Causes of Cancer

On fluoride and fluoridation causing/contributing to cancer,

tooth decay, osteoporosis, brain damage & other diseases (1)

In point of fact, fluoride causes more human cancer death, and causes it faster, than any other chemical.
Congressional Record, 21 July 1976

Fluoride and cancer (and other illnesses)

”The purpose of the chapter has been to acquaint the reader with some of the basic issues in regard to drinking water, issues which are systematically hidden from the media, for obvious reasons.”

Note by Healing Cancer Naturally: If you’d like to immediately read the chapter specifically dedicated to Cancer and Fluoride, click here. Also read the overview of foodstuffs in which fluoride has been found.

...chlorine will evaporate from a glass of water if you let it sit for an hour or so. No such luck with fluoride. Even cooking, food processing, filtration, or digestion doesn't remove fluoride. Goes right up the food chain. Accumulates in fat cells.

Fluoride is added to the water supply of most American cities for the ostensible purpose of dental hygiene. The reader will be amazed to find out that such a thing is not only unlikely, but actually the reverse of the ongoing reality.

The U.S. has been fluoridating drinking water for so many decades that we hardly think about it. Very few articles appear about fluoridation in newspapers and magazines any more.

This is no accident.

What would you do if you suddenly found out that fluoride was not safe at all, but was actually a carcinogenic industrial waste? What would you think if you suddenly found out that fluoride doesn't stop tooth decay at all, but actually causes teeth to rot and crumble, and by the same mechanism also causes osteoporosis? And after you found out all this, would it surprise you that all federal health agencies have known these facts for years, but have been controlled by the political interests of the nuclear arms, aluminum, and phosphate manufacturers to keep it a secret?

Why would they do that? So that, in the total absence of scientific proofs, a toxic industrial waste could be passed off on the public as a nutrient with necessary health benefits, to the tune of $10 billion per year. Or more.

Is a deception of this magnitude possible for the sophisticated, discerning American public? Perhaps Lance Ito could answer a question like that.

Let's start at the beginning.

WHAT IS FLUORIDE?

Fluorine is an element. It is a gas, never occurring naturally in its free state. In microscopic amounts complexed with other minerals, it is often listed as a trace mineral, a nutrient for human nutrition. Other sources disagree, holding that "no experimental work or clinical observations have proved that fluorine is in any manner essential for animals or man." (Alesen, p.5)

This has nothing to do with fluoride or fluoridation. The fluoride added to drinking water is a compound of fluorine that is a chemical byproduct of aluminum, steel, cement, phosphate, and nuclear weapons manufacturing. Such fluoride is manmade. In this form, fluoride has no nutrient value whatsoever. It is one of the most caustic of industrial chemicals. Fluoride is the active toxin in rat poisons and cockroach powder. (Dustrude)

"Hydrofluoric acid is used to refine high octane gasoline, to make fluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons for freezers and air conditioners, and to manufacture computer screens, fluorescent light bulbs, semiconductors, plastics, herbicides, — and toothpaste. It also has the ability to burn flesh to the bone, destroy eyes, and sear lungs so that victims drown in their own body fluid."
- Foulkes

Once in the body, fluoride is a destroyer of human enzymes. It does this by changing their shapes. You'll remember from the Enzymes chapter (w ww.thedoctorwithin.com) that in human biochemistry, thousands of enzymes are necessary for various essential cell reactions that take place every second we're alive. (Howell) Without enzymes, we'd die instantaneously.

CUTS AWAY THE VELCRO STRIPS

Enzymes trigger specific reactions in the body. One way they do this is by having the exact shape necessary, like a key in a lock. Fluoride changes the shape of the enzymes so that they no longer fit. Since enzymes are proteins, once they've been changed, they're now foreign-looking. The body now treats them as invaders, even though they're part of that body. This is known as an autoimmune situation — the body attacks itself.

