The Pros and Cons of Having Teeth

We are all familiar with the British stereotype of bad teeth. But apparently one reason for this is because many people are strongly against fluoridation of the drinking water.

Suppose you're in New York or Los Angeles reading this, and you feel like a glass of tap water. It will be fluoridated: 70% of America's water supplies – including all the big city ones – are treated thus. Thirsty down under? Australia is nearly 70% fluoridated, too – just like Ireland, where the average number of decayed or filled teeth per child is 1.3, against 2.3 in non-fluoridated Northern Ireland. But the same glass of water in Britain has only a one in 10 chance of stopping such rot.

Oddly enough, I can't confirm his figures: This graph shows UK with 0.7 bad teeth per 12-year-old child, and the US with 1.19 bad teeth per child. (He probably got the figures from an earlier Times article on the subject.)

So basically we have a group of people denying the science that says that fluoride can prevent tooth decay - this is akin to the intelligent design fans in the US. We also have a group saying that adding fluoride to the water is a political control move as it makes people more docile - these are conspiracy theorists. Other argue that fluoride infringes upon their human rights to decide how to treat their own teeth - these people are at least honest, their argument amounts to little more than "I don't want it, so you shouldn't make me."

The oddest thing is that even though they keep trying to put fluoride in the water, it hasn't worked yet! Is this a win for civil liberties and the British thought of "my home is my castle"? Or is this a failure to educate the public and ignore the panic-spreading media? At any rate, the end result is the same: bad teeth.