Propaganda, public relations and poppycock!
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one
fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few
points and repeat them over and over” (Joseph Goebbels)
The study of water fluoridation provides a really good lesson in how to market an idea and
keep it credible in the eyes of those people who do not delve below the surface of an issue.
Indeed, most people rely on the Press or last night’s TV for insight, but with growing
financial constraints, investigative journalism has virtually disappeared leaving important
questions unanswered and ordinary folk at the mercy of slick and convincing conmen and
charlatans.
For years we were told that smoking was OK – that it wasn’t injurious to health. Just look
at the image portrayed by menthol cigarettes – “cool as a mountain stream”. Camel
cigarettes went a stage too far, “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette“
closely followed by the suggestive slogan by L&M “Just what the doctor ordered”. A
Sufragettes marching in America at the beginning of the 20th Century were encouraged by
Edward Bernays to smoke whilst marching in order to imply that it was cool for women to
smoke in public. Another brand of American cigarette portrayed the smoker posing as a
masculine cowboy. In the UK, we had a dreamy cigar advert which played Bach’s Air on a
G String, and so on.
Starting with the story on tobacco that most of us now know, a new report by Scientists for
Global Responsibility (SGR) B lays out the consequences of this process. The tobacco
companies knew from the early 1950s that smoking caused lung cancer but they denied it
relentlessly and paid university scientists to give the impression there was an ongoing
"debate". A similar process is speeding across Britain's science departments. From drug
trials to the energy sector, companies are ensuring that publicly-funded research serves
their profit-margins rather than the public interest.
Persuade the public that what you want to sell them is what they think that they want. Keep
telling the same soothing falsehoods until, in the end, even those telling the falsehoods
believe in what they’re saying.
Thus it has been throughout the history of water fluoridation. I genuinely think that even
medical professionals who have been ‘persuaded’ to support fluoridation actually believe in
what they’re saying. It’s unfortunate that they’ve conveniently forgotten their secondary
school’s chemistry unit dealing with halogen displacement theory. Or perhaps, halogen
displacement is a chemical truism which happened in another place, another time, another
planet?
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to
believe it. The lie can be maintained only for as long as the State can shield the
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people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus
becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for
the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the
greatest enemy of the State." (Joseph Goebbels)
What are the tactics, the ruses, the half truths, the downright lies, the mis-quotings, the
contrivances, the put-downs which have been employed by industry, politicians and their
PR companies to recruit pro-fluoridationists and amuse those of us who have seen the truth
about fluoridation? Here is a list in no particular order. Many were sourced from the
Introduction to One in a Million, 2nd ed. by the British Fluoridation Society.C but they can be
found elsewhere in pro-fluoridation propaganda. The list is not complete and contributions
are welcome.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have named
fluoridation of water as one of the 10 most important public health
measures of the 20th century.”
I suppose that the CDC might have said the same about lobotomy, the sitting cure, the full
removal cure, strappado,D blood letting, cupping and uranium pills and lotions, had it been
pontificating on these rather interesting ill-health interventions at the time that they were
popular medical fashion. The bald statement is unsubstantiated, unproven and is but one
minor committee’s opinion (advised by the multi-million dollar USA PR industry). Yet, the
statement has been repeated ad nauseum throughout the decades like a too-often played
scratched vinyl record, until even the pro-fluoridationists have been brain-washed into
believing it.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities".
(Voltaire)
“Water fluoridation is an emotive topic.”
This implies that those who object to fluoridation are objecting, not from the employment of
intellect, but because of an irrational concern. “No-one who is emotive about such a
convoluted topic can possibly be credible, can they?” Therefore, “although we, the profluoridationists, will listen to them and include their comments in the replies to a
consultation, we’re not going to heed their unsubstantiated complaints (even though they
are talking sense to which we’re determined not to listen)”.
“Fluoridation is safe and effective.”
This particular phrase has resounded down the decades relatively unaltered and never
backed up by proof. Who says it’s safe and effective? Where is the research? Until the
Department of Health ‘resumes’ its ‘over the rainbow’ ongoing programme of research
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(duh!) into the health effects of fluoride, those promoting fluoridation in the DH will continue
to say it’s ‘safe and effective’. If you don’t look, you don’t find!
“The fluoride added to the water supply is one in a million.”
This refers to the concentration of fluoride – 1 part per million - but if you go to the
Avogadro’s number calculation on this web site you will see that there are millions of anions
in 1 part per million and every anion inhibits one enzyme protein molecule. “…over 100
enzymes are affected by fluoride binding to enzyme co-factors such as magnesium,
manganese and phosphate, thus preventing the appropriate coenzyme from
activating its enzyme”.D
“Fluoride at 1ppm is the level that occurs naturally in many parts
of the world.”
Yes but the pro-fluoridationists omit to say that in many countries with natural fluoride at
1ppm and which are really hot, people drink 4-5 litres of water every day. These people
end up with chronic dental fluorosis and skeletal fluorosis even though the fluoride
concentration is the same as it is in many parts of England.
“Although children are the group that benefit most from water
fluoridation, adults benefit too.”
This tactic makes it looks as though we all benefit from water fluoridation which is very far
from the truth. However, if you don’t analyse this statement, you are calmed into a state of
acceptance because you start to believe that adults are included in this beneficence.
