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142  Public Finds Conflicts in Fluoridation Vote
     The Washington Post,  March 22, 1969

     The merits of fluoridation make for one of the most intricate
technical questions ever submitted to popular decision.  In many
communities, the question of fluoridating the water supply has been
too hot for the local authorities to handle, and when taken to the
polls has often lost out.

     The weight of expert opinion (with which I concur) favors
fluoridation for the dental health of children and discounts the
likelihood of any hazard.  Therefore, many sociologists have
interpreted adverse voter reaction as the alienation of the powerless:
"A vote against fluoridation, then, is a vote against science
expertise, modernization and the mass society".

     Writing in Science magazine, however, Harvey M. Sapolsky, an MIT
political scientist, counters that the public is confused rather than
alienated.  He argues that test polls often show a strong majority in
favor of fluoridation before a campaign.  Then there ensues an
apparent conflict of technical arguments which leaves the public
unable to reach a correct decision.

     The fallacy of this conclusion, in my own opinion, is that a vote
on fluoridation is widely perceived as something more than a technical
decision -- about which, after all, many voters well know their
limitations.  It is also an expression of political philosophy; that
the right to dissent is more important than the merit of the
complaint.

     Saccharine assurances by profluoridationists that there can be no
possible hazard are self-defeating, for nothing in life is so certain.
Many of us would hesitate to subject the "other fellow" to fluoride
against his will, no matter how far-fetched his objections might be.
Those of us who regard a proper dose of fluoride as a personal benefit
can, after all, get it at moderate cost.

     On the other hand, the social merit of ensuring better teeth for
all children is obvious.  The fluoridation controversy is, then, an
unusually simple test case of the conflict between personal liberty
and what FDR called, in 1912, "the liberty of the community".

     We face many more difficult confrontations of this kind as a
by-product of biological discovery, and we ought to be learning better
how to handle them.  In a democracy, the right answer is not "Let
the experts decide".

     The most obvious step is, of course, to resolve the argument by
more research and better education about its positive conclusions.
But there is also a deeper issue: how to soften the conflict between
individual and community.  This is to say that the enhancement of 
individual decision should be an important premise of social policy.

     This principle can often lead to technological evasions of
insoluble moral or political conflicts.  This is not the place to
argue the details of a particular technique, but, to give one
illustration, we might offer a third choice to the argument about
fluoridation.  That would be to add fluoride only in alternate weeks
according to a prearranged schedule.

     Those of us who see a benefit from or are indifferent to fluoride
could ignore the schedule.  Those who hold against it could save
low-fluoride drinking water (fluoride-free water is a laboratory
artifact) for use in "fluoride weeks".  I would also advise them
against drinking tea, which is a rather rich source of fluoride.

     In my opinion, very few people would bother to exercise this
option, no matter how they voted, except for a very rare sick
person under medical advice.  This system would also facilitate 
research on the side effects of extra fluoride on individuals who
have a special sensitivity to it, or derive a special advantage
from it.

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