February 1,  2011   (2111)

Our thanks to Joel Griffiths and Chris Bryson

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The following article exposes the biggest on-going medical experiment ever carried out by the United States Government on an unsuspecting population. Although commissioned by the Christian Science Monitor in early Spring of 1997, it has not yet been published. Readers are invited to inquire when publication can be expected, by calling the Christian Science Monitor at 1-800-288-7090. . . . . .about the authors

Fluoride, Teeth, and the Atomic Bomb By Joel Griffiths and Chris Bryson
July 1997

Some fifty years after the United States began adding fluoride to public water supplies to reduce cavities in children’s teeth, declassified government documents are shedding new light on the roots of that still controversial public health measure, revealing a surprising connection between fluoride and the dawning of the nuclear age. Today, two thirds of U.S. public drinking water is fluoridated. Many municipalities still resist the practice, disbelieving the government’s assurances of safety . Since the days of World War II, when this nation prevailed by building the world’s first atomic bomb, U.S. public health leaders have maintained that low doses of fluoride are safe for people, and good for children’s teeth. That safety verdict should now be re-examined in the light of hundreds of once-secret World War II documents obtained by Griffiths and Bryson – including declassified papers of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. military group that built the atomic bomb. Fluoride was the key chemical in atomic bomb production, according to the documents. Massive quantities of fluoride – millions of tons – were essential for the manufacture of bomb-grade uranium and plutonium for nuclear weapons throughout the Cold War. One of the most toxic chemicals known, fluoride rapidly emerged as the leading chemical health hazard of the U.S. atomic bomb program – both for workers and for nearby communities, the documents reveal. Other revelations include: Much of the original proof that fluoride is safe for humans in low doses was generated by A-bomb program scientists, who had been secretly ordered to provide “evidence useful in litigation” against defense contractors for fluoride injury to citizens. The first lawsuits against the U.S. A-bomb program were not over radiation, but over fluoride damage, the documents show. Human studies were required. Bomb program researchers played a leading role in the design and implementation of the most extensive U.S. study of the health effects of fluoridating public drinking water – conducted in Newburgh, New York from 1945 to 1956. Then, in a classified operation code-named “Program F,” they secretly gathered and analysed blood and tissue samples from Newburgh citizens, with the cooperation of State Health Department personnel. The original secret version – obtained by these reporters – of a 1948 study published by Program F scientists in the Journal of the American Dental Association shows that evidence of adverse health effects from fluoride was censored by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) – considered the most powerful of Cold War agencies – for reasons of national security. The bomb program’s fluoride safety studies were conducted at the University of Rochester, site of one of the most notorious human radiation experiments of the Cold War, in which unsuspecting hospital patients were injected with toxic doses of radioactive plutonium. The fluoride studies were conducted with the same ethical mind-set, in which “national security” was paramount. The U.S. government’s conflict of interest – and its motive to prove fluoride “safe” – has not until now been made clear to the general public in the furious debate over water fluoridation since the 1950′s, nor to civilian researchers and health professionals, or journalists. The declassified documents resonate with a growing body of scientific evidence, and a chorus of questions, about the health effects of fluoride in the environment. Human exposure to fluoride has mushroomed since World War II, due not only to fluoridated water and toothpaste, but to environmental pollution by major industries from aluminum to pesticides: Fluoride is a critical industrial chemical. The impact can be seen, literally, in the smiles of our children. Large numbers of U.S. young people – up to 80 percent in some cities – now have dental fluorosis, the first visible sign of excessive fluoride exposure, according to the U.S. National Research Council. (The signs are whitish flecks or spots, particularly on the front teeth, or dark spots or stripes in more severe cases.) Less-known to the public is that fluoride also accumulates in bones – “The teeth are windows to what’s happening in the bones,” explains Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry at St. Lawrence (N.Y.) University. In recent years, pediatric bone specialists have expressed alarm about an increase in stress fractures among U.S. young people. Connett and other scientists are concerned that fluoride – linked to bone damage by studies since the 1930′s – may be a contributing factor. The declassified documents add urgency: Much of the original proof that low-dose fluoride is safe for children’s bones came from U.S. bomb program scientists, according to this investigation. Now, researchers who have reviewed these declassified documents fear that Cold War national security considerations may have prevented objective scientific evaluation of vital public health questions concerning fluoride. Information was buried,” concludes Dr. Phyllis Mullenix, former head of toxicology at Forsyth Dental Center in Boston, and now a critic of fluoridation. Animal studies Mullenix and co-workers conducted at Forsyth in the early 1990′s indicated that fluoride was a powerful central nervous system (CNS) toxin, and might adversely affect human brain functioning, even at low doses. (New epidemiological evidence from China adds support, showing a correlation between low-dose fluoride exposure and diminished I.Q. in children.) Mullenix’s results were published in 1995, in a reputable peer-reviewed scientific journal. During her investigation, Mullenix was astonished to discover there had been virtually no previous U.S. studies of fluoride’s effects on the human brain. Then, her application for a grant to continue her CNS research was turned down by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), where an NIH panel, she says, flatly told her that “fluoride does not have central nervous system effects.” Declassified documents of the U.S. atomic-bomb program indicate otherwise. An April 29, 1944 Manhattan Project memo reports: “Clinical evidence suggests that uranium hexafluoride may have a rather marked central nervous system effect…. It seems most likely that the F [code for fluoride] component rather than the T [code for uranium] is the causative factor." The memo - stamped "secret" - is addressed to the head of the Manhattan Project's Medical Section, Col. Stafford Warren. Colonel Warren is asked to approve a program of animal research on CNS effects: "Since work with these compounds is essential, it will be necessary to know in advance what mental effects may occur after exposure... This is important not only to protect a given individual, but also to prevent a confused workman from injuring others by improperly performing his duties." On the same day, Colonel Warren approved the CNS research program. This was in 1944, at the height of the Second World War and the nation's race to build the world's first atomic bomb. For research on fluoride's CNS effects to be approved at such a momentous time, the supporting evidence set forth in the proposal forwarded along with the memo must have been persuasive. The proposal, however, is missing from the files of the U.S. National Archives. "If you find the memos, but the document they refer to is missing, it's probably still classified," said Charles Reeves, chief librarian at the Atlanta branch of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, where the memos were found. Similarly, no results of the Manhattan Project's fluoride CNS research could be found in the files. After reviewing the memos, Mullenix declared herself "flabbergasted." She went on, "How could I be told by NIH that fluoride has no central nervous system effects when these documents were sitting there all the time?" She reasons that the Manhattan Project did do fluoride CNS studies - "that kind of warning, that fluoride workers might be a danger to the bomb program by improperly performing their duties - I can't imagine that would be ignored" - but that the results were buried because they might create a difficult legal and public relations problem for the government. The author of the 1944 CNS research proposal was Dr. Harold C. Hodge, at the time chief of fluoride toxicology studies for the University of Rochester division of the Manhattan Project. Nearly fifty years later at the Forsyth Dental Center in Boston, Dr. Mullenix was introduced to a gently ambling elderly man brought in to serve as a consultant on her CNS research - Harold C. Hodge. By then Hodge had achieved status emeritus as a world authority on fluoride safety. "But even though he was supposed to be helping me," says Mullenix, "he never once mentioned the CNS work he had done for the Manhattan Project." The "black hole" in fluoride CNS research since the days of the Manhattan Project is unacceptable to Mullenix, who refuses to abandon the issue. "There is so much fluoride exposure now, and we simply do not know what it is doing," she says. "You can't just walk away from this." Dr. Antonio Noronha, an NIH scientific review advisor familiar with Dr. Mullenix's grant request, says