The controversy of water fluoridation - Research Paper Example

One particular issue has to do with the overall potential benefit for drawbacks that this fluoridation might necessarily affect. For the most part, it is been broadly accepted that water fluoridation is beneficial to the overall health of individuals within society. For the most part, this benefit has been tangentially related to dental health. However, there are also been claims by many scientists and researchers that fluoride within drinking water also benefits the overall bone health within an individual that is exposed to it.

Furthermore, this practice has been approved and supported by both the American Medical Association and the American dental Association since 1951 and 1953 respectively. Essentially, two government agencies are ultimately responsible for overseeing the way in which fluoride is represented within the water supply in the United States. These government agencies are the Federal Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. The government requirements for fluoridation of water and acceptable levels stipulate that the maximum level of fluoride that can be found in public water should not exceed 4 ppm (parts per million) (Vandana, 2014).

In several studies that have been conducted nation-wide, this has been found to have been exceeded. For the most part, there is a great dearth of effective and fully scientific studies that have been conducted as a means of determining the potential drawbacks or extant benefits that water fluoridation is able to effect. This is unique and at the very least somewhat troubling; in light of the fact that the nation’s water supply has been fluoridated for well over 60 years now. As such, the following analysis will pay a special level of attention to some of the positive and potential negative effects that water fluoridation may have on the populace.

Through such a level of examination and