Think, for a moment, of the last meth-head you saw. Messed up teeth? For sure. Mottled, yellowing, crooked, falling out and generally super gnarly. Now, none of my family have teeth that bad, but it can get kinda scary sometimes.

I spent those formative youthful years (for my teeth at least) in Chicago. (continued behind jump)

From years 0-6, I drank fluoride laden water. My sister, who moved out to Oregon (with me and the rest of the family, der) drank the same water, but only until she turned 4. My sister and I go to our local dentist, Jill Price (who we love dearly) for checkups and cleanings every six months. Routinely, I’m out of the chair before the sib. Not because I keep my teeth in a particularly clean state (I brush once a day usually, twice a day for the first month or so after we visit Jill), but because I drank the fluoride water while most of my adult teeth were coming in, and hers came in pretty darn late. Regardless of when teeth came in for whom, my brother’s story expresses my point best.

When he turned 7 (and a few months after I turned 16), he had to sit through an intense filling session: 6 teeth. He brushed regularly enough, obedient by most standards, and because he goes to an alternative school, his sugar intake is much less than most kids. Yes, the story gets funny eventually.

We were sitting at dinner the night after my broham had his mouth monkeyed with, and he’s proudly displaying the fancy-schmancy toy he got. He was such a good boy, he explained, that mom bought him a new game! I blew up. Sixteen years of perfect teeth, and I don’t get anything? This kid takes terrible care of his teeth and gets a reward for it? SO COUNTER-INTUITIVE.

Two years later, I can put myself into my parent’s shoes much more easily. I didn’t do anything special to protect my teeth, I just drank water with fluoride. The Trib points to a study that talks about high risks of fractures in kids who drink fluoride water, but the only fracture I’ve had was a hairline in my right arm after trying to pole-vault in the backyard. With a broom. The same study suggests a marginal decline in IQ scores for fluoride-drinking children, but (and let’s not mix our evidence, here. The pole-vaulting was an isolated incident) I scored pretty damn well on both the old and new SATs.

The Week talks about heavy metals in the same water, metals from fertilizer companies where we would presumably get our fluoride. This one stumps me particularly because I have so little background on the subject; is that, in all honesty, the only way to get fluoride into the water? Surely it could be done other ways, like manufacturers do with toothpaste. I might be making a bit of a leap here, but I think people would be all over toothpaste companies for lead content, especially considering Jack’s recent freak-out over Dagoba. I’m not dismissing the arguments against the current system, I’m just asking if there’s another way to get the job done. So, yes, there might be risks to dumping waste into the water supply, but only discussing the one method of treatment is a lousy and dishonest method of framing the debate, one that ignores the potential fiscal benefits of fluoridating the water.

I don’t suggest that we discard the human for the almighty dollar. I do, however, suggest we at least look at the costs. The Centers For Disease Control, in an easily-Googled research summary says that “…water fluoridation for larger water systems is particularly cost-effective…” in reference to dental health.

From my personal experience, I can discount brittle bones and idiocy. The World Health Organization themselves supports the delivery of fluoride [pdf] in water supplies. I come down firmly as an advocate of fluoridation. It’s most beneficial to those who need it most: large populations of low-income families with poor dental-health records in children.

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5. PETA Likes Portland