her proposal was rejected by a scientific peer-review group. He terms her claim of institutional bias against fluoride CNS research "farfetched." He adds, "We strive very hard at NIH to make sure politics does not enter the picture." Fluoride and National Security The documentary trail begins at the height of World War II, in 1944, when a severe pollution incident occurred downwind of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours Company chemical factory in Deepwater, New Jersey. The factory was then producing millions of pounds of fluoride for the Manhattan Project, the ultra-secret U.S. military program racing to produce the world's first atomic bomb. The farms downwind in Gloucester and Salem counties were famous for their high-quality produce - their peaches went directly to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Their tomatoes were bought up by Campbell's Soup. But in the summer of 1943, the farmers began to report that their crops were blighted, and that "something is burning up the peach crops around here." Poultry died after an all-night thunderstorm, they reported. Farm workers who ate the produce they had picked sometimes vomited all night and into the next day. "I remember our horses looked sick and were too stiff to work," these reporters were told by Mildred Giordano, who was a teenager at the time. Some cows were so crippled they could not stand up, and grazed by crawling on their bellies. The account was confirmed in taped interviews, shortly before he died, with Philip Sadtler of Sadtler Laboratories of Philadelphia, one of the nation's oldest chemical consulting firms. Sadtler had personally conducted the initial investigation of the damage. Although the farmers did not know it, the attention of the Manhattan Project and the federal government was riveted on the New Jersey incident, according to once-secret documents obtained by these reporters. After the war's end, in a secret Manhattan Project memo dated March 1, 1946, the Project's chief of fluoride toxicology studies, Harold C. Hodge, worriedly wrote to his boss, Colonel Stafford L. Warren, Chief of the Medical Division, about "problems associated with the question of fluoride contamination of the atmosphere in a certain section of New Jersey. There seem to be four distinct (though related) problems," continued Hodge: "1. A question of injury of the peach crop in 1944. "2. A report of extraordinary fluoride content of vegetables grown in this area. "3. A report of abnormally high fluoride content in the blood of human individuals residing in this area. "4. A report raising the question of serious poisoning of horses and cattle in this area." The New Jersey farmers waited until the war was over, then sued du Pont and the Manhattan Project for fluoride damage - reportedly the first lawsuits against the U.S. A-bomb program. Although seemingly trivial, the lawsuits shook the government, the secret documents reveal. Under the personal direction of Manhattan Project chief Major General Leslie R. Groves, secret meetings were convened in Washington, with compulsory attendance by scores of scientists and officials from the U.S. War Department, the Manhattan Project, the Food and Drug Administration, the Agriculture and Justice Departments, the U.S Army's Chemical Warfare Service and Edgewood Arsenal, the Bureau of Standards, and du Pont lawyers. Declassified memos of the meetings reveal a secret mobilization of the full forces of the government to defeat the New Jersey farmers: These agencies "are making scientific investigations to obtain evidence which may be used to protect the interest of the Government at the trial of the suits brought by owners of peach orchards in ... New Jersey," stated Manhattan Project Lieutenant Colonel Cooper B. Rhodes, in a memo c.c.'d to General Groves. "27 August 1945 "Subject: Investigation of Crop Damage at Lower Penns Neck, New Jersey "To: The Commanding General, Army Service Forces, Pentagon Building, Washington D.C. "At the request of the Secretary of War the Department of Agriculture has agreed to cooperate in investigating complaints of crop damage attributed... to fumes from a plant operated in connection with the Manhattan Project." Signed, L.R. Groves, Major General, U.S. Army "The Department of Justice is cooperating in the defense of these suits," wrote General Groves in a February 28, 1946 memo to the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy. Why the national-security emergency over a few lawsuits by New Jersey farmers? In 1946 the United States had begun full-scale production of atomic bombs. No other nation had yet tested a nuclear weapon, and the A-bomb was seen as crucial for U.S leadership of the postwar world. The New Jersey fluoride lawsuits were a serious roadblock to that strategy. "The specter of endless lawsuits haunted the military," writes Lansing Lamont in his acclaimed book about the first atomic bomb test, "Day of Trinity." In the case of fluoride, "If the farmers won, it would open the door to further suits, which might impede the bomb program's ability to use fluoride," said Jacqueline Kittrell, a Tennessee public interest lawyer specializing in nuclear cases, who examined the declassified fluoride documents. (Kittrell has represented plaintiffs in several human radiation experiment cases.) She added, "The reports of human injury were especially threatening, because of the potential for enormous settlements - not to mention the PR problem." Indeed, du Pont was particularly concerned about the "possible psychologic reaction" to the New Jersey pollution incident, according to a secret 1946 Manhattan Project memo. Facing a threat from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to embargo the region's produce because of "high fluoride content," du Pont dispatched its lawyers to the FDA offices in Washington, where an agitated meeting ensued. According to a memo sent next day to General Groves, Du Pont's lawyer argued "that in view of the pending suits... any action by the Food and Drug Administration... would have a serious effect on the du Pont Company and would create a bad public relations situation." After the meeting adjourned, Manhattan Project Captain John Davies approached the FDA's Food Division chief and "impressed upon Dr. White the substantial interest which the Government had in claims which might arise as a result of action which might be taken by the Food and Drug Administration." There was no embargo. Instead, new tests for fluoride in the New Jersey area would be conducted - not by the Department of Agriculture - but by the U.S. Army Chemical Warfare Service - because "work done by the Chemical Warfare Service would carry the greatest weight as evidence if... lawsuits are started by the complainants." The memo was signed by General Groves. Meanwhile, the public relations problem remained unresolved - local citizens were in a panic about fluoride. The farmer's spokesman, Willard B. Kille, was personally invited to dine with General Groves - then known as "the man who built the atomic bomb" - at his office at the War Department on March 26, 1946. Although he had been diagnosed with fluoride poisoning by his doctor, Kille departed the luncheon convinced of the government's good faith. The next day he wrote to the general, wishing the other farmers could have been present, he said, so "they too could come away with the feeling that their interests in this particular matter were being safeguarded by men of the very highest type whose integrity they could not question." In a subsequent secret Manhattan Project memo, a broader solution to the public relations problem was suggested by chief fluoride toxicologist Harold C. Hodge. He wrote to the Medical Section chief, Colonel Warren: "Would there be any use in making attempts to counteract the local fear of fluoride on the part of residents of Salem and Gloucester counties through lectures on F toxicology and perhaps the usefulness of F in tooth health?" Such lectures were indeed given, not only to New Jersey citizens but to the rest of the nation throughout the Cold War. The New Jersey farmers' lawsuits were ultimately stymied by the government's refusal to reveal the key piece of information that would have settled the case - how much fluoride du Pont had vented into the atmosphere during the war. "Disclosure... would be injurious to the military security of the United States," wrote Manhattan Project Major C.A. Taney, Jr. The farmers were pacified with token financial settlements, according to interviews with descendants still living in the area. "All we knew is that du Pont released some chemical that burned up all the peach trees around here," recalls Angelo Giordano, whose father James was one of the original plaintiffs. "The trees were no good after that, so we had to give up on the peaches." Their horses and cows, too, acted stiff and walked stiff, recalls his sister Mildred. "Could any of that have been the fluoride?" she asked. (The symptoms she detailed to the authors are cardinal signs of fluoride toxicity, according to veterinary toxicologists.) The Giordano family, too, has been plagued by bone and joint problems, Mildred adds. Recalling the settlement received by the Giordanos, Angelo told these reporters "my father said he got about $200." The farmers were stonewalled in their search for information, and their complaints have long since been forgotten. But they unknowingly left their imprint on history - their claims of injury to their health reverberated through the corridors of power in Washington, and triggered intensive secret bomb-program research on the health effects of fluoride. A secret 1945 memo from Manhattan Project Lt. Colonel Rhodes to General Groves stated: "Because of complaints that animals and humans have been injured by hydrogen fluoride fumes in [the New