Culture Change e-Letter
#45
Brain control of the masses via
pollutants
by Jan Lundberg with reporting by Moth
At first it seems like a possible
health crisis: everyone exposed to carbon monoxide, fluoride and other chemicals
that are proven extremely toxic to humans But it so happens that those two
chemicals, of the hundreds that affect us in unexpected ways as consequences of
corporate abuse and corrupt government, affect the mind and behavior.
Carbon monoxide (CO) exposure, endured by more
than half the U.S. population, is due largely to automobile use. CO impairs mental performance and causes depression and
irritability. Road rage is only one logical consequence. People impaired by
frequent CO exposure can continue to drive, work, procreate and above all,
consume. But they are hardly in a condition to start creatively improving
their lives and opposing injustice. Prozac (which contains fluoride) and more television are instead
the normal course. Meanwhile, one of the original causes of the overall
malaise, CO, is unquestioned and considered only dangerous in massive, lethal
quantities.
As this report will also suggest, low-level,
chronic carbon monoxide poisoning has placed an unknown, but substantial portion
of the population in prison, and an almost equally high number of children have
been given drugs to modify behavior for "disorders."
Additionally, we maintain that many other disease-inducing pollutants that do not affect
the brain directly per se serve to add to the public's passivity, apathy,
and malaise.
In addition to epidemics of cancer and
heart disease, the U.S. population suffers from other ills serving to limit
creative, spontaneous brain use: Being poor and hungry and/or homeless can
numb the mind, which sounds like a good policy for the exploitative rich.
The balance sought is to not let the working classes do too well or too
poorly.
Fluoride's dark history
Fluoride was used by the Nazis in
concentration camps to keep the inmates passive. The poison serves to
decrease resistance to authority. Alcoa Aluminum, which
produced fluoride as a manufacturing byproduct, combined forces with I. G.
Farben, the Nazi-era conglomerate, which utilized fluoride in creative, profitable
ways, including deadly nerve gas. After the war, with decades of effective propaganda from Alcoa, most
U.S. municipalities came to fluoridate their
water.
The key justification was and is that fluoride is good for teeth and is
harmless, although the dental benefit is consistently unsubstantiated when tested. But a toddler can die from eating too much toothpaste with
fluoride, and the effect of fluoride on teeth is to harden them to the point of
making them brittle. The bone cancer rate is six times higher among young males in
fluoridated communities.
Apart from the ongoing benefit to the aluminum
industry and other industries which do not have to dispose of toxic fluoride waste instead, putting
it into the water the control of the populace via fluoride may be a
consideration for ongoing overexposure. After all, there is a lot riding
on the public's acceptance of everything from corrupt politics and elections,
destruction of nature for profit, and commercial domination of daily living.
It is not only
fluoridated water systems giving people fluoride; the pollutant is emitted into
the air and water from
factories and mines, and ends up in food, drinks and toothpaste. Babies
that get fluoridated water added to their food or formula get several times the
safe level of exposure. Levels of exposure
and accumulation in older children and adults are on average several times what is safe, according to many
studies (see references). Yet, despite fluoride's demonstrable dangers, industry
influence has
won so far. Has the population succumbed to dumbness via chemicals, or is
it pervasive propaganda? The answer is both.
Not surprisingly, today's research
dominated by corporate interests and an academia propping up the status quo does
not over-investigate sources of pollution and health damage from industry.
It is too much to expect corporate-supported experts to pursue the
issue of how our brains are affected, and what this means for our lives as
controlled citizens herded by institutions, laws, and the domesticated, paved
landscape.
This report deals with only two
pollutants which are produced willfully and in great quantities without the
informed consent of those affected. How efficient: control one society
with two chemicals. No doubt other chemicals are involved. To also take into account the plethora
of approved, but untested chemicals provided by Dupont, oil companies and others,
and estimate the impact on our health and behavior, is extremely hard to
do. The "precautionary principle" has been thrown out the
window, as demonstrated by the U.S. Congress's Delaney Clause (barring
carcinogenic substances) being tossed by the Clinton/Gore Environmental Protection
Agency.
