“Many people, particularly scientists, believe that we are suffering in the U.S. from a national epidemic of irrationality—what Senator J.W. Fulbright of Arkansas has called the ‘swinish blight of anti-intellectualism.’ Fluoridation of public water supplies has been recommended by an impressive list of scientific organizations. However, from the beginning there has been opposition. The anti-fluoridation argument has three main themes: 1. fluoridation is an experiment which has not proved its value and may hold unknown dangers; 2. fluorides are poisons; 3. treatment by public agencies of the water that everyone must drink is a step in the direction of socialized medicine and an invasion of individual rights.”

—Scientific American, February 1955

*Original online at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fluoridated-water-criticized-as-socialized-medicine/

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