THE ARCHITECT OF FLUORIDATION IN AUSTRALIA

“Professor Martin’s claim that, although there are nearly two thousand known places in the U.S.A. where water is naturally fluoridated, and that “some have 12 or 13 parts per million—with no adverse effects and with a markedly high standard of dental health,” is simply propaganda without any scientific proof…

The Architect of Fluoridation in Australia

     Professor Noel Martin was the champion of fluoride tablets here in Australia. Before a Royal Commission in Tasmania Martin claimed that tablets taken to the amount of 1.5 mg of fluoride per day in the last six months of pregnancy would improve the teeth of their children remarkably.

Some of Professor Martin’s positions from which he influenced the propagation of fluoridation in Australia were: Dean of Faculty of Dentistry, University of Sydney; member of the Dental Board, NSW; member, Australian Dental Advisory Council; Deputy Chairperson, Australian Dental Examining Committee; member of the NSW Health Commission’s Professional Services Advisory Committee: member of NHMRC’s Dental Health Committee; editor, Dental Journal Australia; dental consultant, World Health Organization; and member of  WHO’s Expert Committee on Dental Health.

“The damage done by this man is still perpetuated by the above listed,

and much quoted organisations…

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Registered at the G.P.O., Melbourne,

for transmission by Post as a Newspaper

“Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”

Vol. 25, No. 16  MELBOURNE, FRIDAY 14th August 1959

[Notice the date]

The New “Scientists”

     One of the most terrifying features of our “Brave New World” is the manner in which so- called scientists are prepared to use blatantly false propaganda to assist Governmental bodies to extend their powers over the individual. A classic case has been brought to our attention in which a prominent Australian advocate of fluoridation, Professor Noel Martin of the Sydney University, answers questions for a West Australian paper.

The Weekend Mail, a Perth newspaper, of June 6, 1959, introduces Professor Martin “as a recognized authority on the control of dental caries by means of fluoridation of water” and invites him to answer a number of questions. In answer to the question, “Will all people on the system get the same dose strength?” Professor Martin said: “It has been conclusively established by the New York School of Engineering that, despite claims to the contrary, there is practically no variation in the distribution of fluoride in water supplies. This is a favorable argument among the ‘antis’ but it has no basis in fact.”

The truth is that the New York School of Engineering has never published any data whatever supporting Professor Martin’s claims. Professor Martin obviously is merely parroting a news release by Dr. Hilleboe, the New York State Health Officer, an active advocate of fluoridation who has been thwarted by the opposition of the water engineers of New York City, who have published data showing that it is impossible to overcome variations in the amount of fluorine in the water at each individual tap. Some of the strongest opposition to fluoridation has come from water engineers. Examination of the files of the Journal of the American Water Works Association reveals the basis of the opposition. In the August 1953, issue of the Journal a census revealed the mounting evidence of the corrosive damage to water equipment. And there were many complaints that “the chemical flow is too free to permit accurate control.”

Investigations in a number of American centres, some of them large, some of them small, have proved beyond all argument that there are tremendous variations in the dosage people would be obtaining from different taps. Graphs compiled by independent investigators have confirmed the water engineers’ views. Sampling tests in Hastings, New Zealand, and in Yass, N.S.W., have also demonstrated considerable variability.

In answer to a question concerning the famous American Medical-Dental Ad Hoc Committee opposing fluoridation, Professor Martin made the remarkable reply that “When these claims were being investigated by the World Health Organization, only two men appeared for these 1500 eminent people—and both were well-known cranks. There is just no documented proof of their claims of toxic elements in one part per million of fluoridated water, or of their other claims. I notice that they use as references for their claims many of the world’s fore- most scientists who are urging fluoridation.”

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Professor Martin’s reply is “remarkable” because the claims of the Ad Hoc Committee have never even been investigated by the World Health Organization, still less refuted. No representatives of the Ad Hoc Committee have ever appeared before the World Health Organization. In fact, the eighteen members of the World Health Organization Executive Board conducted no hearings at all on fluoridation, but a committee of six declared supporters of fluoridation presented a report, which was then authorized for publication.

Commenting on Professor Martin’s complaint that opponents of fluoridation have used as references the work of known supporters of fluoridation, Dr. F. B. Exner, co- author with Dr. G. L. Waldbott of the book The American Fluoridation Experiment., writes in a letter: “As for using the writings of proponents in support of my claims, I do so consistently and deliberately. If I quote Dr. Clive McKay against Dean, the hearer can still choose which ‘authority’ to believe. But when Dean (a fluoridationist) contradicts himself, or misquotes his own data, or publishes data which condemns fluoridation, the proponents cannot very well challenge the source of my material.”

Professor Martin’s claim that, although there are nearly two thousand known places in the U.S.A. where water is naturally fluoridated, and that “some have 12 or 13 parts per million—with no adverse effects and with a markedly high standard of dental health,” is simply propaganda without any scientific proof.
Out of the total number of 1903 centres listed by the American Public Health Service as having natural fluoride in the water, only 282 of these, with a total population of 808,760, have fluoride within the range advocated by the fluoridators as the ideal for preventing tooth decay. There are only four communities listed with more than 8 pmm. of fluoride, with a total population of less than 1500.

These places all have badly fluorised teeth and data concerning teeth has been published for only one centre, Bruneau. And this was the result of an investigation in 1929. There has been no investigation at any time of the general health of the people in these communities. There has been only one study of general health in a high fluoride centre that of Bartlett as compared with Cameron, a low-fluoride centre. This study showed that the death rate in Bartlett was, if the people over 65 in both centres were ignored, six times as high as the corresponding rate in Cameron. Opponents of fluoridation like Dr. Exner do not claim that the difference in death rate was due to fluoride, but to say, “that a study in which a six to one difference is casually dismissed as ‘not significant’ with no investigation or reason, is not a scientific study at all, but merely window-dressing for a propaganda campaign.”

“ Professor Martin, so far from speaking as a scientist, emerges as

a propagandist prepared to distort or ignore truth in

order to advance a totalitarian policy”.