Historical Archives

Foreword to “Hello, Test Animals—Chinchillas or You and Your Grandchildren?”

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: In 1953 author W.R. Cox published a book documenting the mysterious degeneration and demise of his herd of chinchillas. What Cox discovered, after extensive laboratory testing and autopsies, was that his animals had been done in by fluoride hidden in their feed, the substance penetrating the placental barrier of the pregnant members of the herd and poisoning their offspring in the womb. In this foreword to Cox’s book, nutritionist Dr. Royal Lee discusses the frightening implications of the author’s report at a time when municipal water supplies were being forcibly dosed with the very substance that had destroyed Cox’s inadvertent test animals. Though fluoride had shown some effectiveness in preventing cavities in human studies, its side effects had not been sufficiently investigated, Dr. Lee writes, and adding it to pubic drinking water in the face of evidence like Cox’s amounted to an “ill-considered freak experiment” by bureaucrats so obsessed with passing reform that they hadn’t bothered to study the possible consequences of their proposal. From Hello, Test Animals…Chinchillas or You and Your Children? Published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1953.

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Historical Archives

Fluorine and Dental Caries

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: Dr. Royal Lee was one of the earliest and most outspoken opponents of water fluoridation, which he described as “wholesale drugging of the population.” In this address to a group in Florida, Dr. Lee delves into the dangers of ingesting fluorides and speculates as to the commercial interests behind the adoption of water fluoridation. Also included is testimony by U.S. Representative Arthur L. Miller, Chairman of the Special Committee on Chemicals in Food, who candidly explains that water fluoridation had been adopted as official policy by the U.S. Public Health Service despite the fact that long-term studies of the effects of fluoridation had yet to be completed. Miller calls into question the motive of the Health Service’s approval and speculates that the aluminum industry, for which fluoride is a waste product that could now be sold for pure profit, had perhaps influenced the agency’s decision. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 53B, 1952.

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Historical Archives

Health of the American People

By Congressman David S. King

Summary: In this powerful 1959 speech before the U.S. House of Representatives, Utah Congressman David King warns our government that “the progressive deterioration of the condition of our health has been confirmed,” blaming the negative trend on the country’s chemically-laden and overly processed food supply. “There are many approaches to the prevention and treatment of…complex diseases,” King says, “but there appears to be one common denominator as the basic cause of degenerative diseases. That one factor is malnutrition.” Representative King calls for the creation of a congressional commission to officially investigate the adulteration of America’s foods as well as the fluoridation of public water supplies. Unfortunately—and predictably—the congressman’s calls went ignored. From the Congressional Record of the 86th U.S. Congress, 1959. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 111.

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Historical Archives

Fluoridation of Water Supplies

By A.J. Cahill

Summary: An Australian physician writes to a medical journal warning of the dangers of fluoridating water supplies, giving examples from his own practice and from other doctors’ practices of “the evil effects on human health” as a result of sodium fluoride being added to public water. He ends by offering advice about dental health that is just as astute today as it was then. “Sound nutrition is the only sure and safe way to provide our children with sound teeth and sound health for the rest of their lives. All mothers must now learn to feed their families on a well-balanced, vitamin-rich diet in order to achieve the best results. They must stop buying devitalized white bread and over-refined white sugar—those two curses of our modern civilization—and replace them with nourishing whole-meal bread and delicious health-giving honey.” From the Medical Journal of Australia, 1962. Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research. 

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Historical Archives

The Drama of Fluorine: Archenemy of Mankind

By Leo Spria, MD

Summary: The complete book, published in its entirety by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research. The title says it all. The fluoridation of public water supplies was a heated debate in the early 1950s in America, and Dr. Spria weighed in with this extremely well researched book, which, he explains in the preface, is mainly “a condensed summary of 34 papers which I published in various medical journals in this country, in Great Britain, and on the continent of Europe.” Today’s reader will learn much about the lies, scientific fraud, and official cover-ups in the long and sordid history of the fluoridation of public water supplies. An excellent bibliography adds to value of this historically important book. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1953.

View PDF: The Drama of Fluorine: Archenemy of Mankind

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Historical Archives

Letter to the People of San Diego About Water Fluoridation

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: In a time before fluoridation of water was commonplace, Dr. Royal Lee was a leading opponent of such dangerous “mass medication,” as he put it. In this open letter to the citizens of San Diego, Dr. Lee calls on residents to stop this “treatment by force” with a poison they would otherwise never tolerate in their food supply. Dr. Lee identifies processed foods, deficient in vitamins and minerals, as the real culprit behind tooth decay and points out that ironically the very food processors who created the cavity problem in America are the ones pushing water fluoridation on municipalities throughout the country. Circa 1952.