Jersey] area, although there are no pending suits involving such claims, the University of Rochester is conducting experiments to determine the toxic effect of fluoride." Much of the proof of fluoride's safety in low doses rests on the postwar work performed by the University of Rochester, in anticipation of lawsuits against the bomb program for human injury. Fluoride and the Cold War Delegating fluoride safety studies to the University of Rochester was not surprising. During World War II the federal government had become involved, for the first time, in large scale funding of scientific research at government-owned labs and private colleges. Those early spending priorities were shaped by the nation's often-secret military needs. The prestigious upstate New York college, in particular, had housed a key wartime division of the Manhattan Project, studying the health effects of the new "special materials," such as uranium, plutonium, beryllium and fluoride, being used to make the atomic bomb. That work continued after the war, with millions of dollars flowing from the Manhattan Project and its successor organization, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). (Indeed, the bomb left an indelible imprint on all U.S. science in the late 1940's and 50's. Up to 90% of federal funds for university research came from either the Defense Department or the AEC in this period, according to Noam Chomsky's 1996 book "The Cold War and the University.") The University of Rochester medical school became a revolving door for senior bomb program scientists. Postwar faculty included Stafford Warren, the top medical officer of the Manhattan Project, and Harold Hodge, chief of fluoride research for the bomb program. But this marriage of military secrecy and medical science bore deformed offspring. The University of Rochester's classified fluoride studies - code-named Program F - were conducted at its Atomic Energy Project (AEP), a top-secret facility funded by the AEC and housed in Strong Memorial Hospital. It was there that one of the most notorious human radiation experiments of the Cold War took place, in which unsuspecting hospital patients were injected with toxic doses of radioactive plutonium. Revelation of this experiment in a Pulitzer prize-winning account by Eileen Welsome led to a 1995 U.S. Presidential investigation, and a multimillion-dollar cash settlement for victims. Program F was not about children's teeth. It grew directly out of litigation against the bomb program, and its main purpose was to furnish scientific ammunition which the government and its nuclear contractors could use to defeat lawsuits for human injury. Program F's director was none other than Harold C. Hodge, who had led the Manhattan Project investigation of alleged human injury in the New Jersey fluoride-pollution incident. Program F's purpose is spelled out in a classified 1948 report. It reads: "To supply evidence useful in the litigation arising from an alleged loss of a fruit crop several years ago, a number of problems have been opened. Since excessive blood fluoride levels were reported in human residents of the same area, our principal effort has been devoted to describing the relationship of blood fluorides to toxic effects." The litigation referred to, of course, and the claims of human injury were against the bomb program and its contractors. Thus, the purpose of Program F was to obtain evidence useful in litigation against the bomb program. The research was being conducted by the defendants. The potential conflict of interest is clear. If lower dose ranges were found hazardous by Program F, it might have opened the bomb program and its contractors to lawsuits for injury to human health, as well as public outcry. Comments lawyer Kittrell: "This and other documents indicate that the University of Rochester's fluoride research grew out of the New Jersey lawsuits and was performed in anticipation of lawsuits against the bomb program for human injury. Studies undertaken for litigation purposes by the defendants would not be considered scientifically acceptable today," adds Kittrell, "because of their inherent bias to prove the chemical safe." Unfortunately, much of the proof of fluoride's safety rests on the work performed by Program F Scientists at the University of Rochester. During the postwar period that university emerged as the leading academic center for establishing the safety of fluoride, as well as its effectiveness in reducing tooth decay, according to Dental School spokesperson William H. Bowen, M.D. The key figure in this research, Bowen said, was Harold C. Hodge - who also became a leading national proponent of fluoridating public drinking water. Program F's interest in water fluoridation was not just "to counteract the local fear of fluoride on the part of residents," as Hodge had earlier written. The bomb program needed human studies, as they had needed human studies for plutonium, and adding fluoride to public water supplies provided one opportunity. The A-Bomb Program and Water Fluoridation Bomb-program scientists played a prominent - if unpublicized - role in the nation's first-planned water fluoridation experiment, in Newburgh, New York. The Newburgh Demonstration Project is considered the most extensive study of the health effects of fluoridation, supplying much of the evidence that low doses are safe for children's bones, and good for their teeth. Planning began in 1943 with the appointment of a special New York State Health Department committee to study the advisability of adding fluoride to Newburgh's drinking water. The chairman of the committee was Dr. Hodge, then chief of fluoride toxicity studies for the Manhattan Project. Subsequent members included Henry L. Barnett, a captain in the Project's Medical section, and John W. Fertig, in 1944 with the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development, the Pentagon group which sired the Manhattan Project. Their military affiliations were kept secret: Hodge was described as a pharmacologist, Barnett as a pediatrician. Placed in charge of the Newburgh project was David B. Ast, chief dental officer of the State Health Department. Ast had participated in a secret wartime conference on fluoride held by the Manhattan Project, and later worked with Dr. Hodge on the Project's investigation of human injury in the New Jersey incident, according to once-secret memos. The committee recommended that Newburgh be fluoridated. It also selected the types of medical studies to be done, and "provided expert guidance" for the duration of the experiment. The key question to be answered was: "Are there any cumulative effects - beneficial or otherwise, on tissues and organs other than the teeth - of long-continued ingestion of such small concentrations...?" According to the declassified documents, this was also key information sought by the bomb program, which would require long-continued exposure of workers and communities to fluoride throughout the Cold War. In May 1945, Newburgh's water was fluoridated, and over the next ten years its residents were studied by the State Health Department. In tandem, Program F conducted its own secret studies, focusing on the amounts of fluoride Newburgh citizens retained in their blood and tissues - the information sought by the bomb program: "Possible toxic effects of fluoride were in the forefront of consideration," the advisory committee stated. Health Department personnel cooperated, shipping blood and placenta samples to the Program F team at the University of Rochester. The samples were collected by Dr. David B. Overton, the Department's chief of pediatric studies at Newburgh. The final report of the Newburgh Demonstration Project, published in 1956 in the Journal of the American Dental Association, concluded that "small concentrations" of fluoride were safe for U.S. citizens. The biological proof - "based on work performed ... at the University of Rochester Atomic Energy Project" - was delivered by Dr. Hodge. Today, news that scientists from the atomic bomb program secretly shaped and guided the Newburgh fluoridation experiment, and studied the citizen's blood and tissue samples, is greeted with incredulity. "I'm shocked - beyond words," said present-day Newburgh Mayor Audrey Carey, commenting on these reporters' findings. "It reminds me of the Tuskegee experiment that was done on syphilis patients down in Alabama." As a child in the early 1950's, Mayor Carey was taken to the old firehouse on Broadway in Newburgh, which housed the Public Health clinic. There, doctors from the Newburgh fluoridation project studied her teeth, and a peculiar fusion of two finger bones on her left hand she had been born with. Today, adds Carey, her granddaughter has white dental-fluorosis marks on her front teeth. Mayor Carey wants answers from the government about the secret history of fluoride, and the Newburgh fluoridation experiment. "I absolutely want to pursue it," she said. "It is appalling to do any kind of experimentation and study without people's knowledge and permission." Contacted by these reporters, the director of the Newburgh experiment, David B. Ast, says he was unaware Manhattan Project scientists were involved. "If I had known, I would have been certainly investigating why, and what the connection was," he said. Did he know that blood and placenta samples from Newburgh were being sent to bomb program researchers at the University of Rochester? "I was not aware of it," Ast replied. Did he recall participating in the Manhattan Project's secret wartime conference on fluoride in January 1944, or going to New Jersey with Dr. Hodge to investigate human injury in the du Pont cases as secret memos state? He said he had no recollection of these events. A spokesperson for the University of Rochester Medical Center, Bob Loeb, confirmed that blood