Expertise, health, and popular opinion: Debating water fluoridation, 1945-80

Canadian Historical Review

Volumn 89, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 345-371

  Carstairs, Catherine ^a   Elder, Rachel ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH   (Canada)

^b NONE

Author keywords

Experts; Fluoridation; Medicine; Populism; Science

Indexed keywords

EID: 77954025435     PISSN: 00083755     EISSN: 17101093     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3138/chr.89.3.345     Document Type: Review

References (155)

1. John C. Burnham, 'American Medicine's Golden Age: What Happened to It?' Science 21, no. 5 (1982): 1474;
2. Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982), 335 and 371.
3. Barbara Clow, Negotiating Disease: Power and Cancer Care 1900-1950 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001), 161;
4. Mary Louise Adams, The Trouble with Normal: Postwar Youth and the Making of Heterosexuality (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997);
5. Mona Gleason, Normalizing the Ideal: Psychology, Schooling, and the Family in Postwar Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999);
6. Chris Dummitt, The Manly Modern: Masculinity in Postwar Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007).
7. L.B. Kuffert, A Great Duty: Canadian Responses to Modern Life and Mass Culture (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003), 108.
8. Paul Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985);
9. Michael Egan, Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival: The Remaking of American Environmentalism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997);
10. Robert D. Johnston, ed., The Politics of Healing: Histories of Alternative Medicine in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Routledge, 2004);
11. James Whorton, Before Silent Spring: Pesticides and Public Health in Pre-DDT America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974);
12. Donald Worster, Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideals, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
13. An exception is Heather MacDougall, Activist and Advocates: Toronto's Health Department, 1883-1983 (Toronto: Dundurn, 1990), 265-70, which looks at the decision to implement water fluoridation in Toronto.
14. In the US the literature includes Gregory Field, 'Flushing Poisons from the Body Politic: The Fluoride Controversy and American Political Culture, 1955-1965,' in The Sixties Revisited, ed. Jürgen Heideking, Jörg Helbig, and Anke Ortlepp (Heidelberg: Winter Verlag: 2001), 469-85;
15. Brian Martin, Scientific Knowledge in Controversy: The Social Dynamics of the Fluoridation Debate (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991);
16. Frank McClure, Water Fluoridation: The Search and the Victory (Bethesda, MD: US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1970);
17. Donald R. McNeil, The Fight for Fluoridation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1957);
18. Gretchen Reilly, '"Not a so-called democracy": Anti-Fluoridationists and the Fight over Drinking Water,' The Politics of Healing;
19. Gretchen Reilly, 'The Task Is a Political One: The Promotion of Fluoridation,' in Silent Victories: The History and Practice of Public Health in Twentieth-Century America, ed. John W. Ward and Christian Warren (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 323-42;
20. Gretchen Reilly, 'This Poisoning of Our Drinking Water': The American Fluoridation Controversy in Historical Context, 1950-1990 (PhD diss., George Washington University, 2001);
21. Christopher Sellers, 'The Artificial Nature of Fluoridated Water: Between Nations, Knowledge and Material Flows,' Osiris 19 (2004): 182-200.
22. Burnham, 'American Medicine's Golden Age,' 1478;
23. Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine;
24. James C. Whorton, Nature Cures: The History of Alternative Medicine in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
