According to the New York Times of September 20, 1959, five outstanding physicians, most of them department heads in their respective hospitals, declared themselves opposed to fluoridation.
They are:
Dr. Simon Beisler, chief of urology, Roosevelt Hospital.
Dr. Fred Squier, head of oral surgery, Lennox Hill Hospital.
Dr. John Garlock, consulting surgeon, Mt Sinai Hospital.
Dr. Edgar A. Lawrence, director of medicine, Lennox Hill Hospital.
Dr. Girard F. Oberrender, director of oto-laryngology, Lennox Hill.
"We can afford no compromise", their statement reads, with our hard-gained and long established water quality standards. It is now clear that fluoride is a potentially harmful substnce when present in the water supply in any amount.
"Those who want their children to have fluoride can give it individually, in measured doses more safely, reliably and cheaply than when put in water.
"Minute doses over a prolonged period are far more harmful than much larger single doses.
"We can see no justifiable reason why everyone in the city should be needlessly subjected to any degree of life-long risk such as is created when a known poison is added to water supplies.
(The National Fluoridation News — August-September, 1959)