Lex Norrköping : The Norrköping Water Fluoridation Trials 1952-1962 and the Passing of the 1962 Water Fluoridation Act

Sammanfattning: This thesis studies how scientists and science were put to use in the passing of the 1962 Water Fluoridation Act. The law was created for a specific purpose: that of facilitating the continuation of the water fluoridation trials that had been under way in Norrköping until January 1962, when they were forced to cease, having been deemed illegal by the Supreme Administrative Court.  By studying the network of scientists who were either directly involved in or explicitly supportive of the Norrköping trials, and their actions as members of the two expert committees formed in the 1950’s by the Royal Board of Medicine, and which would come to greatly influence the legislative process, the thesis examines how personal and research interests transferred from Norrköping into the issue of nationwide fluoridation.  Using analytical tools gathered from Roger Pielke Jr. and Daniel Sarewitz, the thesis utilizes the concept of uncertainty to describe how scientists, in the political process, assumed different roles in order to further the cause of fluoridation on the one hand, but also to maintain an ideal image of the relationship between science and politics. Furthermore, the tension within the concept of scientization is examined, illuminating how the political end result - the law - is made possible by means of a balancing act between science’s claims to objective truth and the value-driven, often ethically charged discourse of politics.   Fianlly, the case of fluoridation is placed in the context of the welfare state and the public health project, where it emerges as a part of a broader political and societal renegotiation of the relationship between the individual and the state, which I argue was taking place in Sweden during ”the long fifties”.