Ok, I will get on soap box, but for the moment, I just wanted to say that it really creeps me out that the CDC is pro-flouride in drinking water. Flouride is bad, bad stuff, go research, you'll see what I mean.

I couldn't find how flouridated my water is, but I thought I'd share the following link for US citizens that are curious. Maybe your county will post its data.

http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/MWF/index.asp

Hi Washuai

I'm not too sure about the fluoride content of our drinking water, but I know a company in SA is working on developing a more organic toothpaste that will not contain any fluoride. And since I'm on the topic of teeth, do you have any silver fillings? A dentist friend of mine told me some very shocking facts the other day about silver fillings... Have a look:

http://www.hbds.co.za/amalgam_fillings.asp

To save us uninformed people from having to do a lot of google searching, why is floride in the water a bad thing? I was always told it was good for our teeth, and in fact those who drink too much bottled water (rather than tap water) were going to suffer from not having the florinated water.

Small amounts of fluoride help reduce tooth decay. Fluoridation of tap water helps reduce cavities in children by 50 - 60%. Fluorides also help maintain bone structure. Low doses of fluoride salts may be used to treat conditions that cause faster-than-normal bone loss, such as menopause.

However, when there is a high amount of fluoride in the drinking water, a problem called chronic dental fluorosis may occur. The tooth enamel becomes dull and pitted. If the water contains over 2.5 parts per million of fluoride, the teeth will stain dark brown. Although this is unsightly, such teeth rarely have any cavities.

In addition, high fluoride intake (20 - 80 milligrams per day) over a period of many years may cause skeletal fluorosis (chalky, brittle bones). It is also believed that such a high intake could cause certain cancers, notably breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

For more info: http://www.healthline.com/search?q1=fluori...m_term=fluoride

the first fluoridation of water in Australia started in 1953 and sits at a level of around 0.7 to 1mg/L.

every state in Australia fluoridates their water except for Queensland, where it is under local government control, ie. Brisbane's water supply is not fluoridated.

i wouldn't live anywhere where there wasn't fluoride in my water. my teeth are proof that it works, not one cavity.

i was shocked to learn that only around 10% of the UK has fluoridated water. UK dentists must make a killing.....

Flouride is a disinfectant and as such, as a topical tooth treatment works on cavities.
Although, you still end up digesting some, even if you don't swallow any toothpaste. Do you know of any other disenfectants, you'd willfully ingest? Flouride is perhaps less lethal than other disinfectants, but it isn't healthier.

Toothpaste flouride is topical flouride, yes it works to reduce cavities. Ingestion of Flouride, doesn't. Also on the subject of fluoride toothpaste, you'll notice if you read it, that there are warnings to go to a poison control center, if you ingest the stuff. All fluoridated toothpaste in the US has the warning & they don't all share the same inactive ingrediants, but they all share fluoride.

Ingestion of flouride has been linked to flourosis, cancer, kidney disease, basically as Microsofty noted. There's plenty of studies in scientific journals out there. It's scary to think about how we're slowly poisoning ourselves over the years.

I'm going to start with essentially, what I consider to be a good enough argument on its own.
1) It should be my personal choice, whether to ingest flouride. It is not ethical to force it on anyone.
2) Once in our water supply, removing it, isn't really an option and it has negative effects on the environment.
3)They dump it in the water, when they know there are proven detriments to people's health, even in low concentrations.
4)There's no control over the dose, because people drink different amounts of water.
5)They pay for this with my tax money & then I get charged again, to filter it out of my water!

More non-extreme reasons:
6) There's cheaper ways to fight cavities
7) We shouldn't have to pay for chemical compaies' waste (the fluoride)
8) Ingestion of fluoride has not been proven to reduce cavities.
--Lis, you aren't saying you drink water & never brush your teeth & therefore have never had a cavity, are you? There's lots of reasons you might not have ever had a cavity.


If you want the extreme end of things:

The first use of fluorodated water was the Nazi's flouridating the water in concentration camps for the prisoners. You really think the Nazi's cared whether the prisoners had cavities? Do a little google search on Nazi's & fluoridation, if the above reasons about civil liberties & your health don't convince you. Regardless what you else you might think about why the Nazi's did it, it is a fact that they fluoridated the concentration camp water.

I want to note, I think Nazi's used it for its capacity to kill disease causing agents in the water, as opposed to the conspiracy theory reasons.

I guess I need to make a new trip to a library, because I don't like presenting arguments without quoting the good sources to back myself up. Shame I only read about this stuff and didn't make a paper, or I'd have the list of references.

-edit-
I'm just going to link to Greenpeace forum. They have a decent debate on the subject & links to appropriate references.

Point 1 is enough to leave me anti-drinking water fluoridation.