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Kathryn Hitchcock
Administrator
I'm confused, though I lean toward not fluoridating from a civil liberties position. The apparent fact that countries that don't fluoridate have no more dental caries than we do also lead me to believe we should stop fluoridating the water.
What do you think?
Kathryn Hitchcock
Administrator
Thanks for your thoughts, Nate. Yep, chemicals in food, water and the air. I try not to obsess over it and make efforts to do what I can do. Stopping fluoridation of our water is something we can do!
Who thinks fluoride is a great idea? Please address how non-fluoridating countries don't have a multitude of dental caries, the chief argument for fluoridating water, right?
I've considered the issue of fluoridation of drinking water and conclude that it should be discontinued for the following reasons. My first reason against it is, it is forced medication. Only under very certain circumstances is Federal, State or Local government allowed to force any person to take a medicine. People have the right to refuse medical treatment, including the right to refuse medicine that is prescribed. The dosage of fluoride is uncontrolled and is dependent upon how much water a person drinks and how much commercial food they consume. If water is boiled down in cooking then the total amount of fluoride increases as more water is added and boiled away. Fluoride is in many of the foods that we all buy because it is in the city water where factories are located. There are many more reasons why fluoridation should be discontinued.
Although studies draw into question if fluoridation of water prevents cavities, individuals who want to take fluoride could have it prescribed by a dentist or doctor.
My general thoughts on the fluoride debate:
Although I tend to lean in that direction, I am not necessarily a part of the "anti-fluoridation crowd" in that I'm not interested in taking part of this generally narrow two-sided debate.
What I generally am is pro-not-putting-a-lot-of-crap-into-our-bodies. I tend to more look at the big picture with this sort of thing, particularly when there are such clear holes in *both* sides of the debate. Fluoride being good or bad isn't the point--why is it even on the table? Because rampant, society-wide dental problems have put in there. These problems also put on the table mouthwash, tongue-cleaners, water-piks, electric toothbrushes, whitening toothpaste, etc. These are all pretty new inventions/discoveries, in the history of the human race (and I'm going back 3 million years to Homo sapien, not just 10,000 years to the Agricultural Revolution, what has been overwhelmingly seen as the "birth" of "man"). For me the real question is obvious: Why do we need all this stuff? Because of our diet? Other factors of modern living that were simply not an issue millennia ago? Why aren't we asking these questions in the context of the fluoride debate? Is it really separate? Do we really need to compartmentalize EVERYTHING?
I have come across science--evolutionary biology--that asks these kind of questions and comes to some pretty interesting and anti-modern-ways-of-living conclusions, if one really needs science to think about these things.
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