[Report 1956] / Abingdon and Faringdon Districts Joint Public Health Committee.

  • Abingdon and Faringdon Districts. Joint Public Health Committee.
Date:
1956
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1956] / Abingdon and Faringdon Districts Joint Public Health Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    8/36 (page 6)
    question “What are the rest of us waiting for?” Since then the number of communities with fluoridation has exceeded .1500. What, in November 1957, are WE waiting for? if, as is suggested, there is any uncertainty of a technical legal nature the sooner it is cleared up and overcome the better. If as is more plausibly said, it is the vocal but largely absurd opposition that is intimidating our leaders a study of its nature would soon show it could be laughed or shamed into insignificance. If we found that half the teeth of our whole child population were being rotted because an undercover army of agents from E. Germany were secretly infecting all our water supplies with a minute germ, any hindrance that prevented us putting a stop to it would be swept away in no time. What we need is for the leaders of all parties to join in a national campaign using all the resources of radio and television, press and cinema which would so readily be available to them as soon as there were a realization of the urgency and greatness of this need. If we continue our policy of delay for another live or more years how are we then going to answer our children who creep like snails unwillingly to the dental chair and say “Yes, 1 was born in the year of the Sputniks, but I’m here because our leaders had not the sense to put our water right. They seemed too busy con- sidering how to drop their aitches”. Perhaps an answer, though a very second best answer, lies hidden in a paragraph in the six-page pamphlet on fluoridation issued by the Ministry of Health in July 1955. It says: — “It could well be argued that any delay in taking general and immediate steps to obtain these benefits for all the child- ren of this country is not justified and, indeed, that the Government have no right to withhold these benefits any longer while studies are carried out in a few places to demonstrate the method to be used. If dental disease were as dramatic in its effects as, for example, cholera, the public would certainly make demands of this kind and, in face of the enormous amount of work which has already been done and which has proved the value and the safety of fluoridation, if such demands were to be made it would be exceedingly difficult to refuse them.” Well! What ARE we waiting for? Your obedient servant, NORMAN PARFIT, Medical Officer of Health. (: