Dear All,

The Boston Herald was the first paper in the country (the world?) to cover the publication of Bassin’s article on fluoridation and osteosarcoma in male teenagers (see story below - note you can vote on the quality of this story). In scooping the world the Herald scooped its rival, the Boston Globe. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. The Globe has been notorious for its poor coverage on this issue even when mandatory fluoridation was being discussed right under their noses in the State Senate.

WebMD has also covered the story (see below) with a very interesting quote from Elise Bassin. She says that she “was surprised by the results” and adds:

Paul Connett

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 http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=133828

Fluoride debate may surge as treated water linked to cancer
By Jessica Fargen

Thursday, April 6, 2006

Young boys who drink fluoridated tap water are at greater risk for a rare bone cancer, Harvard researchers reported yesterday.

    The study, published online yesterday in a Harvard-affiliated journal, could intensify debate over fluoridation and mean more scrutiny for Harvard’s Dr. Chester Douglass,accused of fudging the findings to downplay a cancer link.
   

“It’s the best piece of work ever linking fluoride in tap water and bone cancer. It’s pretty damning for (Douglass),” said Richard Wiles of the Environmental Working Group, which filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health against Douglass.
 

     Douglass, an epidemiology professor at Harvard’s School of Dental Medicine, is paid as editor of the Colgate Oral Care Report, a newsletter supported by the toothpaste maker.

     Harvard and the NIH are investigating whether Douglass misrepresented research findings last year when he said there was no link, despite extensive research to the contrary by one of his doctoral students. The NIH gave Douglass at least $1 million for the research.

    That student, Dr. Elise Bassin, wrote in yesterday’s Cancer Causes and Control that boys who drink water with levels of fluoride considered safe by federal guidlines are five times more likely to develop osteosarcoma than boys who drink unfluoridated water. About 250 U.S. boys each year are diagnosed with osteosarcoma, the most common type of bone cancer and the sixth most common cancer in children. Bassin notes that more research is needed to “confirm or refute this observation.”

    Douglass, in a letter to the editor published in the same issue, said Bassin’s study was a “partial view of this ongoing study,” and urged readers to be “especially cautious” when interpreting the findings.

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Study Examines Boyhood Drinking of Fluoridated Water and Possible Links to Osteosarcoma

By Daniel DeNoon

WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Louise Chang, MD
on Thursday, April 06, 2006

April 6, 2006 - Boys who drink fluoridated water have an increased risk of a deadly bone cancer, a new study suggests.

Elise Bassin, DDS, completed the study in 2001 for her doctoral dissertation at Harvard, where she now is clinical instructor in oral health policy and epidemiology. The study finally was published in the May issue of Cancer Causes and Control.

Bassin and colleagues’ major finding: Boys who grew up in communities that added at least moderate levels of fluoride to their water got bone cancer — osteosarcoma — more often than boys who drank water with little or no fluoride.

The risk peaked for boys who drank more highly fluoridated water between the ages of 6 and 8 years — a time at which children undergo a major growth spurt. By the time they were 20, these boys got bone cancer 5.46 times more often than boys with the lowest consumption. No effect was seen for girls.

In a prepared statement provided to WebMD, Bassin says she “was surprised by the results.”

“Having a background in dentistry and dental public health, [I] was taught that fluoride at recommended levels is safe and effective for the prevention of dental [cavities],” Bassin says in the statement. “All of [our analyses] were consistent in finding an association between fluoride levels in drinking water and an increased risk of osteosarcoma for males diagnosed before age 20, but not consistently for girls.”

It’s not surprising that Bassin found a risk for boys but not for girls. Osteosarcoma is about 50% more common in males than in females. And boys tend to have more fluoride in their bones than girls.

However, a commentary accompanying Bassin’s article warns to take her findings with a grain of salt. Ironically, it is from Harvard professor Chester W. Douglass, DMD, PhD. Douglass led Bassin’s PhD committee, which approved of the study when it was presented as her doctoral dissertation.

Douglass warns that the Bassin study is based only on a subset of people exposed to fluoridated water. Preliminary results from the entire population of exposed individuals, Douglass writes, show no link between bone cancer and water fluoridation.

But Bassin specifically looked at the subgroup of people most likely to be affected by fluoridation: children. She limited her analysis to people who got bone cancer by age 20. That’s because most cases of osteosarcoma occur either during the teen years or after middle age.

Fluoride collects in the bones. And it’s particularly likely to accumulate in the bones during periods of rapid bone growth. So Bassin looked at fluoride exposures during childhood for 103 under-20 osteosarcoma patients and compared them with 215 matched people without bone cancer. Her study took into account how much fluoride was in the water in the communities where children actually lived and the history of municipal, well water, or bottled water use.

The Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog organization, says water fluoridation should stop until further research can refute or confirm Bassin’s findings. Tim Kropp, PhD, is a senior scientist at EWG.

“About 65% of the U.S. water supply has added fluoride,” Kropp tells WebMD. “With evidence this strong, it only makes sense to act on it. Right now, it makes the most sense to put fluoride in toothpaste, and not into our water. It’s not like this is a huge contaminant that will cost billions of dollars to fix. We can just stop adding it to our water it if we want to.”

According to the American Cancer Society, every year some 900 Americans — 400 of them children and teens — get osteosarcoma.

SOURCES: Bassin, E.B. Cancer Causes and Control, May 2006; vol 17: pp 421-428. Douglass, C.W. and Joshipura, K. Cancer Causes and Control, May 2006; vol 17: pp 481-482. Elise Bassin, DDS, prepared statement, provided by the Harvard University press office. Tim Kropp, PhD, senior scientist, Environmental Working Group, Washington, D.C.

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