April 25, 1969

Dr. Harvey M. Sapolisky

Department of Political Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Masaachusetts 02139

Dear Dr. Sapolsky:
Thank you for your letter of April 22.

I have to accept your criticism, and would admit that I would have dealt
more comprehensively with your thesis were there space. My interpretation
of the "votes" is admittedly almost entirely intuitive, and based on dis-
cussions I have heard around Stanford. However (to respond to your own
thesis), there are also few issues that elicit technical unanimity, and I
am not sure that fluoridation is typical of political decision-making.

Why not research the very point, whether votes reflect private anxieties
or public-regarding attitudes in this particular arena. Many of my unde-
cided friends point to the availability of fluoride by other routes as an
important argument, and you will not dispute that the general issue of
individual choice has been invoked in the Webates. However, there is no
substitute for collecting concrete information about public attitudes.

I may be too deeply influenced by the expressions of anti-fluoridation
leaders, such as you quote.

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

ANS AsS¥S