Improving on nature is a common
explanation of the excesses of corporations, industries and government
policies. But to enforce the so-called improvement on nature there has
to be a passive public. Combining fluoride with carbon monoxide and other
chemicals (that synergize with unpredictable results) with the massive
propagandizing assaulting the public through media and public
"education," it is easy keep the public out of the decision process.
The answer to this state of affairs lies is local action and taking local,
responsible control. Washington would eventually follow if it wants to.
The public health crisis is not an honest mistake by
hard-working people trying to do good jobs, when decade after decade the public
trust is betrayed by corrupt politicians and officials. Nor is this a
matter of electing the right president: Aside from the consideration of anyone
being elected having to be approved by the powers that be whose interests will
be protected, the greater issue is our consuming habits as practiced by
the most materialistic, wasteful culture ever seen. When massive chemical
production and energy use are tantamount to progress (even though this is
unsustainable and harmful to life on our delicate planet) we are faced with
nothing less than a breakdown of civilization. The crisis has implications
for social relations at all levels, including how much a brain-pollutant is
allowed on the market.
Instead of
raising hell and taking a stand, the embattled consumer wishes most often for a
little more relief and distraction. When disaster strikes, it may be seen
as unreal as a television show, even as the body gives out and the spirit goes out with barely a
whimper. The American victim sees relatives and friends struggling and
succumbing to the rising epidemic of cancer, but the daily routine goes on
without question: make more money, pay off the rising debts, and don't take any
action on global warming or the war on Iraq.
We are suggesting there are
explanations for inaction beyond what is commonly suggested. With
more complete understanding, some individualized health purification, and
old-fashioned indignation, solutions are more easily forthcoming if people
work together.
Fluoride's challenge
Very little information is available on
the mind-effects of fluoride exposure. As
government and industry have suppressed the truth on the health effects, one can assume that suppression of mental
and behavioral effects would be even more assured. This report recounts
the physical effects of fluoridation and how they have been hushed up.
Yet, few people are prepared to question the propaganda they grew up on.
Even in what has been called the most progressive, "green" town in the
U.S. our town of Arcata fluoride and its relative chlorine are added to
the water supply without question. Activists have plenty to occupy themselves
already. Many are content to filter their water, but it is widely stated
that filtration does not
take out fluoride.
Fluoride's
effect on the brain as a neurotoxin is less understood than the effects on the
body, yet the known facts are being suppressed. Evidence shows that
fluoride slightly damages the brains hippocampus, the area needed for memory
and learning new behavior. People are still able to function normally, as
the parts undamaged regulate repetitive learned behavior, with frequent memory
repetitions, but little new information being processed. This makes people
more susceptible to propaganda, by repeating images in the mind.
Because much is known about
excess fluoridation and its tragic effects on teeth, bones and more, we can link
the physical ailments and chronic debilitation of excessive fluoridation to our
mental and behavioral states. By extension, any mass illness, such as
AIDS, serves to keep the population under control. When people are ill and
have low energy, they are more likely to sit at home and watch TV than go out
into the community and make changes. It's hard enough getting up each day
to go be a wage slave. It takes time and energy to work with one's
neighbors and influence the political process. Protecting one's
selfish interests with large amounts of cash - the mother's milk of politics
can more easily be done even if such players are subject to toxic substances.
(This report focuses further on
fluoride before we return to carbon monoxide.)
Fluoride maximization: a health
crisis
We summarize below
two exposés on fluoride. These stories had been suppressed by corporate
news media, but found a home in 1998 at the Earth Island Journal (EIJ)
whence the following comes. We are grateful
for permission to quote liberally. We also include references/links at the
end for more information. The articles do not infer mental or behavioral effects
from excess fluoridation, but the authors would probably agree that the diseases
brought upon millions of citizens would limit active dissent, especially
when people don't know they are being poisoned slowly and they have trust in
their government.
