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Comment by samstave | Hacker News Reader

I was down voted to hell for saying this in the past, but I'll share it again:

One of my dads best friends was head of ALCOA, John Haymaker:

Quote: "aluminum production produces fluoride acid - a substance so toxic that we cannot dispose of it... So we began fluoridation of the water because the only place we can store it is in your liver"

And for those that toe the line with dental benefit BS: if the government was so fucking concerned with your dental health - why isn't any other medical benefit made free and literally forced upon you like fluoride is???

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We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12509741 and marked it off-topic.

> why isn't any other medical benefit made free and literally forced upon you like fluoride is???

Iodization of edible salt is commonly either mandated or subsidized by government, so fluoridation of water isn't the only intervention of its kind.

Realized, thank you.

What is the diff between this and other pandemic illness? Meaning (in all seriousness) why certain things and not others? What or who formed these decisions

Fortification of cereals and vitamin D in milk as well.

Fortification of cornmeal, grits, rice, and white flour is required by law in the US. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/1431c

For more examples of interventions recommended by the WHO take a look at: http://www.who.int/elena/intervention/en/ especially the fortification section.

That makes absolutely no sense. They decided to feed it to people as a way of getting rid of it? Why not blast it out into space or bury it in a bunker or any other thousands of easier ways we have to dispose of things than coming up with a conspiracy for having people ingest it?

Maybe you were downvoted because that's totally crazy and cannot generate productive discussion?

I find it funny that no one yet has called you on your bullshit: Who the fuck is John Haymaker? There was no Haymaker CEO of Alcoa. You quote this person, and you don't even know their first name? Sounds legit.

He was president of ALCOA in the mid-80s -- I cant find him online - but I posted a link to his son's profile page who is an architect. John Haymaker, JR. I also make mention of my dads other best friend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_S._Herrington who happens to have a wiki page....

So, I dont know what to say about the fact that John SR doesnt have a page about him online as he was head of ALCOA in ~1985...

not my job to prove shit to the internet.... if you dont like my quote - then move on and dont attack me for it.

Yeah, get bent dude. It sort of is your job to prove who you're quoting or get called out on it. The nearest I can tell is the guy you're talking about is George Haymaker, and if that is who it is, he was CEO of Kaiser, not Alcoa.

But when you do things like this: "FFS; I am relaying a quote I heard from the head of fucking ALCOA! y'all motherfuckers know what ALCOA is? and how far their reach is...."

That detail mattered because you made it matter. No one attacked you for that.

Hmm... You may be correct - and I apologize for my failing memory! I was freaking twelve when I heard him say this...

George may be correct - I'll have to ask my dad now.

While people have posted the listed CEOs of ALCOA in the 80s - I know that for certain he was head of ALCOA. My dad built his freaking house and I worked on it with John Haymaker (who my dad was required to employ during the build of his house on the Truckee River in Tahoe so his kid (the one who is now an architect) could get some build experience)...

But I stand by my comment... those statements were made.

Here it is:

"Mr. Haymaker was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Kaiser Aluminum Corporation from January 1994 through December 1999, and was Non-Executive Chairman of that company from October 2001 until July 2006. Prior to joining Kaiser, he served in executive positions for Alcoa Inc., and Alumax Inc."

Not sure who you're thinking of. Maybe it was a weird childhood memory. But based on Alcoa's history page, nobody with that name was the CEO during the 80's.

Alcoa CEO's during the 1980s [1]

W.H. Krome George 1975 - 1983

Charlie Parry 1983 - 1987

Paul O’Neill 1987 - 1999

[1] https://www.alcoa.com/usa/en/alcoa_usa/history.asp

>"Mr. Haymaker was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Kaiser Aluminum Corporation from January 1994 through December 1999, and was Non-Executive Chairman of that company from October 2001 until July 2006. Prior to joining Kaiser, he served in executive positions for Alcoa Inc., and Alumax Inc."

There is a George T. Haymaker Jr. who "served as an Executive Vice President of Alumax Inc. from 1984 to 1986 and Vice President of International Operations at Alcoa Inc. from 1982 to 1984" [0].

His profile at Genstar Capital includes what seems like a recent photo [1].

Is that who you're thinking of?

[0] http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?p...

[1] http://www.gencap.com/team/george_haymaker.php

You are being attacked?

Aggressively debated then :-)

I dont give a shit - but jesus, one quotes another from memory and shitstorm ensues... :)

Whatever.

No one is attacking you personally. A lot of people read HN for insightful or evidence backed commentary and the voting mechanism is there to maintain this quality. No one can quote your story and retain any credibility -to a third party relating your story sounds like this: "A dude in a web discussion forum claimed that a man who, based on his childhood memories, was a CEO at Alcor, said that...". It has degenerated to a gossip - something that is readily available elswhere. High quality diacussion, on the other hand, is hard to come by.

It's okay to relate anecdotal experience - some these type of comments are really good - but the style in the comment should then reflect the fact that the claim cannot be validated in any concrete way.

Totally valid statement! I haven't been claiming otherwise.

I proved who I was talking about, I stand by my statement and I believe that some HNers are dicks, period.

"I proved who I was talking about,"

No, you did not 'prove' with any value of proof anyone else here would recognize. None of us can know did that conversation happen, if it did, were they serious or joking,etc etc. There is no way any sensible person could integrate this into their theory of the world.

Basically, unless you can provide evidence that is well known/scientifically rigorous/would hold in the court of law, what you wrote, is hearsay.

You can stand by your statement - no one is claiming you to be a liar. But claiming fluoridation of water is just some nefarious big-corp scheme is, to put it mildy, extraordinary. Given the prevalence of anti-vaxxers and other crazies in the mainstream outlets I can only imagine the toleration level for unscientific gossip on public health matters is really low.

Calm down dude, no need to get personal on people.

> we began fluoridation of the water because the only place we can store it is in your liver

"Oh, haha, my attorney is telling me to shut the f* * * up! Sorry about that slip of the tongue."

>why isn't any other medical benefit made free and literally forced upon you like fluoride is?

Not only does this not have any merit regarding whether or not we should add fluoride to our public water supplies, but the U.S. government (and many others) quite literally already does this.

We add niacin to flour. We add iodine to salt. We add vitamin D to a litany of food products.

And this quote:

>aluminum production produces fluoride acid - a substance so toxic that we cannot dispose of it... So we began fluoridation of the water because the only place we can store it is in your liver"

Is just completely rubbish. He's basically claiming that we're just walking land fills, using our livers to avoid leaving fluoride acid everywhere.

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