Though generations of dental students have been sold on the dental benefits of fluoride, studies over the last decade in particular have suggested a correlation with cancer. Studies conducted by the National Toxicology Program and the New Jersey Department of Health, have shown higher than normal incidents of cancer in male rats exposed to fluoridated water, for example.

Such studies have helped spawn grassroots opposition to fluoridation, and, since 1999, 70 U.S. communities have rejected fluoridation schemes, according to Fluoride Action Network, a watchdog group.

But fluoridation programs flourished even in the face of questions about health impacts. Kropp says the thrust behind fluoridation “is faceless. Some of the big proponents of fluoridation and some of the original experiments done, and done in faulty ways, aren’t around anymore. But you have new generations of dentists and public health officials who were taught in school that this is fine, so there’s no reason to do to the literature. It just gets passed down that way.”

Nonetheless, more and more scientists are refusing to take fluoride’s safety for granted.

Dr. Hardy Limeback, a leading Canadian expert and head of preventive dentistry at the University of Toronto, said he could not comment for this story because he is involved in a two-year review of fluoride for the National Academy of Sciences.

But Limeback, who once supported but now opposes fluoridation, has written extensively on fluoride’s health risks, and his views are shared by many in the scientific community. He has written that global cavity rates have declined mostly as a result of fluoridated toothpaste and that topical applications rather than widespread applications through community water can prevent tooth decay. Limeback and others also point out that industrial sources of fluoride contain harmful chemicals and have not been tested properly.

“Hydrofluorosilicic acid is recovered from the smokestack scrubbers during the production of phosphate fertilizer and sold to most of the major cities in North America, which use this industrial grade source of fluoride to fluoridate drinking water, rather than the more expensive pharmaceutical grade sodium fluoride salt,” he wrote in a public letter in April 2000. “Fluorosilicates have never been tested for safety in humans. Furthermore, these industrial-grade chemicals are contaminated with trace amounts of heavy metals such as lead, arsenic and radium that accumulate in humans.”

Kelly Hearn | AlterNet (read more. . .)

healingarts | July 21, 2005 |

Kelly Preston | HuffingtonPost

Parents are still largely unaware that these drugs are turning kids into walking time bombs. Eight out of the last 13 school shooters were taking prescribed psychiatric drugs, and only now is the FDA investigating the fact these drugs can cause violence. Legislators are still not waking up to the need for investigation — despite the Jeff Weise tragedy in March when the teen, after being prescribed an antidepressant, shot dead his grandparents and then classmates and school officials.

Now adding to the alarm bell we have the Partnership for a Drug Free America report that teens don’t consider these drugs dangerous because they are prescribed. However, the DEA classifies them in the same category of highly addictive drugs such as cocaine, opium and morphine. At least 10 percent of teens are abusing the stimulants, Ritalin and Adderall. A “troop of drugged-out zombies” is frighteningly real. (Watch for Lawrence Bender’s latest movie, Chumscrubber: Meet Generation Rx — an accurate portrayal of the current epidemic of teen prescription drug abuse.)

The recent controversy over these drugs has also raised another important debate: that parents across America are administering them for conditions they have been led to believe are the result of a “chemical imbalance” in the brain or some sort of brain-based disorder. Yet, the medical doctors in their letter to the FDA make it clear that these “potentially harmful substances” are being prescribed for “disorders that have no neurobiological or physical cause.” Even the president of the APA, Steven Sharfstein, recently admitted that there is no “clean cut lab test” to determine a chemical imbalance can cause “mental illness.” This has prompted concerns about the FDA’s drug approval process and why it approves so many psychiatric drugs for what is essentially behavioral control rather than treatment of medical illness. (read more. . .)

healingarts | July 14, 2005 |

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | Salon

When a study revealed that mercury in childhood vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids, the government rushed to conceal the data — and to prevent parents from suing drug companies for their role in the epidemic.

In June 2000, a group of top government scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center in Norcross, Ga. Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center, nestled in wooded farmland next to the Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete secrecy. The agency had issued no public announcement of the session — only private invitations to 52 attendees. There were high-level officials from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the top vaccine specialist from the World Health Organization in Geneva, and representatives of every major vaccine manufacturer, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur. All of the scientific data under discussion, CDC officials repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly “embargoed.” There would be no making photocopies of documents, no taking papers with them when they left.
(more…)

healingarts | June 16, 2005 |

Marla Cone |latimes

A study of infants in intensive care finds a substance used in medical supplies that causes testicular damage in animals.

A Harvard study of babies in hospital intensive care units has found new evidence of high levels of a hormone-altering chemical in newborns treated with plastic medical devices.

Some intravenous lines, blood bags, feeding tubes and a variety of other medical equipment contain the chemical, a phthalate called DEHP, which is widely used to make vinyl soft and flexible. In a study conducted at two hospitals in the Boston area, babies undergoing the most intensive care with the plastic devices, particularly endotracheal tubes and umbilical vein catheters, had five times more DEHP in their bodies than babies who were not treated with them.

The findings add to a growing body of research that has found that phthalates, also used in cosmetics, are ubiquitous in human bodies and has raised questions about their safety, particularly for baby boys.
(more…)

healingarts | June 11, 2005 |

Alicia Priest | Whole Health

Anyone with a pulse should now be familiar with the SSRI scandal. That’s the sordid saga that came to light in late 2003 concerning the antidepressant medicines known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

In brief, it’s a tragic tale of corporate corruption and greed and government neglect at the expense of public health. SSRI drugs, which affect chemical messages in the brain and nervous system, were given to children and teens with the full knowledge of one of the manufacturers, GlaxoSmithKline, that their product could increase a patient’s chance of becoming suicidal. Yet these drugs—such as Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and Celexa—were prescribed for everything from depression to bed-wetting, anxiety, and insomnia. Furthermore, many of the SSRI trials show little, if any, benefit in treating depression in children.

This incident illustrates many worthy things but one that screams out to be heard is how little medical science knows about how the brain/mind works, while at the same time putting more people on brain/mind drugs than ever.
(more…)

healingarts | June 9, 2005 |