There now appears to be adequate evidence that for political and perhaps monetary reasons, our high paid government and private sector scientists may be intentionally misleading the public as to the safety of our nation's drinking water.

This nearly perfected process of "killing the messenger" who is bearing "bad news" is being used on a regular basis to prevent scientific journals, and subsequently the local news media, from publishing the results of new studies on environmental health risks, including our public drinking water.

To the last man, scientists who discover cures or who are successful in implementing various technological advances into making our drinking water "safe", simply can't wait to rush to the news conference with this "good news".

Experience has shown that a nearly equivalent and sometimes larger number of studies on the same subject has resulted in negative conclusions, with dramatic results that the scientific community would just as soon not present to the public.

In the process of trying to protect "time honored technology" developed by the scientific community, these same scientists and their peers are reluctant to allow the public to view the downside results of studies on so-called "safe and proven" techniques.

It's a little like listening to an eminent scientist tell us that an American astronaut has just landed on Mars. We're all rightfully excited and proud of our great technological prowess.

What the scientist leaves out of his briefing is that the astronaut was going 18,000 miles per hour when he landed on the planet's surface.

Let's take chlorination of our public drinking water as an example. It is no secret that for over 20 years, chlorination of water has been linked to cancer in test animals. If this is news to you, don't feel left out. 20 years ago, scientists were discovering that chlorine was directly linked to coronary blockages in test animals. Did you hear about it? Probably not. Do you realize that there were virtually no coronary problems in the United States prior to the introduction of chlorine into the nation's drinking water?

What we did hear about was how effective the time-honored technology of chlorination was in killing microbes that cause typhus and other diseases---so why should scientists rock the boat with new concerns about possible negative effects?

Even if one of these carefully conducted studies finally reaches the news media, "spin doctors" began weaving their magic on the public with carefully concocted disclaimers intended to remove any public concern about what may in reality be a major health concern to the average American.

An example of this occurred recently when Dr. Thomas Chalmers of the Harvard School of Public Health concluded a study of chlorination of drinking water with the results that bladder and rectal cancers were increased by the use of chlorinated water.

According to charges being brought by Dr. Chalmers, his peers in the scientific community review cycle refused to publish the document because

"...they were uneasy about informing people about this problem".

Come again? And these are scientists who are tasked with our public health?

The U.S. Public Health Service, in response to public and private sector pressure to determine the efficacy of fluoridation of drinking water, recently completed a study of 40,000 children nationwide, half of whom drank fluoridated water, while the others drank water without fluoride.

The study was intended to overcome some of the questionable testing procedures conducted some 40 years ago when fluoride was identified through similar tests to be advantageous in combating dental caries.

In the most recent case, the USPHS study found absolutely no difference between the number of cavities in children who drank fluoridated water and those that didn't.

The real crime afoot here is that hundreds of studies both here and overseas have shown that fluoride added to drinking water destroys everything from bone structure to the immune system.

And yet, the public is not told about these potentially disastrous health problems---even when it is conclusively demonstrated by the Public Health Service, the organization which initiated fluoridation, that fluoridation of drinking water isn't doing our children any good in the first place.

And how about lead in our drinking water? Pipe and plumbing manufacturers have for years led efforts to stifle information regarding the presence of lead in their products(sounds a lot like the tobacco industry to me).

Lead is a killer, and many scientists get much of their monies(grants) from various industrial concerns, including the plumbing and pipe industries. Do you suppose that these scientists are scared to publish the "bad news" they know about in their laboratory tests because they might lose some of their precious "grant" monies?

We could list a dozen other drinking water problems where similar situations now occur: asbestos poisoning from water pipes, aluminum additives to the water contributing to Alzheimer and the list goes on and on.

In each and every case we are faced with the same dilemma: a supposedly "safe" or "proven" or "time honored technology" is found to be unsafe by an equal or greater number of studies which were used to initially implement the water treatment process or additive.

However, we never seem to hear from our esteemed scientific community about the other 50% of the studies. They killed the messenger who was bearing the bad news---while letting only the good news get to the public.

Although I am not a great fan of ex Vice-President, Al Gore, he did have some interesting observations about this type of this scientific dysfunctional behavior in his new book, Earth in the Balance.

Gore talks about this process of "killing the messenger", a well-established form of denial which ironically is being practiced and perfected by the self same scientific community which has been set up with our tax dollars to protect us.

This destructive, denial process may stem from peer pressure, financial insecurity or other conditions surrounding the scientific research laboratories which are tasked with protecting our environment and in particular our health as it is related to drinking water.

To quote Gore,

"...until the scientific community can overcome their seemingly compulsive need to control the natural world(and the inherent hazards therein) without accountability to the public, they are no different than the street corner drug addict who acts in denial, both believing that they can continue to live out their professional or addictive lives at the border of conscious awareness".

Until the public understands this denial process which is going on in the scientific community and demands full accountability from those government and private institutions which have been responsible for hiding critical, health-related information from the public for decades, we(the public) will continue to be the recipients of "censored science" and suffer more and greater health problems from our polluted air and drinking water resources.