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If this is true, then I must be really out of touch. No one has expressed that opinion to me, nor have I seen it on Facebook in my News Feed (and I do occasionally see woo-woo stuff there). And I've certainly never heard a dentist say that. I'm not surprised that there are people who make this claim, but I would never have considered it "the popular opinion", or even a popular opinion.

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The US Dept of Health and Human Services actually halved their recommendation for fluoride in water about six months ago. The reasoning is apparently that people in the US now get enough from other sources such as toothpaste, mouth washes, etc [1].

Note that they didn't /remove/ the recommendation for fluoride in water. They just reduced the recommended amount.

1: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/04/27/40257994...

Getting too much fluoride is something that can occur as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_fluorosis

I am all too aware as I have mild fluorosis in some of my teeth! Although I think the biggest cause of this was semi regular fluoride rinses at the dentist when I was a kid.

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