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Historical Archives

Letter to the Directors of the American Academy of Nutrition

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: Dr. Royal Lee, writing on behalf of the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, urges the directors of the American Academy of Nutrition to adopt an official code of principles. Among the principles he suggests are addressing head on controversial subjects such as the pasteurization of milk and fluoridation of water as well as actively countering the trend toward “counterfeit foods” such as corn syrup (glucose), hydrogenated foods, and artificial colors. This is Dr. Lee’s public policy in a nutshell. The Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1957.

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Historical Archives

Pure Food and Pure Fraud

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: In this 1957 article, Dr. Royal Lee reflects on the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Food and Drug Administration—originally called the U.S. Bureau of Chemistry—by detailing the corruption that transformed the agency from watchdog of America’s food supply to lapdog of the country’s food manufacturing, medical, and pharmaceutical industries. Dr. Lee recalls the noble vision of the FDA’s founder, Dr. Harvey Wiley, who fought for years to establish federal oversight of food safety and purity in America, only to see the agency he helped create become corrupted, quickly and secretly, by a confluence of commercial and political interests. Dr. Lee writes: “In the midst of public praise for Wiley’s pioneering and public thanksgiving over the (supposed) fact that foods, drugs, and cosmetics are pure and truly labeled, we are likely to overlook the way in which Wiley’s work has been perverted. We may remain ignorant of the way in which the FDA protects the food, drug, and cosmetic industries and the medical monopoly at the expense of the public it is supposed to serve. We may forget that Wiley himself was ousted for trying to stand up against these powerful interests.” This is a rich historical document alerting the American people to a matter on which they had been—and continue to be—intentionally and systematically deceived. From Liberation magazine, 1957. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 94.

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Historical Archives

Open Letters Concerning Dr. Frederick J. Stare

Various authors

Summary: In March 1957 Modern Nutrition printed the following excerpts from a stunning series of open letters by John Pearmain of the Boston Nutrition Society to Dr. Nathan Pusey, President of Harvard University, regarding “the matter of standards of research under Dr. Frederick Stare,” head of the university’s department of nutrition. Dr. Stare (1911–2002), probably more than any other public figure in U.S. history, was responsible for convincing Americans that sugar and other refined foods are harmless and that whole foods are no more valuable nutritionally than processed ones. “Actually,” he once wrote, “we get as much food value from refined foods that have been enriched as from natural foods, and sometimes more.” Dr. Stare also advised Americans to “eat your [food] additives—they’re good for you” and recommended Coca-Cola as “a healthy between-meals snack.” In the following excerpts, Mr. Pearmain questions the reasons for Dr. Stare’s pronouncements, suggesting it was not the weight of scientific evidence that underlay them but rather the financial might of his department’s funders, which comprised some of the country’s largest food processing companies (including, yes, Coca-Cola) as well as major chemical and drug interests. While these links were carefully kept from the public during Dr. Stare’s lifetime, recently they have begun to come to light, most notably in the 2016 exposé “Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease” in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine. The investigation pieces a paper trail from the Sugar Research Foundation—an industrial benefactor of Harvard’s nutrition department whose advisory board Dr. Stare served on—to research published by Harvard investigators intentionally obscuring evidence against sugar in the causation of heart disease. While the news of influence peddling at America’s most prestigious university came as a shock to many readers, Harvard’s “sugar scandal” is merely the tip of an iceberg of dubious activity by Dr. Stare and his department, as the following letters show. Included after the excerpts is some fascinating commentary by Dr. Royal Lee, a leading proponent of natural food nutrition during the 1950s and strong critic of Dr. Stare. From Modern Nutrition, 1957. Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.

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Historical Archives

The Pharmacology of Fluoride

By Gustav Wm. Rapp, PhD

Summary: A fourteen-page paper on fluorine and its effects in the human body. “All cells are affected by fluoride to a greater or lesser degree,” writes Dr. Rapp. “While most of the interest in fluoride as a drug has centered upon its activity on oral structures, there are many other parts of the human body that feel [its] effects [including] the bones…skin, hair, viscera, circulatory system, and genito-urinary system.” Scientifically sound, the author’s discussion raises many troubling questions. From The Bur magazine. Reprint 53, 1950.

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Historical Archives

Ideal Drinking Water

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: Many people know white sugar and white flour are refined products, but what about distilled or otherwise “purified” water? Although deionization or reverse osmosis can remove potential pathogens, it also takes away the minerals found in “unrefined” sources of water that are so critical to human health. Possibly the most important of these minerals, Dr. Lee says, is calcium bicarbonate, a form of calcium that has the rare distinction of being easily absorbed by the human body. Other benefits such as natural bacterial antigens, which help build our immune system, and the absence of fluoride make natural, unrefined spring or well water the ideal drink for the human body. From Let’s Live magazine, 1958.

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