of their environment, regardless of their physical condition, and regardless of their moral atitude-whether or not they wish to take this drug. No one would be able to stop taking it, should he so desire. At the same time, there would be created a false sense of security, a false impression that we do not need to consider the predisposing causes, the bacterial, nutritional nor the hygienic procedures under medical and dental care which are essential for good teeth. This experiment would be expensive, impractical, unconstitutional, and unscientific. It is important that this issue be settled here. It does not belong in a community, because a community is not able to receive the facts on both sides of the issue, and because several communities using the same water supply may disagree on whether or not fluoride should be placed in the water. This is a national problem, because the whole population is to be fluoridated. We must demand the protection to which we are entitled under the Pure Food and Drug Act, which prohibits the contamination of our foods with poison and the pollution of our water supply.

Massachusetts General Laws, chapter 270, section 2, and also chapter 111, section 160, make fluoridation illegal, but appeals to the State official responsible to enforce these laws go unanswered.

We must realize that this is just a wedge and that if we adopt or submit to this type of experimentation, it will be only a forerunner of other measures interfering with our professional, industrial, and ordinary American way of life. If we fail to pass H. R. 2341, known as the Wier bill, we shall be following the customs and experiments of the dictators and the Communists. We shall no longer be freemen.

Mr. PRIEST. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DOLLIVER. Mr. Priest.

Mr. PRIEST. I think with all of your scientific knowledge, you have some sympathy with Members of Congress who sit through these hearings, hearing equally eminent scientists say that certain things are unscientific, and then others come in and say that they are very scientific. I am sure that you can appreciate the provision of a congressional committee that does not have, of course, the time to make the very serious and long-range studies for itself that you do, but must depend in the end, in making its decision, on the weight of the testimony.

It may be that the committee is perhaps more able to decide the constitutional and legal questions involved than they are the scientific questions involved, and as you well are aware, the scientists themselves seem to be considerably divided on this basic question.

I just want to ask you one technical question. I have studied a little chemistry at one time. On page 1 of your statement there is an expression there, a word, that does not mean anything to me, and perhaps it should. I know you can well explain it. It is down about the fourth paragraph, the word "covalent"-covalent bonds. You state: "Calcium fluoride is held together by covalent bonds which gives it a certain chemistry property."

That sentence does not mean anything to me, and I would like for you to explain it to me, please.

Dr. BRUSCH. There is a difference between artificial inorganic sodium fluoride and natural calcium fluoride or calcium phosphofluoride. Calcium phospho-fluoride is found in plants. The plant derives its fluoride from the soil and converts it into calcium fluoride or calcium phospho-fluoride. When man or animal consumes this plant life the fluoride is taken up in this form. This natural form is held together by covalent bonds, meaning that nature has caused a union or combination between the calcium and the fluoride that makes it difficult to be broken down and consequently only slightly soluble; 0.0016 grams is soluble in 100 cubic centimeters of water.

This is not readily ionizable; that is, it does not disperse readily in solution. It is not as toxic. On the other hand, artificial sodium fluoride, which is produced as a byproduct, is not held together as strongly as nature's method. It has no covalent bonds; therefore it disperses readily in solution.

It is highly ionizable and toxic; 4 grams will dissolve in 100 cubic centimeters of water (2,500 times more than natural). It is not found in plant or animal in this form. When taken into the system the fluorine combines with calcium or other metals. One glass of artificial fluoridated water (1:1M) contains 25 milligrams hydrofluoric acid. This is one reason why we can take so much of the natural fluorides daily and not be affected as readily as we would be by taking in minute doses of artificial sodium fluoride 1: 1M to 2:1M.

Calcium fluoride is the form that is found in the body. To the body sodium fluoride is an unnatural combination which the body has to break down. The fluoride joins with body calcium and is carried by the blood stream to the body cells. Some penetrates the cells and some does not. The amount ingested and the individual susceptibility determines the toxicity to the system.

Mr. PRIEST. Thank you sir, that is all.

Mr. BEAMER. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that that is the longest definition of an eight-letter word I ever heard.

Mr. PRIEST. As I gather, then it is your contention and that of your organization that natural fluorine is not as detrimental, from your viewpoint, as when artifically added because of the difference in solubility.

Dr. BRUSCH. Yes.

Mr. PRIEST. That is all, thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any further questions? If not, we thank you, Dr. Brusch, for your appearance and for the testimony you have given the committee."

I would like to call attention to the fact that the time available for the proponents is drawing to a close and growing short, and so that if anyone is called upon to define a word, he would probably be serving in the interest of limited time if he would answer as succinctly as possible.

