Fluoridation

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28367, 28 August 1957, Page 3

Fluoridation

Sir,—Your comment that I did not mention that Roholm’s study concerned fluoride workers is irrelevant, as this consideration does not qualify the statement of Roholm (whom the commission accepts as an authority) that fluorine is not necessary to the quality of enamel. You state that neither did I mention Dr. Muriel Bell’s opinion regarding the “harmlessness” of fluoridation. But this is another matter, since an alleged harmlessness is no proof of nutritional necessity. In stating its conclusions regarding the “harmlessness” of fluoridation, the commission goes much further than can be sustained by logical reasoning. It is entitled to its opinion, but it is not entitled to present it as indisputable fact.—Yours, etc., PAUL MALING. August 27, 1957. [Mr Maling, unintentionally, no doubt, misrepresents our reference to Dr. Bell. We did not quote her opinion on fluoridation but on the findings of Roholm. If Mr Maling quotes Roholm as an authority on one point he can hardly reject Roholm’s authority where it is inconvenient. —Ed., “The Press.”]

Sir, —“In the interests of accuracy” I must point out that you have misconstrued my meaning in the first part of my letter of August 23 in yet another bf your inimitable footnotes, which, like Tennyson’s brook, could go on for ever in further, no doubt unconscious, misinterpreting, so I will say finally that I accept your explanation that “you misread the commission’s report’’ when you inaccurately attributed a certain highly coloured phrase to Sir Rudolph Peters, through, it would appear, your failure to take the “elementary precaution” of “verifying” this statement before printing it.—Yours, etc., A. WILKINSON. August 26, 1957.

Sir, —I wish to thank Mrs A. Wilkinson, through you, for agreeing in the end to let you print what turns out to be Sir Rudolph Peters’s secretary> letter, showing (plainly) that he dislikes being misquoted, and (politely) that he sees how Mrs Wilkinson was misled. Let me now assure her that, when in controversy I fall into some fault that shames me, I shall express my shame and regret; but no shame attaches to anonymity within your careful supervision. To what, that I have said? To the effect, in angering Mrs Wilkinson and her anonymous • champion, “Registered Medical Practitioner”? Never mind: thanks to her again, and to you.—Yours, etc., CHEESEMONGER. August 26, 1957.