Grand Rapids Fluoridation Trial

updated by Maria Mergel (Feb 11, 2015)

TXP-3

Note: The article below was prepared as a press release by the New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation with the title "Fluoridation's Unhappy Birthday."

New York - January 25 – Sixty-three years ago, January 25, 1945, sodium fluoride was slowly poured into Grand Rapids, Michigan's public water supply to prove that fluoridation reduces children's tooth decay. Nearby Muskegon was left fluoridation-free as the experiment's control city for comparison purposes.

The study failed; but early fluoridationists ignored this inconvenient truth.

Named a "demonstration project" so as not to alarm residents about what was actually occurring, the experiment was meant to last 15 years. After only five years, cavities went down in both Grand Rapids and Muskegon. So officials fluoridated Muskegon which scientifically nullified the study.(1)
Today Americans are fluoride overdosed, suffer from fluoride's toxic effects while cavity rates rise.
"Grand Rapids has a moral obligation to stop fluoridation instead of glorifying it so as to protect all Americans," says lawyer Paul Beeber, President, New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation. "Grand Rapids current Mayor, who is also an ordained minister, should begin that process." says Beeber.

There are many errors in the Grand Rapids experiment. (2) When a firm of professional statisticians was employed to study the data published from the trial, they concluded: "the lack of sophistication shown in selecting the sample leads to complete bewilderment as to the precise effects or the extent of the effect of fluoridation" (De Stefano 1954).

The Grand Rapids experiment never proved fluoridation was effective and didn't even look for adverse health effects. But that hasn't stopped public officials and organized dentistry from saying it did. In fact, two monuments have been built in fluoridation's honor in Grand Rapids. The first one crumbled and fell apart just as over-fluoridated children's teeth tend to do.

So what's happening today?

Grand Rapids children are showing high rates of tooth decay and fluoride overdose - dental fluorosis, white spotted, yellow, brown and/or pitted enamel.(3)

According to the Grand Rapids Press, one pediatric dentist said in 2007 "...we see children under the age of 2 with active decay...Rather than just a few cavities, we're seeing a lot of cavities. It's not unusual to see a child with 8 to 10 cavities." (4)


The state of Michigan is now 86% fluoridated and Detroit is 100% fluoridated.

A study shows that, although fluoridated tap water is the most consumed item, 83% of low-income Detroit African-American adults, 14-years-old and over, have severe tooth decay.(5) Almost all Detroit's African-American 5-year-olds have cavities, most of them go unfilled.(6)

The Michigan Department of Community Health reports: (7)

Cavity rates in six to eight-year-olds are:
– 75% for American Indian/Alaska Natives
– 72% of Hispanics,
– 57% of White non-Hispanic
– 57% of Black non-Hispanic
– 50% of Asians

"One in four (25%) Michigan third grade children have untreated dental decay." Low income children have significantly higher rates of untreated dental decay.

Uninsured or low-income children were six times more likely to have immediate dental needs with signs or symptoms of pain, swelling, or infection than privately insured or higher income children.
"Obviously fluoridation has not reduced or leveled out tooth decay rates between poor and non-poor Michigan children," says Beeber. "Instead Michigan children are unnecessarily being exposed to fluoride which is linked to bone, thyroid, kidney and tooth damage," he says.

Today 2/3 of U.S. public water supplies and virtually 100% of the food supply are fluoridated. Fluoridated dental products have become a multi-billion dollar international market run by powerful corporations who fund organized dentistry through convention sponsorship, grants, journal advertising, etc.

"Fluoridation campaigns provide a unique opportunity for dentistry to help reduce the incidence of dental disease while establishing political viability...," according to the Journal of the American Dental Association, "Fluoridation Election Victory: A Case Study for Dentistry in Effective Political Action," April 1981.

The American Dental Association has a very powerful and influential political action committee.(8)
The National Institutes of Dental Research was founded and built upon fluoridation and uses the fluoride crystal as its website logo.

Government agencies have distributed probably billions of dollars over the decades for fluoride research, some of which indicates that fluoridation is ineffective at reducing tooth decay, harmful to health and a waste of taxpayer funds - as the Grand Rapids experiment was the first to show.

How did this happen?

In the early 1900's, brown and yellow discolored, but decay resistant, teeth were prevalent in healthier, wealthier U.S. populations drinking and irrigating their crops with water containing fluoride as well as calcium and other minerals.

Researchers discovered fluoride was the tooth discoloring culprit and mistakenly thought fluoride was also the cavity-fighting hero - unaware that calcium was required to grow sound dentition. And also unaware of Dentist Weston Price's extensive research published in 1939 showing that without fluoride, healthier populations had healthier teeth because of good diets.

Public health officials, so sure that sodium fluoride safely benefited children's teeth, had no misgivings about carrying out this very unusual experiment without first doing animal studies, without informed consent and without thought or interest about how sodium fluoride could affect adults.

Mistakenly assuming all fluorides are the same, in 1945, sodium fluoride, waste products from industries such as Alcoa Aluminum Company, was added to Grand Rapids water supply.
Recently, researchers made a huge new discovery - something that works better than fluoride - calcium.(9)

"We're not surprised," says Beeber.

Online Petition to End Fluoridation and call for a Congressional Hearing

http://www.fluorideaction.net/congress
Contact: Paul Beeber, Esq nyscof@aol.com
SOURCE: New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc
PO Box 263
Old Bethpage, NY 11803
http://www.orgsites.com/ny/nyscof
http://www.FluorideAction.Net

News Releases: http://tinyurl.com/6kqtu

References:
1) Grand Rapids fluoridation Study - Results Pertaining to the Eleventh Year of Fluoridation, by Francis A Arnold
American Journal of Public Health, May 1957
"In making comparisonson these data it should be remembered that Muskegon started fluoridation in July 1951" http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1551218&blobtype=pdf
2) Fluoridation: Errors and Omissions in Experimental Trials Chapters 19, 20 and 21. Philip Sutton. Originally published in 1960 http://www.awaywolf.com/fluoridation/science/papers/sutton/sutton_1a.htm
3) "Some babies get too much fluoride," The Grand Rapids Press, by Morgan Jarema October 09, 2007 http://www.fluoridealert.org/news/3091.html
4) "Protecting kids' teeth includes trips to the dentist," The Grand Rapids Press, by Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood, June 19, 2007
5) "Dietary Patterns Related to Caries in a Low-Income Adult Population, Burt, et al., Caries Research 2006:40:473-480 http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1626651
6) "Severity of Dental Caries among African American Children in Detroit," by Ismail et al, Abstract presented at the March 2006 International Association of Dental Research Annual Meerting http://snipurl.com/n8m2
7) 2006 "Burden of Oral Disease in Michigan," Michigan Department of Community Health http://www.mdhatoday.org/pdf/oralhealth2006.pdf
8) http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Dental_Association
9) "NovaMin sees breakout year for tooth renewing products." Tech Journal South,
January 11, 2008, By Allan Maurer http://www.techjournalsouth.com/news/article.html?item_id=4585 (no longer available, alternate link http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/life_a_nyscof_080125_fluoridation_s_unhap.htm)