Did Harvard Whitewash Colgate Consultants Ethics Breach?
Harvard University’s dismissal of an ethics complaint against Dr. Chester Douglass for misrepresenting the results of a study linking fluoride to bone cancer in boys has drawn a strong rebuke from the Environmental Working Group, which brought the alleged ethics breach to light. Douglass, who moonlights as editor of the Colgate Oral Health Report, in recent years told the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and a National Research Council committee that a 2001 Harvard Ph.D. thesis by Elise Bassin did not link water fluoridation to cancer. But the thesis, which was finally published last April in Cancer Causes and Control, a publication of the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention, in fact found a five- to seven-fold increase in risk of osteosarcoma for boys exposed to elevated levels of fluoride between the ages of six and eight. The Harvard investigation into the EWG ethics complaint, released in early August, found Douglass “did not intentionally omit, misrepresent or
