HANS MOOLENBURGH: PHYSICIAN, SCIENTIST, AND WARRIOR FOR FREEDOM IN THE FIGHT AGAINST FLUORIDATION

On 6 November 2018, Dr Hans C Moolenburgh, ARTSa, a physician, scientist, and warrior for freedom in the fight against fluoridation passed away in the Netherlands, after a brief illness, at the age of 93 years. Dr Moolenburgh was a deeply religious and socially committed doctor and writer. In his 1987 book, Fluoride: the freedom fight, Moolenburgh noted how he was reading the paper on a Saturday afternoon on 26 October 1968 when he saw a short notice stating that fluoridation would start in his city of Haarlem, The Netherlands, in June 1970.1 He wrote a letter to editor of paper, the Haarlems Dagblad, ending with:

"When I turn the tap on what I want to see appearing is water, not a medicine I did not ask for. Just imagine the Municipal Council deciding tomorrow that there is not enough room for everyone in Haarlem. Before we know where we are we will be all be drinking the Pill."

In response to his letter, which was printed with the headline of "Medicine from the Council" he received a letter from C Mets, Chief Inspector of Health for the county of North Holland who asked Dr Moolenburgh to come to his office to discuss matters with him. At the meeting he was given a warning and told that he was not allowed to write things like his article on "Medicine from the Council" because he had a disquietening effect on the population. He replied that it was his intention to have that disquietening effect and was told that he was a medical doctor and it was not permitted. Moolenburgh countered that he had not written as a medical doctor but as a free citizen of the city of Haarlem. Mets then said that Moolenburgh was forbidden to write like that. Moolenburgh became angry and asked if The Hague had told Mets to forbid him from writing. Moolenburgh wondered if someone had tried to intimidate him and said that on "that day a fluoride warrior was born in me-and Mets was the obstetrician." Moolenburgh became engaged in a battle to prevent fluoridation being introduced into The Netherlands and when, on 27 April 1977, the Minister of Health Irene Vorrink withdrew her bill fluoridation bill from the Dutch Parliament, fluoridation in the Netherlands was finished. After eight years of relentless fighting, victory had been won.

In commenting on the fluoridation battle in the USA, Moolenburgh considered that "essentially we were not engaged in a rather hefty scientific debate but in a dirty war."2 Moolenburgh noted that the struggle against fluoridation was world wide and helped those engaged with a bitter antifluoridation battle in Israel.2

Dr Hans Moolenburgh, a family physician in Haarlem, The Netherlands, who commenced his medical studies at Leiden University in 19451 and practicised medicine for approximately 60 years with a special interest in allergy, reported his experiences when fluoridation was introduced on 20 March 1972 to half his practice in nearby Heemstede, which received water from Amsterdam, while the other half of his practice in Haarlem remained free from fluoridation.3 He said that he would never forget his first patient with fluoride toxicity, a 14-year-old girl who got colicky pains in her stomach two weeks after fluoridation started that prevented her from going to school.3 He suggested that she use nonfluori dated water and with this the girl had immediate pain relief. However, one Sunday morning, the pain suddenly came back. The father commented that it was not the fluoridated water after all. Dr Moolenburgh asked him to think carefully. The father then began to laugh and said, "You're right doc, I remember bringing up the tea this morning and making it with drinking water."

Dr Moolenburgh said one of the first symptoms seen in fluoridated Amsterdam was small, white, very painful sores in the mouth (aphthous stomatitis) and that later he saw this regularly in the users of fluoridated toothpaste.3 There were people with nagging pains in the abdomen who often had another side-effect of increased thirst which led them into a vicious circle in which, the more drinking water they drank, the more their symptoms increased.

He reported on a five-week-old baby who started crying and cried on and on, day and night.3 The baby was taken to hospital where nothing could be found wrong with the child. It went on crying after returning home and was in pain from something. After some weeks, the parents were frantic with despair. The baby was not in Dr Moolenburgh's practice and the parents only heard about his research when the illness of the child had continued for several weeks. He suggested nonfluoridated water and with that in the bottle the baby changed overnight to a sweet contented child and stayed that way.

Another infant had respiratory problems from the age of two weeks to five months when he was brought to Dr Moolenburgh.3 He found the child had typical asthmatic breathing and was not so bright and kicking as might be expected from a healthy baby. The baby looked a little bit drowsy. Dr Moolenburgh suggested using nonfluoridated water in the bottle to begin with and in three days the child was healed. At 11 years, he was absolutely healthy.

