A chemist called it "criminally intolerant chemical warfare to enslave the American people." A self-described inventor and "secret investigator" said the government was trying to "kill you slowly." Another man put it bluntly: "Communism is one of the factors behind it."
In the summer of 1966, a year after the Watts riots, Los Angeles City Council members took up what The Times called "one of the most controversial proposals ever." The hearings drew hundreds of agitated citizens.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday, January 01, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 63 words Type of Material: Correction
Fluoride in water: An article in Section A on Dec. 22 about fluoride in drinking water described the reasons the Environmental Protection Agency allows minute amounts of certain chemicals in public drinking water systems. The article said sodium chloride softens hard water. Although sodium chloride is used in the water-softening process, zeolite is the substance that softens water by removing magnesium and calcium.
The supercharged issue? Adding fluoride to tap water to prevent tooth decay. The proposal was defeated, as were subsequent attempts to fluoridate Los Angeles' drinking water in 1968 and 1975. The issue, in Southern California at least, seemed to be dead.
Then last month, the Metropolitan Water District started fluoridating the water it serves 18 million customers across Southern California, giving life to another round of accusations and conspiracy theories. This time, though, a battle once waged by far-right red baiters is being led by independents and activists on the left.
"We are not lab rats and reject any attempt to be treated as such," actor and liberal political activist Martin Sheen and his wife wrote in a letter to The Malibu Times last month after reading about MWD's fluoridation effort in their latest water bill.
The move, four years in the planning, is the largest fluoridation project in U.S. history and thus a watershed in the peculiar story of one of the nation's longest-running controversies.
For more than 60 years, a debate has simmered over whether artificially fluoridated water is one of public health's greatest achievements or an ill-advised attempt by the government to medicate the population by force with a dangerous chemical.
Fluoride is the Kennedy assassination of chemicals, a fountain of myths and misinformation, with people on each side of the issue accusing those on the other of using half-truths and twisted facts to push their agenda.
Virtually all of the science and medical establishment -- including the American Dental Assn., the American Medical Assn., the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- have endorsed fluoride in water. Supporters say numerous studies over the decades show that the chemical, in low concentrations -- about one part per million or the equivalent of three drops in 42 gallons of water -- reduces tooth decay by 20% to 60% with minimal risk.
