Toothpaste

My six-year-old's visit to the dentist has revealed a few small cavities. They're very, very small, in the spaces between teeth that are difficult to reach, and they're not in his permanent teeth, but they'll still need to be filled. I feel awful about this. It's not anyone's fault, really ― his diet is good, and his teeth are brushed thoroughly and regularly. But he hasn't been using a toothpaste with fluoride, which might have helped.

When he was younger, we avoided that because of his tendency to swallow toothpaste while brushing. (We used what's referred to as "training toothpaste," instead.) He's old enough now to use a fluoride toothpaste, but my wife has been putting this off, out of a misguided concern that it might somehow be ― dangerous!

After all, fluoride is (according to one source) "a chemical byproduct of aluminum, steel, cement, phosphate, and nuclear weapons manufacturing," not to mention "the active toxin in rat poisons and cockroach powder." It's also used "to refine high octane gasoline, to make fluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons for freezers and air conditioners, and to manufacture computer screens, fluorescent light bulbs, semiconductors, plastics and herbicides." It's "a toxic byproduct in the manufacturing process of man made chemicals." And did you know? These industries have created and encouraged the use of fluoride as an additive to avoid having to pay to dispose of it as toxic waste!

I'd heard through the years that water fluoridation was being used for mind control ― you didn't know? ― but I really had no idea that so much effort was being put into convincing people that fluoridated water and fluoride toothpaste are (assuming you believe any of this) so very harmful to the well-being of our children.

And not only that ― scientific evidence to the contrary has been suppressed by the Government!

(I find conspiracy theories endlessly amusing. They're the perfect answer to virtually any argument, with a built-in explanation for the lack of any tangible evidence. Of course there's nothing but speculation to support your suspicions ― the facts have been suppressed, because "they" don't want you to know the truth!)

Unfortunately, my wife seems easily persuaded by such overwrought histrionics. I should argue the point, I know ― she is aware that I don't agree with her on this, and I could set her in the direction of more sensible reading material, and try to reassure her that The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers water fluoridation to be "one of the greatest achievements in public health in the 20th century." But we've had these discussions before, and when all is said and done, I don't have any specialized knowledge she doesn't have ― just a sort of instinctual skepticism that this fear of fluoride is based more on ideology than reason. And that never seems to be enough to convince her.

I think I'll let the dentist be the one to try to do that, instead.