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It is a scenario playing out nationwide. From Oregon to Pennsylvania, hundreds of communities have in recent years either stopped adding fluoride to their water supplies or voted to prevent its addition. Supporters of such bans argue that people should be given the freedom of choice. The broad availability of over-the-counter dental products containing the mineral makes it no longer necessary to add to public water supplies, they say. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that while store-bought products reduce tooth decay, the greatest protection comes when they are used in combination with water fluoridation.
The outcome of an ongoing federal case in California could force the Environmental Protection Agency to create a rule regulating or banning the use of fluoride in drinking water nationwide. In the meantime, the trend is raising alarm bells for public health researchers who worry that, much like vaccines, fluoride may have become a victim of its own success.
The CDC maintains that community water fluoridation is not only safe and effective but also yields significant cost savings in dental treatment. Public health officials say removing fluoride could be particularly harmful to low-income families — for whom drinking water may be the only source of preventive dental care.
“If you have to go out and get care on your own, it’s a whole different ballgame,” said Myron Allukian Jr., a dentist and past president of the American Public Health Association. Millions of people have lived with fluoridated water for years, “and we’ve had no major health problems,” he said. “It’s much easier to prevent a disease than to treat it.”
According to the anti-fluoride group Fluoride Action Network, since 2010, over 240 communities around the world have removed fluoride from their drinking water or decided not to add it.
Look into the history of the ADA, good tiimes. Dentists telling us for years that mercury amalgam in our mouths was A-OK too.
I’m not saying fluoride doesn’t make for stronger teeth, I’m saying we should not add drugs to our tap water regardless of any health or safety claims. If you go that route, why not add vitamin C, and some Ozempic?
Why don’t you go live in a third world country and help the children there. You’ll come back begging for water fluoridation.
Your opinion is one that only a privileged first worlder could have.
I’ll come back begging for dental care, not drugging of my community’s water supply.
Third world countries have bad teeth because we export processed food to them and they don’t have dental care. Native populations eating ancestral diets don’t have many dental problems.