The anti-fluoride side also says that you don't need it in the first place because it's not effective. A study done in 1986-87 by the National Institute of Dental Research is used by both sides to support diametrically opposed conclusions about fluoride effectiveness. According to Dr. Stanley Heifetz, a professor at the University of Southern California Medical School who has studied the report, the study demonstrates at least 20 percent reductions in tooth decay in fluoridated communities. This invalidated their conclusion, he says, which was that there were no differences in decay rates between fluoridated and nonfluoridated communities. The Credibility Game IT'S HARD TO KNOW how to evaluate all these charges.
Local activists fall into the same trap.
One minute they will argue that we are already consuming a therapeutic dose of fluoride, and the next they'll say it's bad for you at any dose. The cost of the election alone, by Tompkins' estimate, would fund three years of fluoridation. Likening fluoride to lead, arsenic and even Sarin nerve gas, other anti-fluoride literature contends that fluoride is an industrial waste byproduct that carries with it toxic impurities that also get dumped in the water. Besides that, they claim, it doesn't work. Fluoride opponents say equipment could malfunction on that date and dump too much fluoride into the water supply.