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Originally a proponent of fluoridating the water supply, the dentist Robert J.H. Mick became an ardent opponent following animal studies he conducted in the late 1940s. Although he alleged that he was threatened with court martial for his views while serving in the Army in Germany between 1953 and 1956, Mick has remained a high profile professional critic of fluoridation, famously offering a $100,000 prize to any one who could prove that fluoridation of water was healthy. The prize remained unclaimed. Mick ran as a Republican for congress in New Jersey in 1970, largely as an antifluoridation crusader.

The Mick Papers contain a small quantity of correspondence, talks, and affidavits relating to a deacdes-long career in the antifluoridation movement, as well as publications and other materials relating to fluoridation of water supplies.

John R. Graham

As the principal attorney representing the plaintiffs in two lawsuits to prevent the fluoridation of civic water supplies, John Remington Graham had a profound impact on the antifluoridation cause. In November 1978, Graham convinced Allegheny County (Pa.) Judge John P. Flaherty to prohibit fluoridation in the borough of West View, Pa., with the judge writing that it was “simple prudence” to do so in the face of evidence that fluoride was a carcinogen. Four years later, Judge Anthony Ferris ruled similarly in the case of Safe Water Foundation of Texas v. city of Houston, citing not only the carcinogenicity of fluorides, but their toxicity and inefficacy in reducing dental decay.

Consisting of the trial transcripts of Paul Aitkenhead v. Borough of West View (No. GD-4585-78) and Safe Water Foundation of Texas v. City of Houston, District Court of Texas (151st Judicial District, No. 80-52271), the Graham collection documents two high-profile, successful attempts to use the legal system to prevent the fluoridation of public water.

Born in Allentown, Pa., on Jan. 19, 1938, Carol Lazo Patton became an ardent activist in the antifluoridation movement, and one of its great supporters. After studying at the Allentown Hospital School, Patton became a registered nurse at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York city. Both professionally and personally concerned about health issues and the environment, Patton became involved in the antifluoridation movement by the mid-1970s, and became a major supporter of the Fluoride Action Network and other antifluoridation groups, playing a particularly important role in the struggle in her home states of Florida and Pennsylvania. Patton died on March 17, 2009, at her home in Jupiter, Florida.

The Patton Papers contain a record of over 35 years of antifluoridation activism, including valuable correspondence between Patton and other antifluoridation activists, publications and correspondence on fluoride toxicity and public policy, legal challenges to fluoridation, and materials issued by antifluoridation groups. Of particular significance is approximately 1.5 linear feet of material on the early antifluoridation fight in Virginia that Patton, probably associated with Landon B. Lane, apparently acquired as a result of her own work in that state.

Access restrictions: Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA in advance to request materials from this collection.

One of the most prominent and vocal scientific critics of fluoridation, the biochemist John Yiamouyiannis (1943-2000) spent over three decades fighting the professional and political establishment. A graduate of the University of Chicago with a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Rhode Island (1967), Yiamouyiannis became interested in the health effects of fluoride while employed as an editor with the Chemical Abstracts Service. His growing opposition to fluoridation, however, led to conflict with his employers and after being placed on probation in 1972, he resigned. Becoming a key organizer in the antifluoridation movement, he served at various times as the Executive Director of Health Action, the Science Director of the National Health Federation, founder and president of the Safe Water Foundation, and editor of the journal Fluoride. He also ran for the Senate from Ohio and twice for the U.S. Presidency on small party tickets, never garnering more than a handful of votes. Yiamouyiannis died of cancer at his home in Delaware, Ohio, on Oct. 8, 2000, at the age of 53.

Offering important insight into the antifluoridation movement in the 1970s through 1990s, the papers of John Yiamouyiannis offer a perspective on an unusually prolific and determined activist. The collection contains a large quantity of research material and correspondence relating to Yiamouyiannis’s antifluoridation work, and perhaps most importantly an extensive series of transcripts relating to civil cases in which he was involved.

The environmental scientist Robert J. Carton emerged in the mid-1980s as one of the leading scientific critics of fluoridation of the water supply. After receiving his doctorate in Environmental Science from Rutgers University, Carton accepted a position in 1972 with the Office of Toxic Substances in the Environmental Protection Agency, assessing the risks associated with a range of toxic substances from asbestos to arsenic and hexachlorobenzene. By 1985, Carton became concerned about EPA standards for fluoride in drinking water, taking a public stance against undue political influence in framing those standards and insisting that there was no scientific evidence that fluorides prevented tooth decay and that any level of fluoride exposure presented a significant health hazard. In 1992, Carton left the EPA to work for as Chief of Environmental Compliance for the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command in Fort Detrick, Maryland.

