fluoride," which is fully justified because calcium fluoride is in itself insoluble; and, secondly, because the method under which nature effects a solution is unknown to scientists.

We shall not speculate just how nature effects either the solution or the extraction. The simple fact we must keep in mind is that the fluorides manufactured artificially are totally different in their toxic activities. They are infinitely more poisonous and destructive to life than the fluorides referred to as "natural."

With this as an established fact, the great opposition to what is represented as fluoridation is the thought of permitting authorities to substitute the commercial grade of raw fluorides and dissolve this in the public drinking water in lieu of the "natural" or "conditioned" fluorides. The purpose of this bill is to prevent and make it illegal or unlawful for anyone to dissolve any compound containing fluorine in the drinking water; and it is on this account that I request that this committee approve the resolution in question and recommend to Congress its passage.

Doctors of medicine authorized to practice are familiar with the therapeutic effects of drugs and medicines as well as toxicology and dosage. In a period of many years of practicing pharmacy, I have not come across any record or found any evidence showing that doctors prescribe or make use of any fluoride compound as an internal medicine. The literature is quite extensive concerning fluorides but is practically silent when it comes to describe its therapeutic value for human ingestion-the safe does that can be taken internally without serious or harmful result. But every medical man knows that to obtain the greatest result from any drug or medicine it is important to remember, especially in connection with fluorines, that more fluorides will be retained if it is given in small multiple doses than when a similar quantity is given in a small number of larger doses. A great deal has been written about the quantity of fluorides proposed to be used and that the individual dose is exceedingly small and on account of that no deleterious effect is found. It is proposed to limit the quantity to 1.2 parts per million, which is considered infinitestimal, but it is well for this committee to remember that the highest authorities in the land agree that one part per million is the cause of endemic fluorosis with a marked tendency to mottling of the teeth. It is because fluorides like the iodides, the mercurial preparations, and the salts of heavy metals possess the arbitrary quality of accumulating in the system, and in the case of the fluorides, they will combine with the calcium in the bones and teeth and finally flow over into the soft tissues with injurious consequences.

The introduction of this legislation is intended to meet the challenge of the Department of Health, Welfare, and Education, which will be referred to hereinafter as the Federal Board of Health, as this is the bureau that is responsible for the introduction on a national scale any fluoride compound to be dissolved in public drinking water and commonly referred to as "fluoridation." It is a proposal introduced simultaneously with the former administration's attempt to introduce to America a policy which has become recognized as "socialized medicine." In the beginning, it was not the intention, however, to introduce the fluorides in the public drinking water or make it compulsory that every individual be obliged to consume the drug. The first original attempt to use the raw fluorides was described in one of the public documents, GPO-0-813330. This was a method of using a fluoride therapy not by feeding it to the child as a sodium fluoride solution but was recommended for topical application, and the literature stated that "for the first time in history a practical method for the prevention of teeth decay that can be applied on a group basis has been introduced. Tests so far have shown that out of every 10 teeth that might otherwise decay, 4 may be saved by a new preventive method." Apparently, it had not yet been called to the attention of the Public Health Board that the quantity of sodium fluoride used in tropical application would be very insignificant indeed and would under no circumstances solve the problem confronting the concerns burdened with very large waste piles of cryolite residues saturated more or less with fluorine. Sometime subsequent to the recommendation of the topical use of fluorides, there was a change in the minds of the members of the Federal Health Board. Although they had hailed the topical application as the greatest discovery in history, they quickly united, as the minutes of their meetings indicate, on selling the American public on dissolving the fluorides in the drinking water and that every person irrespective of age or physical condition ingest the fluorides, although they freely admitted that no possible benefit could be derived by anyone except those in the age group of from 1 to 10 years.

You will understand from this statement that the proposal of fluoridation is not in itself a health measure or a health program as represented. It is pure politics; and, as such, it has met with considerable success as, according to their own figures, they now have practically a thousand communities aggregating some 10 million people daily drinking fluoride solution and consuming foods that have been cooked in it. It would take too long to recite the dishonesty and chicancery employed to promote fluoridation, the falsehoods, half-truths, distortions and evasions, the rigged endorsements and carefully engineered public demand. There is evidence to show that the proponents of fluoridation have tried desperately to secure public approval and to put the proposition across on a grand scale before the people realize the inherent dangers in the whole evil undertaking.

