On Sunday, I posted about the benefits of drinking tap water and I was thrilled to see over 40 comments on the story, so thank you for sharing your opinions! Your comments varied of course, and they got me thinking. 
UltimaMom wrote: "I am confused. I keep hearing some say adding fluoride to water is actually bad for your health and really not necessary. I honestly don't know one way or another." Ditto. I wasn't aware of the strong debate about the pros and cons of tap water until I read through all your comments. Wallylicious wrote: "Tap water is NOT healthy. Flouride is toxic when ingested, and only helps your teeth when applied topically." On the flip side, AprilDJC proclaimed: "I use tap water and find nothing wrong with it." Not sure what to believe, I decided to do some more research.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a section on their site dedicated to drinking water. It's incredibly detailed and very helpful. I read the most recent surgeon general's fact sheet about the fluoridation of water and it states: "Scientific studies have found that people living in communities with fluoridated water have fewer cavities than those living where the water is not fluoridated." Basically, the CDC ensures that fluoride in water is safe and healthy.
However, digging deeper on the site, I found that some communities have higher levels of fluoride in their water system than normal. In communities with fluoride levels greater than 2 mg/L, people are at a higher risk for bone fractures and children 8 years old and younger are at increased risk for severe enamel fluorosis, a condition that causes staining and pitting of the enamel surface of teeth. The CDC recommends giving children 8 years and younger drinking water from an alternative water source if the fluoride levels are greater than 2mg/L.
If you drink tap water and want to get your fluoride level tested, you can contact your local water utility, or local, county or state health department. You can also check out the My Water's Fluoride section of the CDC website.
So is tap water safe? The answer is...it depends.
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Comments (16)
We use a brita filter pitcher and drink our tap water. We tried one of the faucet mount ones but IMO it didnt work as well. Our water is fluoride but it is less than 2mg/L. FYI: You can find out, usually, on your city's utilities or water website whether or not your water has fluoride.
Just a note...simply because tap water, being flouridated, ensures fewer cavities does not make it safe and healthy. As one of the posters you quoted said...it is not safe to be ingested. The dentists I've been to have always stressed that point. "Make sure you rinse this off well, it's not good for your body."
Tap water also has more than flouride in it that isn't good for us. I hate the taste personally, but more importantly, I don't trust our government to "keep us healthy" through the water supply...sorry. There is too much evidence of them wanting "population reduction" or "population control" aka wanting us and our children dead, for me to trust them with anything. And it's not just the water...it's our food that is being ordered to be completely genetically modified, meaning we aren't getting food in it's natural state, thus depriving our bodies and furthering the decline of the human quality of life. Poison our water, feed us fake food, and control every aspect of our lives - voila, no more problematic U.S. or any other country. Too many people will be dead for there to be a problem for the governments.
ACsLady, the Nazis used flouride for population control. Just saying.
I knew it was bad when an enviromental science major taking a hazardous materials course called me and quoted her text about the hazadous nature of flouride.
Of course the CDC says it is safe. They also say that trace amounts of melamine in baby formula is safe. They also say that it is perfectly fine to inject into a newborn enough mercury at one time that would make an adult sick. I'm not anti-vax, I'm making a point - the shots alone are below the 'bad' level, but combine them and they are over the cdc's acceptable 'safe' level. Yet, they recommend combining them.
I don't trust the CDC to tell me what is safe. They are activiley pushing vaccines with toxins that we know are not safe, as well as pushing the new vaccines that do not have long term studies done.
Flouridation is the act of putting synthetic flouride into a water source. That is not safe. It can't be. Water that has flouride naturally occuring, not put there, isn't going to harm you. Same with some foods that contain it, but once you start adding chemicals into water supplies, of course there are going to be health ramnifications.
We don't even use flouride toothepaste. Well, my husband does. He doesn't care. My toddler's teeth are perfect, and she has never touched flouride toothepast and our tap water is filtered. Tap water also contains chlorine, lead, and sulfar depending on your area, so I don't really think it's safe.
We lived off well water at my mom and step dads house. We had the city come test it, to see if it was safe. It was the cleanest water in the area, coming from an underground spring and cleaner than the city water. That I drank off tap. The water in my house now, nope: it get's filtered.
My daughter died from osteosarcoma in March 2006. In my research to help her, it became clear that fluoride is a toxin and does not belong in our water and food. The latest Harvard research plainly shows that there is 40% more bone cancer in towns that fluoridate than towns that don't. This has been established for many years, which is why they stopped doing it over a decade ago. I have written a book about this and other issues regarding children and health.
Sorry, I forgot to add "In Europe" regarding the stoppage of water fluoridation.
The Twin Cities of MN have flouridated water since the 1940's. Suburbs of St Paul did not. My teeth were nearly perfect because of flouride, my DH's teeth were full of cavities because he drank water without flouride. I see a pattern. I do not feel that flouride is toxic and have not yet found eveidence that the Nazi's used flouride as population control. Has anyone checked on the validity of that statement? Until there is solid evidence that flouride is a health hazard,lets not cry wolf.OK? In other words, lets not panic over a bunch of rumors.
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