"Harold C. Hodge, Ph.D., the former
chair of the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council's
Committee on Toxicology was the Atomic Energy Commission scientist who became
a key figure in a secret plan to promote fluoride as a dental preservative in
an attempt to derail lawsuits by US citizens exposed to the release of
fluoride into the environment at the AEC's WWII uranium production plants [See
"Fluoride, Teeth and the A-Bomb," Winter 97-98 EIJ].
"In 1953, Hodge prepared a chart on
fluoride effects for NAS/NRC and offered this reassuring information in
congressional testimony in 1954, as Congress considered a bill to outlaw water
fluoridation."
It turns out that Hodge's work was
flawed regarding safe levels of exposure because he forgot a pounds/kilograms
conversion. But government standards did not get
corrected for forty years. On top of this incompetence or fraud,
fluoridation levels have never been set to take into account other additional sources of
exposure from industrial pollution and consumer products, according to the EIJ
reports.
"Studies published in peer-reviewed
scientific journals worldwide describe increasing numbers of children whose
teeth require complex dental treatment because of excess fluoride, and adults
with headaches, back pain, gastrointestinal problems, arthritis symptoms, and
hyperparathyroidism, all attributed to fluorosis. These documents also report
that with increased fluoride dosage, cavities also tend to increase.
"Once confined almost exclusively to
drinking water, fluorides now reach us from a variety of sources including
dental products, drugs, and virtually every food and beverage item. In the
light of these studies, why is it that the EPA's maximum contaminant level for
fluoride in drinking water fails to take into account the additional fluoride
ingested from foods, dental products or beverages?
"When drinking water containing about
one ppm of fluoride is the only source of ingested fluoride, 10 to 15 percent
of the exposed children will show a faint change in the appearance of their
teeth called dental fluorosis. With 2 or 3 ppm, nearly all children will be
affected by this first (and only visible) sign of fluoride poisoning.
"'Whereas dental fluorosis is easily recognized,' the WHO reported
in 1970, "the skeletal involvement is not clinically obvious until the
advanced stage of crippling fluorosis ... [Early cases may be misdiagnosed
as rheumatoid- or osteo-arthritis.
"Arthritis caused by fluoride exposure
has been a threat to human health since the earliest times. Now, after 50
years of ever-increasing exposure, the world may be on the verge of a new
health scourge -- crippling skeletal fluorosis.
"Today, millions of people show signs of dental disease and skeletal
fluorosis. These afflictions are not caused solely by fluoridated water, but
from the total daily fluoride intake of processed food using fluoridated
water, the use of fluoride-based pesticides, fluoride dental products, and
the result of increased industrial release of fluoride into the environment
over the past 50 years
"During the last 20 years, a great deal of critical information has
emerged about the health risks of fluoride, including links to tooth
mottling, osteoporosis, arthritis, lower back pain, heartburn, stomach
cramps and diarrhea. The problem is that these studies lie buried beneath
executive summaries and official interpretations." Such as:
"The bone cancer rate is six times higher among young males in
fluoridated communities.
"If this general increase in fluoride dose were proved harmful to
humans, the impact on industry would be major. The nation's air is
contaminated by fluoride emissions from the production of iron, steel,
aluminum, copper, lead and zinc; phosphates (essential for the manufacture
of all agricultural fertilizers); plastics; gasoline; brick, cement, glass,
ceramics, and the multitudinous other products made from clay; coal-burning
electrical power plants; and uranium processing.
"As for water, the leading industrial fluoride polluters are the
producers and processors of glass, pesticides and fertilizers, steel and
aluminum, chemicals and metals - copper and brass, titanium, superalloys,
and refractory metals for military use.
'The level of fluoride the government allows the public is based on
scientifically fraudulent information and altered reports,' charges Robert
Carton, an EPA environmental scientist. 'People can be harmed simply by
drinking water,' Carton warns.
"Does fluoridation reduce cavities in children? Over the years, many
health professionals - especially abroad - have decided the beneficial
effects of fluoride are mostly hokum; but open debate has been stifled if
not strangled.