Another way to look at it: enzymes are long-chain proteins held in certain shapes. Hydrogen bonds are the velcro strips that hold the enzyme in a certain shape. Fluoride comes along and hydrolyzes the enzyme: cuts the velcro strips away. The shape collapses. No more enzyme; now just a foreign protein.

FLUORIDE: STARTING POINT

The most thorough explanation of the origin, action, diseases, and politics of fluoride was presented in a book called Fluoride the Aging Factor by the late John Yiamouyiannis, PhD. This book is the result of 25 years of research and working behind the scenes of the fluoride phenomenon.

Big money generally means big monkey business, you may have noticed by now, and fluoride is right up there. Dr. Yiamouyiannis was the science director of the National Health Federation. He then went on to head the Safe Water Foundation. Dr Y can tell you all about monkey business. No one can comment intelligently about fluoride in the U.S. without addressing with the issues raised in his pivotal book.

It is simply a review of the literature on fluoride up to 1994. This chapter quotes freely from Dr Y's book.

Dr. Y starts by citing hundreds of international studies of fluoridation that have been conducted all over the world since the 1930s. After awhile, there seem to be just two types:

— the studies that were really looking to find out about fluoride
— the studies that were trying to cover up what had already been discovered

A few examples of the former:

Taylor Study, University of Austin: fluoride concentration of 1 PPM (parts per million) increases tumor growth rate by 25%
Fluoride is more poisonous than lead, and just less poisonous than arsenic (Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products — 1984)
"A seven ounce tube of toothpaste, theoretically at least, contains enough fluoride to kill a small child." (Procter&Gamble, quoted in Fluoride the Aging Factor p. 14)
Fluoride supplements should not be given to children under three years old (1992 Canadian Dental Association Proposed Fluoride Guidelines, Dr. Limeback)

FLUORIDE AND AGING

Austrian researchers proved in the 1970s that as little as 1 ppm fluoride concentration can disrupt DNA repair enzymes by 50%. When DNA can't repair damaged cells, we get old fast. (Klein)

Fluoride [] ages the body, mainly by distortion of enzyme shape. Again, when enzymes get twisted out of shape, they can't do their jobs. This results in collagen breakdown, eczema, tissue damage, skin wrinkling, genetic damage, and immune suppression. Practically any disease you can name may then be caused. (Yiamouyiannis, Ch. 3)

All systems of the body are dependent upon enzymes. When fluoride changes the enzymes, this can damage:

• the immune system
• the digestive system
• the respiratory system
• blood circulation
• kidney function
• liver function
• brain function
• thyroid function

[]

The distorted enzymes are proteins, but now they have become foreign protein, which we know is the exact cause of autoimmune diseases, such as lupus, arthritis, asthma, and arteriosclerosis.

Collagen is the body's glue. That's not just a metaphor; when collagen breaks down, tissues simply lose their substance, their framework. As we saw in the Collagen chapter, this is exactly how we get an enlarged heart, osteoporosis, atrophy and drooping of muscles, joint destruction, kidney and liver disease, falling organs, and bad teeth. Fluoride dissolves the body's glue simply by preventing new collagen from being formed. (Ishida)

Dr Y gives a masterful explanation of fluoride's disruption of collagen. Not only is the collagen incorrectly formed, it is wrongly mineralized. Some collagen, like bones and teeth, should be mineralized in order to give it hardness. Other collagen structures, like ligaments, tendons and, and muscles, should not be mineralized, in order to keep them flexible and resilient. Fluoride confuses the two types.

Fluoride mineralizes the tendons, and muscles and ligaments, making them crackly and painful and inflexible. At the same time fluoride interferes with mineralization of bones and teeth, causing osteoporosis and mottling or dental fluorosis.

FLUORIDE RUINS TEETH

Wait a second here! I thought that was the whole reason why we fluoridated water in the first place — to prevent cavities and build strong teeth, right?

