[Kevin Curry]

For me, the issue isn't whether flouride is a medically sound dental-decay preventative. It is whether it is proper to force everyone to drink it because some people believe it is a medically sound dental-decay preventative. I don't believe forced medication with flouride is proper.

On the advice of close personal friends who also happen to be dentists, my wife and I have always given our children flouride tablets and not one of them has ever had a trace of dental decay, nor is any of them less than healthy in any other way. Whether this is due to flouride I really can't say. However, the tablets are easy to get and they are dirt cheap. If a community is concerned about a "plague" of dental caries, instead of force-medicating everyone in the community, why not make the tablets available at the local county health agency?

People who oppose flouride have been ridiculed, and wrongly so in my opinion.

[TomB]

Anytime I fight against the anti-fluoridationists, this it the only argument they make that has weight. However, I'd like to point out that this is exactly how government should operate, each municipality determining for itself what is best. There are still cities in this country that don't fluoridate the water because of strong local opposition. That is the way it should be.

However, the reason the anti-fluoridationists have been ridiculed so much in the past is because of the silly arguments they use. It seems any fluoride thread brings the hypochondriacs out of the woodwork, and they complain about every malady under the sun being due to fluoride.