and tissue samples from Newburgh had been tested by the University's Dr. Hodge. On the ethics of secretly studying U.S. citizens to obtain information useful in litigation against the A-bomb program, he said, "that's a question we cannot answer." He referred inquiries to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), successor to the Atomic Energy Commission. A spokesperson for the DOE in Washington, Jayne Brody, confirmed that a review of DOE files indicated that a "significant reason" for fluoride experiments conducted at the University of Rochester after the war was "impending litigation between the du Pont company and residents of New Jersey areas." However, she added, "DOE has found no documents to indicate that fluoride research was done to protect the Manhattan Project or its contractors from lawsuits." On Manhattan Project involvement in Newburgh, the spokesperson stated, "Nothing that we have suggests that the DOE or predecessor agencies - especially the Manhattan Project - authorized fluoride experiments to be performed on children in the 1940's." When told that these reporters had several documents that directly tied the Manhattan Project's successor agency at the University of Rochester, the Atomic Energy Project, to the Newburgh experiment, the DOE spokesperson conceded her study was confined to "the available universe" of documents. Two days later spokesperson Jayne Brody faxed a statement for clarification: "My search only involved the documents that we collected as part of our human radiation experiments project - fluoride was not part of our research effort." "Most significantly," the statement continued, relevant documents may be in a classified collection at the DOE Oak Ridge National Laboratory known as the Records Holding Task Group. "This collection consists entirely of classified documents removed from other files for the purpose of classified document accountability many years ago," and was "a rich source of documents for the human radiation experiments project," she said. The crucial question arising from this investigation is: Were adverse health findings from Newburgh and other bomb-program fluoride studies suppressed? All AEC funded studies had to be declassified before publication in civilian medical and dental journals. Where are the original classified versions? The transcript of one of the major secret scientific conferences of World War II - on "fluoride metabolism" - is missing from the files of the U.S. National Archives. Participants in the conference included key figures who promoted the safety of fluoride and water fluoridation to the public after the war - Harold Hodge of the Manhattan Project, David B. Ast of the Newburgh Project, and U.S. Public Health Service dentist H.Trendley Dean, popularly known as the "father of fluoridation." "If it is missing from the files, it is probably still classified," National Archives librarians said. A 1944 World War II Manhattan Project classified report on water fluoridation is missing from the files of the University of Rochester Atomic Energy Project, the U.S. National Archives, and the Nuclear Repository at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The next four numerically consecutive documents are also missing, while the remainder of the "MP-1500 series" is present. "Either those documents are still classified, or they've been 'disappeared' by the government," says Clifford Honicker, Executive Director of the American Environmental Health Studies Project in Knoxville, Tennessee, which provided key evidence in the public exposure and prosecution of U.S. human radiation experiments. Seven pages have been cut out of a 1947 Rochester bomb-project notebook entitled "Du Pont litigation." "Most unusual," commented chief medical school archivist Chris Hoolihan. Similarly, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by these authors over a year ago with the DOE for hundreds of classified fluoride reports have failed to dislodge any. "We're behind," explained Amy Rothrock, chief FOIA officer at Oak Ridge National Laboratories. Was information suppressed? These reporters made what appears to be the first discovery of the original classified version of a fluoride safety study by bomb program scientists. A censored version of this study was later published in the August 1948 Journal of the American Dental Association. Comparison of the secret with the published version indicates that the U.S. AEC did censor damaging information on fluoride, to the point of tragicomedy. This was a study of the dental and physical health of workers in a factory producing fluoride for the A-bomb program, conducted by a team of dentists from the Manhattan Project. The secret version reports that most of the men had no teeth left. The published version reports only that the men had fewer cavities. The secret version says the men had to wear rubber boots because the fluoride fumes disintegrated the nails in their shoes. The published version does not mention this. The secret version says the fluoride may have acted similarly on the men's teeth, contributing to their toothlessness. The published version omits this statement. The published version concludes that "the men were unusually healthy, judged from both a medical and dental point of view." Asked for comment on the early links of the Manhattan Project to water fluoridation, Dr Harold Slavkin, Director of the National Institute for Dental Research, the U.S. agency which today funds fluoride research, said, "I wasn't aware of any input from the Atomic Energy Commission," Nevertheless, he insisted, fluoride's efficacy and safety in the prevention of dental cavities over the last fifty years is well-proved. "The motivation of a scientist is often different from the outcome," he reflected. "I do not hold a prejudice about where the knowledge comes from." After comparing the secret and published versions of the censored study, toxicologist Phyllis Mullenix commented, "This makes me ashamed to be a scientist." Of other Cold War-era fluoride safety studies, she asks, "Were they all done like this?" Archival research by Clifford Honicker ABOUT THE AUTHORS Joel Griffiths is a medical writer who lives in New York City. Author of a book on radiation hazards, he has contributed numerous articles to medical and popular publications. Chris Bryson, who holds a masters degree in Journalism, is an independent reporter with ten years' professional experience. He has worked with BBC Radio and Public Television in New York, plus numerous publications, including the Christian Science Monitor and the Mansfield Guardian. Additional Notes Harold C. Hodge and the U.S. Army Dr. Hodge is deceased. However, in 1979 his chapter in a book titled "Continuing Evaluation of the Use of Fluorides" set the record straight. With regard to the "safe" dosage of fluoride for children, Hodge wrote: "The most important and widely disregarded fact about dental fluorosis is this: no safe established daily intake exists, i.e., the maximal amount in mg fluoride which consumed daily does NOT produce cosmetically damaging extensive white areas or brown stain in some individuals has not been fixed." In the same publication, Dr. Hodge also corrected his figures for crippling skeletal fluorosis. In his calculations made during the early 1950s it appears, although not spelled out, that Hodge had neglected to convert pounds to kilograms. As a result, most reviews which contain the "crippling daily dose of fluoride," including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 1991 document, Review of Fluoride: Benefits and Risks, as well as the current Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) and the new Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI) - another document from the Institute of Medicine - use 20?80 mg/day figures. (Although these documents refer to Hodge, and the first two specifically refer to Hodge 1979, they completely ignore Hodge's 1979 correction of the older erroneous figures.) Sandra Schlicker, study director for the DRI, has acknowledged her understanding of Hodge's error, as well as the correction in 1979; yet, offers no explanation for using the older erroneous figures. In addition, this latest report dismisses the correction made by another NAS/NRC panel in 1993, falsely claiming the corrected figures for "Crippling" were meant to apply only to the earlier non-crippling stages of the disease. The bottom line is this: At currently reported intake levels, excess fluoride from multiple sources has surpassed the quantity known to cause serious adverse health effects within about forty years. (i.e., 5 mg/day will cause crippling deformities of the spine and major joints) Within about twenty years, with a daily intake of 5 mg, the symptoms to be expected include chronic joint pain as well as brittle bones. Knowing full well that five milligrams of fluoride daily would be expected to produce phase 3 crippling skeletal fluorosis in the average individual after about 40 years, the committee has determined that 10 milligrams of fluoride daily is "tolerable." The question, "Tolerable to whom?" remains unanswered. More about the Army Although facilities had been constructed to provide fluoride in the drinking water system at Ft. Detrick, key components corroded to the point that the system was shut down. Reinstating fluoridation became subject to regulations involving an environmental assessment. On 11 December 1996 Commander, Colonel Henry O. Tuell, III, wrote to U.S. Army Medical Command, Fort Sam Houston, Texas. In this memo Colonel Tuell states: "...recent research and findings regarding efficacy of fluoridation and the adverse health effects, could be serious." In other words, drinking fluoridated water may be unsafe. As yet, the Army post at Fort Detrick, (Frederick, Maryland) remains unfluoridated.

