If you're lucky enough to live somewhere where the crazies haven't defluorinated your water because "you're polluting our pure water with chemicals..."

I don't think it's that clear - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3491930/

Crazies or people who actually care about environment? Fluorinating water must be one of the least efficient ways of doing this.

If you'll coordinate an effort to get florinated products into the hands of everyone in the US who can't afford them, I'll agree with you.

The reason foridation has additional FDA requirements is because it's essentially a medicine, not a food supplement like iodine - which is an essential nutrient. So to justify the medication of entire communities at the exact same dose of a non-essential pharmacological product in an effort to ensure poor people receive enough flouride seems misguided. Calcium has a similar hardening effect on teeth and is present in water already - forming the scale you see in the shower Ca(CO3). Additionally, flouride stains your teeth [0].

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_fluorosis

Hard water has calcium and soft water doesn't. My city gets naturally soft water and we don't get scale. But we do get added fluoride.

Like toothpaste? You actually think it's easier/cheaper to put it in the entire water supply vs handing out some free toothpaste?

Toothpaste isn't free. Producing toothpaste, putting flouride in it, and distributing it are all harder than putting fluoride in water and distributing it. Water is pumped to people's houses from central locations. Toothpaste has to be placed in tubes and shipped around on boats and trucks.

> Crazies or people who actually care about environment?

The environment???

Fluoride, like many minerals, is naturally occurring in many water sources, just not (all) of the ones that are used for drinking water. Additionally, the concentration of fluoride for this purpose is minuscule (0.7 mg/L according to Health Canada).

This comment is why you absolutely must test well water every 2-3 years.

Up here in Maine we have a pretty bad fluoride issue in some areas, and a lot of people are not testing their well water, and ending up with fluoride poisoning.

It's not the role of government to brush my teeth.

It is when tooth decay is a major public health concern.

Actually no, it still isn't.

I think it is, not for you but for your children. Too many parents don't take proper care of their children's teeth and this can cause non-reversible damages. Adding flouride is not the perfect solution but it can help to some degree.

The problem is a combination of sugar over-consumption and bad dental hygiene. Those are the issues that need to be addressed. Adding flouride to our drinking supply does not address these issues.

If you can't afford insurance, the government makes sure you get the health care you need to stay alive and healthy. So the government has a vested interest in making sure people stay healthy, because if a poor person gets sick, the government is paying for their healthcare. Not everyone brushes their teeth, not everyone can afford toothpaste. Everyone has to drink water, though, and fluoride in water causes no real health problems. It's a very quick win for public health, because otherwise the government would be paying to replace poor people's teeth.

What government are you talking about?

Until recently I couldn't avoid government insurance here in America, and the IRS penalizes me monthly for it at a rate higher than the cost of subsidized insurance.

And flouride in your water doesn't replace toothpaste. Are you seriously trying to tell me if I don't brush but drink enough water a day, without changing my sugar consumption and after-meal rinsing habits, that my gums will stay healthy? I don't think you really know what you're talking about.

- Worldwide, 60–90% of school children and nearly 100% of adults have dental cavities.

- Dental cavities can be prevented by maintaining a constant low level of fluoride in the oral cavity.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs318/en/

It doesn't seem like it's an issue to you, personally, because we have flourinated water.

I have two abcesses and a cavity. So this is very much an issue to me. My dental problems were caused by weak enamel and losing access to proper dental care.

As a child, I used to get nauseated after brushing my teeth and formed a physical aversion I had to overcome daily. After discovering flouride-free toothpaste a few years ago, I stopped feeling sick after brushing. It's possible I have an underactive thyroid but I haven't sought a real diagnoses.

Putting flouride in our tap doesn't solve sugar over-consumption or bad dental care. And it possibly aggravates hyperthyroidism in some people, though I don't know of any conclusive studies.

>doesn't solve sugar over-consumption or bad dental care

I though you just said that tooth decay isn't still a public health concern, now it is?

Are you saying the WHO is wrong? Based on what evidence?

I never said that?

Don't hijack my argument into something else.

I said it wasn't the government's responsibility to flouridate my drinking water. That isn't what I pay taxes for.

>Actually no, it still isn't.

^ Is what you really said, which didn't make sense even in context.

You pay taxes for what your democratically elected representatives determine it's for, not what you personally think - and like the WHO, they think some of it should be marginally spent on solving major public health concerns.

It isn't my government's responsibility. Didn't say it wasn't an important issue.

The idea that democratic elections are functioning in a representative way in America is a joke. I have no control over many policies that govern me. But I still reserve the right to decide what I think are worthwhile tax expenditures. Your same logic would invalidate the gross overspending of taxes towards my government's defense budget.

So major public health concerns are not the government's responsibility?

At least you understand saying, "That's not what I pay taxes for" is a moot argument then.

If this is true, then I must be really out of touch. No one has expressed that opinion to me, nor have I seen it on Facebook in my News Feed (and I do occasionally see woo-woo stuff there). And I've certainly never heard a dentist say that. I'm not surprised that there are people who make this claim, but I would never have considered it "the popular opinion", or even a popular opinion.

The US Dept of Health and Human Services actually halved their recommendation for fluoride in water about six months ago. The reasoning is apparently that people in the US now get enough from other sources such as toothpaste, mouth washes, etc [1].

Note that they didn't /remove/ the recommendation for fluoride in water. They just reduced the recommended amount.

1: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/04/27/40257994...

Getting too much fluoride is something that can occur as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_fluorosis

I am all too aware as I have mild fluorosis in some of my teeth! Although I think the biggest cause of this was semi regular fluoride rinses at the dentist when I was a kid.

It's the most stupid thing, though. We also shower and cook with this water.

Agreed. It's sapping our precious bodily fluids. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr2bSL5VQgM

Well, if you're okay with putting excess amounts of chemicals on your skin that are targeting your teeth although you may get enough from green tea, I'm not, and many others aren't either. I bought a chlorine filter for my shower, and all my dandruff and skin itching issues have disappeared, so, call it a conspiracy theory or whatever, but you can't beat the facts.

Anecdotes are not data.

I'm not a computer; I'm a human being, and I apply heuristics all the time. Maybe you're not. Anyway, data can be forged, and has been forged numerous times driven by corporate and political interest.

What I do works for me, and works well - I look for fluoride-free products - you can stick with using agricultural waste in your water supply, but I stay off it!

I don't think my water has fluoride, though.

https://nccd.cdc.gov/DOH_MWF/Default/Default.aspx will tell you whether or not your water source should/shouldn't be flouridated if you live in the US.

Thanks ... but I live in Norway. I'm not sure any of the water is fluoridated here. In the states, however, everywhere I lived had fluoride in the water.

Water is fluoridated in Norway if it needs be, i.e. the fluoride content of drinking water is moderated so that it is between 0.7 and 1.2 mg/l (i.e. around one part per million).

https://sml.snl.no/fluoridering

Water often has some levels of fluoride naturally.

Yes, and it always has had - one would expect that during the human evolution, the human body developed to expect and utilize variable levels of fluoride in drinking water.

Nowadays we consume processed water which is clear of many impurities and tends to come just one source. The quality is extremely consistent, so we don't die of poisonings and contaminations. But then, the selection of where our drinking water comes from, and the purification processes may have the impact that the fluoride level is consistently lower than is good. Hence the possible need to add fluoride to water.