Dr Moolenburgh observed that, when using fluoridated water, allergic children showed a tendency to fall back into old allergic complaints or show a worsening of still existing complaints.3 He noted a 10-month-old boy had been healed from getting eczema by changing the cow's milk in the bottle for soy milk. Three days after the introduction of fluoridation, the eczema was back all over the skin, without using cow's milk, and only healed after the tap water had been thrown out.

Apart from the skin troubles, gastrointestinal complaints, and respiratory illnesses, other troubles during these first months of fluoridation were headache, excessive thirst, a general feeling of being unwell, and difficulty in concentration.3 He referred also to the side-effect of arthritis-like complaints that came on much later, after several months, and went away more slowly over several weeks. They were mostly located in the lower back and in the small finger joints. One lady was nearly crippled by these complaints and, because even small amounts of fluoridated water were enough to keep the illness going, she eventually had to move to a nonfluoridated region.

Dr Moolenburgh formed a group with other doctors to conduct research into the side-effects of fluoridation.3 One day, Dr PK, a 60-year-old doctor in his research group, looked pale and gloomy. They asked him if he did not feel well and he confessed that he had had a slowly increasing pain in his abdomen for some months and was afraid that he had cancer. One of them, as a joke, suggested it was the fluoridated water. He replied that that was "Stuff and nonsense" and that it did not happen to him. Dr Moolenburgh suggested he try nonfluoridated water. He did and was healed in three days. However a week later his complaints suddenly returned and he did not understand why until he discovered that he had drunk some coffee made with fluoridated water while attending a home delivery. He continued to avoid fluoridated water and his complaints never returned. The group published their findings and described a double blind test for the detection of untoward effects from fluoridated water.4 The preliminary results with 60 patients out of a group of 300 indicated that certain individuals are intolerant to fluoride and reproducibly develop gastrointestinal symptoms, stomatitis, joint pains, polydipsia, headaches, and visual disturbances.4

Dr Moolenburgh continued to contribute to the literature on fluoride with letters to the editor of Fluoride. He commented on the findings of Dr Josephien van den Berg, a dentist, on the differences in health in Tiel and Culemborg, The Netherlands, in 1993, 20 years after fluoridation was stopped in Tiel.5 Tiel was fluoridated from 1952 to 1973 and Culemborg was the control city. Van den Berg found that the long term exposure to fluoridated water could result in an increased frequency of chronic diseases, including, in women aged 51-55 years, brain and nervous diseases and, in women aged 56-60 years, memory loss, and cancer.5

He reported that at the time that the fluoridation of Tiel began in 1952, there were significant dietary differences between Tiel and the nonfluoridated control city of Culemborg.6 Children in Culemborg ate twice as much yogurt as children did in Tiel, and, like most Dutch children, they usually sweetened their yogurt heavily with sugar.6,7 Not only that, the planners of the study, Professors O Backer Dirks, KG Konig, and B Houwink, arranged for the infant center in Tiel-but not in Culemborg-to make available to mothers a less cariogenic, sugar-free form of Liga cake, the first solid food commonly given to infants and toddlers.6,7 Only after fluoridation in Tiel had ended in late 1973, were physicians throughout Holland informed by the manufacturers that the sugar-free form of Liga cake would be made available outside of Tiel.6 Thus when fluoridation started, the children in Tiel were quietly given an advantage with less sugar in their diet.

He also observed that they were told that fluoridation had been proved to be absolutely safe, but after Dr Meta Asselbergs found a preponderance of mold infections compared to bacterial infections in the sputum of bronchitis patients in Tiel and refused to stop this research, she was fired.6 Only later did she discover that Tiel was fluoridated. His biologist colleague in Haarlem, Dr GW Grimbergen,4 similarly found that mold overcame bacterial growth in fluoridated water, whereas bacterial growth dominated in nonfluoridated water.

He remarked that after a meeting of health officials after fluoridation had ended, the question was asked: Was there was any evidence of changes in the bodies of the people in Tiel compared to those in Culemborg?6 An official responded: "Well, you know, the average weight of people in fluoridated Tiel was one kilogram more than in nonfluoridated Culemborg." He was hastily hushed up, but the word was out that there was a measurable difference between the two cities, whatever the exact reason might have been.

