Health/Toxics

EWG letter to Harvard President regarding its investigation into charges that Dr. Chester Douglass of the Harvard Medical School faculty misrepresented or suppressed the findings of federally funded research into whether fluoride in tap water is associated with bone cancer in adolescent boys.

A closed-door Harvard University panel said yesterday that professor Chester Douglass "did not intentionally omit, misrepresent or suppress research results" of a fluoride bone cancer study. But Environmental Working Group (EWG), whose questions triggered the investigation, said the panel's brief statement sidestepped the question of whether Douglass did in fact omit, misrepresent, or suppress critical data that show a strong link between bone cancer in adolescent boys and fluoride in tap water.