anyway, she was fired from her most prestigious job at Forsyth Dental Clinic in Boston and cut off from any future funding by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). 

I also gave the pro-fluoride side a chance to show me their science, to state their case. I got delays and delays and runarounds. They seemed to have no one in Minnesota who could show me their science. I had to contact the ADA nationally. Finally, the ADA set up an appointment for me to talk to Dr John Stamm, DDS, the Dean of the University of North Carolina Dental School, six weeks down the line. I sent him some articles exposing fraud dating back to the work of toxicologist Harold Hodge in the 1940s as well as FOIA requests showing that, back in the 1940s, Hodge had faked the data and had misled America into adopting water fluoridation.

John Stamm was an empty suit

In early 1998, my long-awaited interview with Dr. John Stamm (who died in 2021) came up and we talked by telephone only. What did he think of the exposé, I asked him.  He didn’t say it was right, he didn’t say it was wrong, he just said it was “provocative.” And what proof that water fluoridation is safe and effective did he have for me? None. None at all. Why not, I asked. Could he send some proof to me? He promised he would. But he never did.

It’s a farce

I never wrote about this back then, but I understood it perfectly: water fluoridation is a farce; there was and is no science supporting it and all the real science showed it caused harm. I wrote my article, and it was a big cover story for a weekly newspaper that went out all over the Twin Cities. And then I waited for the other media’s response – the big daily newspapers, television, radio, anything. And I waited. And waited. No response. It was if I dropped the whole major article into a black hole; the media had a coordinated response: ignore Leo Cashman’s writing, don’t engage, don’t debate, don’t call attention to the landmark paper published in a major journal by Phyllis Mullenix, PhD, ignore not only her clear finding of fluoride’s toxicity but also the story of the shabby, disgusting way that she was treated.

Harold Hodge was a fraud and a phony, but the media covered up all fluoride truth

After my major article came out on June 4, 1998, I sent it to journalist Joel Griffith who, along with writer/reporter Christopher Bryson, did the investigative journalism uncovering all the dirt on how Harold Hodge, PhD, committed scientific fraud back in the 1990s, jump starting the water fluoridation fraud/scam/cover-up, whatever you want to call it. Joel called me on the phone and congratulated me for putting out the article. And then he said to me – get this – “Leo, your article is the first article on this published in any newspaper in America.” Wow, what a story of media cover-up. It was really Joel and Chris’s four-part series on fluoridation that should have been put out nationally and the Christian Science Monitor was initially excited to publish it. But days before it was to be run, the story was killed by some higher-up editor. So, they shopped it around to other major newspapers in the US and Canada and, every time the same thing happened: the editors loved it, it was a fabulous story but then, some higher-up health editor killed the story. So, there you have the truth about how journalism works in the US and in Canada; they love a good story, a good scoop, but not when it comes to uncovering the ugly truth about America’s most cherished cover-ups – then the cover-ups have to be maintained.

Why Chris Bryson had to put out his book

The scientists at the EPA were very upstanding in the late 1990s. They organized through their union of professionals against the EPA’s policies on arsenic and fluoride. Big media didn’t cover the EPA scientists when they picketed against the corrupt fluoride policies of their EPA. But they were outspoken and their leaders testified before a Congressional committee.

In 2004, Chris Bryson did the only thing that he and Joel could do to really get their story out: Chris published his monumental book, The Fluoride Deception. It told all: the story of Phyllis Mullenix, who should be the role model for every girl in America aspiring to be an important scientist, except that big media hates her and shoved her into oblivion. It told the story of Harold Hodge and a number of other sleazy scientists and bureaucrats who betrayed their country and the world.  It told the story of Kaj Roholm, PhD, the Danish scientist who in the 1940s knew the truth about fluoride – dental fluorosis, harm to bones and connective tissue and, yes, harm even to the brain – and he wrote honestly about it, thus saving most of Europe from the water fluoridation mistake. 

Fluoride trial and victory was a game changer

Today, much more science has transpired, and human studies, not just animal studies, now show that water fluoridation is harmful to children’s and babies’ brains (surprise, surprise). So, finally, the Fluoride Action Network (our non-profit friend) decided the time was ripe enough to sue the EPA for failing to do a risk assessment for fluoride, recognize its dangers to children’s brains and take measures to address the toxic hazard of fluoride exposure through water fluoridation. FAN’s lawsuit was a stunning success, a game changer, as the verdict from Judge Edward Chen rolled out on September 25, 2024. Do you think that the big media paused or let up in its cover-up tactics? Big media downplayed the story when it came out and then completely pushed it off of public awareness when, within a few days, it covered the bizarre devastation of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and the awful carnage taking place in Gaza. Ugly truth about fluoridation must be buried.

Utah and Florida step forward to act 

Some public officials have done their homework and by the end of February, the Utah legislature had passed a ban on water fluoridation there. Weeks later, Utah Governor Spence Cox signed the bill into law, citing the coercive nature of water fluoridation.