A further comment was that Dr Mien Bulthuis, the neurologist in their physicians' group did extensive research in the early 1970s for her doctoral dissertation entitled "The Syndrome of Atypical Serum Cholinesterase."8 She had found that 1 mg F/L in blood serum gave a significant in vitro inhibition of serum cholinesterase activity. When Dr R Drion, the Secretary of State for Public Health, heard about the forthcoming publication of Dr Bulthuis's work, he called her into his office and asked her to withhold reporting her findings because he considered them "politically sensitive" while the Dutch government was busily engaged in attempting to fluoridate the entire nation. Being a person of integrity, Dr Bulthuis indignantly refused his request and went ahead and published her research.After they had won the battle to end fluoridation in Holland, the physicians' group conducted an in vivo serum cholinesterase experiment in 1976 under the supervision of Dr Bulthuis. With one of them acting as a control, the others swallowed 1 ppm F water-which they prepared themselves, since fluoridation had been prohibited. They found that the serum cholinesterase activity in the control showed a smooth undulating curve, whereas in the physicians who drank the fluoridated water it showed a wildly erratic behavior.

Dr Moolenburgh also expressed a view, in 2010, about the exclusion by the National Library of Medicine, USA, of Fluoride from the Medline-PubMed database of published biomedical research.9 He stated, "The journal Fluoride, started in 1968 by Dr Waldbott, was his spiritual child. I knew him well, and he was totally dedicated to making it a high quality journal that would be strictly scientific, balanced, and objective. I expected it to cease publication after his death in 1982, but instead it has grown and expanded through the years. In my view, it is now the only really impeccably objective scientific journal dealing with medical and dental, as well as biological, environmental, and related aspects of fluoride. There is no other journal like it, as it does not follow any protected political agenda. But those in power do not like whistle-blowers, and they do not want the facts so ably presented in this journal to become available to the general scientific community or the public at large. Thus the repeated rejection of Fluoride by Medline for inclusion in its database. ...

"I will close this commentary by offering my personal opinion as an 84-year-old physician with 54 years in medical practice, who also lived through the German occupation of Holland during WW II and saw what totalitarian thinking leads to in the end.9 When the fluoridating authorities (yes, those in that tempting "Inner Ring") finally begin to realize that fluoridation was founded on a hill of sand, they will behave like little children when the incoming tide demolishes their seaside sand constructions. They will shut their eyes and protest, "No, this cannot be!" Public health authorities should only be interested in promoting good health and preventing human suffering. Yet, from their actions, they appear more concerned with adhering to erroneous dogmatic thinking and maintaining their own positions and power. Discussion and debate with the members of the "Inner Ring" is useless and a waste of time.

"To members of the International Society for Fluoride Research, I say be proud that Fluoride is not part of the self-serving "Inner Ring" and is excluded from it.9 Be proud not to be among those who pollute the earth and are responsible for the explosion of cancers, vascular diseases, and those other illnesses of today's world that plague our modern civilization and will not go away with magic pills. Just as happened in Holland and throughout most of Europe, authorities who try to suppress unwelcome facts about fluoridation will be eventually swept away in response to compelling evidence and massive public indignation. Therefore, keep enlightening the public! Keep your integrity, keep publishing honest science, and let the truth eventually do the rest!"

In 2011, Moolenburgh published a book "You can accomplish more than you think you can" in which he prominently identified fluoride as a highly toxic environmental contaminant whose intake should be minimized for the health of this and future generations.10 His view was that one must carefully avoid exposure to certain "demolition and death elements" like fluorine, arsenic, mercury, lead, and uranium which serve no other purpose but to cause death and thus make way for succeeding generations.

Hans Moolenburgh was a man of integrity, dedicated to the treatment of his patients, observing carefully the effects of water fluoridation on them, studying with his own research group the effects of water fluoridation on humans, and, when convinced it was harmful and an infringement of freedom, fighting for legislation to outlaw the practice in the Netherlands and other countries. He will be missed.

Bruce Spittle, Editor-in-Chief, Fluoride

Dunedin, New Zealand

Sidebar

IN MEMORIAM

HANS MOOLENBURGH: A MAN OF FAITH AND HERO WHO STOOD UP AGAINST THE EVIL OF FLUORIDATION

On 6 November 2018, our precious 93-years-young Dr Hans Moolenburgh passed on to heaven, after a short two week's illness and being fully assured that he would meet his Redeemer, his wife, and his daughter. He was a man of faith, a well known guest on TV programmes, a frequent lecturer, the author of books on Biblical themes, and the writer of two books and many articles exposing fluoride and vaccinations. Dr Moolenburgh was a hero by standing up and fighting against the evil of fluoridation in the Netherlands for 8 years until it was legally stopped in 1977. He and his team of medics repeated the double blind trials of the effect of fluoride, that were done in the USA in the early 1960s, by Dr George Waldbott and some other doctors, and they confirmed the earlier findings. His work resulted in threats being made to him and he accompanied his children to school for three months to ensure their safety.

