 |
| Art by B. Smart (get it?) |
The above is a May 1955 press release by the Los Angeles-based anticommunist (and anti-social justice) organization Keep America Commitee, which begs the question, keep America what? Sickly? How do these supposed threats to a kept Amercian stack up 70 years later? Let's start with the middle one. I've never met a single person born after 1960--the vast majority of the 2025 United States population--who's been stricken with polio, so I'd say Jonah Salk's legacy is secure. As for Mental Hygiene being a subtle and diabolical plan to transform a free and intelligent people into a cringing horde of zombies, well, I'm afraid that one is true if the 119th Congress is any indication. I'm just wondering why it took so long.
That leaves fluoridated water, which is apparently a threat again, at least according to the current Secretary of Health and Human Services. The Secretary has instructed the Center of Disease Control to recommend that cities and counties stop adding fluoride to their water supplies. Since the CDC just lost its 20-person Division of Oral Health in a recent round of budget cuts, there's been little pushback from the agency. Plenty of dentists from outside the CDC think the de-fluoridization of water is a terrible idea, but the Secretary, who has neither a D.D.S or an M.D. after his name, has shown he cares not a whit what the medical establishment thinks, and has gone so far to threaten government scientists from publishing their findings in medical journals. So what's his beef against medicine? He thinks it's corrupt. As someone who believes that any institution or establishment that's become too powerful potentially can go corrupt, I have a certain sympathy for that point of view. However, as the Secretary works for the Executive Branch of the federal government, itself an increasingly significant source of power...
...I'd just as soon take my chances with The New England Journal of Medicine. Corrupt away!
In spite of the self interest of dentists for people to have bad teeth, they praise the addition of fluoride to water. People can then spend more on cosmetic dentistry, so maybe there is some self interest. I think the jury has decided the question of fluoride a long time ago, but the troglodytes must stick their heads up at times. I read yesterday that Germany considered water fluoridation but decided not to, and left it to the individual to decide. I remember taking fluoride tablets at school as naturally collected water to tank storage obviously wasn't fluoridated. That's a great clip, and it seems I've never seen Dr Strangelove.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, I highly recommend Dr. Strangelove, especially if you like Peter Sellers, who has three roles (an RAF officer, the president of the United States, and the title character, an ex-nazi scientist now working for the Pentagon.)
DeleteHmm, I think I should see the film Dr S.
DeleteScottish water does not have flouride in it but I think they have it in England.
ReplyDeleteAnanka, the decision to put it in water has a lot to do with poverty and whether poor children have access to good dental care.
DeleteThe entire world is astounded at what is going on. Let me stop shaking my head long enough to brush my teeth in our fluroridated water! Then I’ll resume the head shaking!
ReplyDeleteDavid, my own neck is getting a workout.
DeleteIdiots then, idiots now.
ReplyDeleteThe anti-medical treadmill, Debra.
DeleteYou radical! The New England Journal of Medicine? I’m completely with you. Better them than the drug addled idiot with the brain worm.
ReplyDeleteYes, Mitchell, the HHS Secretary should best attend to his own mental hygiene.
DeleteIt's his manifesto!
ReplyDeleteOr his Bible, Boud.
DeleteSeems like the Keep America Committee didn't last very long. 1949 -1954
ReplyDeleteMike, what I have is dated 1955, so it must have been that organization's last gasp. Mixing the metaphor a bit, maybe the John Birch Society stole its thunder.
DeleteHello Kirk, It's an odd thing about fluoridation. Bad teeth are the stereotypical sign of low status and also low intelligence (think Alfred E. Neuman). What kind of "leaders" would want their constituents to have poor teeth? Only ones who would want to keep the common people downtrodden.
ReplyDelete--Jim
What--RFK jr. worry, Jim?
DeleteThere are just so many things going on in the world right now.
ReplyDeleteAs always, Lux.
Delete