sciencejunkie1

I see a lot of negative press on the Internet condemning cow's milk as unfit for human consumption. Yet the mainstream press is mostly positive. Who's right?

A recent National Research Council report in the Spring of 2006 says that the EPA maximum contaminant level of 4 mg is unsafe and should be lowered, although they never say how much. Given the American Dental Association's recent recommendation that infants should not be given ANY fluoridated water, how can the CDC claim that water fluoridation is still "safe and effective?" Also, what about athletes, construction workers, renal patients, etc who all drink up to four or five liters a day? Shouldn't water be safe for everyone?

For instance, "consensus scientific opinion" in the U.S. right now seems to favor the notion that water fluoridation is "safe and effective." Yet, back in the early 1940's the "consensus opinion" from the medical community, including the American Dental Association, was that fluoride was a poison, and that laws should be enacted to remove as much of it as possible from our food and water supplies. So what changed? The latest report from the NRC (a research arm of the National Academy of Sciences) is now saying as little as 4 parts per million of the stuff can cause thyroid problems, osteoarthritis, and possibly even osteosarcoma in male children, if consumed over a long period of time. In other words, it looks like the pendulum is swinging back to the notion that fluoridation is NOT "safe and effective" after all. Other substances like leaded gasoline, ddt, and most recently Celebrex, have also fallen by the wayside. So why do the media still invoke "consensus science" so often?