The Attack of the Halides: Chlorine, Bromine & Fluorine
To get the complete story, I urge you to read:
A Brief History of Halides in the Food Supply
Although bromine was used as a “medicine” and an anesthetic by turn of the century doctors, the first real mass poisoning of the public with halogens of Iodine started around 1900 when water systems started putting chlorine in the water supplies. I suspect that this made the prevalence of goiters much greater.
But there was also another source of anti-iodine toxic food supplies introduced in 1900, The introduction of “vegetable” oils which are NOT from vegetables. Prior to this introduction, people used lard and had done so for hundreds of years with no ill effects.
Proctor and Gamble has been around since the 1800s. Their early products were soap and they were using cotton seed oil (NOT a vegetable) for the soap base. Cotton seed oil was not fit for consumption and was more of less a waste product of the cotton industry. But in the late 1890s, a German chemist came over to the USA, and sold a chemical process to Proctor and Gamble that allowed them to make cotton seed oil marketable. The first product was Wesson Oil and then Wesson Oil was altered by hydrogenation and became Crisco. These chemical oils are infused with Bromine, a toxic halogen(And just about every oil on the shelf in the grocery store). A marketing campaign was started to convince people that “vegetable” oil was more healthy than lard. But that was a big lie. It took many decades before BVO took over the lard market. And the more people used these products, the more degenerative diseases began to appear.
World War I started a few years later and chlorine, which is highly toxic, was turned into a chemical weapon. It killed and maimed 10s of 1000s of people. The survivors were damaged for life. For example, the noted actor Walter Brennan served in WWI and was the victim of a chlorine gas attack. Because of this, his voice had a distinct, odd tonal quality the rest of his life. Now Walter Brennan was one of the lucky ones. He did not suffer enough damage to shorten his life but many others didn’t live long after being victims of the chlorine gas. I remember my grandparents talking about the effects on a relative that had been gassed and how he lived a short. miserable life after the war.
So, even knowing the dangers of chlorine, water systems around the country started putting this toxin in drinking water and continue to this day. Keep in mind, the Europeans don’t allow chlorine to be put in their drinking water and their water is safer to drink. They also don’t allow it in their pools as they use ozone to purify the water.
So, people started getting anti-iodine poisons since 1900. I wonder if this is what prompted the authorities of the day to FINALLY allow Iodized salt, 50 or so years after the Europeans introduced it?
The Limited Positive Benefits of Iodized Salt
After iodized salt was introduced, the cases of goiter went way down.
Remember, the 1920s were the heady days of vitamin discovery. As new vitamins were discovered and made available, many people started taking them and improving their health. They switched to iodized salt.
All good right? It was clearly demonstrated that Iodine reduce goiters. Also, the commercial baking industry started putting an iodine compound in flour so that anyone who ate bread, which was practically everyone, got extra doses of Iodine. Incidents of goiter were pretty much eliminated and thyroid problems in general became rare. Unfortunately, the dose of Iodine people got from salt was very small but with it in flour and baked goods using flour, their iodine intake was much higher.
In my next post, I will talk about the campaign to eliminate iodine and all the diseases lack of iodine has caused.
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