Taking a Closer Look at Fluoride

Is the fluoride controversy -- once a litmus test for crackpot-dom -- finally getting a little respect?

By Kelly Hearn, AlterNet. Posted July 21, 2005.

To most folks, the decades-old controversy over fluoride belongs to the realm of foil hats and ham radios, of black U.N. helicopters and Freemason conspiracy theories.

But the investigation of a Harvard University professor accused of playing down links between fluoride and bone cancer may signal a mainstreaming of the debate.

Millions of Americans consume fluoride through community drinking water. Mainstream medical groups like the American Dental Association and the Centers for Disease Control have staked their reputation on fluoride, having long praised fluoridation schemes as beneficial for healthy teeth.

But anti-fluoride activists say a growing body of peer-reviewed scientific evidence counters long-held assumptions about fluoride's safety, and they're turning up the heat.

Last month, the Environmental Working Group, a respected Washington-based watchdog organization, called public attention to a Harvard study that shows links between fluoride and bone cancer in young boys. That study, conducted in 2001 by Elise Bassin, a Harvard doctoral student, stated that "among males, exposure to fluoride at or above the target level was associated with an increased risk of developing [the rare form of bone cancer] osteosarcoma. The association was most apparent between ages 5-10, with a peak at 6 to 8 years of age."

The EWG, which claims Bassin's study is the most comprehensive of its kind to date, also formally accused Chester Douglass, a researcher at Harvard's dental school and Bassin's former supervisor, of playing down her results in a 2004 report to federal officials.