25. For a loose account of the turn against 'rationality,' see David Frum, How We Got Here: The 1970s (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 115-23.
26. During these years the Canadian Dental Association kept track of every referendum in Canada: 'Fluoridation in Canada, 1961,' Journal of the Canadian Dental Association (hereafter JCDA) 27, no. 5 (1961): 318;
27. 'Fluoridation in Canada, 1962,' JCDA 28, no. 5 (1962): 520;
28. 'Fluoridation in Canada, 1963,' JCDA 29, no. 6 (1963): 406;
29. 'Fluoridation in Canada, 1964,' JCDA 30, no. 6 (1964): 379;
30. 'Fluoridation in Canada, 1965,' JCDA 31, no. 9 (1965): 591;
31. 'Fluoridation in Canada, 1966,' JCDA 32, no. 11 (1966): 671.
32. H. Trendley Dean, 'Endemic Fluorosis and Its Relation to Dental Caries,' Public Health Reports 53, no. 33 (1938): 1443-52;
33. Forest Ray Moulton, ed., Dental Caries and Fluorine (Washington: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1946);
34. 'Brantford Reports on Fluoridation,' Canadian Journal of Public Health 47 (1956): 123.
35. Ontario, Report of the Committee Appointed to Inquire Into and Report Upon the Fluoridation of Municipal Water Supplies (Toronto, 1961), 96-102.
36. McNeil, The Fight for Fluoridation, 65-84.
37. William L. Hutton, Bradley W. Linscott, and Donald B. Williams, 'The Brantford Fluorine Experiment,' Canadian Journal of Public Health 42, no. 3 (1951): 81-7;
38. McClure, Water Fluoridation, 112-28.
39. 'Statement of the Research Committee of the C.D.A. regarding Fluoridation of Water Supplies,' JCDA 15, no. 3 (1951): 165;
40. 'Supplementary Statement on Fluoridation of Water Supplies by Research Committee,' JCDA 16, no. 3 (1952): 149;
41. 'Fluoridation of the Communal Water Supplies for the Partial Prevention of Tooth Decay,' Journal of the Canadian Medical Association 68 (1953): 401-2;
42. 'Memorandum on Fluoridation of Communal Water Supplies for the Partial Prevention of Tooth-Decay: Avoidance of Hazards,' Canadian Medical Association Journal 69 (1953): 214;
43. L.B. Pett to W.T.C. Berry, 18 Nov. 1959, pt 2, file 386-4-13, vol. 933, RG 29, Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC).
44. Editorial, 'Water Fluoridation,' JCDA 19, no. 4 (1953): 203-5;
45. Editorial, 'Fluoridation's Irresponsible Opposition,' JCDA 19, no. 10 (1953): 561-2;
46. Editorial, 'Science or Fanaticism: Our Nation's Choice,' JCDA 20, no. 9 (1954), 500-1;
47. 'Fluoridation Wins Full Endorsement of Dental Group,' Globe and Mail, 19 Oct. 1953;
48. 'Medical Association Supports Fluoridation,' Globe and Mail, 16 June 1954;
49. P.D. MacRae and C.R. Castaldi, 'Fluoridation: Safe . . . Effective . . . Inexpensive,' Health (Oct. 1964): 16.
50. 'Dental Health' (for Health League of Canada), 5 Jan. 1960, in pt. 2, file 440-8-2, vol. 907, RG 29, LAC.
51. James M. Mather, letter to the editor, Canadian Medical Association Journal 80 (1959): 918.
52. In this, anti-fluoridation had much in common with other health controversies, including anti-vaccination movements. Katherine Arnup, '"Victims of Vaccination?": Opposition to Compulsory Immunization in Ontario, 1900-1990,' Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 9 (1992): 159-76;
53. Paul Bator, 'The Health Reformers versus the Common Canadian: The Controversy over Compulsory Vaccination against Smallpox in Toronto and Ontario, 1900-1920,' Ontario History 75, no. 4 (1983): 348-73.
54. H.W. Lohse, 'Why Pay $200 000 for a $25 "Cure,"' Globe and Mail, 30 Mar. 1954;
55. H.W. Lohse, 'Fluorine in Pills, Not Water,' Globe and Mail, 15 Feb. 1954;
56. William A. Costain, letter to the editor, Canadian Medical Association Journal 83 (1960): 83;
57. William A. Costain, letter to the editor, Canadian Medical Association Journal 81 (1959): 954;
58. C.P. Harrison, 'Fluoridation and Freedom,' Canadian Medical Association Journal 81 (1959): 763-5;
59. J.D. Keith Palmer, letter to the editor, Canadian Medical Association Journal 88 (1963): 995.
60. K.A. Baird, 'Fluoridate? First Weigh the Facts,' Canadian Doctor (1969), in pt. 2, file 6769-3-1, acc. no. 1996-7/698, RG 29, LAC.
