Does Fluoridated Water Fight Cavities?
But the fluoride is in your toothpaste to fight cavities. When it comes into direct contact with teeth, fluoride appears to help. The much bigger questions are whether we need to fluoridate the entire water supply to achieve this and whether water fluoridation, an indirect method to fight cavities, actually works. The answers don t come easily, even though loud voices on both sides of the debate for the past 55 years have been giving the impression that scientific truth is definitely on their side. Fierce political battles have been raging in many communities across the country about whether to fluoridate the water supply ever since Grand Rapids, Mich. took the first step in 1945. Thus far, about 60 percent of the U.S. water supply is fluoridated. Those scientists, medical and dental organizations, consumer advocates, government officials and chemical industry representatives in favor of fluoridation insist that hundreds, if not thousands of studies, support fluoridation as a means to
