Doesn't the Rest of the World Fluoridate Their Water?

97% of western Europe has chosen fluoride-free water . This includes: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, and Switzerland. (While some European countries add fluoride to salt, the majority do not.) Thus, rather than mandating fluoride treatment for the whole population, western Europe allows individuals the right to choose, or refuse, fluoride.

Source: http://www.fluoridealert.org/govt-statements.htm

Don't Drink the Water?
Brush your teeth, but the fluoride from your tap may not do much good - and may cause cancer.
Excerpts from the Feb 5, 1990 Newsweek article:

"According to the American Dental Association (ADA), tooth decay is anywhere from 50 to 70 percent less in fluoridated areas. But figures from the National Institute of Dental Research (NIDR), part of the National Institutes of Health, suggest otherwise. A 1987 survey of almost 4O,OOO school children found that tooth decay had declined sharply everywhere. Children who had always lived in fluoridated areas had 18 percent less decay, compared with their peers who had lived in non fluoridated areas. This 18 percent translates into a difference of fewer than one cavity per child. Similarly, in a 1986 paper in the British Journal Nature, Australian researcher Mark Diesendorf assessed 24 studies from eight countries and found that cavity rates had declined equally in fluoridated and nonfluoridated, areas, suggesting fluoridated water isn't that important."

As stated by the Nobel Prize Winner for Medicine (2000), Dr. Arvid Carlsson:

"I am quite convinced that water fluoridation, in a not-too-distant future, will be consigned to medical history...Water fluoridation goes against leading principles of pharmacotherapy, which is progressing from a stereotyped medication - of the type 1 tablet 3 times a day - to a much more individualized therapy as regards both dosage and selection of drugs. The addition of drugs to the drinking water means exactly the opposite of an individualized therapy."

As stated by Dr. Peter Mansfield, a physician from the UK and advisory board member of the recent government review of fluoridation (McDonagh et al 2000):

"No physician in his right senses would prescribe for a person he has never met, whose medical history he does not know, a substance which is intended to create bodily change, with the advice: 'Take as much as you like, but you will take it for the rest of your life because some children suffer from tooth decay. ' It is a preposterous notion."