Fluoride controversy

Picture secret 1950s dump sites storing rusty drams labeled with the skull and crossbones. Imagine those aging drums beginning to leak and industry-financed scientists desperately seeking an alternative use for a deadly by-product of nuclear fission: fluoride. Fast-forward 4 decades as troublesome studies started appearing--and that's where a new book picks up the story.

The controversial new book The Fluoride Deception reads like a thriller it's filled with suppressed health studies and industrial lobbying. But it's actually the nonfictional result of years of inter views and archival research by journalist Christopher Bryson on the origins and historic endorsement of our use of fluoride to fight tooth decay.

Fluoride is added to most US drinking water--although worldwide, very few countries fluoridate their water. Yet dental health in nonfluoridated Europe is better than here. In parts of Turkey and China where fluoride occurs naturally in high concentrations, skeletal brittleness and crippling--osteofluorosis--is common.

And with fluoride now in toothpaste, water, food and many beverages, Nobel scientists and groups such as the Fluoride Action Network (www.fluoridealert.org) are raising the alarm.

The Fluoride Deception: Christopher Bryson (Seven Stories Press, May 2004).

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