1956: Dr. Weston A. Price and Fluoride

🖨️ Print post

Letter to Honorable Paul Martin, Minister of Health, Ottawa, Canada

The following letter was written in 1956 by Russell Pogue, a member of the American Nutrition Society, to the then Canadian Minister of Health, Honorable Paul Martin, Sr. The debate on fluoride continues today, fifty years later, with the proponents for nutrient-dense foods in one camp and those defending the quick fix of fluoride in the other. Dr. Price’s comparison of dietary nutrients and dental health for various population groups is an invaluable guide in the ongoing debate.

Dear Sir:

I am marking the envelope containing this letter “personal” and registering it to insure it will reach the Minister of Health and not be pigeonholed or thrown in the waste basket. . .

When a minister of the crown in a public speech states (as reported in a news broadcast of May 9 [1956]) that he does not understand the opposition of certain laymen to the fluoridation of water, then surely it is the privilege and right of such a layman to write the minister and enlighten him on the reason for their actions and to expect that this information will reach the minister.

It is understandable that the Canadian Department of Health, the counterpart of the United States Department of Public Health, the initiators of this very questionable proposal, should follow the same propaganda line and resort to every means to hoodwink the public and belittle the ever-growing opposition of thinking people to this futile and probably harmful measure; and should also endeavor to shield the minister from everything which might help him understand the other side of this question.

In reading the report of the speech of the editor of the Canadian Dental Association Journal in the Globe and Mail of May 10, one is reminded of the belief of Hitler that the taller the story the more likely it is to be believed. “Fluoridation would reduce the incidence of dental caries from 75 to 80 percent,” says the dental editor. (Not long ago it was 60 percent, soon no doubt it will be 90 or 99 percent.)

It seems to me that the path to understanding is a careful and thoughtful weighing of the evidence, not the weighing of the numbers of people supporting the proposed measure nor the supposed learning of those supporters.

In a letter to and published by the Globe and Mail of March 17, 1956 I threw down a challenge to all the advocates of the fluoridation of water to read and study Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price, DDS, one of the most honoured names of dentistry of the last fifty years, and still retain their faith in the illogical and unscientific procedure of the fluoridation of water as a method to produce any appreciable decrease in the incidence of dental caries or to prove the other symptoms of physical degeneration which accompany a high incidence of dental caries will be in any respect reduced. I throw down the challenge again to the Minister of Health and all his associates in the Department of Health.

Most of the laymen opposing fluoridation, apart altogether from the possible and probable harm in fluoridation, believe it is thoroughly illogical and unscientific. I have not the time nor the space to prove this point here. This is proved conclusively although indirectly by Dr. Price.

Anyone of average intelligence studying Dr. Price’s book, and the tables compiled from his book, realizes that the causes of dental caries are many, not a single cause nor a shortage of a single element (which may or may not be a necessary component of the human body.) In every case, wherever Dr. Price traveled he found those suffering from a high incidence of dental caries (while living in close proximity to their brethren with a low incidence of dental caries) sharing a common water supply with similar fluorine content, were endeavouring to live on a diet terribly deficient in many minerals and vitamins.

The incidence of dental caries among most Canadians lies in the range of the figures given in the second table. It can be justifiably assumed that our diets are as deficient as those poor misguided natives who forsook their native foods for the poorest of the white man’s foods and assumed the white man who appeared to be enlightened in so many things was also enlightened regarding the selection of his food. . .

No person of intelligence can believe that many shortages of minerals and vitamins can be compensated for by the introduction of one element–fluorine–in the liquid diet of man. Any resulting change (and of course there is a hardening of the enamel of the teeth which may to some extent for a certain period reduce the apparent incidence of dental caries) cannot be beneficial to the organism but is in fact illusory and eventually harmful.

In my opinion, the most striking and profound statement in Dr. Price’s book is: “It is very important that in the consideration of the dental caries problem it shall be kept in mind continually, that it is only one of a large group of symptoms of modern physical degeneration and when teeth are decaying other things are going wrong in the body. Fluorine treatment, like dental extractions, cannot be a panacea for dental caries.”

The condition then of the teeth serves as an indicator of the general health and serves as a criterium with which to judge the fitness of parents, the learning and wisdom of the healing professions, the value of our health education programs in our schools and how well departments of health are fulfilling their true function.

According to Michael J. Walsh, ScD, FRIC, president of the American Nutrition Society, “This prevalence of tooth decay is practically universal throughout the United States.”

