http://www.phxnews.com/fullstory.php?article=23636

Group calls on NIH to remove Harvard professor from fluoride-cancer
study
Posted by FAN on Wednesday July 27, 2005 at 5:06 pm MST [ Send Story to
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Burlington, VT - July 27, 2005 - The Fluoride Action Network (FAN),
today 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 Colgate¹s 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 today 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Bassin's dissertation, completed in May 2001 but unpublished and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."

*****

TC