61. Jean Marier, Dyson Rose, and M. Boulet, 'Accumulation of Skeletal Fluoride and Its Implications,' Archives of Environmental Health 6, no. 5 (1963): 64-671;
62. J.R. Marier and Dyson Rose, Environmental Fluoride (Ottawa: National Research Council, 1971).
63. Lloyd Bowen, 'A Century of Service,' Canadian Dental Association 100th Anniversary, http://www.cda-adc.ca/-files/cda/about-cda/history/HSPart7.pdf;
64. M. Florence, 'A Successful Fluoridation Campaign in Ottawa,' Health (Aug. 1965): 30.
65. 'New Help for Fluoridation,' Health (Summer 1974), page number obscured.
66. The provinces providing financial support for fluoridation included Nova Scotia (as of 1966), Quebec (as of 1967), New Brunswick (for much of the 1970s), Newfoundland (as of 1971), and Manitoba (in the late 1970s). 'Water Fluoridation in Canada: A Status Report 1980,' Canadian Dental Association Journal 47, no. 2 (1981), n.p.
67. 'Fluoridation Plebiscite "A Lot of Nonsense,"' Winnipeg Tribune, 28 Feb. 1962;
68. 'A Tale of Two Cities,' JCDA 21, no. 3 (1955): 179-80.
69. See, for example, Department of National Health and Welfare, 'Fluoridation: One in a Million' (Ottawa, 1955);
70. Canadian Dental Association, 'Facts Favour Fluoridation,' n.d. [mid-1950s?], in file 1, mss. 605, location 568-E-3 file 1, City of Vancouver Archives (hereafter CVA).
71. Walter Nagel, 'US Medics' Statement Taken out of Context,' Calgary Herald, 15 Oct. 1966. See also briefs 32, 36, and 89, Royal Commission Appointed to Inquire Into and Report Upon the Fluoridation of Municipal Water Supplies (hereafter Royal Commission on Fluoridation), box 3, RG 18-140, Archives of Ontario (hereafter AO).
72. Edward Moxey, 'An Open Letter to the Proponents of Fluoridation,' file 21, series 101, location 146-F-4, CVA.
73. The European debates were also heavily influenced by the United States. The only countries in which more than 40 per cent of the population has experienced controlled fluoridation are Australia, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United States. World Health Organization, Nutrients in Drinking Water (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2005), 185.
74. Evelyn Smith to Alderman George Cunningham, 23 Mar. 1955, file 3, series 483, location 35-E-4, CVA.
75. J.V. McAres, 'Look Out for Tomorrow!' Globe and Mail, 12 May 1955;
76. 'Feet of Clay,' Globe and Mail, 27 May 1955.
77. M.L. Pallington, letter to the editor, Globe and Mail, 29 Jan. 1960.
78. K.A. Baird, 'Fluoridate? First Weigh the Facts,' Canadian Doctor, July 1969. Circulated by the Canadian League of Rights. Pt. 2, file 6769-3-1, acc. no. 1996-7/698, RG 29, LAC.
79. Brief 68 submitted by W.J. McCormick, Royal Commission on Fluoridation, box 3, RG 18-140, AO; Allan Muir, 'They may be risking your life,' Liberty Magazine (Sept. 1953), 19, in file 9, series 483, location 35-B-7, CVA.
80. Sellers, 'The Artificial Nature of Fluoridated Water,' 182-200.
81. See, for example, Francis Heyroth, 'Toxicological Evidence for the Safety of the Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies,' American Journal of Public Health 42, no. 12 (1952): 1568-75;
82. McClure, Water Fluoridation, 52-3.
83. Proceedings of the Royal Commission on Fluoridation, 4 May 1960, 432-57, Royal Commission on Fluoridation, box 1, RG 18-140, AO.
84. See also Edward Moxey, The Elder Statesmen, 1967, in file 6, series 20, location 17-G-5, CVA. For arguments that fluoride merely delayed tooth decay, see H.S. Thullier, chairman, Public Relations Committee, Greater Victoria Individual Rights Association, 24 Oct. 1968, file 36, series 483, location 45-C-5, CVA.
85. 'Dental Conditions Affecting Children,' Report to the Canadian Conference on Children 1960 by the Canadian Dental Association, file 440-8-2, box 907, RG 29, LAC.
86. For the argument that fluoride could improve bone health, see the advertising campaign of the pro-fluoridationist side in Calgary in 1966: 'What's Better Than an Apple a Day for Dental Health,' Calgary Herald, 17 Oct. 1966.
87. 'Better Living Object of New City Society,' Globe and Mail, 19 Nov. 1954;
