This Friday the government is going to announce a reduction in the recommended fluoride levels in drinking water. This is the first time the government has walked back the recommended dose of fluoride in 50 years.
The fluoride controversy is so convoluted, confusing, and ultra-paranoid that I have trouble even working through it. The real problem is that there are some legitimate objections to water fluoridation, but they get muddled up with, and drowned out by, the conspiracy nuts.
The benefit to fluoride is that it basically fossilizes your teeth. It replaces the calcium molecules in your teeth one for one. Fluoride is harder than calcium, and much more resistant to decay. It creates super teeth!
But according to some people, it also creates death, disease, doom, and a population too passive to resist tyranny. These are some of the most unprovable claims on the planet. Unless you consider American citizens from the 1940s to today as your study group. In which case… no, it seems pretty harmless.
Another objection to water fluoridation is that it amounts to mass medical treatment. This is the reasoning by which many British towns have resisted water fluoridation. Who are you to say I should get a fluoride treatment? I respect this position, but I have to note that water fluoridation, which reduces cavities by up to 60% in the population, is considered one of the most successful public health measures ever enacted.
The biggest problem with fluoridation is that many people will never believe that a very tiny dose of something can be useful, whereas a very big dose of it can be poisonous. Fluoride is very toxic in high doses. But in tiny doses - about 1 milligram per liter - it can help your teeth. Many people believe that fluoride is toxic at any level, and that these chronic low doses are killing us with cancer, lung disease, ADD, and whatever other ills they can think of.
It's impossible to refute these assertions, which is one of the best ways to tell if a claim is bunk or not.
However, one of the more legitimate complaints is that there is insufficient oversight in the source, dosing, and monitoring of fluoride in our water supply. And given that this is the first adjustment in the official recommended levels since the 1960s, this camp may have a point.
The recommended levels are being dropped because there has been a somewhat mysterious increase in fluorosis since the 1980s. Fluorosis occurs when fluoride basically stains your teeth permanently. (I have a rather marked case of fluorosis, although I doubt that most people notice.) This mysterious increase makes me wonder if water treatment plants are being fully accurate when they add fluoride to the water. And how well we are tracking fluoride levels in tap water to begin with.
The biggest dental problems in America are happening because kids aren't getting proper nutrition or proper dental care. And unfortunately, fluoridating the tap water isn't going to help with that. Most of these kids are either living in rural areas on well water, or in urban core areas where no one drinks the tap water anyway.
The fluoride controversy is so convoluted, confusing, and ultra-paranoid that I have trouble even working through it. The real problem is that there are some legitimate objections to water fluoridation, but they get muddled up with, and drowned out by, the conspiracy nuts.
The benefit to fluoride is that it basically fossilizes your teeth. It replaces the calcium molecules in your teeth one for one. Fluoride is harder than calcium, and much more resistant to decay. It creates super teeth!
But according to some people, it also creates death, disease, doom, and a population too passive to resist tyranny. These are some of the most unprovable claims on the planet. Unless you consider American citizens from the 1940s to today as your study group. In which case… no, it seems pretty harmless.
Another objection to water fluoridation is that it amounts to mass medical treatment. This is the reasoning by which many British towns have resisted water fluoridation. Who are you to say I should get a fluoride treatment? I respect this position, but I have to note that water fluoridation, which reduces cavities by up to 60% in the population, is considered one of the most successful public health measures ever enacted.
The biggest problem with fluoridation is that many people will never believe that a very tiny dose of something can be useful, whereas a very big dose of it can be poisonous. Fluoride is very toxic in high doses. But in tiny doses - about 1 milligram per liter - it can help your teeth. Many people believe that fluoride is toxic at any level, and that these chronic low doses are killing us with cancer, lung disease, ADD, and whatever other ills they can think of.
It's impossible to refute these assertions, which is one of the best ways to tell if a claim is bunk or not.
However, one of the more legitimate complaints is that there is insufficient oversight in the source, dosing, and monitoring of fluoride in our water supply. And given that this is the first adjustment in the official recommended levels since the 1960s, this camp may have a point.
The recommended levels are being dropped because there has been a somewhat mysterious increase in fluorosis since the 1980s. Fluorosis occurs when fluoride basically stains your teeth permanently. (I have a rather marked case of fluorosis, although I doubt that most people notice.) This mysterious increase makes me wonder if water treatment plants are being fully accurate when they add fluoride to the water. And how well we are tracking fluoride levels in tap water to begin with.
The biggest dental problems in America are happening because kids aren't getting proper nutrition or proper dental care. And unfortunately, fluoridating the tap water isn't going to help with that. Most of these kids are either living in rural areas on well water, or in urban core areas where no one drinks the tap water anyway.
Photo credit: Flickr/amandachong