January 31,  2011  (13111)

Our thanks to Gary North — http://www.GaryNorth.com

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A growing minority of the American public is beginning to catch on to the meaning of the Federal government’s deficits and the Federal Reserve’s QE2. The voters did not understand QE1 in October 2008.

We are beginning to see videos lampooning tax rates. This humor is spreading to Europe.

Yet we know that people prefer to sit tight, hoping for the best, even when the evidence screams: “Things will not get better; they will get worse.”

This raises a question: What are signs that it’s time to move out?

FORECASTING WHEN IT’S TIME TO MOVE

Here are a series of scenarios. They are all based on historical examples.

It is Christmas Eve 1773. You live in Boston. The tea party is over. You own a prosperous trading firm. You deal with imports from Great Britain. You tell your wife that you will sell your establishment to your rival before spring. You say that the British will retaliate. You don’t want to get caught in the crossfire.

You could take the money and move inland. But that would require that you learn new skills. You are a city person.

Or you could move to New York City or Philadelphia. You could even move to Charleston, South Carolina. All are port cities. But you are afraid that this conflict could turn into war. You favor the British Empire. Now what? Could the colonists win? Then what would happen to you?

You decide to move to Canada. You could also choose New Orleans, but you don’t speak French, Spanish, or Creole. You sell your home and move north. You leave behind friends and family. Your wife will gripe all the way to Canada.

Then, a few months later, when the British fleet closes Boston harbor, sending New England into recession, she quits griping about your having sold the business. When the war breaks out in 1775 in Boston, she quits griping that you sold her home out from under her. When Lord Cornwallis surrenders in 1781, she quits griping that you moved to Canada. When 100,000 Loyalists move to Canada, and a few of them start renting from you, she thinks you were a man of great wisdom. Or, quite possibly, she dies of homesickness in 1777, and you remarry a Canadian woman twenty years your junior. After all, you have money. Money covers a multitude of wrinkles. You sold out in time and got out in time. You both live happily ever after. Pretty good, eh?

It is 1862. You are a colonel in the Confederacy. You have been discharged honorably from the army because of an injury. You return home to Atlanta. After the fall of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, you look at a map. You see that there is a straight shot down the rail lines from Chattanooga to Atlanta. You figure that the Yankees will move west into Tennessee to get in control over the rails in Nashville: the South’s hub. They will head for Chattanooga. So, you sell your home in Atlanta. Your wife owns ancestral land in between Atlanta and Savannah. You again look at the map. If the Yankees take Atlanta, they can march to the sea, and from there up to South Carolina, gaining control of the coast. You persuade her to sell her land in 1864. You take the money and buy land – thousands of acres – in south Georgia, almost at the Florida line. You figure the Yankees will not get there until very late. You pack up your things and move.