The first step was apparently to set up a plan which would conceal the true facts from the public and lend it a veneer of respectability by instituting several proving grounds or test areas whereby after 10 years they could prove conclusively that fluorides in the drinking water were beneficial and reduced the incidence of caries in the young age group. But even with this small attempt there arose considerable public opposition. Consequently, the Federal Health Bureau, instead of waiting for the results of the 10 years' experiments and trials, began to forcibly introduce fluoridation on a national scale. For this purpose, they made the various State boards of health and dental associations not only their ready tool to carry out their sinister purpose, but the boards of health and dental associations became their captives and have been working hand in glove with the Federal Health Bureau in their effort to fluoridate the American public. There are, of course, a great many individual dentists, prominent men, who are opposed to this form of mass medication. Many of them have dared to voice their opinion and hostility to the whole program. They have helped greatly to arouse the public against the whole plan.

It has not been brought to our attention that any of our State board of health or the Federal Bureau has ever made a definite statement that by ingesting daily a fluoride that anybody past the age of 12 or 15 years could or would receive any or the slightest benefit from this medication. When you take into consideration that only 5 percent of the Nation's public water supply is used in the kitchen for cooking or for drinking, and as only the children between the ages of 1 to 10 admittedly are the only group that could receive any benefit, it means that only half of 1 percent of the total fluoride used can be used effectively. In other words, out of every $100 of tax money 50 cents will be used for the proponents' good purpose the balance, $99.50 will be wasted and go down the drain.

Although this may seem like a terrific waste of public funds, the American people would be willing and could well afford to do it providing they were assured of definite benefits for their children or for themselves. Unfortunately, that is not the case; but, instead, we have embarked upon a program that violates man's greatest experience, viz to keep the public water supply pure, wholesome, and potable. Fluoridation is mass medication on a grand scale ostensibly to accomplish a reduction of the incidence of caries of the very young, but it is mass medication and provided it is found to be legal or not made illegal, we may then have opened the way to use the various public water supplies throughout the country for further experiments in medication in such well known human ailments as rheumatism, high blood pressure, diabetes and anemia.

In order to save space, or rather for lack of space, the customary method of inserting the origin, the documentary evidence or reference after each statement or paragraph, I have reluctantly dispensed with, but will supply upon request to proper parties the origin and full authentic information concerning every statement made.

The following facts appearing below are taken from:

Investigations and research by physiologists and biochemists, professors of medical colleges, M. I. T., engineers.

The hearing before Hon. Dr. Miller and other Members of Congress. Opinions and court decisions and testimony by experts and scientists at trials in the courts of law.

Reference books, medical literature, documents, scientific papers, medical dictionaries, encyclopedias, pamphlets, booklets, scientific articles, United States dispensatory.

Books on chemistry, pharmacological therapeutics by Drs. Goodman and Gil

man.

Papers from Professor Taylor of the University of Texas, Dr. Cristinai, Drs. Smith of Tucson, riz., Charles Eliot Perkins, Washington, D .C., biochemist, Dr. Charles A. Brusch of the Cambridge Medical Center, Dr. V. O. Hurme of the Forsythe Infirmary, Dr. Leo Spira of New York.

"Sodium fluoride is a general protoplasmic poison."

"Hydrofluoric acid produces a vesication and deep, progressive destruction of

tissue."

"Dangerous symptoms have been reported in man from 0.25 gms. of sodium fluoride."

"Fluoride poisoning tends to lower the calcium of the plasma."

"Fluorides are strongly inhibitory to some enzymes."

"The addition of 0.4 percent of sodium fluoride renders shed blood noncoagulable."

"Sodium fluoride depresses the respiration of finely divided muscles." "Lipase is inhibited by N. A. F. 1: 5000."

"It is toxic to nerves."

"Endemic fluorosis is a serious problem in Argentina."

"It has not yet been demonstrated that the addition of raw fluorides to the water supply has the same effect on children living continuously for the first 12 years of life in fluoride areas."

"If caries do start in mottled teeth it spreads rapidly."

"The changes in human teeth consists of chalky white patches often pitted and eroded."