Consisting primarily of research, notes, and some correspondence relating to the health effects of fluoridation of drinking water, the collection documents Robert Carton’s nearly two decade long struggle against the EPA and federal government. Also included are transcripts of filings relating to various legal challenges against fluoridation during the mid-1980s.

Born into a Jewish family in the town of Buzau, Romania, the endocrinologist and psychopathologist Ionel Florian Rapaport entered the University of Paris in 1937 to study under the eminent psychologists Maxime Laignel-Lavastine and Charles Blondel. Surviving the war by posing as a Christian, he completed a dissertation on ritual castration, Les Faits de castration rituelle, essai sur les formes pathologiques de la conscience collective (1945), which was published three years later as Introduction à la psychopathologie collective : la secte mystique des Skoptzy. In 1953, Rapaport emigrated to the United States and joined the faculty at the Psychiatric Institute of the University of Wisconsin, where he became noted for research into the social aspects of mental disorders and juvenile delinquency. It was there in 1956, that he discovered a statistical correlation between the incidence of Down Syndrome and exposure to fluorides, a study that became widely cited by opponents of fluoridation of the water supply and widely criticized by proponents. Rapaport died of cancer in 1972.

The Rapaport Papers contain a large quantity of raw data, research notes and correspondence relating to over two decades of research into mental disorders, centered largely upon his study of the link between Down Syndrome and fluoridation. Due to the potential sensitivities of some material in the collection, researchers must agree not to reveal the names of any patients before gaining access.

A Registered Nurse and surgical assistant at Marquette University Medical and Dental Schools, Isabel Jansen was a long-time opponent of fluoridation of drinking water. In 1949, her hometown of Antigo, Wisconsin, became one of the first in the state to put fluorides in its water supply. Jansen emerged as a prominent voice in opposition, arguing that fluorides had a cumulative toxic effect when ingested over a long period, and using public health data, she concluded that fluoridation was strongly correlated with an increase in mortality from heart disease and with a variety of other deleterious health effects. In 1960, she succeeded in ending fluoridation, however after a follow up survey showed a dramatic rise in tooth decay, Antigo residents voted five years later to reintroduce fluoride. Jansen has continued a vigorous resistance, publishing a series of articles on the public health impact and Fluoridation : A Modern Procrustean Practice (1990) and .

The Jansen Papers include a range of correspondence, newsclippings, articles, and notes regarding Isabel Jansen’s long struggle against the fluoridation of drinking water.

After receiving his medical degree from the University of Heidelberg in 1921, George L. Waldbott accepted a residency at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, and embarked on a pioneering career in the study and treatment of allergic diseases. He is noted for his fundamental research on human anaphylaxis and penicillin shock, allergy-induced respiratory problems, and later in his career, the health impact of air pollutants. In 1955, Waldbott began conducting research in fluoride toxicity, becoming one of the first physicians to warn of the health effects of mass fluoridation. A founder of the International Society for Fluoride Research, he was considered one of the key figures in the antifluoridation movement for over two decades, contributing dozens of books and articles, including the influential The American Fluoridation Experiment (1957) and Fluoridation : The Great Dilemma (1978). He died in Detroit on July 17, 1982, from complications following open heart surgery.

The Waldbott Papers document one physician’s long struggle against the fluoridation of the American water supply. In addition to a considerable quantity of correspondence with other leading antifluoridation activists, the collection includes an array of subject files relating to fluoridation, air pollution, and allergens, as well as drafts of articles and offprints, newsclippings, and notes.

Non-partisan political organization based in Amherst, Massachusetts that influences public policy through education and advocacy by registering voters, organizing candidate forums, publishing voting guides, and disseminating general information on the legislative process and the functioning of government on the local, state, and federal levels.

Includes minutes, annual reports, financial records, publications, extensive files on specific programs, photographs, video- and audio-tapes, scrapbooks, and newspaper clippings. Also contains information on two league members who rose to national prominence: Lucy Wilson Benson (Under Secretary of State in the federal government in 1977) and Jane F. Garvey (Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration in 1997).