Water Fluoridation Controversy - History

History

The first large fluoridation controversy occurred in Wisconsin in 1950. Fluoridation opponents questioned the ethics, safety, and efficacy of fluoridation. New Zealand was the second country to fluoridate, and similar controversies arose there. Fears about fluoride were likely exacerbated by the reputation of fluoride compounds as insect poisons and by early literature which tended to use terms such as "toxic" and "low grade chronic fluoride poisoning" to describe mottling from consumption of 6 mg/L of fluoride prior to tooth eruption, a level of consumption not expected to occur under controlled fluoridation. When voted upon, the outcomes tend to be negative, and thus fluoridation has had a history of gaining through administrative orders in North America. Theories for why the public tends to reject fluoridation include "alienation from mainstream" society, but evidence for that is weak. Another interpretation is confusion introduced during the referendum. Some studies of the sociology of opposition to water fluoridation have been criticized for having an uncritical attitude toward scientific knowledge.

Outside of North America, water fluoridation was adopted in European countries, but in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Denmark and Sweden banned fluoridation when government panels found insufficient evidence of safety, and the Netherlands banned water fluoridation when "a group of medical practitioners presented evidence" that it caused negative effects in a percentage of the population.