Let Them Drink Gin • Shades of General Jack D.
Ripper, who, in Dr. Strangelove. pressed the nuclear button be- cause he believed that the Communists were rendering him sexually impotent by poisoning the water supply. The anti-fluoridationists haven't threatened to go as far as that yet, but I wouldn't put it past them. Quite why feelings run so strong on this issue I can't imagine, although no doubt a competent Freudian analyst could enlighten me. Meanwhile, however, even though the overwhelming weight of medical and dental opinion is convinced that fluoridation on the scale recommended by the Ministry of Health causes a measurable reduc- tion in the incidence of tooth decay without any undesirable side-effects, this vocal and per- sistent lobby has already succeeded in persuad- ing a number of muddled local authorities to desist—presumably on the principle of 'when in doubt, do nothing.' Even odder, it has been able to enlist the support of a number of MPs, some of them completely respectable.
If ,it's the clement of compulsion that irks them, I'm surprised they don't turn their atten- tion to compulsory education. I have no doubt that far more harm has been done by education than even the largest quantities of fluoridation could ever do. And anyway, no one forces the antis to drink water if they don't like it. As the late Queen Marie Antoinette would have said, let them drink gin.
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