"Rudolf Ziegelbecker" To:

Rudolf Ziegelbecker; Biography - 6 -
With the foundation of the Institue for Environmental Research at the Research Center
Graz („Institut für Umweltforschung am Forschungszentrum Graz") in August 1970, a research
facility of the Province of Styria, he could partially continue his research work in the
field of dental caries prophylaxis with fluorides. Already after the first papers had appeared,
there occurred fierce reactions by prominent fluoride promoters, right up to a WHO advised
by an international fluoride-lobby, later more and more escalating reactions with comments
and interventions at Ziegelbecker’s superiors, at policymakers right up to Austria’s Federal
Chancellor Dr. Bruno Kreisky, to the vice chancellor, the minister of health, the governors of
the Province Styria and the administration of business of the Research Center Graz – all of
them aiming at inhibiting Ziegelbecker’s research on fluorides and breaking this voice.
There were also interventions at journals in order to hinder the publication of his papers.
When he read a paper at invitation of the German caries researcher (corrosion theory of
dental caries), chairman of the Scientific Association for Dentistry Stuttgart (“Wissenschaftliche
Vereinigung für Zahnheilkunde Stuttgart”) and president of the Dentists’ Chamber of
the Federal State (“Landeszahnärztekammer”) Baden-Württemberg, Prof.Dr.Dr. Rheinwald,
at their 1973 conference in Lindau at the Lake Constance (“Bodensee”), as co-lecturer to
the WHO’s and Council of Europe’s fluoride expert Prof. König, the Austrian Ministry of
Health intervened. Subsequently a fluoride-lobby tried to depose Prof. Rheinwald from president
of Baden-Württemberg’s dentists’ chamber on a convened extraordinary meeting of
the Federal Organisation of German Dentists (“Bundesverband der Deutschen Zahnärzte”).
Almost during two decades it was tried to turn off the financial basis for Ziegelbecker’s research
into fluoride and for more than one decade, even though unsuccessfully, to achieve
his dismissal from the institute.
These interventions did not pass by without a trace, however. After his retirement in 1990,
at the end of his 45 years of occupational history which had multiply been in behoof of the
general public, he had to litigate with all harshness against the province-owned research
association until he got pension, indemnity and back pay of salary.
Even after this Rudolf Ziegelbecker stayed active, he engaged himself furthermore in defeating
fluoridation as well as in the development of the part of the City where he lived. In
2003 he decisively contributed to the stop of the most highlighted and last water fluoridation
in “Continental Europe except Spain”, Basle. The construction of a new tram line was only
possible due to his decisive submissions to the supreme courts. He was awarded the
scarce honour of a “Citizen of the Provincial Capital Graz” (“Bürger der Landeshauptstadt
Graz”) by the Town Council in 2007 before he completely lost his sight a year later and died
from cancer on January 12, 2009. He could not accomplish his dream, but his work may still
help to stop fluoridation also worldwide. Except for this last paragraph, the above memoirs
were written by himself, in German, precisely like he always did his work.