88. Sidney Katz, 'The Bitter, Tragic Battle over Fluoridation,' Maclean's, 16 Apr. 1955, 71.
89. Katz, 'The Bitter, Tragic Battle,' 76.
90. 'A monsieur le ministre de la santé,' pt. 2, file 50-8-4, vol. 1784, RG 29, LAC.
91. Pure Food Guild of British Columbia, 'Save Children from Fluoride,' n.d. [1967-8], in file 6, series 483, location: 45-C-5, CVA.
92. Cynthia Commacchio, '"The Rising Generation": Laying Claim to the Health of Adolescents in English Canada, 1920-1970,' Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 19, no. 1 (2002): 139-78;
93. Doug Owram, Born at the Right Time: A History of the Baby Boom Generation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).
94. Joan McDonald to Ald Mrs Wilkinson and Gentlemen, 12 Feb. 1955, Council Minutes, 14 Feb. 1955, City of Calgary Archives (hereafter CCA). This sentiment echoed in other places as well. See K.D. Beardsall, letter to the editor, Globe and Mail, 27 Mar. 1959.
95. See, for example, brief 29, submitted by Roger Vallèe, Royal Commission on Fluoridation, box 3, RG 18-140, AO.
96. James G. Snell, The Citizen's Wage: The State and the Elderly in Canada, 1900-1951 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 156-85.
97. Lloyd Bowen, memorandum, Aug. 1978, Consumer Reports, pt. 1, file 6769-3-3, box 87, acc. no. 1996-7/698, RG 29, LAC;
98. John A. Yiamouyiannis, 'A Definite Link between Fluoridation and Cancer Death Rate,' pt. 2, file 50-8-4, vol. 1784, RG 29, LAC.
99. See also 'Fluoridation: The Cancer Scare,' Consumer Reports, July 1978, pt. 3, file 6769-3-1, acc. no. 1996-7/698, RG 29, LAC.
100. Victor A. Cecilioni to J.J. Shekter, 18 Apr. 1977, pt. 2, file 50-8-4, vol. 1784, RG 29, LAC; Richard Doll and Leo Kinlen, 'Fluoridation of Water and Cancer Mortality in the U.S.A.,' Lancet 8025 (1977): 1300-3;
101. R.N. Hoover, F.W. McKay, and J.F. Fraumeri Jr, 'Fluoridated Drinking Water and the Occurrence of Cancer,' Journal of the National Cancer Institute 57, no. 4 (1976): 757-68;
102. National Health and Welfare, Fluoridation and Cancer: An Analysis of Canadian Drinking Water Fluoridation and Cancer Mortality Data (Ottawa: National Health and Welfare, 1977).
103. 'Why the Hurry,' Globe and Mail, 5 Feb. 1953.
104. Arnup shows that anti-vaccinationists also made arguments against compulsion at the turn of the century and later in the 1980s. Arnup, '"Victims of Vaccination,"' 159-76.
105. This is from a speech reprinted in Jean-Marc Brunet, Dossier Fluor (Montreal: Éditions du Jour, 1972), 133-9.
106. Provincial Council of Women of British Council, 'Fluoridation,' pt. 2, file 6769-3-1, acc. no. 1996-7/698, RG 29, LAC.
107. 'Fluoride Pills,' Calgary Herald, 8 Sept. 1966;
108. Leslie Morrison, letter to the editor, Calgary Herald, 21 Sept. 1966;
109. K. Pawson, letter to the editor, Calgary Herald, 13 Sept. 1966.
110. Allan N. Risk to the mayor and members of the Municipal Council of the City of Calgary, 27 Oct. 1963, in Fluoridation folder 2, CCA.
111. J.A. Boucher to Mayor Hume, Oct. 1954, file 9, series 483, location 35-B-7, CVA.
112. Department of National Health and Welfare, Fluoridation: One in a Million (Ottawa: National Health and Welfare, 1955).
113. Quebec, Débats de l'asssemblé nationale (19 June 1975), p. 1393 (Hon. Claude Forget, MNA).
114. E.S. Campbell to John Munro, 24 Feb. 1971, pt. 1, file 50-8-4, vol. 1783, RG 29, LAC.
115. Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, dir. Stanley Kubrick, Hawk Films Ltd, 1964.
116. W.B. Herrstrom, 'Twenty-Five Reasons Why Community Water Supplies Should Not Be Fluoridated,' Americanism Bulletin 17 (1951), vol. 237, RG 128, LAC.
117. Katz, 'The Bitter, Tragic Battle,' 20-1, 71-9.
118. Reilly, 'The Task Is a Political One';
119. Reilly, 'This Poisoning of Our Drinking Water,' 63-6.
120. 'Is Fluoridation All a Plot?' Globe and Mail, 23 Mar. 1959;
121. Pierre Berton, 'Dr Watson Kirconnell's Interesting Political Associates,' Toronto Daily Star, 25 Mar. 1961;
122. Pierre Berton and Lotta Demsey, 'Vividly I Recall Horror Tales,' Toronto Star, 31 Mar. 1959.