He then refers to the authoritative publication “Survey of the Literature of Dental Caries,” prepared for the Food and Nutrition Board, Nation Research Council, under the supervision of their committee on dental health (Publication No. 22), National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Washington, DC 1952 which discusses the factors in the diets of people or groups showing an unduly low caries frequency: “In nearly all instances two factors appear: liberal use of so-called natural foods, and restricted use of refined carbohydrates, especially of sugar and sugar products. The first factor, operating chiefly during the developmental and maturation period of the teeth, will most likely produce teeth with a structure having high resistance to decay. . .”

“The second factor shows up in all except a few studies. Decreased caries prevalence has been connected with restriction in intake of sugar and sweets in almost all cases.”

“Correlating the above table with the statement cited and confirmed by much other evidence in the literature, we are safe in concluding that the diets of over 90 percent of our teenagers are excessively supplied with refined carbohydrates and concurrently, are lacking in the essential nutrients needed for growth, development and tissue integrity. We do not have an extensive data of the developmental status of teenagers as we do of their tooth decay status. We do know, however, from school surveys that at least 25 percent of our twelve-year-olds have such obviously visible dental arch defects with unerupted teeth, teeth erupted inside and outside the line of the arch, that orthodontic correction is needed.”

“Furthermore, while we do not have precise figures, we do know that a high percentage of teenagers suffer from a wide variety of medical disease conditions, including allergies, asthmas, hay fever, low metabolic conditions, skin eruption, fatigue, etc.”

“Hence, it is a safe conservative conclusion to say that our teenagers do not have a satisfactory health status, and that their unhealthy status derives, to a large degree, from an inadequate nutritional status.”

In closing, I can assure the Minister of Health that there are many laymen in this country who have as great or greater an enlightened concern for the health of their fellow countrymen as the Minister, or any member of his department or any member of the healing professions, and it is for this very reason that they oppose and will continue to oppose the fluoridation of water.

---

A Comparison of the Diets

(Compiled from Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price, DDS)

Of indigenous groups which have shown a high immunity to dental caries and freedom from degenerative processes with the diets of modernized groups who have forsaken their native diets for the foods of commerce consisting largely of white flour products, sugar, polished rice, jams, canned goods and vegetable fats resulting in loss of this immunity to dental caries and in loss of freedom from degenerative processes. (Figures give the number of times the amount of minerals and vitamins which are found in indigenous diets compared with modernized diets.)

	Minerals				Vitamins
	Ca	P	Fe	Mg	Cu	I	Fat Soluble	Water Soluble
Native- Eskimos	5.4	5.0	1.5	7.9	1.8	49.0	10 plus	large increase
Indians-far North of Canada	5.8	5.8	2.7	4.3	1.5	8.8	10 plus	large increase
Swiss	3.7	2.2	3.1	2.5			10 plus	large increase
Gaelic-Outer Hebrides	2.1	2.3	1.0	1.3			10 plus	large increase
Aborigines or Australia	4.6	6.2	50.6	17.0		Not	10 plus	large increase
New Zealand Maori	6.2	6.9	28.3	23.4		Given	10 plus	large increase
Melanesians	5.7	6.4	22.4	26.4			10 plus	large increase
Polynesians	5.6	7.2	18.6	28.5			10 plus	large increase
Coastal Indians of Peru	6.6	5.5	5.1	13.6			10 plus	large increase
Andean Mountain Indians of Peru	5.0	5.5	29.3	13.3			10 plus	large increase
Cattle Tribes of Interior Africa	7.5	8.2	16.6	19.1			10 plus	large increase
Agricultural Tribes of Central Africa	3.5	4.1	16.6	5.4			10 plus	large increase

Percentages of Teeth Attacked By Dental Caries
in Indigenous and Modernized Groups

Swiss	4.60	29.8	Africans	0.20	6.8
Gaelics	1.20	30.0	Australian Aborigines	0.00	70.9
Eskimos	0.09	13.0	New Zealand Maori	0.01	55.3
Northern Indians	0.16	21.5	Malays	0.09	20.6
Seminole Indians	4.00	40.0	Coastal Peruvians	0.04	40.0 plus
Melanesians	0.38	29.0	High Andes Indians	0.00	40.0 plus
Polynesians	0.32	21.9	Amazon Jungle	0.00	40.0 plus

This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Fall 2000.

🖨️ Print post