Does fluoride affect critical-thinking skills?

With West Manheim Township voting this week to take back its previous vote to dump fluoride, I am starting to get another round of emails from anti-fluoridation folks.

Many send along links they say prove fluoride is useless at best, or dangerous at worst. I’m reposting a column here I wrote in April on the topic in response. But don’t take my word for it. Take a look at the other side of the issue for yourself before making up your mind at fluorideinfo.org.

The whole notion of putting something in the water supply can indeed be scary, but any decision should be based on facts and rational evidence, not scare tactics. So if nothing else, think of the whole fluoride debate as an exercise in critical-thinking skills, or lack thereof.

Here’s the column I wrote in April:

Fluoride: Commie plot or public-health victory?

Sorry, but the first thing that comes to mind when I see the word fluoride in a headline is a scene in Stanley Kubrick’s classic Cold-War comedy, “Dr. Strangelove.”

In the movie, a U.S. Air Force general goes “a little funny in the head” as the president puts it to the Soviet premier, and orders his bombers to attack Russia. Turns out the general was worried about fluoride:

General Jack D. Ripper: “Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies under way to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk… ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children’s ice cream.”

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: [very nervous] “Lord, Jack.”

General Jack D. Ripper: “You know when fluoridation first began?”

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: “I… no, no. I don’t, Jack.”

General Jack D. Ripper: “Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard-core Commie works.”

Now I’m barely old enough to remember climbing under our desks during atom-bomb drills and other bits and pieces of Cold War paranoia. Back then, the Birchers believed President Eisenhower was a communist spy and fluoride a sinister socialist plot. Or at least an unconstitutional mass medication of the American people.

In the Charisse household, though, being unafraid of fluoridation was considered a sign of mental as well as dental health.

Lest anyone think I’m picking on right-wing crackpots here, I should hasten to add that I’ve run across a left-wing crackpot version of the fluoride menace. But this time instead of communists, it’s chemical companies concocting dental data as part of their nefarious plan to dump their toxic waste into the public water supply. (To read more about this conspiratorial scenario, go to http://ekoscommunications.com/content/fluoride-conspiracy.)

On either side of the political spectrum, though, my tin-foil-hat alarm goes off whenever I hear about fluoride plots, or the secret societies of the Knights Templar or the faking of the moon landing, for that matter.

But all of a sudden, fear of fluoride has gone mainstream. There are toothpastes on the market these days that shout “No Fluoride!” on the box in the same way they might promise their product contains no rat poison.

There’s also something online called the Fluoride Action Network (fluoridealert.org) with lots of scary “facts” and it doesn’t once mention communists or chemical companies.

Closer to home, fluoride was in the headlines the other day because West Manheim Township supervisors have voted to remove it from the water supply.

Back five years ago, West Manheim sold their water system to York Water. One of the conditions was that York Water continue adding fluoride to West Manheim’s water, as Hanover’s water department had done for decades. But just this month, supervisors voted to take fluoride out. And York Water is happy to comply since it is one of the minority of water companies in the United States that doesn’t fluoridate its water, except in West Manheim, of course.

Supervisor Carl Gobrecht cast the only dissenting vote, saying the children of the township have better teeth because of fluoride.

But Supervisor Marc Woerner said government agencies themselves are recommending lowering the amount of fluoride or eliminating it entirely.

I’m not exactly sure what reports Woerner has been reading, but nothing I can find on the websites of the Environmental Protection Agency or the Centers of Disease Control suggest eliminating fluoride. It is true that the government has recommended a lower effective dose of fluoride in drinking water because of the widespread availability of other sources of the chemical these days. There’s also a slim chance too much fluoride can mottle children’s teeth, so it only makes sense to aim for the lowest effective dose.

But both agencies continue to recommend fluoridating water, which the CDC considers one of “The 10 Great Public Health Achievements of the 20th Century,” right up there with public vaccinations and the recognition of tobacco as a public health risk.

Oh yeah, there are some people who don’t believe in those either, and suspect some sort of sinister plot is afoot wherever government is involved.

But in order to believe that fluoride is useless, or even dangerous, I’d have to believe in a vast conspiracy, including government, the American Medical Association, the American Dental Association and the World Health Organization. I’d have to ignore what purports to be a half century of worldwide research that establishes the significant dental benefits to fluoride.

And it seems to me many of the “facts” presented by the opponents of fluoride seem selective at best, misleading and inaccurate at worst.

For example, the Fluoride Action Network makes much of the fact that few European countries fluoridate their water. What they don’t tell you is that’s because of the smaller, less-efficient water systems in many of those countries, where they fluoridate table salt instead.

For a rebuttal to the anti-fluoride position, take a look at the Fluoride Information Network (fluorideinfo.org) and decide for yourself. Me, I have no problem deciding I have no problem with fluoride, and in fact believe I can probably thank it for my excellent dental health.

And I just don’t get the whole sinister-plot scenario or what makes some people that paranoid. Hmm, maybe it’s something they’re putting in the water that’s making people think crazy thoughts.

Oh, never mind. I’m starting to sound a little kooky myself.