many forms may be one of the most toxic of industrial pollutants,
and Bryson cites scientific analyses linking fluoridated drinking water
to bone deformities, hyperactivity and a host of other complaints. The
post-war campaign to fluoridate drinking water, he claims, was less a
public health innovation than a public relations ploy sponsored by
industrial users of fluoride—including the government’s nuclear weapons
program. Legendary spin doctors like Edward Bernays exploited the
tenuous link between dental hygiene and fluoridation to create markets
to stimulate fluoride production and to prove the innocuousness of
fluoride compounds, thereby heading off lawsuits by factory workers and
others poisoned by industrial fluoride pollution. Bryson marshals an
impressive amount of research to demonstrate fluoride’s harmfulness, the
ties between leading fluoride researchers and the corporations who
funded and benefited from their research, and what he says is the
duplicity with which fluoridation was sold to the people. The result is a
compelling challenge to the reigning dental orthodoxy, which should
provoke renewed scientific scrutiny and public debate.
“It is my sincere hope that Christopher Bryson’s apparently thorough and comprehensive perusal of the scientific 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.”—Arvid Carlsson, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize
in Medicine
“The Fluoride Deception reads like a whodunit. . . .We are left with compelling evidence that powerful interests with high financial stakes have colluded to prematurely close
honest discussion and investigation into fluoride toxicity.”—Chemical
& Engineering News
“Previous authors have presented the idea of a deception, if not an outright conspiracy, involving fluoride. What makes Bryson’s book unique is that it is an up-to-date account
supported by indisputable new evidence in the form of declassified
correspondence and exhumation of buried studies.”—Fluoride
“As with landmark titles, such as Silent Spring, Bryson’s book is bound to become a seminal volume.”—British Columbia Naturopathic
Association
With the narrative punch of Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action and the commitment to environmental truth-telling of Erin Brockovich, The Fluoride Deception leads us on a terrifying
journey through the history of the industrial use of fluoride, a
chemical substance that has risen steadily in status from a deadly
environmental pollutant responsible for injuring thousands to a key
component in the development of the atomic bomb to a staple ingredient
in toothpaste and drinking water all across the United States.
Christopher Bryson is an award-winning investigative reporter and television producer. After reporting on Guatemalan Army human rights abuses from
Central America in the late 1980s for the BBC World Service, National
Public Radio, and The Atlanta Constitution, he then won a George
Polk Award as part of the Jonathan Kwitny investigative team on public
television’s The Kwitny Report.