NIH to Remove Harvard Professor by Fluoride
Action Network
www.fluoridealert.org
July 29, 2005
The Fluoride Action Network (FAN) has urged that a Harvard
Professor be removed from a research group studying the
association between fluoride and osteosarcoma because his
objectivity and ethics are disputed and he has ties to a
company that profits from fluoride. FAN also urges other steps
be taken to ensure this study meets the highest standards of
scientific integrity.
In June, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) charged Chester
Douglass, a professor at Harvard and editor of Colgate’s oral
health newsletter, with suppressing research linking
fluoridation to osteosarcoma, a rare but frequently fatal form
of bone cancer. (1) Douglass remains central to the ongoing
project.
In a letter sent to Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, the Director of the
National Institutes of Health (NIH), FAN requests that
Douglass be replaced with a scientist who is independent of
the fluoridation debate, and has no other conflict of
interest. (2) FAN also requests the NIH make the data of the
$1.3 million taxpayer-funded study freely available for full
independent review.
EWG recently issued an ethics complaint against Douglass for
misrepresenting his doctoral student's successful dissertation
linking fluoridation to osteosarcoma. (3)
Elise Bassin, Douglass' doctoral student, analyzed data
collected from U.S. hospitals in the early 1990s by a team of
scientists led by Douglass and funded by NIH. In her
case-control study, Bassin found that males exposed to
fluoridated water during their "mid-childhood growth spurt"
(ages 6 to 8) had a significantly increased risk of later
developing osteosarcoma. Bassin described the findings as
"remarkably robust." (4)
Bassin's dissertation, completed in May 2001 but unpublished
and unknown prior to FAN obtaining a copy earlier this year,
was recently sent to several expert reviewers by a Wall
Street Journal science writer. The reviewers found it to
be of "publishable quality." The head of oral health at the
CDC, and fluoridation supporter, William Maas said, "She did
great shoe-leather epidemiology." (5) According to EWG,
Bassin's work "is the most rigorous study of the link between
bone cancer and fluoride in tap water ever conducted in the
United States." (6)
Prior to the discovery of Bassin's results, the only
information available on Douglass' research was a very brief
summary published in 1995 in the Journal of Dental Research
where Douglass reported no link between fluoridation and bone
cancer. (7) Despite assurances by Douglass that a more
comprehensive analysis of his data would be forthcoming,
Douglass never published the study.
"It's been 10 years now, and Douglass has yet to publish the
findings of his first study," says Paul Connett, PhD,
Executive Director of FAN. "Now that we know what his data
showed, Douglass' failure to disclose these findings is deeply
troubling. It will simply not be possible for us or the
general public to have confidence in any further work he
produces on this matter."
Summarizing, Connett says, “With lives at risk and the
public's trust at stake, the NIH cannot afford anything less
than to secure scrupulous scientific integrity on this study.
We are asking that NIH do three things: 1) remove Douglass
from the study; 2) demonstrate that none of the other study
members has any other conflict of interest or ties to the
government's fluoridation program, and, 3) make the data of
the study, not just the conclusions, available for independent
analysis and review.”
References:
(1) Washington Post, "Professor at Harvard is Being
Investigated," July 13, 2005.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/12/AR2005071201277.html
(2)
http://www.fluoridealert.org/letter-to-NIH.htm
(3) Environmental Working Group, "Harvard Fluoride Findings
Misrepresented?" July 13, 2005.
http://www.ewg.org/issues/fluoride/20050627/index.php
(4) Bassin EB. (2001). Association Between Fluoride in
Drinking Water During Growth and Development and the Incidence
of Ostosarcoma for Children and Adolescents. Doctoral Thesis,
Harvard School of Dental Medicine.
http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/cancer/bassin-2001.pdf
(5) Wall Street Journal, "Fluoridation, Cancer: Did
Researchers Ask the Right Questions?" July 22, 2005.
http://www.fluoridealert.org/news/2323.html
(6)
http://ewg.org/issues_content/fluoride/20050627/pdf/ltr_strother_20050627.pdf
(7) Journal of Dental Research 1995; Volume 74, Page
98.
http://www.fluoridealert.org/images/douglass-1995.gif