Wrong again. And this is where politics and dog-wagging have eclipsed science. Dr Y gives an exhaustive review of the scientific literature of the past 40 years proving beyond a reasonable doubt that fluoride interferes with tooth formation, causing permanent discoloration and actual crumbling. The reader is referred to Chapter 5 of Fluoride The Aging Factor . A few excerpts:

Tooth enamel is laid down by special cells called ameloblasts. Dutch researchers found that fluoride at as little as 1 PPM caused these ameloblasts to malfunction so that they laid down irregular chalky enamel. (Bronkers)

The process whereby teeth are discolored and crumble from fluoridation is know as dental fluorosis.

The U.S. Public Health service has known since the research of its own Dr. HT Dean in 1937 that as fluoride levels rose, so did the percentage of children with dental fluorosis, in a study of 15 major American cities. (Dean)

The same findings were evident in a University of Texas study comparing dental fluorosis in children who lived in fluoridated and unfluoridated areas of Texas. Dr. Segretto found a 35% higher incidence of fluorosis in children who drank water with fluorine concentration of 1-1.4 PPM, compared with those whose water was in the .3 PPM range. This little study was written up in the Journal of the American Dental Association. (Segretto)

Yiamouyiannis goes on and on, citing one peer-reviewed study after another, all coming to the same inescapable conclusion: the more fluoride in the water, the more tooth malformation and discoloration.

It's beyond controversy, when you view these studies from all over the world — New Zealand, India, Denmark, England, Ireland, Italy, Illinois — same finding. Even with this consistent finding across the board, the standard level of fluoridation recommended for dental health in the U.S. is 1 part per million. How is this possible?

A major gain for antifluoridation happened in the past few years, which most people haven't even noticed. The FDA required all toothpaste manufacturers to print a warning on the label that if more than a pea-sized amount of toothpaste is swallowed, the local Poison Control Center should be notified. Check it out! Did we see that on CNN?

The American Dental Association and other defenders of fluoride have testified and continue to insist that dental fluorosis is a "cosmetic condition" and is not a health issue! You hear it all the time from fluoridiots. Permanent malformation of the teeth is a little more serious than cosmetic — but even if it weren't, how can an additive whose only alleged purpose is to benefit teeth destroy teeth?? In their current website, the ADA actually challenges this FDA warning on toothpaste labels, saying that it is unnecessarily strict.

In the words of Canadian fluoridation expert, leading consultant to the Canadian Dental Association, Dr. Hardy Limeback, a University of Toronto biochemist and dentist:

"Since when is a cosmetic problem not a problem when the patient must seek dental treatment to fix it?"
— Toronto Star 25 Apr. 99

Paul Connett, PhD, explains that spots on the teeth and dental fluorosis are just an indication of damage to other parts of the body:

"The teeth are windows to what's happening in the bones."
— Griffiths, p 39

Note by Healing Cancer Naturally: For extensive information on practically free and fail-safe (for me) toothache relief and rebuilding teeth back to usability naturally without the need for a dentist, see toothache remedies, tooth regeneration and dental autonomy.

And that brings us to

FLUORIDE AND OSTEOPOROSIS

Bone is collagen. We already saw how fluoride disrupts the formation of enzymes necessary for collagen production. So it's no wonder then that the thin brittle bones characteristic of osteoporosis are the result of fluoridation.

This is no false claim. Dr Y cites the 1990 study of 541,000 cases of osteoporosis that found a definite connection between hip fractures in women over 65 and fluoride levels. The study was written up in JAMA. (Jacobsen) Several other major studies are cited, massive amounts of research, again all reaching the same conclusion — the undeniable correlation of fluoridation with osteoporosis and hip fracture in the elderly.

Bone is living tissue. It is constantly being replaced with new cells, and having old cells removed. Bone building is a finely balanced, complicated process. Fluoride has been known to disrupt this process since the 1930s. Dr. Alesen, who was the president of the California Medical Association, clearly explains what fluoride does to bone formation. He cites dozens of international scientific studies proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that fluoride has caused thousands of cases of osteoporosis, skeletal thinning, fractures, "rubber bones," anemia, and rickets. (Robotry and Water)

Fluoride also causes osteoporosis by creating a calcium deficiency situation. Fluoride precipitates calcium out of solution, causing low blood calcium, as well as the buildup of calcium stones and crystals in the joints and organs. (Waldbott)

...

