Several months ago while surfing the Internet, the name Dr. Davey popped up in association with "fluoride poisoning," the WWII "Manhattan Project," making of the "atomic bomb" and secret "human experimentation" in the 1940s. I am aware of my father's D-Day story but now, 60 years after his death, the final chapter of his life has been revealed in this incredible book. After further investigation and filling in between the lines, it is apparent that Navy Medicine, having seen X-ray reports of "fluoride poisoning" in the bones of American workers during WWII, refused to participate in a medical cover-up during the early Cold War years.
It was shocking to read "Chapter 8 - Robert Kehoe and the Kettering Laboratory" in The Fluoride Deception by Christopher Bryson. My father, LT. J. Russell Davey, Jr., MC, USNR, who died in 1948 (unknown to the author), is described on page 108 as "the offending radiologist" who inadvertently exposed Dr. Robert A. Kehoe's study regarding industrial fluoride exposure of workers at the Pennsylvania Salt Company in Easton, PA. Dr. Davey made a January 31, 1947 medical X-ray diagnosis of "fluoride poisoning" which became known to management and workers several miles away at the Pennsalt plant in Easton.
Bryson describes top officials at Pennsalt headquarters in Philadelphia as being "furious" with Drs. George Pillmore and Davey. The two Navy radiologists were not aware of Dr. Kehoe's Kettering Laboratory mission, to secretly collect medical data regarding poisoned American workers in order to protect the US government's bomb-related defense industry from potential lawsuits. The author brilliantly lays out Pennsalt's role in producing hydrofluoric acid (HF) for atomic bomb production and the resulting cover-up of workers suffering from fluoride poisoning.
Fluoride poisoning resulting in "crippling skeletal fluorosis" had been recognized in Europe since the late 1800s. In 1937, Danish scientist Kai Eli Roholm, MD, published "Fluorine Intoxication, an encyclopedic study of fluoride pollution and poisoning." Dr. Roholm reported that fluoride exposure produced a host of medical symptoms in factory workers. Most distinctly, fluoride could visibly disfigure a worker's bones, disabling them with a painful thickening and fusing of spinal vertebrae, a condition he called "crippling skeletal fluorosis."
In 1944, 26-year-old Lieutenant Davey, 6th Naval Beach Battalion, returned from the Normandy invasion and became a student and protégé of Captain George U. Pillmore, MC (S), USNR, Chief Radiologist at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital. During that period, the Philadelphia Navy Yard housed a super-secret facility using hot liquid fluoride and pressurized steam to enrich uranium for the atomic bomb. Although bomb making was an Army project, the purpose of the Philadelphia plant was to supply insurance against failure of the Army's "separation program" and provide the Naval Research Laboratory with materials for the study of atomic energy.
Bryson describes a serious accident at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in September 1944. There was a release of man-made radiation and perhaps the worst fluoride accident of WWII. "A giant white plume of uranium hexafluoride gas drifted over the dockyard." Twenty-six men were exposed, killing two and seriously injuring the remainder. The Philadelphia coroner was not told the "cause of death." Body organs of dead men were considered "classified" and stuffed into a briefcase becoming the property of the Manhattan Project Medical Department. Years later, a Navy doctor explained to injured nuclear scientist Arnold Kramish that when fluoride gets into your bones, it "stalks you the rest of your life."
The following year after the accident, Dr. Davey was ordered to a Naval Special Hospital, Camp Wallace, Texas to serve as Chief of the X-ray Department in a 1,000-bed-hospital. After retuning to Philadelphia in May 1946 and relieved from active duty, Drs. Davey and Pillmore teamed up in a radiology practice 65 miles north of Philadelphia in Easton, PA. Dr. Pillmore established a Naval reserve unit that included Dr. Davey and about 30 medical doctors in the Easton area.
Bomb making was under the purview of the US Army during WWII. The Army maintained that "fluoride poisoning does not occur in the United States." However, the Navy Medical Department Cold War position on "fluoride poisoning" contradicted the Army Manhattan Project Medical Department. In 1946, Captain George U. Pillmore published Clinical Radiology: A Correlation of Clinical and Roentgenological Findings, Volume I & II, with 1,558 pages. LT. Davey was a contributing author. Navy Surgeon General Ross T. McIntire, Vice Admiral, MC, wrote in the Forward that X-ray examinations are "often the magic key in diagnosis."
Clinical Radiology states, "The source of fluorine intoxication include: (1) drinking water containing one part per million or more of fluorine, (2) fluorine compounds used as insecticidal sprays for fruits and vegetables (cryolite and barium fluosilicate), (3) the mining and conversion of phosphate rock to superphosphate which is used as fertilizer. (The fluorine content of phosphate rock is about 4 percent. During conversion to superphosphate, about 25 per cent of the fluorine present is volatilized.) (4) The fluorides used in the smelting of many metals, such as steel and aluminum, and in the production of glass, enamel, and brick....In 1932, Moller and Gudjonsson described a peculiar form of bone sclerosis in workers exposed to cryolite dust for a number of years. Since that time there have been many published reports of chronic fluorine intoxication and its effect on the osseous system."
Guided by a group of corporate attorneys known as the Fluorine Lawyers Committee, Dr. Kehoe's Kettering Laboratory conducted secret research in order to defend fluoride on behalf of a group of corporations that included Pennsalt, DuPont, Alcoa, and US Steel, all of which faced lawsuits for industrial fluoride pollution. Kehoe's aim was to block scientists from serving as effective witnesses in court cases. Manhattan Project Chief Leslie R. Groves wrote a February 28, 1946 memo to the Chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy, advising that "the Department of Justice is cooperating in the defense of these suits."
Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, Dr. Kai Eli Roholm, the world's leading fluoride expert who visited this country just after WWII, died March 29, 1948. The brilliant Danish scientist was regarded highly by the medical profession but now would be unavailable to provide testimony in the fluoride lawsuits. Dr. Roholm's death was "a tragedy for all who rely on scientist to tell them the truth about chemicals they handle in the workplace and the risk from industrial pollution." The 46-year-old physician left a wife and two young children.
Dr. J. Russell Davey, Jr., the young Navy radiologist who exposed Dr. Robert Kehoe's scientific cover-up of fluoride poisoning, died suddenly June 5, 1948 of undetermined causes. The 30-year-old physician left a pregnant wife and three young children.
In 1949, US worker fluoride lawsuits resulted in no compensation. Former Manhattan Project toxicologist Harold C. Hodge, coordinator of the secret human radiation experiments at the University of Rochester and the nation's leading fluoride expert, wrote in 1965 that "crippling fluorosis has never been seen in the United States."
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EB51
Thoroughly researched and reads as a crime novel
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 1, 2021
Jennifer Marett
This is a great book. A must read for anyone living in ...
Reviewed in Canada on May 16, 2015