Opponents say it's illegal mass medication with a poison. On Monday, MPs will have a free vote on Government plans to allow health authorities to order water companies to fluoridate supplies.
The Government says the decision should be based on sound science -- but what is the evidence?
Every week, Manchester Dental Hospital gives around thirty children a general anaesthetic to extract rotten teeth. Hannah's to have eight taken out.
The cream is a local anaesthetic where the needle will go in to put her to sleep.
For dentists who'd rather not do this, fluoridation is a no-brainer. And that's been the tenor of the debate for years.
We visited a Birmingham's water treatment works. Fluoridated since the Sixties, tooth decay in the city is apparently a third of that in Manchester.
Health ministers believe a ‘yes’ vote tomorrow will break an impasse: since privatisation, water companies have refused to expand fluoridation for fear they might be legally liable if it goes wrong.
Now you'd have thought that if the Government was planning to pave the way for mass medication by fluoridation, there'd be some pretty rock solid science to prove the benefits. Well you'd be wrong.
A comprehensive review three years found that while there'd been a lot of research over the last 70 years, much of the science was of pretty poor quality.
Neither the case for, nor the case against stood up to much scrutiny.
And nothing's changed since.
The York Review, as it was called, found that while there probably was some benefit from fluoridation, it may be small as it was hard to determine how much.
Leading public health scientists involved believe that the public deserve to be properly informed.
Late last year, the York scientists wrote to the Health minister: it was the second time they'd complained about the medical profession's misrepresentation of their results.
There were, they said, "...continuing misinterpretations...". On effectiveness, they reminded the minister: "We could discover no reliable, good quality evidence." and on safety: "...not enough was known because the quality of the evidence is poor."
The Government insists there will be full local consultation before fluoridation can be introduced.
For opponents, that still means the human right to refuse medication will be breached.
MP's mailboxes have been flooded with propaganda from both sides. Let's hope they take the science - or lack of it - into account as well, when they decide.
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