Two professors oppose fluoridation
By MARILYN McMULLEN Kansan Staff Writer
The University of Kansas professors are opposed to legislation calling for mandatory statewide fluoridation of drinking water. They are James L. Koevenig, professor of biology, and Albert Burgstahler, professor of chemistry. Both Koevening and Burgstahler feel that the public has not been adequately informed of The harmful effects of fluoridated water.
Koevening said there was no way to regulate the amount of fluoride that an individual would consume in drinking water, and proponents were not considering the evidence which has shown fluoride to be harmful.
Burgstahler will give testimony opposing the bill at a hearing before the Kansas House of Representatives' public health and welfare committee. The hearing is scheduled for 2:45 p.m. Wednesday.
Other people from the Lawrence area to attend the hearing are Ronald Koehn, a Lawrence pharmacist, Ellis Couch, a graduate student in chemistry, and Robert Stevens, a physician from Garnett. Mrs. Dorothy Roberts, who was active in opposing
OU seeks Hogs as 11th opponent
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (UPI)—The University of Oklahoma may be the University of Arkansas' 11th football game opponent, an Arkansas spokesman said today, but no final decision has been made.
Published reports today said the two schools would sign a contract for the 11th game.
"Oklahoma has been mentioned in discussions," said Jim Bell, sports information director for Arkansas. But of the reports of a contract signing, he said, "It has not gone that far that specifically with anyone. I don't think it's that far along at all."
Bell said Arkansas coach Frank Broyles wants the 11th game to be played in Little Rock on Sept. 12 "if he can get it."
Broyles is on a recruiting trip in Texas and will return to Fayetteville Fridav.
Bell said Broyles told him by phone Monday that he would have to "Sit down with some people and talk about it."
"Several teams want to come and play us," Bell said, "But he (Broyles) is not ready to mention them yet."
California has more than 50 winter sports areas in its National Forests.
fluoridation in Lawrence in 1953 and Mrs. Anna Burger, local chapter president of the National Health Federation will also attend. Mrs. Burger is the proprietor of a health foods store in Lawrence.
The bill would require flouridation of all public water supplies serving more than 1,000 persons by July. 1972.
Burgstahler, vice-president of the International Society for Fluoride Research and co-editor of Fluoride Quarterly Reports, has written extensively on the harmful effects of fluoridation. He believes that opposition to fluoridation has been blocked by medical and public health groups as well as local and state governing bodies which have "denied or discounted any evidence showing water fluoridation is not absolutely safe."
Burgstahler came to Lawrence in 1956 and began research in 1962 on enzymes inhibited by fluoride. He has actively opposed fluoridation since then. He participated in a forum on fluoridation held at KU in 1965 which featured a debate on fluoridation in which Burgstahler gave evidence from experiments which proved that fluoride had a variety of harmful effects on humans and animals. Approximately 500 persons attended the forum. Burgstahler described this as an excellent turnout.
Fluoridation of Lawrence water began in 1953. Burgstahler described it as a "quiet action" with very little publicity. He said that he later appealed to several city commissioners for an updated review of the pros and cons of fluoridation, but that all action was declined.
Among harmful effects attributed to fluoridation are headaches, constipation, arthritic flare-ups, nervous conditions and muscle hypertension. Fluoridation has also been linked with a hypothyroid condition. Over a long period of time fluoride seems to counteract iodine in the system.
Burgstahler cited cases in which these symptoms had appeared in patients after they began drinking fluoridated water, and said they disappeared when the patient returned to drinking unfluoridated water.
"It was definitely the fluoride content," he said, "because the patients were also given water containing sodium chloride and other minerals normally found in water. Only fluoridated water produced the symptoms."
Fluoride has also been connected with air pollution, and has been deemed a worse air pollutant than sulphur dioxide. Burgstahler described fluorine gas as a continuous pollutant, saying that when mice were exposed to low level atmospheric fluorine, the ill effects of the gas did not
Lord Bertrand Russell will be cremated Thursday
PENRYHN, Wales (UPI)—The body of Lord Bertrand Russell will be cremated and the ashes scattered following a private funeral without religious ceremony on Thursday, friends of the family said Tuesday.
Russell—mathematician, philosopher and pacifist—died Monday night at the age of 97. The body was taken from his home at Plas Penrhyn in the Colwyn Bay Crematorium in North Wales for cremation at 1 p.m.
"There will be no flowers and no funeral cortege as such," a friend of the family said.
"Lord Russell was extremely positive in his wishes that there would be no ceremony what-soever. It was a deeply felt wish. He could not have been more specific about it, and his wish will be honored."
Russell requested that his ashes
18 KANSAN Feb. 4
1970
In Cairo, the interparliamentary conference meeting there Tuesday released a statement from Russell attacking Israel which was believed to be the last message from him on human rights.
wear off, and repeated doses worsened symptoms and eventually caused death. Mice exposed to low level atmospheric sulphur dioxide fully recovered when it was removed from their air supply.
be scattered, and Lady Russell will decide the place for that, the friend said. Lady Russell, 69, the former Edith Finch, an author from New York when she married Lord Russell in 1952, was with him when he died.
The message, read over a Radio Cairo broadcast, said Israel could not be forgiven for "condemning refugees to hardship" and "driving Arab countries into giving priority to military requirements."
If the bill is passed, 1 part fluoride per million parts water will be added to public water supplies. Burgstahler said that the normal fluoride content of the human body is only one hundredth part per million. The natural level of fluoride in water is dependent on its source. Under the proposed fluoridation plan, drinking water will contain at least 100 times the normal amount of fluoride found in the body. According to Burgstahler, fluoride collects in hard tissues of the body particularly in the lower back. He said the condition is aggravated if a person has any type of kidney ailment. Koevenig pointed out that a diabetic who normally consumes 11 or 12 glasses of water per day would receive twice the amount of fluoride that a healthy person would.
A member of the Russell household said Russell's death was "very quick."
"He was only confined to his bed for a day with influenza, and a few days before that he was in the garden with Lady Russell and enjoying himself," the householder said.
Despite the harmful effects attributed to fluoridated water, Burgstahler said a majority of dentists support fluoridation programs.
"Dentists have not been exposed to enough information concerning the harmful effects of fluoridation in professional journals," he said.
As an alternative to fluoridation, Burgstahler recommended mineral enriched diets for children and adults. He cited several cases in which diets of children enriched with calcium and phosphorus actually arrested tooth
decay. Burgstahler said that too many minerals and other nutrients were lost in the food processing methods used in this country, and if they were replaced, the enriched diet could successfully replace fluoridation as a method of decay control.
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