Page 570 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 1991
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First, though less important than the second, is a widespread suspicion of claims of infallibility by scientific experts in matters where it is very difficult for lay opinion to judge for itself. This is due in part, of course, to a number of recent disasters still fresh in the public mind which have resulted from uncritical acceptance of expert advice. Secondly, there is a growing suspicion that many scientists, doctors and health authorities are animated by a mistaken metaphysic and correspondingly misguided social thinking. Lord Douglas of Barloch puts his finger on the heart of the matter when he says of the fluoridation proposal: "the design may not be sinister, but the principle is thoroughly bad". Men are individuals with individual needs and requirements. They cannot be subscribed for in mass without doing injury to some individuals. Moreover, to treat individuals as though they were an undifferentiated mass is an insult to human dignity as well as a grave violation of human freedom. The mere fact that someone feels that his vital liberties are impaired does him real and long-standing psychological harm.
The article continues:
A precise analogy to the fluoridation proposal should help to clarify the vicious nature of the principle involved. Many people take flight from their own moral weakness and inability to resolve their unconscious conflicts into the spurious refuge of intoxication. If this form of escapism is persistent, chronic alcoholism can result, with further possible grave physical consequences in the shape of cirrhosis of the liver.
When the culminating point of an individual patient's suffering is reached, it may well be the duty of his medical practitioner to prescribe, if available, chemicals or drugs relevant to his condition. But if this form of illness were to become rampant on a wide social scale, what would we think of a proposal by the public health authorities to add a chemical to the public water supplies to make everybody's livers more resistant to the effects of chronic alcohol in case they should be unfortunate enough to develop this form of weakness? Sickness, suffering, pain, are frequently nature's warning symptoms that wrong ways of life cannot be pursued without paying a price.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I would seek a short extension.
Leave not granted.
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