Concerns about the safety of water fluoridation in Holland were publicized in 1976 with an historic Dutch TV interview of Dr Dean Burk, the co-founder of the US National Cancer Institute, who exposed water fluoridation on TV as mass murder. Dr Moolenburgh wrote to Dr Waldbott suggesting that Dr Burk be invited as a guest speaker at the Seventh Conference of the International Society for Fluoride Research in Zandvoort, Holland, on 8-10 February 1976. When the invitation was accepted Moolenburgh planned, against some advice to the contrary, with the help of one of his patients, Mr Damshuizer, for national TV coverage to the Dutch population and the preparation of 40 extensive information files for the press. It all worked smoothly and on the evening of 8 February 1976 a majority of the Dutch population, seated in front of their TVs, saw a grim looking Dean Burk suddenly appear and, radiating competence and reliability, he showed a graph of a frightening increase in cancer mortality in the fluoridated cities in the USA. He said, "Fluoridation of drinking water is a form of mass murder of the public. I think it is highly unethical to force people to kill themselves ..." Dr Moolenburgh considered this publicity, in association with the Conference, proved decisive in winning the fluoridation battle in his country on April 27, 1977. Subsequently, the Minister of Health stepped down and the Dutch constitutional law was changed to prevent fluoridation ever returning. The Burk interview has had subtitles in Hebrew added to it and has now been seen by thousands in Israel.

Dr Moolenburgh remained an active opposer of fluoridation throughout his life and in 2016 he published a second book on fluoride "De nieuwe watergeuzen: De geschiedenis van de fluorideringsstrijd" (Moolenburgh H. The history of the fluoridation battle. Rotterdam: Nederlandse rechten Lemniscaat b.v.; 2016).

Dr Moolenburgh has been a great support to us in Israel in our fluoridation fight with regular phone contact and his articles for the Jerusalem Post. I treasure some words of encouragement he wrote for me on 17 July 2018 on the title page of his new book, "De nieuwe watergeuzen": "17-7-18. Dat de Heer jullie de overwinning mag geven up de grote vergiftiging door deze "protected pollutant" fluoride. Hans Moolenburgh" [17-7-18. May the Lord give you the final victory over the great poisoning by this "protected pollutant" fluoride. Hans Moolenburgh."]. He will remain in our hearts as an inspiration.

Footnote

aARTS is a medical qualification in The Netherlands, equivalent to an MD in the USA.

References

REFERENCES

1 Moolenburgh H. Fluoride: The freedom fight. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing Company (Edinburgh) Ltd; 1987.

2 Moolenburgh H. One of the really great men in the struggle against fluoridation [Burgstahler memorial tribute]. Fluoride 2013;46940:163.

3 Spittle B. Fluoride fatigue. Fluoride poisoning: is fluoride in your drinking water-and from other sources-making you sick? Revised 4th printing. Dunedin, New Zealand: Paua Press; 2009. pp. 20-22. Available from: www.fluorideresearch.org/FluorideFatigue/files/1418.pdf

4 Grimbergen GW. A double blind test for determination of intolerance to fluoridated water (Preliminary Report). Fluoride 1974;7(3):146-51.

5 Moolenburgh H. More news from Tiel and Culemborg [letter]. Fluoride 1995;28(2):119-20.

6 Moolenburgh H. "Tardive photopsia" and the Tiel-Culemborg study [letter]. Fluoride 2007;40(1):75-6.

7 Moolenburgh H. Untitled [letter to the editor]. Fluoride 1994;27(2):123.

8 Moolenburgh H. Fluoride and serum cholinesterase [letter]. Fluoride 2008;41(3);227.

9 Moolenburgh H. Comment on editorial report: Medline again rejects Fluoride [letter]. Fluoride 2010;43(1):81-4.

10 Meiers P. U kunt meer dan u denkt: Aanvullende maatregelen om kanker te helpen voorkomen en genezen [You can accomplish more than you think you can: Supplementary measures to help prevent and heal cancer] by Hans Moolenburgh [book review editorial]. Fluoride 2012;45(1 ):1 -4.