[TazeTSchnitzel]

Public water fluoridation has well-understood health benefits (a reduction in cavities that cannot be achieved through brushing alone). It also has well-understood drawbacks (tooth mottling in high concentrations, toxicity in high concentrations).

Someone participating in this discussion would either know this from general knowledge, or could look it up.

People aren't that ignorant.

[juliangregorian]

Assume that I am. Sources, please.

[DanBC]

Asking for sources in the same thread where you've been makig strong but unsupported claims is a bit rich.

[juliangregorian]

I haven't really made any claims, but if you need me to source anything besides the one I already gave you, you're welcome to point it out.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

It's trivial to find sources for the effectiveness of fluoride in preventing tooth decay (Google -> Wikipedia -> a citation leads you here: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5014a1.htm). There are also studies on water fluoridation's impacts, though it's harder to test that, by nature.

[juliangregorian]

Oh hey, published by the "Fluoride Recommendation Work Group"! Wonder what their agenda is?

You have only to look up the rates of tooth decay among non-fluoridated countries to find that there is no difference whatsoever.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

> Oh hey, published by the "Fluoride Recommendation Work Group"! Wonder what their agenda is?

It doesn't matter what theirs is, the link I gave you isn't useful as a source, but as a list of sources.