Using fluoride as a treatment for diseases like osteoporosis has always been a particularly dumb idea, because of side effects known beforehand:

• general arthritis
• stomach pain
• nausea
• vomiting
• bone spurs
• bone inflammation
• kidney fibrosis
• dental fluorosis

Other mineral contaminants like lead and strontium-90 are damaging to human bone just by means of their occupying space where they don't belong. They are inert. The difference with fluoride is that it is biochemically active. With all the diseases caused by fluoride, the common thread is

".. virtually all these ill effects can be traced to the effect of fluoride on enzymes or proteins, as well as a possible direct effect on the DNA molecule itself."
Fluoride, the Aging Factor, p 57, 99

Above we saw how fluoride changes the all-important shape of enzymes, thereby rendering them not only useless, but actually foreign antigens.

CANCER AND FLUORIDE

By now we all know how cancer begins with one cell whose inner blueprint — its DNA — has been screwed with. Remember those velcro hydrogen bonds? Guess what other shape they hold together. The double helix — DNA. This turns out to be the exact mechanism of fluoride as a carcinogen. Austrian and Japanese researchers both found that a concentration of 1 PPM fluoride causes disruption of the body's ability to repair its own DNA. Without this most basic cell function, cancer is promoted, and tumor growth is accelerated. (Klein) (Tsutsui)

That's standard fluoride level in U.S. city water: one part per million.

On p. 65 of his book, Dr. Yiamouyiannis provides an amazing chart of some 19 major scientific studies conducted in universities all over the world, together proving beyond a doubt that fluoride causes genetic damage. End of story. Except that on p 68, there is another list of world studies proving the same thing with plants and insects — genetic alteration from fluoride.

Chief chemist of the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Dean Burk when confronted with mountains of data, stated before Congress:

"In point of fact, fluoride causes more human cancer death, and causes it faster than any other chemical."
Congressional Record 21 July 1976

Can that be misconstrued?

Burk and Yiamouyiannis completed a monumental research project in 1977 in which they compared cancer death rates in 10 fluoridated and 10 non-fluoridated U.S. cities between 1940 and 1970. The results are on p75 of Fluoride the Aging Factor. The unmistakable fact is that the graph shows that for the first ten years (1940-1950), when none of the 20 cities fluoridated, the average cancer deaths were virtually identical. But after 1950, there is a major increase in cancer deaths in every single one of the fluoridated cities, while the nonfluoridated cities remain clustered together at a much lower level of death. [SCATTER CHART]

They actually put a number on it:

"...30,000 to 50,000 deaths each year from various causes may now be attributable to fluoridation. This total includes 10,000 to 20,000 deaths attributable to fluoride-induced cancer every year."
— Yiamouyiannis. p 90

These findings were first confirmed, then denied by the National Cancer Institute (what a surprise). Finally the research was upheld as valid in two separate state courts, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Ask yourself, why are findings of a scientific study bei qng disputed in court? The usual pattern whenever valid research threatens big money.

Another study by the New Jersey Health Dept., cited by Dr. Y, found a 50% increase in bone cancer among young men in fluoridated areas. (Cohn)

Dr. William Hirzy, an officer in the EPA explains:

"Fluoride is a broad-spectrum mutagen. It can cause genetic damage in both plant and animal cells."

Once again, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Hundreds of scientific studies conducted and reported in the most credible universities and agencies throughout the world for the past 25 years have found an unmistakable correlation between fluoridation and cancer deaths. Even the professional opinion makers can't just make all this data vanish.

All they can do is what they're trained to do: change the subject. And keep repeating how safe and effective fluoride is.