STATEMENT OF MRS. VERA E. ADAMS, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL COMMITTEE AGAINST FLOURIDATION, INC., FORMERLY CITIZENS COMMITTEE ON FLUORIDATION, INC., WASHINGTON, D. C.

The CHAIRMAN. The next witness is Mrs. Vera E. Adams. Mrs. Adams is president of the National Committee Against Fluoridation, Washington, formerly Citizens Committee on Fluoridation. Mrs. Adams.

Mrs. ADAMS. Mr. Chairman, we grew so much we had to change our name to fit our functions.

Mr. Chairman, I have cut my statement and then cut it some more, so that it looks like a game of hopscotch now, but I will try to make it as brief as possible to bring out what I feel I want to bring out especially.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, Mrs. Adams, your statement will be made a part of the record in full and, of course, you will observe the limita

tion as to time, and the clerk will call attention to the time when it has expired.

Mrs. ADAMS. The time has come when the people of this country--a Nation whose very cornerstone is the integrity and liberty of the individual citizen-seems to be faced with the necessity of defending themselves from their own Government in order to preserve that individual liberty. They are forced to defend themselves against a program of mass medication federally instituted, promoted, and financed-the program of fluoridation of our Nation's water supplies. And we who are thus trying to defend ourselves are even being accused of some sort of mercenary motives in our opposition to this compulsory doctoring. We are being asked "Who is furnishing all the money for this campaign against fluoridation?" I will tell you who is furnishing the money. It is just plain, ordinary citizens who are jealous enough of their inheritance of liberty to man the watchtowers, spot danger, and give warning, and the money used in this cause comes out of the pockets of these ordinary, wage-earning citizens. Unfortunately, the sum at their disposal is infinitesimally small compared to the millions which are being poured by the Government into its channels of propaganda.

This committee, which has recently changed its title to National Committee Against Fluoridation, Inc., was organized in May 1952, and made an effort through an appeal to our District Commissioners to obtain at least a delay in introduction of the process here until the totally uninformed residents could learn something of the pros and cons of the subject.

This formal appeal has never been honored with so much as an acknowledgement. And in direct contradiction of the much-emphasized assertion that each city, town, and community must decide this question for itself, the voiceless and voteless taxpayers of the District of Columbia have been absolutely ignored, and were simply assigned the role of guinea pigs in a test case.

As now representing a constantly growing national opposition to fluoridation of drinking water, this committee strongly urges that H. R. 2341, a bill to protect the public health from the dangers of fluoridation of water, be approved by the Congress. We urge this on the following grounds:

(1) We believe that fluoridation is unconstitutional.

(2) We believe that fluoridation is illegal.

(3) We are convinced that fluoridation is ethically immoral.

IS FLUORIDATION OF PUBLIC WATER SUPPLIES CONSTITUTIONAL?

The Constitution-the document itself-as written and preserved in our national archives with an almost sacred care, may be compared to the steel structural framework of a building. It is the architectural foundation and skeleton of a living, human edifice planned by the pioneers of liberty in a new country, whose first timid gropings toward self-government under freedom were inspired by an inborn spiritual instinct which is the heritage of every man, and a faint prophecy of the "glorious liberty of the children of God" referred to in the Scriptures (Romans 8:21).

This is something which is utterly intangible, but indestructible, and which no amount of unjust domination or even enslavement can completely crush or kill. It is this spirit of our Constitution which is, or should be, the real governing principle in our free land, and if this spirit is not cherished and preserved, the letter will prove to be an inadequate safeguard. In many ways we seem to be getting further and further away from this spirit, and the lofty principles embodied in it.

As one of our keen newswriters has said:

Most Americans can see that Soviet tyrannies in Eastern Germany and elsewhere menace their own freedom. But fewer can see that growing disregard of principles of human dignity embodied in the American political heritage is a darkening cloud on the Republic's horizon.

In agreement with this is a statement by Judge Elias F. Shamon, special justice of Boston Muncipial Court, which appeared in the Boston Sunday Post of April 4, 1954:

Some of our high court judges are injecting into their decisions a wave of secularistic thinking which is as insidious as the Communist menace. *** There are statements in these decisions which declare that all concepts are relative including truth and morality-and nothing is absolute. * * * The thought that all concepts are relative affects us deeper than the mere logic involved. Our Government is based on the assumption that there are certain absolute concepts, referred to in the Declaration of Independence as the "laws of nature and of nature's God." The concept of God is certainly not a relative one. The concept of truth is certainly not relative, and to say that man is endowed on birth by his Creator with certain inalienable rights is certainly not a relative concept. *** It is totalitarianism to hold that morality and customs are changeable as the times, because if we subscribe to this doctrine, we must say that the will of the majority makes right and what was true yesterday may not be true tomorrow-it all depends upon who is in power. ** It means that the state-the sovereign-can look over a person's home, decide to take it without benefit of eminent-domain proceedings and tell the owner that his rights of property are subordinate to the will of the sovereign.

