UK - Daily Echo -Letter

In my View
By Dr John F Beal Vice Chairman British Fluoridation Society
Fluoridation: best for kids
CONTRARY to the exaggerated claims that have been made in your newspaper recently by letter writer Joy Warren, an anti-fluoride campaigner from the West Midlands, the addition of fluoride to that region's water supplies over the past 45 years has given its children some of the healthiest teeth in the country.
Survey after survey has shown that children in fluoridated areas of the West Midlands tend, on average, to have fewer teeth decayed than in comparable non-fluoridated communities. Indeed, children from some of the region's most socially deprived communities that are supplied fluoridated water enjoy better dental health than those from much more affluent, but non-fluoridated, areas.
There is no evidence to support her exaggerated claims about the prevalence of dental fluorosis in the West Midlands.
Using the best available studies, the Medical Research Council estimates that about three to four per cent of children in fluoridated areas may have fluorosis of aesthetic concern, compared with about 1 per cent in non-fluoridated areas such as Southampton. Severely decayed teeth are themselves unsightly. Ms Warren omitted to inform readers that the American Dental Association (ADA) strongly supports water fluoridation as the "single most effective public health measure to reduce tooth decay," which it also describes as "a powerful strategy to reduce disparities in tooth decay among different populations".
The ADA has not warned parents of newborns against giving them fluoridated water. Rather, in a country that has well over one million people drinking naturally occurring fluoride concentrations in water between two to four times higher than the target level for fluoridation schemes in the UK, the ADA has advised those parents who may be anxious about the risk of fluorosis to consider using ready-made infant formula feed made up with low-fluoride or fluoride-free water.
There is absolutely no evidence, as claimed by Ms Warren, that fluoridation reduces intelligence. Anti-fluoride campaigners like to cite some poor quality studies conducted in rural areas of China with high natural fluoride levels in water. Not only were the studies poorly designed but they have no relevance to advanced Western communities operating controlled fluoridation schemes.
For the record, an analysis of GCSE examination results in several major UK cities in 2007 found that fluoridated Newcastle upon Tyne and Birmingham had the highest pupil scores. But that, of course, was purely coincidental. It cannot be claimed that fluoridation enhances intelligence, any more than the converse can be argued.

As the Vice Chairman of the BFS he has to defend fluoridation. He never mentions the obesity found in the West Midlands; the crap they put in the water to "top up" the calcium fluoride.
There is almost no fluoride in mothers' milk and nature does know best. If even 1% get fluorosis in non fluoridated areas surely that is an indication we are getting too much now through toothpaste, mouth washes and medicines.