An Opinion on Fluoridation

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28359, 19 August 1957, Page 10

An Opinion on Fluoridation

The American magazine “Time” has reported an addition to the volume of authoritative opinion supporting the fluoridation .>dT water supplies to prevent ddntal,<£fecay' “Citizens who want toget their “teeth into solid facts-On effects “of water /flqdridatfoa * are referred by “Time” to a pamphlet by a statistician “who has at his fingertips more “ figures health and disease, "life death; than any man “ living f. The author is Dr. L. I. Dublin, who, as head of the Metropolitan Life; ’.lnsurance Company’s statistic branch from 1909 to 1952, > amassed data from the health records of 30,000,000 policyholders. From punch-card., tabulators. Dr. Dublin -Waa able to foretell trends in public health. Dr. Dublin spent a year of iris retirement .on statistical research into fluoridation, and his report has been, published by the Manhattan Public Affairs Committee under the title: "Water “ Fluoridation: Facts, Jtot “Myths”. According to " Time ”, Dr. Dublin’s most sweeping conclusion is this: “ Next to the common cold, “ tooth decay is probably the “ most universal disease suffered “by mankind ”., His most precise finding is that and women aged 40 to 44 who have spent their lives in areas with _

naturally fluoridated water average only three missing teeth; those in non-fluoride communities average 14. Searching for cases where any harm to -health, even among the aged and ailing, was 'attributable to fluorides. Dr. Dublin found not one Meeting the argument that fluorides are poisonous. Dr. Dublin agrees that they are—in the same way as common salt, oxygen, and water, which “can kill you if you get too “ much of them ’’. But, he adds, “to absorb a lethal amount of "fluoridated water would re- “ quire drinking 60 bathtubfuls “at a sitting. ... To produce “even the mildest symptoms of “ fluoride poisoning would re- “ quire that the victim swallow “ two-and-a - half bathtubfuls “ during a single day ”. As president of the American “Committee to Protect Our “ Children’s Teeth ”, Dr. Dublin is associated with the noted oediatrician. Dr. Benjamin Spock, whose broadcasts and writings on health are valued by wide audiences outside as well as inside the United States. Propagandists who are fond of quoting from American publications about fluoridation should not ignore Dr. Dublin’s pamphlet. It will be studied by “The “Press" not because of its conclusions, but because of the standing of its author.