BRAIN DAMAGE = LOW IQ

Penetrating observation. The earliest reference to brain disruption from fluoride exposure is found in a recently declassified secret Manhattan Project memo (1944):

"Clinical evidence suggests that C616 [uranium hydrofluoride] may have a rather marked central nervous system effect with mental confusion, drowsiness and lassitude."
— Ferry, 29 Apr 44

Dozens of scientific studies from all over the world have come to the same conclusion. Just a few examples:

Popov, L et al--"Nervous System Damage in Occupational Fluorosis" --Chemical Abstracts vol.14, 7 Oct 74
Guan, Z et al. "Influence of Chronic Fluorosis on Membrane Lipids in Rat Brain"
Neurotoxicology and Teratology, vol. 20 no.5 pp.537

How can all these studies be dismissed and ignored? Many of them are from the most prestigious of scientific journals. And the message has been consistent for the past 40 years — fluoride is a poison.. What kind of power can contradict such a cogent, overwhelming body of work? Only one thing — very good --$$$$$$$$! Got it on your first guess!

SO THEN WHY ARE WE FLUORIDATING, FOR THE LAST 60 YEARS?

Unrestricted research into almost any area involving health care is really a tiresome business — it's the same boring story over and over: A Toxin in Search of A Market. First a chemical is created, then an angle is figured out on how to mass market it. Then a disinformation program is put into place to create a permanent smokescreen for the actual scientific data.

As we saw with ADD, antibiotics, the history of pharmaceuticals, HRT, heart drugs, chlorination, and now fluoridation — the pattern is consistent. With billions of dollars in play, the chemical industry can afford to choreograph its two most willing marionettes: the media and the medical profession. I didn't make this up; I wish it were otherwise. It's embarrassing to be a human when you find out what's been going on.

But we digress. Fluoridation. A certified poison, by all the government agencies and scientific agencies cited above. Where does the money come in? Toxic disposal. The rise of the EPA since the 1970s. The increase in environmental consciousness as a political tool for creating the illusion of safety in recent decades.

Here's the short version: fluoride is a toxic byproduct in the manufacture of nuclear arms, aluminum, cement, steel, and phosphates. Millions of tons of this poison are produced every year. Imagine the cost of containing and disposing of those mountains of waste every year. It's in the billions.

But what if lobbyists from these industries could present "scientific studies" paid for by the industries, and provide for a continual stream of media presentations about the health benefits of fluoride, and create unimaginably lucrative positions for "research" and "education" within the American Dental Association and the AMA, and do all these things in a consistent and unending way, year after year? What are the economic advantages of that?

Simple: instead of paying money to dispose of toxic waste, money could now be made by selling fluoride to the water companies of the nation. They'll use the public water supply as a sewer for industrial wastes. And now with these new billions added instead of subtracted, there's plenty to go around, for everyone involved. Out of the Red, into the Black. Somewhere Machiavelli smiles.

DARK ALLIANCE

Up until 1931, the American Dental Association and the US Public Health Service recognized that fluoride caused dental problems, and that every effort should be made to remove such contamination from drinking water. (Fluoride the Aging Factor, p 140) By 1980, the ADA's tune had changed a little:

".there is no evidence implicating naturally occurring fluorides as a health hazard even at eight parts per million."
— ADA News 24 Mar 1980

Following this? In the face of all the decades of our best research, this arrogant and groundless pronouncement, by the profession to whom we have entrusted our teeth, is saying that our water could have 8 times as much fluoride as it has now, and still be perfectly safe! That is power, Sonny Jim.

The Players: ALCOA Aluminum, global producer of aluminum, was founded by Andrew Mellon, who was also appointed Secretary of Treasury, since he seemed to know something about money. ALCOA funded a top research facility known as the Mellon Institute. In 1931, a Mellon Institute report by Gerald Cox suggested that 1 PPM fluoride added to drinking water would be good for the teeth. That was it. No studies, no comparisons, no data. All previous research studies had shown that fluoride was toxic.

Stay with me now. The US Public Health Service (USPHS) at that time was under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of Treasury — Andrew Mellon, who also owned ALCOA. The USPHS sponsored some research put out by their own Dr. HT Dean, manipulating data so that it "proved" that this same figure of 1 PPM resulted in reduction of tooth decay. So now there were two studies, one by Cox and one by Dean, both funded by agencies controlled by ALCOA, both supporting this arbitrary figure of 1 PPM fluoride that should be added to the water to lower tooth decay.