In September 1864, Sherman burns Atlanta. Then he marches to the sea, burning and pillaging all the way. The Yankees arrive in your town after Lee’s surrender.

Your wife dies in 1866. You remarry. Your name is Henry Holliday. Your son is named John. You can afford to send him to dental school in Baltimore, because you have lots of land money. He gets tuberculosis and heads west for his health. He moves to Dodge. Then he gets out of Dodge. He heads for Tombstone. He survived to get out of Dodge because his father got out of Atlanta.

Lesson: if you can read a map and draw conclusions, you can do quite well in bad times.

You are a Jewish photographer in Germany in 1935. Hitler has been in power for two years. You decide to get out while the getting is good. You cannot take any money out of the country. The government has imposed capital controls on Jewish emigrants. So, you stuff a suitcase full of old photographs that you have collected, and emigrate to the United States. You keep collecting photographs. In 1981, you sell your collection. In 1995, Bill Gates buys it and moves it underground into a salt cave to preserve it. You die in 1998, knowing that have left behind the greatest single privately owned photo collection on earth. Your name is Otto Bettmann.

You are a Japanese farmer in California. You have just heard about Pearl Harbor. You decide that it’s time to move inland, far away from anti-Japanese sentiment in California. You sell your little farm, get into your car, and head for Austin, Texas. The climate will not be too bad. Austin has the University of Texas. Your kids can attend a good school.

A year later, every Japanese person on the West Coast is rounded up and sent to a concentration camp. Their farms and businesses are sold for pittances. Politically connected people buy them. But Japanese living east of Idaho are left alone.

Lesson: when the going gets tough, the wise get going before there is no more going at all.

MOVE TO, DON’T FLEE FROM

The refugee leaves from. He gets out, but only when the roads are clogged and the market for property is depressed. He takes what he can put onto a cart.

In contrast, the emigrant plans an escape route before his peers think there is anything seriously wrong. They can see that there is something wrong, but they assume that it can’t get worse. They are wrong in some cases. Things get much worse.

The hard part is to accurately forecast how much worse, and then accurately forecast where things won’t get worse. Then the forecaster must put his money where his mouth is. Well, not really. He keeps his mouth shut. He puts his money where his preferred spot on the map is. Then he sells, moves, rents, and then buys.

The early bird gets the worm. Conclusion: don’t be a worm above ground at sunrise.

When was it time to sell a home in California, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Miami? In late 2006. At the latest, mid-2007. How many people did? Not many. How many took the money, moved to Texas, and bought a lovely primary home for cash, bought two multiple rent houses for cash, and paid a low capital gains tax only on the secondary houses? Even fewer.

Looking around at your situation, and making forecasts about what the future is for the United States, where else would you go? Unless you are very rich, probably nowhere outside the United States. But inside the United States, there are many places to go. The climates vary, the cultures vary, and state taxes vary.

For most people, moving out is not an acceptable option. Relatives are nearby. Jobs are not transferable easily. People stay put. They put up with things as they are.

This is why, for a few, there is a market to sell into.

Most people will not get out of the way in time. They are rooted in place. They look at their roots and conclude: “It’s too expensive for me to move. So, I will assume that things will not get any worse.” They filter information based on this original assumption.

They don’t move to. They don’t move from. They sit tight.

Yet Americans move all the time. They are the most mobile large population in history – or were until the rural Chinese started heading for cities in the late 1980s. Every year, millions of Americans move. Half of these moves are across state lines. We change jobs every 7 years – the highest turnover on earth. It’s over 11 years in Japan. So, we respond to incentives: moving to. This is wise. But the incentives are conventional: a better job down the road, a nicer home for the money, a more leisurely pace. The moves are not moves out as much as moves to. I think this is wise.

The question is this: What will be the incentives in five years, after another $7 trillion get added to the Federal government’s on-budget budget? What happens if there is QE3 and even QE4? How will the real estate market be doing where you are today compared to where you would like to be then?

Have you done what Henry Holliday did in 1863? Have you looked at a map?

It won’t be Sherman marching to the sea. It will be Bernanke marching into the sea of debt.

AHEAD OF THE CURVE

You are already way ahead of the curve. You have read my reports and reports like it. You regularly read materials that your peers and relatives rarely see and would not believe if they did read them. But it is clear that, over the last three years, far more people are reading such materials than before.

This makes you aware of what your situation is likely to be in five years. How much thought have you given to the details of what your situation could be?

People think about things in general before they think about things in particular. You have thought about things in general with greater perception than your peers. But this only raises questions regarding specifics. People resist thinking about the specifics. Here are a few specifics to think about.

What will rising long-term interest rates do to housing in my town? What will the job market be like in my industry? How well will people in my age bracket be doing employment-wise in my industry five years from now?

What is the likelihood that my pension program will still be in force and also growing?

How well will urban real estate do in comparison to small town real estate?

What will be the effect on urban government budgets in a time of rising interest rates?

How solvent is the state government where I now reside?

Will the government impose new taxes, especially a VAT sales tax, to cover the budget?

What likelihood is there that my state will default on its bonds?

In terms of safety, will my location be reasonable?

What climate would I want to live in if energy costs triple?

How dependent am I on income generated in my region?

If I could generate 80% of my income from the Web, would I still want to live where I live today?

Is there a better location socially where my children would be safer?

If I were starting out today, would I move here?

In terms of my pre-adult children, does my present location offer them the best opportunities?

Is the cost of living significantly lower elsewhere?

Is the lifestyle that I really want what I will have in five years?

What is the main liability geographically where I live now?

How much money will it take over the next five years to overcome this liability?

The average Joe has never sat down and asked these questions. He has surely not put pencil to paper, jotting down first-response answers. He prefers to drift along. He prefers ignorance. He fears responsibility. He thinks he can defer it. He thinks he can kick the can.

He is pretty much like Congress. Congress is what it is because voters are what they are.

CONCLUSION

I don’t think most people who live in wealthy first-world nations should move to foreign nations. I do not think there will be a repeat of the pre-War tyrannies. Why not? Because the Web will keep dictators from ever getting into a position to impose tyranny. It might happen in a national emergency such as a biological attack. But such an attack would not honor borders. It would spread.So, I am partial to a strategy of moving inside the nation. It is cheaper to do this financially and legally than to move to a different country. It is also cheaper culturally. Reduce the cost of the move. When the cost of anything falls, more is demanded.

There is no national leader who commands the charisma of a Hitler, a Churchill, or a Roosevelt. The Web makes it unlikely that anyone like those men will appear again. If they do, the Web will take them down several notches. The Web pops messianic bubbles very fast. The economy pops any who survive the Web’s assault. This is positive.

Get out your map. Get out a pencil and a sheet of paper. Go through the exercise of Map-n-Go.