"Bone changes are seen especially with industrial exposure to the dust of cryolite or phosphate rock."

"Nonfatal doses when ingested continously cause general cachexia and inhibition of growth."

"In lower animals, analogous changes occur in teeth and the bones become hard, fragile, or brittle."

"Marconi reported severe acute parenchymatous nephritis or chronc poisoning of guinea pigs with fairly large doses of fluoride."

"Fluorine is not and cannot be effectively used for the purpose of sterilizing the water."

"It remains in the water and a rise in temperature accelerating evaporation leaves the fluorine unaffected and increases the concentration."

"Fluoridation will not cure dental caries nor prevent it entirely even in the young-age group which it is designed particularly to serve."

"We cannot escape the conclusion that fluoridation is a form of medication." "Damaging to the brain and nerve cells."

"Harmful to the reproductive organs with the resultant lowering of the birth rate."

"Affects the thyroid gland and damages the liver."

"Creates a high incidence of bone fractures."

"Some of the highest life expectancies are reported from the regions of the globe with the least fluorine in the soil or water.'

"There is no disagreement about the fact that fluorine is a protoplasmic poison."

"Since nerve function is not completely independent of the influence of calcium exchange, and since the intake of fluorine, in turn, has some influence upon the utilization of calcium, it would seem that there is a good theoretical basis for instituting upon some study of the role of fluorides from the neurologists' viewpoint."

"Fluorides are violent poisons to all living tissue because of their precipitation of calcium."

"They cause fall of blood pressure, respiratory failure, and general paralysis." "Since all living processes occur in matter in the colloidal state, many pathological conditions, even probably insanity, results directly from disturbance of the colloidal state."

"It is an established fact that the fluorides cause breaking down of protein and disturb the colloidal state."

"To me it is unthinkable that the Public Health Service should recommend universal medication of water for everyone."

"I have repeatedly produced clear and conclusive evidence that proves fluorine can and does play an important part in promoting the first stage of cancer and in accelerating the second stage."

"The results show no change in the incidence of cancer, but rather indicates a shorter life span in the mice receiving the fluoridated water." "The effect of fluorine on the human body is very little known."

"The scientific knowledge is very limited."

"The main thing to remember about fluorides is that they are protoplasmic poison, and they have never been medically approved."

"Extensive pharmaco-dynamic research from reliable sources leaves us speechless when we think of a plan to fluoridate the water of the entire Nation." "It can only be classified as mass murder."

"These are some of the important conclusions: Sodium fluoride in small repeated doses may affect digestion by interference with enzyme action."

"May affect heart muscles by alteration of the heart solutions, calcium change." "May affect urinary tract and eventually cause uremia."

"May give rise to aplastic anemias, causes incoagulability of the blood, attracts calcium."

"May cause serious bone change, precipitation of calcium."

"May induce many serious and varied nervous manifestations."

"Cause psychic and motor disturbances."

"All individuals may be allergic to some *** that allergy is a biological alteration of the cell protoplasm. Fluorides are classified as protoplasmic poisons."

"Fluorine affects all parts of the body causing hardening of the tissues, osteomalacia of the bones, otosclerosis of the ears, sclerosis of the arteries."

"The toxic affect of fluorine increases as the temperature rises, a fact that is noted in the pamphlet of the American Dental Association."

"Since fluorine plays no useful part in human metabolism, it is false to claim, as some advocates do, that failure to put fluorine into the drinking water deprives children of something they need."

"Artificial fluoridated water tends to aggravate condition in people afflicted with goiter."

"It is the conclusion of reputable physiologists that the total effects of fluorine upon the human system is harmful."

"Mass medication of the whole population by means of fluoridation does not take into account the fact that every human being differs from every other, and what may not seriously harm one may kill another."

"High humidity increases the toxic effect of fluorine."

"The commercial inorganic sodium fluoride or fluosilicate contains minute quantities of many other ingredients."

"It is safe to say that fluoridation is mass medication without parallel in the history of medicine."

It would be possible under the circumstances to continue listing objections of vital importance against the use of fluorides in any quantity whatsoever. I want to repeat that fluoridation is definitely not a health program; it is political in every sense of the word. The Public Health Bureau has prostituted its high office and has embarked on a program which, if carried to its ultimate, might endanger the health and welfare of the whole Nation.

