U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for January 4: Precious Bodily Fluids
Profile America — Wednesday, January 4th. At the beginning of this month 50 years ago, the first fluoridation law in the U.S. went into effect. Connecticut required fluoridation of public water supplies serving 20,000 or more population, to combat tooth decay. The requirement was extended to the whole state later that year. Water fluoridation began in 1945, when the cities of Newburgh, New York, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, began adding sodium fluoride to their public water systems. Today in the U.S., there are 1.2 million miles of water supply lines. Some 102-million of America’s 116-million occupied housing units are connected to public water lines. As most urban areas fluoridate their water, some three quarters of the U.S. population have such treated community water on tap. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.
Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotion of the U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics and accounts drawn from cited non-Census sources are employed for illustrative or narrative purposes, and are not attested to by the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for “Audio” in the “Library” pull-down menu).
Note from FAN: This title of this press release is either a kick-in-the-teeth to those fighting fluoridation or the author has quite a sense of humor. The term “Precious Bodily Fluids” comes from the 1964 movie, Dr. Strangelove, which contained a highly successful PR scenario for fluoridationists. Ronald Bailey wrote in an article titled, “Impurifying our precious bodily fluids”:
In the 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, General Jack D. Ripper launches a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union to stop the Communist infiltration that he fears will “sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.” In the 1960s, moviegoers instantly recognized that Ripper’s character was a parody of a right-wing paranoid. It was a leftist highbrow swipe at the John Birch Society’s (JBS) opposition to the campaign to fluoridate community water supplies in the 1950s. The JBS opposed the fluoridation of public water supplies on the grounds that it is an involuntary mass medical treatment that violates individual rights… Reason.com, December 5, 2001
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