March 15, 1954
Mr. Roby C. Day
112 Lewis St.
San Diego, Calif.
Dear Mr. Day:
Hereford, Texas has been called the town without a toothache. This is not true. But the phrase has been used effecively by the people interested in marketing "sodium fluoride" all over the country.
I have practiced dentistry here for years. The native population of Hereford and Deaf Smith County have remarkably good teeth. The incidence of caries or tooth decay was very low. I finally succeeded in getting some members of the dental profession to come to Hereford to find the cause of the exellent dental health of our people.
After considerable research, it was suggested that the relatively high content of natural fluorine in our water supply was responsible. I accepted this conclusion for a time. The people who had great quantities of sodium fluoride and sodium silico fluoride as by-products of the aluminum and fertilizer industries decided that when these by-products were added to city water supplies, they would produce the same type of dental health which existed here with the natural fluorine. They widely publicized "the town without a toothache." They are, I believe, still doing it.
As the years went by I continued to study the local situation. I observed that, as the town grew and more people began to live on processed foods, such as canned goods, white fluor products, soft drinks, etc., tooth decay increased. This increase of decay occurred, even though they were drinking the same fluorinated water we had always been drinking. I am now fully convinced that good natural food is the preventive of dental caries as well as other diseases.
I believe that fluorine does in a mild way retard caries, but I also believe that the damage it does if far greater than any good it may appear to accomplish. It even makes the teeth so brittle and crumbly they can be treated only with difficulty, if at all.
The dental investigators who came to our County some fifteen years ago did, in my opinion, make a serious misstake when they gave to fluorine the credit for our good teeth, and overlooked the quality of food grown in our rich, well mineralized soil. Every person I found who had no dental caries, consumed much milk.
Why use a poison, when correct food will maintain our bodies free from diseaases and tooth decay. It is hellish and un-American to put poison in city water supplies and force citizens to drink it.
I sincerely hope that at least some of your dentists are co-operating with you in getting the real truth about tooth decay over to your citizens.
If I can further assist you, please call on me.
Cordially yours,
George W. Heard
This is an electronic reproduction of a photocopy of the Heard letter which was sent to me by Evangeline Winkler.