Placing of vast quantites of a deadly poison adjacent to or in close proximately to the public water supply is in itself filled with the greatest risk; and, it is the opinion of a vast number of people in America that such quantity of poison, with its great potentiality for damage and permanent harm, should be forbidden by Federal law.

I respectfully submit the above for your consideration.

LAW OFFICES, CHARLES C. DEUBEL, Jr.,
Newark, N. J., May 15, 1954.

Hon. CHARLES A. WOLVERTON,

House Office Building, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: I am greatly concerned over the fluoridation of our drinking water. I have opposed it locally (I am a village trustee at South Orange, N. J.) and will oppose it statewide and nationwide because I am fearful of it from a national security point of view.

I have studied this fluoridation for the purpose of making a decision on it for my community, and I can't understand the great pressure for its advocacy by governmental agencies and dental societies. I am suspicious of this pressure.

If it were such a good thing then pressure would not be needed. Why, why therefore, are the proponents trying to force it upon an unwilling and in most cases, an unknowing public?

First of all, if I or any other citizen believes that fluoridation is good for his children's teeth, we can go to any dentist and have it applied or a treatment rendered. Why, if I can do this, de we have to force it on all of the public? Secondly, fluoride is a poison and while allegedly not deleterious immediately in the portions advocated for use, it is certain that an overdose is lethal. Why risk a lethal poison in our water systems? That is giving our enemy the opportunity of poisoning and killing thousands of our people with the one bullet of an overdose of fluoride in our water systems. This thought disturbs me no end. During the last war I was an agent in the Counterintelligence Corps. One of our jobs was security of our military installations. In that our first concern was always the water tower and/or water distribution system. With fluoride readily available, and with the machinery set up for its entry into the water systems of the Nation, we would have a national security risk far greater than the atom bomb. How can we be so foolish as to give our enemy such an advantage? The overpowering of the man in charge of entering the fluoride into the system, the infiltration of an enemy into that job, or the surreptitious entry of an overdose of fluoride into our water would kill half of our population before we knew what was wrong because it cannot be detected, it has no smell and has no taste.

Thirdly, putting this security risk aside for the moment, consider what the toxic effect of fluoride even in the small amounts advocated, will have on our people in 10 or 20 years hence. No one knows. The tests to date do not prove that it will have no deleterious effect. It is only in an experimental stage. We must positively know that it will not have a deleterious toxic effect on one single citizen. Unless we know this, we cannot risk it by impressing it on all citizens.

I say, if people want it, let them go to their own dentist to get a treatment, but do not force it on all people for the alleged benefit of children just getting their second teeth. How can we ever justify these grave national risks when only a segment of our child population could possibly benefit and when even that benefit is not proven conclusively?

Please give serious consideration to these things. Sure, you and I are both for progress, but certainly not at the risk of people's health and lives.

Please support H. R. 2341 which will outlaw the use of fluoride in water for general use in hospitals, post offices, and military installations.

Please vote against H. R. 7397 which would give the Surgeon General a free hand over the use of fluoride. This could lead to national disaster.

Respectfully yours,

CHARLES C. DEUBEL, Jr.

MEDICAL EVIDENCE AGAINST FLUORIDATION OF PUBLIC WATER SUPPLIES

(By George L. Waldbott, M. D., Detroit, Mich.)

NOTE. Dr. Waldbott has published more than 100 scientific papers on original research on various phases of allergy, and one book entitled "Contact Dermatitis." Dr. Waldbott is the vice president of the American College of Allergists, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and of the American Academy of Allergists, as well as of other national and international societies in his specialty.

Health and dental groups introduced the project of adding fluorides to the domestic water supplies because a lowered incidence of dental caries was observed in areas where fluorides occurred in the water naturally.

May I preface my remarks by explaining why I am interested in this subject. As an allergist, I have seen much serious trouble in allergic patients caused by indiscriminate medication. Moreover, the opposition to fluoridation has thus far depended largely upon nonprofessional people for leadership. In general, competent medical men have either been too busy or have not yet given the problem adequate attention to oppose the powerful groups pressing fluoridation. Naturally, the view of a practicing physician like myself differs from that of health officers, research people and dentists.