"In 1939, ALCOA-funded scientist Gerald J. Cox was one of the first
to note that 'The present trend toward complete removal of fluoride from
water and food may need some reversal.' Cox also proposed that this
'apparently worthless by-product' might reduce cavities in children. Cox
fluoridated lab rats, concluded that fluoride reduced cavities and declared
flatly 'The case should be regarded as proved.'
"In 1939, the first public proposal that the US should fluoridate
its water supplies was made, not by a doctor, or dentist, but by Cox, an
industry scientist working for a company threatened by fluoride damage
claims."
Fluoride's downsides by Moth
Fluoride
compounds added to drinking water have generated much controversy due to
industry manipulation. Science is often influenced by the financial support of
industry, and dissenting opinions are often treated harshly in the mainstream
scientific community. Dr. Phyllis Mullinex presented her report to the
National Institute of Dental Research about the negative effects of fluoride
and was later fired. She discovered that exposure to fluoride caused
hypoactivity, or lethargy in prenatal rats. Exposing adult rats caused
hyperactivity, and also showed effects of fluoride accumulation in the brain.
Subjecting animals to toxins for research is unethical since animals are not
able to give consent. Animals may also be effected differently than humans.
However, she was not fired for ethics and animal research; she was fired
because she continued to talk about her findings of fluoride on rats.
Some
basic information on fluoride is needed to help people begin educating themselves on
fluoride's effects. The term fluoride is often used to describe
several compounds that contain the element Fluorine, or F on the
periodic table. Fluorine is grouped with bromine and chlorine as a halogen.
Halogen gasses are electronegative elements, with fluorine exhibiting the
strongest electronegativity of the three.
Elemental fluorine gas is never
found in nature in pure form, it is mined and extracted from minerals like
cryolite (Na2AlF6), fluorspar (CaF2) and converted to fluoride compounds like
hydrofluosilicic acid (from phosphate fertilizer production) or sodium
fluoride (from aluminum production). Uranium and phosphate mining also
result
in fluoride waste products, the radioactive uranium is found in the same
mineral as fluorine and phosphate. The decay products of uranium are found in
the fluoride waste product from the phosphate fertilizer stack scrubbers and
then added to drinking water. Though the radioactive decay products may be
small amounts, the ingestion of even a small radioactive fragment causes
genetic mutations.
The
behavior of the fluoride ion in the body is different for the type of tissue
it affects. The most common effect known is the effect on the enamel of the
teeth, where the fluorine separates and bonds with the calcium containing
hydroxyapatite (enamel) and replaces the hydroxyl (OH) group. Since fluorine
is a strong electronegative element, it creates a stronger bond. The tooth is
harder and also more brittle after the more flexible hydroxl is replaced.
Carbon monoxide exposure: nothing to
sneeze at - Introduction to section
One of the main ingredients of exhaust is carbon
monoxide. In large amounts it can cause death. In outdoor exposure, it causes
headaches, itching eyes, dizziness, drowsiness, impairs hand-eye coordination,
slows reflexes and can cause fetal damage. Carbon monoxide also interferes
with the bloods ability to absorb oxygen, thus affecting perception and
thinking.
About 65 percent of the worlds carbon
monoxide is caused by motor vehicles. In urban areas, 80 percent of it comes
from cars. In the U.S. 67 million tons of carbon monoxide are emitted into the
atmosphere each year.
Low-level carbon monoxide poisoning from
fossil fuel combustion - by Moth
Emission of carbon monoxide (CO) is a byproduct
of fossil fuel combustion. This
varies according to the make/model of a vehicle: For example, SUVs emit nearly
twice the amount of CO than do smaller cars. This carbon monoxide is
an invisible, odorless gas that is often inhaled by people in the vicinity
of vehicles. The approximate amount CO inhaled and its effect on the body
is the subject of this report by Culture Change:
After CO enters the lungs it is absorbed into the
bloodstream (along with oxygen, O2 gas)
through the capillaries. What normally happens is the O2 molecule
binds chemically with the iron (Fe) molecule in the hemoglobin. Hemoglobin
is found in red blood cells and its primary function is to transport
oxygen to cells. When the iron delivers the oxygen to the cells, it
picks up the waste product carbon dioxide (CO2) and returns to the lungs capillaries where CO2 is exhaled.
