Rudolf Ziegelbecker and water fluoridation

A couple of days ago I highlighted a meeting we are planning in Stroud to help build the case against water fluoridation here in Glos - see here - however I also wanted to note that I recently heard from Rudolf Ziegelbecker Jr. This guy's father (with the same name), was a main force in keeping or making Continental Europe (except Spain) fluoride-free but sadly passed away on 12th January.

Photo: Graph showing mean number of decayed, missing or filled teeth in 12 year olds in EU countries - all going down!

It sounds like the son is continuing the work of his father - he has sent his father's first and most important papers (written in German) and a biography - I am happy to pass on the work of this Austrian researcher to other campaigners.

Rudolf Senior was appointed 'Citizen of the Provincial Capital Graz' by the town council as a sign of their esteem for his work. His work helped end at least 53 million people getting compulsory medical treatment via drinking water. As the biography noted: "drinking water fluoridation was stopped: In Kassel (Germany) 1971, in Sweden 1971, in The Netherlands 1976, in Czechoslovakia 1988 (in Prague and Czeske Budejovice and in 1990 in the other cities of the former CSSR, in the (former) German Democratic Republic (GDR) 1990, in the USSR 1990, in Poland 1990, in Finland 1993, in the Canton of Basle-City 2003 – as contrasted with the WHO resolutions of the years 1969, 1975, 1978. Persuant the fact finding of the Great Council of Basle-City the dentists have not been able to prove the claimed efficacy of fluoridation even after its operation for 40 years. Fluoride tablets campaigns were also stopped, e.g. in the City of Graz 1973, in the Province Styria in the year 1973, in the Province Carinthia in 1986, in entire Austria in 1994, in Saarbrücken in 1984, in Saarlouis in 1984, in Bielefeld in 1984, in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1985, in Berlin-Wilmersdorf in 1985, etc."

The biography also gave some background as to why he got involved: "The inducement for Rudolf Ziegelbecker to busy himself with the "fluoride problem" were serious damages of vegetation and health afflictions of his own children and of the population by the exhausts from a new-built brickworks in Graz-St. Peter – in 1966, about half a kilometre away - which contained fluorides. After a fight lasting for years, which went through all instances up to the supreme courts, and after installation of a specifically developed flue-gas washing facility, which was not operated full-time however, the factory was closed in 1976. During that time a heavy pollution of tidal air and a storing of fluorides in useful and ornamental plants, in fruits and vegetables occurred, which gave rise to a widespread dying off of these plants. Because of the high levels of fluoride in fruits and vegetables the family’s garden could not be used for 4 years. Since his children – who received fluoride tablets daily in school, during holidays at home and used tooth pastes containing fluoride – as well as other children from the neighbourhood lamented more and more over tiredness, queasiness, stomachache, joint pain and pain in the limbs, Rudolf Ziegelbecker demanded of the City of Graz scientific records and rationals for the benefits and harmlessness of the fluoride tablets campaign and disclosure about the marginal value of the total exposures to fluoride. The City of Graz was not able to provide useful documents, whereupon he interdicted the delivering of fluoride tablets to his children in school and discontinued the use of fluoride toothpastes at home and the consumption of the fluoride-contaminated fruits and vegetables. A few weeks later his childrens’ troubles with their health disappeared. Subsequently the experienced researcher, who partially had worked himself with highly toxic fluorine compounds at the Center for Electron Microscopy and who as a physicist looked at tables and curves differently than dentists, ordered the dentists’ literature about fluoride and analysed it himself."

It was at this point Rudolf published various papers that led to shifts in opinion.