123. 'River Is Red,' Winnipeg Tribune, Nov. 1961 (date obscured), Winnipeg Tribune Clipping Files, Millennium Library, Winnipeg.
124. G. Monet to Robert Bourassa, 16 June 1972, box 5, fonds Jean-Marc Brunet, Centre d'archives de Montréal, Bibliothèque et archives nationales.
125. See, for example, speech by Lydia Arsens, MLA, BC Legislature, 22 Feb. 1955, circulated by the Pure Food Guild, file 21, series 101, location 146-F-4, CVA. Brian Martin claims that ALCOA stopped producing fluorides in 1952. Martin, Scientific Knowledge in Controversy, 213.
126. The Aluminum Company at Arvida, which had once supplied Brantford's fluorides, stopped selling fluoride in the mid-1950s. D.B. Williams, 'The Fluoridation of Drinking Water,' JCDA 21, no. 12 (1955): 671.
127. Brunet, Dossier Fluor;
128. 'Politics Swings to Oppose Fluoridation,' ECO/LC 2, no. 16 (26 Apr. 1974): 2, in pt 3, file 6769-3-3, box 87, acc. no. 1996-7, RG 29, LAC;
129. Edwin Feeny, 'The People Say,' Toronto Star, 26 Mar. 1961.
130. Ewing states that while he had occasionally served as counsel to ALCOA as part of his work with the law firm Hughes, Hubbard, and Ewing, he was not even aware that they manufactured fluorides. 'Oral History Interview with Oscar R. Ewing,' Harry S. Truman Library & Museum, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/ oralhist/ewing3.htm .
131. Ralph Nader, Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile (New York: Grossman, 1965), helped galvanize a growing consumer movement in the 1960s. Nader also expressed opposition to water fluoridatio n.
132. Edwin Feeny, 'The People Say,' Toronto Star, 26 Mar. 1961.
133. N. Freeluau to the mayor of Vancouver, 2 Mar. 1957, file 1, series 483, location 35-E-4, CVA.
134. W.J. McCormick, 'Fluoridation of Water,' Toronto Star, 31 Dec. 1951.
135. Iris Airth, 'Water Fluoridation,' Globe and Mail, 10 Mar. 1961.
136. Gertrude Fairburn to Marc Lalonde per J.R. Hickman, 13 Sept. 1976, pt. 2, file 50-8-4, vol. 1783, RG 29, LAC.
137. Canadian Dental Association, 'Nature's Way to Fight Tooth Decay,' Nov. 1978, pt. 2, file 6769-3-3, box 87, acc. no. 1996-7/698, RG 29, LAC.
138. K.A. Baird, letter to the editor, Daily Gleaner, 30 Oct. 1967, n.p., in file 6, series 483, location 45-C-5, CVA;
139. 'Fluoride Count Indicates Town Water Safe: Dymond,' Winnipeg Tribune, 30 Oct. 1967, Winnipeg Tribune clipping files, Millennium Library, Winnipeg.
140. Brief by Ruth Golman, an affiliated member of the Pure Food Guild of BC, n.d., pt. 1, file 50-8-4, vol. 1783, RG 29, LAC.
141. Speech by M. Kwasnica, MLA Cut Knife Constituency, Mar. 1974, pt. 3, file 6769-3-1, box 87, acc. no. 1996-7/698, RG 29, LAC.
142. Carole Spindell Farkas, Water Fluoridation: The Human Diet and the Environment (Montreal: Society to Overcome Pollution, 1971).
143. Report for Le Ministre de l'environnement by Le Comité aviseur sur la fluoruration des eaux de consommation (Sainte-Foy: Ministère de l'environnement, Nov. 1979).
144. Egan, Barry Commoner, 47-78.
145. Marier et al., 'Accumulation of Skeletal Fluoride,' 664-71;
146. Marier and Rose, Environmental Fluoride.
147. Jack Hann, 'Environmental Fluoride 1977: A Critique,' pt. 1, file 6769-3-3, box 87, acc. no. 1996-7/698, RG 29, LAC;
148. Canadian Public Health Association, Criteria Document in Support of a Drinking Water Standard for Fluoride (Ottawa: Canadian Public Health Association, 1979);
149. John Lear, 'Documenting the Case against Fluoridation,' Saturday Review, 4 Jan. 1964: 85-92;
150. John Lear, 'New Facts on Fluoridation,' Saturday Review, 1 Mar. 1969, 51-6.
151. Dummitt, Manly Modern.
152. 'Fluoridation - Yes!' Ottawa Citizen, 8 Dec. 1964;
153. Edmonton Election 2007, '1966 Election Results,' http://www. edmontonelection.ca/images/stories/pdf/results/1966.pdf.
154. William A. Gamson, 'The Fluoridation Dialogue: Is It an Ideological Conflict?' Public Opinion Quarterly 25, no. 4 (1961): 526-37;
155. Harvey Sapolsky, 'The Fluoridation Controversy: An Alternative Explanation,' Public Opinion Quarterly 33, no. 2 (1969): 247.