Thread: Fluoride debate rages over decades

Fluoride debate rages over decades

Additive sparks concerns about personal freedoms

By Mike Lee
Sunday, February 6, 2011 at 3 p.m.

Nearly 60 years after San Diego residents barred fluoride from public pumps and pipes, the city utilities department started fluoridating the water supply on Tuesday.

The latest move highlights the long-running tug-of-war over fluoride that has been shifting from city to city for decades. No matter how many millions of people drink the stuff each day or how many health leaders tout its benefits, questions about the wisdom of putting fluoride into tap water just won’t die.

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That’s partly because large doses of fluoride are dangerous and myriad studies leave something for just about everyone to cite as evidence to support their views. But it’s also because fluoridation has come to represent larger questions that resonate through American history.

“It is central to an ongoing debate within American culture over the proper relationship between the individual and the state,â€

Flouride, not good.