Oh for the love of everything that is rational.

Fluoride has been added to water supplies for multiple decades. You know, little out of the way water supplies like the one for NEW YORK CITY. Why even give these wing nuts the slightest acknowledgement by posting anything about them? It just eggs them on. Leave them to fret about along with the anti-vaccination/autism loonies. Oh wait, of course Jenny McCarthy and her hubbie are experts on the subject, so maybe I should take it seriously. :/

I'm allergic to fluoride. It causes mouth ulcers, nausea and if I happen to spend an entire weekend drinking nothing but water with a fluoride boost...well we won't talk about it here.

Surely I'm not the only one. What else are they putting in the water that people are allergic to?

We have well water! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Conclusions, scientific or otherwise, always contain some measure of doubt and uncertainty. Actions always bear some measure of risk. Scientists are just more willing to admit it, or we are supposed to be anyway. And our mathematicians and statisticians have been kind of enough to find well-understood ways to quantify that uncertainty with a degree of precision that most people don't realize.

Just because every time anyone has ever dropped a baseball, it has fallen to the ground, doesn't mean it will happen tomorrow. Our interpretation of the laws of physics could be totally wrong. But there is so little uncertainty there we don't bother thinking about it.

Ultimately, it has to be a public judgment when the research about something like fluoridation justifies taking that action, because the action affects everyone. That scares me, though, because of how little most people understand science. How many people have actually looked at and understood the research about fluoridation? I haven't, but I certainly don't trust newspapers or TV to tell me what it says. The American public is virtually fact-proof and often fails to spot even the most glaring of numerical and scientific errors.

The number of people who take absurd actions of their own free will based on faulty perceptions of risks and benefits astounds me. Smokers who avoid big cities for fear of a dirty bomb. Drivers who won't ride in airplanes. The list goes on. If people were more aware of how risks in the real world actually work, I'd say leave it up to the individual. But seeing how many parents are now denying their children access to life-saving vaccines despite the preponderance of scientific evidence there makes me realize there is a BIG educational hurdle to jump if we want to do that.

I think you can guess that I picked the first choice. But the question of when we can decide that there is a preponderance of evidence is open for debate. Who do we trust to decide? Not our scientifically illiterate politicians. Not the researchers themselves. We need truly independent reviewing agencies, not dependent on any industry or party for their funding or status. Any ideas?

I don't have that so I would not concern the matter of it.

Anthony makes some valid points, although I'm much more inclined to make decisions for myself as I feel I'm an infomed consumer. In regards to the fluoride issue, I have no doubt that it helps prevent tooth decay, but if it weren't for all the added sugar put into all the processed foods that the aveage person eats, it wouldn't be necessary.

So what is dental health like in countries who don't add flouride to their water?

I have a fluoride toothpaste. I don't think we need to be putting fluoride in the water in case people don't brush. These days since everyone but environmentalists are drinking bottled water it probably doesn't do any good anyway.

I would hope that any avid hugger would vote for #1, as it is precisely the preponderance of science and research that leads us to believe it is neccesary for this site to even exist.

I am worried by the number of posts supporting fluoride addition to drinking water. The US doesn't even have a functional health care system, so why are governments so overly-concerned about our oral hygiene? The reason why Vitamin D addition to milk and iodized salt is ok is because you can buy milk without Vitamin D and salt without iodine. There are alternatives. When a municipality adds fluoride to the water, there are no options (besides bottled water which adds significant cost and environmental damage). The ability to make a decision has been stripped away.

Most scientific studies on fluoride conclude that it is effective in preventing tooth decay as a TOPICAL treatment (i.e. in toothpaste). Evidence that it has benefits when ingested is sketchy at best.

Fluoride is in EVERYTHING anyway. It's in water, toothpaste, processed foods, drinks, etc. Studies have shown that, combined, these sources expose many Americans to fluoride levels FAR above the lower toxicity limits set by the FDA.

My oral health is between myself and my dentist. I don't need to rely on whether the water treatment facility has added the proper dose of fluoride or if I'm drinking just the right amount. Dosages are uncontrollable (e.g. people who drink more water get more fluoride) so it is impossible to know if you are getting the proper amount. What IS the proper amount anyway? No one knows. There is no medical advisory panel who specifies the amount of fluoride that you are supposed to consume. And if there were, the dosage is coupled to water consumption so it would be impossible to get the correct fluoride dosage without also drinking a prescribed quantity of water. And the only "approved" way to take fluoride is via brushing with fluoridated toothpaste. If fluoride were to be removed from the water tomorrow, few would be affected because ALL major brand toothpaste is fluoridated. In fact, you have to go out of your way to by "non-fluoridated" toothpaste (which is typically far more expensive).

So, I really don't get why people are so sensitive when it comes to the idea of taking fluoride out of the water. I, for one, would rather have the choice to take fluoride in a controlled dose as recommended by my dentist.