**

As an example of such an insidious decision is that rather recently given out by a Judge Artl in Cleveland, Ohio, who, in trying to prove fluoridation justified, said:

A person's constitutional right to treat his health as he deems best, and of parents to raise their children as they deem best, and to be free from medical experimentation and to exercise freedom of religion are all subordinated to the common good.

He leaves with us the implication that the "common good" is to be determined and defined solely by the state. In the case of fluorine in drinking water, it is the state (alias the Public Health Service) which is decreeing what is for the "common good." One more step, and the state owns the child, and the individual, even as in Russia. We believe that the first amendment to the Constitution is violated by this program of compulsory mass medication and mass prescription. As Dr. Paul Manning has said in his Case Against Fluoridation:

Fluoridation of the public water supply violates the fundamental principle of human rights and dignity-the principle that no person or agency shall have authority over the body of a human being other than himself.

Some of our legislators, in State and city, ars assuming powers which they do not actually and rightfully possess. It is evident that neither the State nor the Federal Government has any possessive right over the body, or mind, of the individual citizen just so long

as that citizen is doing nothing which might endanger the health and well being of other citizens, and so long as there is no emergency which would require the application of special measures.

Will any reasonable person attempt to claim that tooth decay is a national emergency, an epidemic, or even a contagious disease? Let the authorities, under the direct inspiration of the Public Health Service, are seeking to apply emergency tactics and police power to combat it.

Dr. Gordon Leitch, chairman of the public policy committee, Oregon State Medical Society, in the medical journal, Northwest Medicine, for March of this year, referring to the fallacious statement that fluoridation is basically to dental caries as chlorination is to the enteric diseases, such as typhoid fever, has this to say:

It is here the plausible comparison breaks down, and the efforts of publichealth officials begin to take on a different hue. When they step from the bounds of communicable and contagious disease, they step out of their legitimate, well-recognized field, into the realm of medical therapy, whether preventive or curative, where the rights of individuals are of paramount importance and far transcend the interest of the public. Police power of the state, from which stems public-health authority, has no place in the prevention or treatment of a disease which harms only the victim thereof.

In the Hastings Law Journal, volume III, spring issue 1952, in an article Comments-Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies, by James B. Thompson, we have the following:

Pound, in Interests of Personality (28 Harvard Law Review 343, 349, 355, 1915), classified this inalienable right of the individual as "interests of personality-the individual and spiritual existence." He divides the interests in the physical person into five categories: "Immunity of the body from direct or indirect injury; preservation and furtherance of bodily health and immunity of the will from coercion; freedom of choice and judgment as to what one will do." These three have long been recognized. The other two are products of the progress of civilization, namely: "Immunity of the mind and nervous system from direct or indirect injury, and the preservation and futherance of mental health; and freedom from annoyance which interferes with mental poise and comfort." *** These interests, within limits, shall be recognized legally and given effect through the force of the state. It would seem that if it was up to the state to give force and effect to these rights, it should not be allowed to invade them itself. Such seems to be the case with fluoridation.

In the case of Tomlinson v. Armour & Co. (75 N. J. L. 748, 70 Atl. 311, 317), the court said:

Among the most fundamental of personal rights, without which man could not live in a state of society, is the right of personal security, including the "preservation of a man's health from such practices as may prejudice or annoy (Blackstone's Comm. vol. 1, 129-134)-a right recognized, needless to say, in almost the first words of our written constitution (constitution of New Jersey, art. 1, p. 1).

it."

In spite of the fact that this can be proved to be a federally conceived, promoted and financed program, we are often told that it is not a Government matter-that each local community must decide for itself, by referendum or vote-whether fluoridation should be adopted or not. We assert that no referendum, or even vote, is competent to define or decide the constitutional rights of each individual in a community. One person may heartily endorse a medicine, but regardless of his faith in it or belief in its efficacy, of how much he may want to recommend it to his neighbor, he does not have any right, or police power, to force that neighbor to take it, either by persuasion, by a voting machine, or by force. The moment he at