Next problem: sell it to the American Medical Association and the American Dental Association. This took years. Even in 1943, an article in JAMA described fluoride as a poison which damaged enzyme systems even at a concentration of 1 PPM. The article showed concern about 25,000 tons of fluorine released into the atmosphere every year from the phosphate fertilizer industry. (JAMA, Sept 18, 1943).

The following year Journal of the American Dental Association ran another article warning that fluoridated water caused osteoporosis, goiter, and spinal disease. They stated that "the potentialities for harm far outweigh those for good." (JADA, 1 Oct 1944)

So how did fluoridation get started then, with all this information — thousands of negative scientific papers and only two favorable studies? ALCOA money, that's how. In 1944, ALCOA hired an attorney named Oscar Ewing at a salary of $750,000 per year. That same year Ewing was appointed to the Federal Security Adminisrration. The USPHS was a division of the Federal Security Association. So now ALCOA's boy was in a position to control the policies of the Public Health Service.

Ewing chose his PR man for fluoridation: Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud.

FREUD, FRAUD, AND FLUORIDE

Edward L. Bernays, described by the Washington Post as the "original spin doctor" was responsible for evolving the pro-fluoridation propaganda and disinformation machine. How anxious he was to put his uncle's ideas and methods of persuasion into action. ( Dr. Y, p143)

"... those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country...our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of."
— Bernays (Propaganda)

Using classical Freudian principles, Bernays maintained that a well-oiled propaganda machine could make the public believe practically anything, even the exact opposite of what had been already proven by all existing scientific research. And this is exactly what Ewing needed in the case of fluoridation.

With help from "experts" of the Manhattan Project, like Harold Hodge, New York State politicians quickly learned which side their bread was buttered on. In May of 1945, the city of Newburgh, NY was the first to "try" fluoridation. The residents were supposed to be monitored by the state Health Department for ten years. That became the pattern — fluoride is the first drug in history to be tested on the general population with no previous research. (Griffiths) Except of course for vaccines. (The Sanctity of Human Blood)

One of the next cities to fall was Grand Rapids, Michigan. In July 1945, in the face of persistent warnings from the AMA, Grand Rapids succumbed to Bernays' propaganda machine and began a ten year "test period" of fluoridation in which tooth decay rates would be monitored. No one asked the question why the testing was being done on humans in an entire city.

The project was run by HT Dean, using the statistics of Cox's original 1931 paper that arbitrarily claimed that 1 PPM fluoride was a safe level to prevent tooth decay, with no research to back it up. Dr. Dean almost single-handedly developed the hypothesis that fluoride could prevent cavities. He is "the father of fluoridation." Dean did no research on his own, and in later years, twice admitted in court that Cox's original statistics were incorrect! (Foulkes, 1992) But the entire system of fluoridation of US city water is based on the admittedly unscientific "findings" of Dean and Cox.

Bernays' propaganda machine now went into full swing — ads with smiling children with beautiful teeth flooded the country's media. All anti-fluoride studies and articles were systematically suppressed because they weren't sanctioned by the big lobbyists for the aluminum and fertilizer industries. Tons of new literature written not by doctors and scientists but by PR people and psychologists portrayed those opposing the sacred fluoridation as right-wing wackos. Just like in Orwell's book 1984, they tried to re-write history, to go back and change the findings of valid research, not by doing new research, but simply by new PR. (Miller)

"I sometimes wonder if the Aluminum Co. of America... might not have a deep interest in getting rid of its waste products from the manufacture of aluminum because these products contain a large amount of fluoride. ...it is interesting to note that Oscar Ewing who now heads up the FSA, the parent organization of the US Public Health Service, and the firm of attorneys he deals with, represents the Aluminum Co. of America."
— Congressman A.L. Miller

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Causes of Cancer