Can we have a civilized talk about the U.S. water fluoridation industry?

[JackRiddler]

89. The pretense that 1 ppm fluoride is separable as a factor...

(sorry, I'll have to repeat from elsewhere)

...is inherently questionable science. The dental health effects have only ever been found to be moderately indicated at best (as in the York university meta-study), all other possible health effects can't even be framed or conceptualized let alone measured to a standard we can call proof. There simply is not a double-blind possibility for studying this under control.

The smaller the sample size in epidemiological studies allowing the appearance of greater control, the more likely you'll get some significant results that are nevertheless not true or transferable to other cases. (Ioannides covers this epistemological stuff very well, by the way, see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/ and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16014596)

The doubt is sufficient to cause most scientifically minded countries to leave it out as a public policy measure. The question cannot be, "why not" when the dental health argument is so dubious. I really will trust Germany on this. I think the DMFT data really speak to the idea that direct, targeted practices and just plain development have worked spectacularly well in the long run, without need of some kind of faith-based shotgunning of the whole population on the basis of well we think it probably does help teeth for poor children who don't brush.

(Get them brushes! Put money in people's pockets! Get more dentists in poor areas! Promote development & education! Enough of the centralized magic bullet religion that distracts from real solutions...)