USA - Fluoride is being added to more everyday products. How much is too much?

By Dan Ross

In the early 1900s, a young dentist named Frederick McKay moved to a Colorado town where the residents’ teeth — though in some cases stained chocolate brown — had far less decay than was typical back then.

He and other researchers eventually linked the phenomenon to fluoride in the town’s drinking water – a eureka moment that would usher in what is often called one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century. Grand Rapids, Mich., in 1945 became the first city to fluoridate its water supplies.

Today, two out of every three Americans receive drinking water containing the chemical, and the federal government is pushing to raise the numbers further.

Yet few substances found in drinking water trigger as emotional and polarized a public reaction as fluoride. In the fevered imaginations of conspiracy theorists, including members of the John Birch Society, fluoridation was denounced as a Communist plot, a view satirized in the film “Dr. Strangelove.”

In the early 1900s, a young dentist named Frederick McKay moved to a Colorado town where the residents’ teeth — though in some cases stained chocolate brown — had far less decay than was typical back then.

He and other researchers eventually linked the phenomenon to fluoride in the town’s drinking water – a eureka moment that would usher in what is often called one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century. Grand Rapids, Mich., in 1945 became the first city to fluoridate its water supplies.

Today, two out of every three Americans receive drinking water containing the chemical, and the federal government is pushing to raise the numbers further.

Yet few substances found in drinking water trigger as emotional and polarized a public reaction as fluoride. In the fevered imaginations of conspiracy theorists, including members of the John Birch Society, fluoridation was denounced as a Communist plot, a view satirized in the film “Dr. Strangelove.”...........................