Fluoride is awesome. You can't blame one isolated incident of you feeling a bit sick after swishing some dental fluid (how did you know as a kid it even contained fluoride?) And yes, you get enough fluoride now as an adult because almost every city municipality in the country fluoridates their water, which may not have been the case when you were a kid. Your dentist is assuming your water is fluoridated and that you drink it in your daily life.

Growing up my water was always fluoridated and to this day, I still have never had a cavity nor any problem with my teeth. Furthermore, I have no real significant health problems that could conceivably be blamed on fluoride. So all I know is that being exposed to fluoridated water for 25 years gave me pristine teeth and nothing else.

Anyone worried about getting too much fluoride because it's in the water, just don't buy fluoride toothpaste and you're covered. Too many crackpots in this world going insane over every little thing.

Well think about it: Americans have the best, whitest, and straightest teeth in the world. I know, because I'm American currently living in England - it's a huge difference. Part of that is that dentistry and oral hygiene is a higher priority in the US than elsewhere, but I think it also has to do with most of the country's water being fluoridated as well.

You don't avoid cavities by being lucky and it has nothing to do with genetics. I avoided cavities my whole life because I brush my teeth for 2-5 minutes at a time (not the recommended 30 seconds), went to the dentist at least once a year, and my tap water was always fluoridated of which I drank a ton of. My brother also has had no problems with his teeth so far and he still lives in my hometown.

People will dispute everything and there's always a few crazy loudmouths causing trouble and making claims without any evidence to back it up. Fluoride lowers your IQ? Are you kidding?

Those numbers are meaningless though and are only spun in such a way to point at fluoride as the culprit. 512 children from only two villages (one low and one high fluoride) is a completely insufficient sample size to come to that conclusion, especially when there are a million other variables to take into account, the IQ test itself being one of them. Also, biased scientists from the "Fluoride Action Network" isn't the best source either; of course they're going to try to link fluoride to anything bad.

How's the education system in each village? Difference in wealth? Which one has the better parents that encourage academics over other pursuits? Which is more technologically advanced? What are the diets of all of the children? What are the homes like in terms of sophistication? How much sun exposure does each child get?

All of those questions have an effect on a child's IQ.

Immediately pointing at fluoride to explain the difference in these IQ scores is dodgy pseudo science. Get back to me when a neutral agency has a sample size of over 10,000 from 50 different locations and have taken into account other crucial variables such as diet, differences in education systems from one village to the next, and whether the parents of every single test subject are together and academically-focused.