January 21,  2011

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Our thanks to Max Igan, TheCrowHouse.com, and marcandangel.com

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50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind

Sometimes Asking the Right Questions is the Answer…

1. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?
2. Which is worse, failing or never trying?
3. If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?
4. When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done?
5. What is the one thing you’d most like to change about the world?
6. If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?
7. Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing?
8. If the average human life span was 40 years, how would you live your life differently?
9. To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken?
10. Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things?
11. You’re having lunch with three people you respect and admire.  They all start criticizing a close friend of yours,
    not knowing she is your friend.  The criticism is distasteful and unjustified.  What do you do?
12. If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be?
13. Would you break the law to save a loved one?
14. Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity?
15. What’s something you know you do differently than most people?
16. How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy?
17. What is one thing have you not done that you really want to do and what’s holding you back?
18. Are you holding onto something you need to let go of?
19. If you had to move to a state or country besides the one you currently live in, where would you move and why?
20. Do you push the elevator button more than once?  Do you really believe it makes the elevator faster?
21. Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton?
22. Which is worse, when a good friend moves away, or losing touch with a good friend who lives right near you?
23. What are you most grateful for?
24. Would you rather lose all of your old memories, or never be able to make new ones?
25. Is is possible to know the truth without challenging it first?
26. Has your greatest fear ever come true?
27. Do you remember that time 5 years ago when you were extremely upset?  Does it really matter now?
28. What is your happiest childhood memory?  What makes it so special?
29. At what time in your recent past have you felt most passionate and alive?
30. If not now, then when?
31. If you haven’t achieved it yet, what do you have to lose?
32. Have you ever been with someone, said nothing, and walked away feeling like you just had the best conversation ever?
33. Why do religions that support love cause so many wars?
34. Is it possible to know, without a doubt, what is good and what is evil?
35. If you just won a million dollars, would you quit your job?
36. Would you rather have less work to do, or more work you actually enjoy doing?
37. Do you feel like you’ve lived this day a hundred times before?
38. When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in?
39. If you knew that everyone you know was going to die tomorrow, who would you visit today?
40. Would you be willing to reduce your life expectancy by 10 years to become extremely attractive or famous?
41. What is the difference between being alive and truly living?
42. When is it time to stop calculating risk and rewards, and just go ahead and do what you know is right?
43. If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake?
44. What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you?
45. When was the last time you noticed the sound of your own breathing?
46. What do you love?  Have any of your recent actions openly expressed this love?
47. In 5 years from now, will you remember what you did yesterday?
    What about the day before that?  Or the day before that?
48. Decisions are being made right now.  The question is:  Are you making them for yourself,
    or are you letting others make them for you?
49. Have you been the kind of friend you want as a friend?
50. Why are you, you?

For anyone who wants to make an immediate 80% return on your investment, go to your local bank with your worthless Federal Reserve Notes and tell them that you’d like to exchange them for rolls of nickels. On its face this might seem ridiculous and absurd and the bank teller might even look at you like you have three heads, but by exchanging your Federal Reserve Notes for nickels you will have made a risk free investment with an immediate positive return of 80%.

I’ve briefly mentioned this in previous articles, but what we are now seeing with pennies and nickels is similar to what took place in the late 1960′s. In the late 1960′s the melt value of circulating silver coins began to exceed the face value of the coins themselves. As people began to realize that the coin melt value was worth more than the face value, people began to keep these coins which ended their circulation. I believe that the same thing will happen to pennies and nickels. Currently the melt value of copper pennies is over twice the face value and the melt value of zinc pennies is almost equal to their face value. Each nickel now has a melt value of approximately 9 cents. This means that if you go into a bank and buy $1,000 worth of nickels those nickels are actually worth $1,800.

The bottom line is that the coinage that is produced by the U.S. Mint is the only honest money left in circulation. The coins themselves store value because of their metal content where as Federal Reserve Notes store no value. Federal Reserve Notes are a dishonest fraud because nothing can be redeemed for them at the Federal Reserve banks. As the Federal Reserve continues to create additional money, coins like pennies and nickels will emerge as another form of protection against inflation because regardless of how much money is created the coins will always have some intrinsic value.

The U.S. Mint continues to baffle me though. This is an organization that has attempted to smear the people at NORFED who produce the Liberty Dollar and have issued an edict stating that melting down pennies and nickels or taking pennies and nickels out of the country is some sort of crime. The actions of the U.S. Mint as I’ve mentioned before has been incredibly ridiculous if not idiotic.

The fact that the U.S. Mint has stated that melting down pennies and nickels amounts to some sort of crime is insane on its face. The U.S. Mint should talk to the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury and tell them that we need to start producing honest money again so the Mint won’t lose money by creating pennies and nickels. It is the dishonest money coming from the Federal Reserve and the inflation created from it that is the real issue here. This means that the U.S. Treasury should either start printing interest free legal tender or better yet certificates that are backed by gold and silver bullion. Another words, abolish the Federal Reserve. They are the real cause of why the U.S. Mint is now losing money with each nickel they make. If the Federal Reserve is allowed to continue to operate in this fashion, the U.S. Mint will continue to lose even more money on coins and will probably be forced to change the metal content of pennies and nickels or find a way to discontinue them entirely.

On the Liberty Dollar situation, if the U.S. Mint has such a problem with private currencies all they need to do is come up with a legitimate product to compete with them. If the U.S. Mint created a $1,000 legal tender gold piece and a $20 legal tender silver piece, they’d easily be able to compete with NORFED. Why does the U.S. Mint create legal tender $1 one ounce silver coins and legal tender $50 one ounce gold silver coins when they could increase the face value to something that fairly reflects the true price of gold and silver? If the Federal Reserve can put a $1 value and a $100 value on the same worthless piece of paper, why can’t the U.S. Mint create $1,000 legal tender gold pieces and $20 legal tender silver pieces?

The U.S. Mint in all likelihood probably does not want to admit that the Federal Reserve has caused inflation to spiral out of control so they put a low face value on their gold and silver coins. Not only that, but by putting a low face value on these gold and silver coins it allows them to more easily confiscate these gold and silver coins in the case of a financial collapse. The people running our financial system are very devious and diabolical individuals, so I would not put any of this past them.

With that said, nickels are the most honest form of money currently available from the Federal Reserve or the U.S. Mint. I firmly believe that sometime in the near future, we will no longer see these nickels circulate freely. People will begin hoarding them for the same reason that silver coins were hoarded in the late 1960′s. Nickels not only store value but their melt value provides an immediate return on your investment. How many investment vehicles can provide an immediate 80% return on investment? There aren’t very many, and quite frankly the only one that I know that is a sure bet are nickels from the U.S. Mint.

