FLUORIDE 30 (2) 1997, pp 134-135	International Society for Fluoride Research	Table of Contents

134 Letter to Editor
PARADOXICAL EFFECTS

When I studied medicine (1945-1952) our Professor in Internal Diseases speaking about the subject of syphilis (still rampant just after the war) called it a monkey under the diseases, as it was able to mimic nearly every other illness.

We are nearly half a century later and syphilis has dwindled to near non-existence in our country, but another monkey has taken its place. Fluoride medication can and does imitate many other illnesses. (I call fluoride medication an illness because fluoride does not belong in our bodies). The substance is full of paradoxical surprises.

When during the seventies we looked into the physical complaints due to fluoridation of our water supplies (before this measure was forbidden by law) we tried to prove in a scientific way that fluoride was the culprit in skin troubles, gastrointestinal complaints, headaches, arthritis-like complaints, blurred vision, lack of concentration etc, so we started a series of double blind tests.

Some of the patients reacted quite according to plan: Fluoridated water caused the complaints, nonfluoridated water cured them again. On the other hand there existed a minority of patients who reacted in a different way. They did not show their physical effects when they drank the fluoridated water for a short time, but on day 1 of the next nonfluoridated bottle, their complaints suddenly appeared. We called this the rebound effect and afterwards thought that perhaps it could be linked to the general adaptation syndrome of Hans Selye, the patients bounding back in another phase of the syndrome when the fluoride was withdrawn.

Recently I read an article by Professor Schatz about the similarity in physical effects between low level fluoridation and low level radiation, and also about the concept of non-linear relationships. It struck me that here was an elegant way of explaining why sometimes more harmful effects are seen with 1 ppm fluoridated water than with the massive dosage until recently used in the treatment of osteoporosis before that method became obsolete. It can also explain why some patients reacted on dwindling amounts of fluoride.

Moreover, it ties in with the meticulous research by the German scientist L Kolisko, who in his book, Physiological and Physical Demonstration of the Effect of Extreme Small Dosages, tells about curious phenomena. He put gladiolus seeds in increasing dilutions of metal-salts and as soon as they had sprouted he planted them and followed their development. He found an undulating curve showing the relationship that existed between, alternatively, growth and flowering inhibition and growth and flowering enhancement when the dilutions slowly increased. Higher dilutions of the rather poisonous metal-salts often gave more severe inhibitions in growth and flowering than lower dilutions. For instance a dilution of 1:1000 could show normal growth and flowering while a dilution of 1:10,000,000,000 gave stunted growth and no flowers. These experiments could be repeated ad infinitum and gave the same results.

It seems probable that the concept of non-linear relationships also ties in with that other most interesting new concept: The "windows in time" as explained by Colborn, Dumanoski and Myers in their book Our Stolen Future. They show that a poisonous effect on the fetus can play havoc at a specific short period of the fetal development, a short window in time, while either before or after that window is open, nothing happens at all.

These new concepts can go far in at last explaining why so many controversial findings exist about the poisonous effects of fluorides.

Hans Moolenburgh
Oranjeplein 11
2012 LN Haarlem, Holland

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Growth and flowering inhibitions in gladiolus sprouted in 10th and 11th decimal dilutions of iron sulfate. No such effect in previous dilutions.

[Dr Moolenburgh, author of Fluoride: The Freedom Fight, describes in that book (pages 81-82, and 103-107) the research, involving double-blind tests, which he and fellow physicians carried out before water fluoridation was made illegal in the Netherlands. The preliminary work was published in this journal: Grimbergen GW. A double blind test for determination of intolerance to fluoridated water (preliminary report). Fluoride 7 (3) 146-152 1974. Later findings were presented at the VIIth Conference of the International Society for Fluoride Research in Zandvoort, the Netherlands, in February 1976.]

FLUORIDE 30 (2) 1997, pp 134-135	International Society for Fluoride Research
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