More letters to get fluoridation talked about

A collection of letters from our prolific letter writer Bernard Seward in Bristol:

1. To: BBC Today Programme
Subject: Mercury - health hazard or health benefit.

Linda McCavan, who is concerned about the escape of mercury from barometers, would do well to ask the Department of Health for a chemical analysis of Hexafluorosilicic acid which is the complex compound being used to treat the water supplies of 9 per cent of the British population. There she will find included, not only mercury, but lead and cadmium as well. While she was right to mention the neurotoxicant effects of the heavy metal; carcinogenics are also represented in this extremely dangerous mix, said to be beneficial to the dental welfare of young children. The long term health hazards, proven beyond doubt by international research, have been suppressed and sidelined by successive health ministers anxious, or under direction, not to rock the boat of the received wisdom of 'fluoridation' upon which so many health professionals have pinned their reputations.

Bernard J Seward


2. To: BBC Today Programme
Subject: Alzheimers Disease

During the Radio 4 Today item on the question of treatment for Alzheimer's Disease, one of the experts spoke of the condition as 'genetic'. If that is taken to mean 'inherited', it needs to be pointed out that there is an environmentally-related possible cause of this distressing disease which should be addressed without prejudice. I state this because it has been largely concealed from public consideration for the last half century by successive governments dedicated to perpetuating a scientific fraud.

I quote, with some minor editing cuts, from GROVES B. Fluoride - Drinking Ourselves to Death Newleaf 2001

IT HAS BEEN KNOWN for many years that fluoride (a fluorine compound) inhibits Acetylcholinesterase which is involved in transmitting signals along nerves. Clinical and physiological studies from Russia, published in 1974, demonstrated that patients with occupational fluorosis exhibited disturbed nervous activity and brain dysfunction.

China, like India, has high levels of endemic fluorosis. Not surprisingly, a great deal of research into other possible effects of fluorides has been conducted in these two countries. The first suggestions that fluorides could affect the brain were published in 1982. Since then there have been many studies of the role of fluorides in brain development and corresponding effects on intelligence.

For many years, researchers have noticed that elderly people suffering from Alzheimers Disease have high levels of Aluminium in their brains. From what source? Aluminium is used in the manufacture of cooking pans and aluminium compounds are frequently added to the water supplies as clarifying agents, but since aluminium on its own is not readily absorbed by the body, there must be another reason. There is.
Fluoride, whether from natural sources, the artificially added Sodium fluoride or the more common (and dangerous) Hexafluorosilicic acid, combines with the aluminium to form aluminium fluoride which is easily absorbed.

After population studies showed a higher incidence of Alzheimer's Disease among people who lived in artificially fluoridated areas, Dr Rob Isaacson of the State University of New York added aluminium fluoride to rats' food. He found that the rats lost their sense of smell, developed short term memory problems and other characteristics of Alzheimer's Disease.

Isaacson made comparative studies of the effects of Sodium fluoride and Aluminium fluoride to determine if fluoride's effect on aluminium cookware, or its effect when combined with aluminium sulphate, added to some water as a flocculent, had an impact on the developemt of Alzheimer's Disease. The result was positive.
The aluminium fluoride was more toxic to the brain than Sodium fluoride. This finding has great significance as Alzheimer's disease was unknown until people started using aluminium cookware.

Experiments performed in 1987 at the Medical Research Endocrinology Department, Newcastle upon Tyne; and the Physics Department of the University of Ruhana, Sri Lanka, showed that water fluoridated at the 'optimal' level of 1.0 ppm, when used in cooking with aluminium cookware, concentrated the aluminium up to 600 ppm. A similar test carried out in Antigo, Wisconsin USA revealed an aluminium concentration increase of 833 times, with a doubling of the fluoride content.

The PTFE coatings, now used extensively for non-stick cooking pans, are also a well-known source of liberated fluoride.

Yours sincerely

Bernard J Seward


3. To: Daily Telegraph
Subject: Its Fluoride (pollution) time again.


If Gordon Brown wants to make Britain the best educated nation in the world, he should talk to the Chinese. China is priding itself on turning out 20 thousand or more graduates year on year and is leaving no stone unturned in its pursuit of that goal.

One of those stones is the removal of an impediment to IQ among children aged 8 to 13. Research by Chinese scientists in 1995 found a correlation between high levels of naturally occuring fluorides in the ground water and incidents of serious brain dysfunction.

Less than two years on, in the US, a comprehensive report entitled 'Toxic-induced Blood Vessel Inclusions caused by Chronic Administration of Aluminium and Sodium fluorides and their Implications for Dementia'
by a scientist named J A Varner, with colleagues, discovered that tap water fluoridated at one part per million could cause neurotoxicity where aluminium (used to clarify water) was present at only half that concentration.

In 1994, Richard Masters and Aaron Coplan, scientist and water engineer respectively, in a study of 280 thousand children in Massachussetts found high lead levels in the blood of those living in fluoridated communities. Lead, of course, is a heavy metal we'd rather do without because heavy metals compromise normal brain development and neurotransmitter function, leading to long term deficits in learning and social behaviour.

Ironically - for the fluoridation proponents - a major survey of 120 thousand children in fluoridated New York State found that those with high lead levels also had more tooth decay than children living in neighbouring unfluoridated communities. This was reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association and commented at some length by the New York State Coalition on Fluoridation. The NYSCOF web site makes compulsive viewing. Even the listed report headings spell out big trouble for fluoride consumers.

So with the benefit of their own research and that of other countries, now freely available and accessible on the international networks, the Chinese authorities are playing safe and have banned fluoridation, cancelling existing schemes and abandoning plans for similar interventions, all in the interests of the pursuit of academic excellence among their young people.

Another of the West's competitors in the knowledge economy, India, has legislated to remove all fluorides from water before it reaches the suppliers. In short, a fluoridated water supply is inconsistent with academic achievement among its consumers. The condition of their teeth is an irrelevance.

So, wake up Gordon Brown! Don't glibly accept all that stale US-inherited Dental Association hype. If waste elimination features in your new manifesto, make a start by witholding further treasury funding for any more ill-considered or fraudulently manipulated health schemes. If British education is really worth fighting for, and it is; it should be easy enough to set aside the collection of disparate professional views in your targeted objective.

Bernard J Seward


4. To: bbc@focusmagazine.com
Subject: Letters - Re Household Chemicals

We may not buy it by the bottle but one dangerous chemical which enters the homes of nine per cent of the population of Britain and Ireland under water fluoridation schemes, is Hexafluorosilicic acid. A toxic bioaccumulator with 60 per cent kidney retention, H2SiF6 attacks tooth enamel, destroys over half the enzymes we all need to function properly and weakens the immune system. The internationally-validated evidence against it is overwhelming. Mainland Europe has recognised the potential health hazards and abandoned fluoridation but the UK Government not only stubbornly supports it, but refuses point-blank to debate it, while muzzling the media against even mentioning it in open discussion.
Bernard J Seward