“There’s fluoride in the water anyway and we’re just topping it up to
the optimal amount.“
Who decided that 1ppm was optimal? What is optimal? Optimal is the same as
favourable. A greater concentration of fluoride (i.e. more than 1ppm) and the ravages of
dental fluorosis would be too evident. Any less than 1ppm, and the spurious case for the
prevention of dental caries would not be so demonstrable. ‘Topping up’ in my book, means
filling up someone’s glass, meaning that it was almost empty. However, pro-fluoridationists
imply that the natural level of fluoride is quite high and that they are only adding a tiny
amount of the toxin. But since the background level of calcium fluoride in England is about
0.04ppm, artificial fluoridation adds 0.96ppm of the fluorosilicate to the drinking water. (In
some parts of East England, e.g. Essex, it can be more than 1ppm – but these are isolated
areas where the geology produces fluorine gas. Since fluorine gas is highly reactive, it
rapidly formed a compound with calcium (CaF2). When Calcium Fluoride is leached out of
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the rock into watercourses and aquifers, the drinking water down-stream becomes naturally
fluoridated.)
“In the UK, fluorosis is mainly a cosmetic problem.”
34% of 9-year-olds in 5 primary schools in Birmingham in 1995 exhibited varying
degrees of Dental Fluorosis of their secondary teeth. F 12% of these children had Dental
Fluorosis of aesthetic concern G meaning that their lives were blighted. How can it be a
cosmetic problem when, if it’s in the teeth, it’s in the bones. Fluoride does not
discriminate: it does not make a bee-line for teeth, ignoring bones, pineal gland and
thyroid gland. Putting Dental Fluorosis into the ‘cosmetic’ pigeon-hole means that
young fluorosed adults with fluoride-damaged teeth can’t get remedial treatment on the
NHS. This, I feel, is a double-whammy!
“Fluoridation improves a population’s dental health, and as a
consequence its general health.”
Granted that improved dental health means improved general health – that is not in
dispute. But who has proven that fluoridation improves a population’s dental health.
This is a rather wide-sweeping statement which cannot be proven. When countries stop
fluoridating their citizens, the dental decay rate does not go up. When fluoridated
people move away from a fluoridated area for a short time, their health dramatically
improves. When they return to the fluoridated area the old health problems re-occur.
This was witnessed by Dr Hans Moolenburgh in the 1970s in Holland.H
“The chemicals used for water fluoridation are specifically
manufactured to very high quality standards, and must meet
Department of Environment purity specifications.”
Hexafluorosilicic acid is a waste product of the phosphate fertilizer manufacturing
industry in Scandinavia and Spain. It cannot be purified since huge amounts are
produced and there is no technology which can remove the contaminants and leave
behind the fluoride and silica. The elusive ‘Product Recovery Units’ for the purification
of the acid have never yet been witnessed on this Earth. The BSEN which is often
quoted is a British Standard which is used as a benchmark and ensures that the
fluorosilicate contains elements in quantities which are not injurious to human health at
the concentration of 1ppm. What it doesn’t do is to consider the adverse health effects
of bio-accumulated fluoride and its contaminants and it most certainly does not consider
people who are susceptible to the substance.
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“There is no difference between fluoride added to water supplies
and that which occurs naturally.”
It’s true that both are toxic, so in this respect, there is no difference. Natural fluoride is
calcium fluoride (CaF2). Artificial fluoride is hexafluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6), which
contains contaminants such as lead, arsenic and radioactive particles. There is no
calcium in its chemical formula.
“Water fluoridation has an excellent safety record.”
If excellent means 100%, well no ! Accidents do happen, the most recent being near
Wolverhampton at Severn Trent’s Dimmingsdale water treatment works from which
water customers received 2ppmF/litre for two months in the summer of 2008. That’s
0.5ppmF/litre of water above the maximum allowable at a time when people drink more
liquid due to the increased temperature. In Queensland in July 2009, a massive
30ppmF/litre was pumped to people’s homes for a few hours. There have been various
transportation accidents involving H2SiF6 in America, Canada and the UK. And what
about the careless dosing of water supplies to 56,000 people living south of Sheffield
who are getting “fluoridated water [being] mixed with water from non-fluoridated
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waterworks.” Who asked these people if they would like to drink fluoridated water?
Granted it’s not 1ppm F/litre water but even 0.52 (Clowne) is almost too much for bottlefed infants and adults with chronic kidney disease. The situation south of Sheffield is a
bit of a mess and, due to county boundary changes and changes in the water
distribution network, no-one in the relevant Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) now
knows for certain who is fluoridated and who isn’t. If they don’t know, then shouldn’t
they review their position?
“All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
(Edmund Burke).
References
A. http://www.onlinecheapcigarettes.net/pages/37.php?action=news&name=Cigarettes_
tobacco_slogans____&news=31
B Langley, C. and S. Parkinson (2009). Science and the Corporate Agenda: The
detrimental effects of commercial influence on science and technology. Scientists for
Global Responsibility. http://www.sgr.org.uk/pubdescs/SATCA.html
C. British Fluoridation Society (2004). One in a Million, 2nd ed.
http://www.bfsweb.org/onemillion/onemillion.htm
D. Note: this is not the strappado used today by fans of bondage.
E. Lee L, (1998) The Enzyme Cure, USA CA: Tiburon Future Medicine Publishing, p 211.
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F. Rock, W.P. and A.M. Sabieha (1997). ‘The relationship between reported toothpaste
usage in infancy and fluorosis of permanent incisors.’ Br Dent J. 1997 Sept
13;183(5): 165-70. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
G. McDonagh M, et al. (2000). A Systematic Review of Public Water Fluoridation. ("The
York Review.") NHS Center for Reviews and Dissemination. University of York.
Executive Summary, Objective 4.
H. Moolenburgh, H. (1987). Fluoride: The Freedom Fight. Edinburgh: Mainstream
Publishing. ISBN 1 85158 041 7
I. Freedom of Information reply, 11th February 2009 from Karl Milner, Yorkshire and the
Humber NHS.
Authored by: Joy Warren, December (with contributions from Brian Jackson, FoE Fluoride
Campaigner) Dec. 2009
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