Excerpt:

As shown in Table 1, a limited number of participants from both Bartlett and Cameron showed some degree of roentgenographic bone change but, in general, these changes were minimal. There was a larger number with no observable change in the ten-year interval, a fact disregarded or unreported in most fluoride studies. It was therefore evident that high concentrations of fluoride in drinking water did not uniformly produce bone change of a type detectable in even an appreciable portion of the participants living in the high-fluoride area. Only one new case of increased bone density was found in the latter group at the end of ten-year period.

The absence of unusual roentgenographic evidence of bone or other physiologic change on long exposure in a high-fluoride area is best substantiated through the histological and chemical examination of tissues from one of the study group participants, from Bartlett, who died shortly after the 1953 examinations. The patient, a female, aged seventy-nine, with a history of fifty-two years’ residence in the high fluoride area, died from a massive cerebral vascular accident. A complete autopsy was performed and bone was obtained for histologic examination and chemical analyses. The roentgenographic examinations in 1943 and 1953 showed a moderate (average) degree of increased bone density with some coarsened trabeculation. Chemical analysis of the bones showed approximately six times the fluoride (F) content (0.6 mg. per cent) of the same bone from individuals from nonfluoride regions. There were no significant histologic changes that could be linked to fluoride exposures.

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