The CO molecule is 200 times more likely to bind
with the iron molecule in hemoglobin than
is O2. When this occurs, the hemoglobin can no longer deliver
O2 to the cells and is considered carboxylated hemoglobin. When cells
do not receive the needed oxygen they die. The effect of cell death from
CO inhalation is called carbon monoxide poisoning. Severe cases of CO poisoning
cause death, yet milder cases of CO poisoning are less noticeable
but are also detrimental to health.
Low-level CO poisoning symptoms are a result of
less oxygen being transported to the
brain. These symptoms include nausea, dizziness, depression,
irritability, headaches and other common symptoms often misdiagnosed.
People who live and/or work in the vicinity of heavy vehicle traffic
are more susceptible to low level CO poisoning. Long term exposure to
low level CO poisoning can cause worsening of symptoms, sometimes leading
to violence. The question is how much CO inhalation can cause the symptoms
mentioned above?
CO inhalation is usually measured in parts per
million (PPM). The amount in CO ppm
inhaled that causes the above symptoms varies with each individual.
On average, a one hour exposure time to CO levels of 300 ppm can
lead to 10 percent carboxylated hemoglobin in the blood. [Source: CO Headquarters] This is an estimate for an adult at rest.
Any level above 5 percent
carboxylated hemoglobin is abnormal and unsafe. Obviously a child at
play will be far more sensitive to CO uptake and resulting increase of carboxylated
hemoglobin in the blood.
Since CO inhalation is most common in urban areas
of high vehicle traffic, the equation
below applies to street canyons (areas surrounded by buildings):
Ce = (0.1*K*N*V^-0.75) / (U + 0.5)[(x^2 +
z^2)^(1/2) + 2]
Ce = concentration of CO in parts per million
K = constant of 7
N = traffic (vehicles per hour)
V = vehicles avg. velocity (miles per hour)
U = wind speed (meters per second)
W = street width (meters)
x = distance of receptor from traffic lane
z = height of receptor above traffic lane
This equation is used for the leeward side
of the street canyon; there is a separate
equation for the windward side of the canyon. Leeward is
in the direction from which the wind is blowing; windward is the direction or side
from which the wind blows. This is assuming the wind is blowing at an approximate 90 degree angle
perpendicular to the street canyon. (Eagleman, pg. 95.) Although
there are less CO emissions from modern vehicles, there are more vehicles
on the road, so CO poisoning in urban areas like Los Angeles, Mexico City and Houston is still a great risk.
The total miles driven by all passenger
vehicles in the U.S. increased 2.7 times
between 1965 and 1995. The passenger vehicle is still the largest
single source of carbon monoxide nationwide. The average vehicle's emissions of hydrocarbons
have been reduced by two-thirds, while the emissions of carbon
monoxide have been reduced by only one-third. [Auto Emissions and Carbon Monoxide]
Symptoms of aggressive behavior and depression in
large urban areas are often misdiagnosed
as mental health problems. Many people from urban areas are
being incarcerated for behavior that is a result of CO poisoning over several
years exposure. Urban children are especially at risk, as they are more frequently
misdiagnosed and labeled ADD by a mental health system that attempts to correct this problem by prescribing
pharmaceuticals.
A simpler and healthier solution would be to reduce the amount of fossil-
fuel combusting vehicles by increasing public
transit, making cities more bike/pedestrian
friendly, and using alternative fuels (hydrogen, biodiesel)
instead of petroleum.
[The foregoing section of this report on CO
was
by Moth, a research volunteer for Sustainable Energy Institute/Culture Change]
*****
References and recommendations:
- Air Pollution Meteorology by Joe R.
Eagleman 1991, University of Kansas CO
Headquarters;
- Auto Emissions and Carbon Monoxide