Lee Rogers
Funny Money Report

Tuesday July 6  2010

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Our thanks to Jason Fitzpatrick and Lifehacker.com

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If you’ve started biking more to cut down on gas consumption you might have noticed what a pain it is to transport things on a bicycle. Convert a bicycle to a cargo bike and you’ll be hauling groceries in style.

Instructables user CarKat didn’t originally build his cargo bike because he wanted an efficient way to move groceries around but because it offered a different way to haul kids around than a rear-trailer. While traveling in Copenhagen he noticed many families in the bike-friendly city transporting children in cargo bikes where the cargo was carried in the front of the bicycle instead of on a rear trailer or attached cargo area. He liked this design much better than feeling like his kids were in a little pod behind him where he couldn’t see them and was concerned motorists couldn’t either. Kids or no kids, however, it’s a great design for moving a large amount of cargo with just a bicycle.

His build involves hacking apart an old bike, lots of steel tubing and wood sheets, and welding to hold it all together. We’d highly recommend checking out the comments section on the build, you’ll find quite a few lengthy and helpful comments and discussion threads about the design and potential tweaks that would make it even better.

Have experience with a store-bought or DIY cargo bike? Let’s hear about it in the comments.

Tuesday June 22  2010

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Our thanks to Green Deane and EatTheWeeds.com

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Monday June 21  2010

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Our thanks to Jeffrey and GroceryCouponGuide.com

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Eating Well on $1 a day

I was talking with my sister and explaining to her that with couponing, I think that I could live on $1 a day for food and have plenty to eat. She looked at me skeptically thinking that I was exaggerating.

“No, really, I could live on $1 a day and not be hungry,” I said.

“All you would eat is cereal and junk food,” she countered. That is not a healthy diet for a month.

“I think I could have a fairly healthy diet on $1 a day,” I replied. “At least a lot healthier than you think.”

“Including fruits and veggies?” she asked, the skepticism in her voice coming through again.

“Including fruits and veggies,” I said.

“You couldn’t last a month,” she said sure of herself.

Thus the “Eating Well on $1 A Day” challenge was born with the following rules in place:

1. I will begin on May 1 and will have no accumulated food of any kind. I have $31 to spend ($1 for each day of the month). I can start buying food on May 1 and can not exceed the $31. I must document the cost of the food with receipts.

2. I can only use 2 computers to print coupons. Although I have access to more which would make this challenge much easier, we agreed that not everyone will have access to a lot of computers. However, we also agreed that anyone reading this has access to at least one computer and should be able get access to another one using a bit of creativity.

3. I can only use 2 inserts from the Sunday paper each week. Although I have access to many more than this (I usually pick up anywhere from 3 to 5 copies for free from the local coffee shop alone each week), we decided that not everyone would have access to dozens of inserts. We agreed that anyone could get the coupon inserts from at least 2 Sunday papers with a bit of creativity. I am allowed to use up to 2 of previous week’s coupon inserts that I already happen to have.

4. I can use as many coupons as I want that I can get in the grocery store where they are available to everyone.

5. I can only buy food from retail outlets (grocery stores, drug stores, food markets, etc). I can’t supplement what I buy at the store with free food from trees, dumpster diving, friends, food banks, donations, growing my own, etc.

6. I can only use deals that anyone else would have access to getting.

It should be an interesting challenge and I will have my work cut out for me, but I think that it will be possible. If nothing else, it will certainly be a food event that will bring some surprises and humor…

Day One: What I bought
Day One: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Day Two: The Object Is to Stay Alive
Day Three: Eggs & Bananas
Day Four: Berry Smoothie (but not the type you want)
Day Five: Getting Into A Routine
Day Six: Sugar Withdrawals
Day Seven: The First Week
Day Eight: Drinks
Day Nine: Eating Breakdown
Day Ten: One Third Done
Day Eleven: Fingers Crossed
Day Twelve: Score!!
Day Thirteen: I Hate Shopping
Day Fourteen: 2 Weeks Down Summary
Day Fifteen: Tampons & Pantiliners
Day Sixteen: Over The Hump
Day Seventeen: Different Perspectives
Day Eighteen: Disappointment
Day Nineteen: Tough Day
Day Twenty: Forgetfulness Is Costly
Day Twenty-One: Peanut Butter Revelation
Day Twenty-Two: Disaster!
Day Twenty-Three: Math Deficient, But Lucky
Day Twenty-Four: One More Week
Day Twenty-Five: Decisions, Decisions
Day Twenty-Six: Turkey Franks
Day Twenty-Seven: My Current Food List
Day Twenty-Eight: Irritable
Day Twenty-Nine: Should I Continue?
Day Thirty: Discount Find
Day Thirty-One: Final Day

10 Things I Learned Eating On $1 A Day For A Month

I have decided to continue this $1 a day challenge, but now that I have established that it can be done with fairly strict rules, I will make some changes allowing me a little more freedom to really take advantage of the coupon deals and throw some creativity in there as well:

1. I am no longer limited to 2 computers and 2 inserts from each Sunday paper. I can use all coupons that I can get hold of as long as I don’t pay for them (eBay, coupon brokers, etc) and I am only allowed to pay for 1 Sunday paper.

2. I am allowed to use food out of my garden (although that probably is more than a month away before it produces anything).

3. I am allowed to go to the local coffee shops and buy tea (only tea) there. I don’t consider this breaking the spirit of the challenge. I go to coffee shops because I am much more productive if I get into a new setting at least once a day (this was one of the toughest things about the challenge), but it is not fair for me to use their wifi and not pay to be there.

4. I am allowed to forage for food and get food from alternative places than just regular retail outlets.

5. If I come up with other ways to get free / cheap food, I will put it to the vote of the readers here as to whether or not it is an acceptable way for me to get it — and abide by their decision.

Day 32: What Was I Thinking?
Day 33: Should I Be Proud Of This?
Day 34: Apparently, I Don’t Know How To Eat Corn
Day 35: Major Coupon Blunder
Day 36: Free Beer
Day 37: Mail-In Rebates Are A Pain
Day 38: Blackberries!
Day 39: Blahh
Day 40: Being Hungry Sucks
Day 41: Costco Is Expensive
Day 42: Time Consuming
Day 43: Balanced Diet
Day 44: This Is All New To Me, Too
Day 45: Fighting With Wildlife
Day 46: Coupon Organization
Day 47: Where To Get Sunday Coupon Inserts
Day 48: My Simple Coupon Strategy
Day 49: Should I Be Able To Eat Free Farmer’s Market Samples?

Sunday June 20  2010

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Our thanks to Jon Bruner, Forbes.com, and Survivalblog.com

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Please check out this fascinating interactive map: Where Americans Are Moving. If you click on an individual move segment, it shows the average income level of those moving. As an interesting example, click on Teton County, Wyoming. Wow! (Could this be, because there is no personal income tax in Wyoming?.) CLICK HERE TO INTERACT WITH MAP