KIDS THESE DAYS:

Three years ago, I suffered a severe knee injury in a basketball game. Before my visit to an orthopedic surgeon, I went online and self-diagnosed my condition.

I printed about eight pages of information and walked into my appointment an informed patient.

When I showed the surgeon what I had discovered, he took my printed pages, walked over to a trash can and threw them out.

“One of the dangers of the Internet,” he said, “is that you can find an answer for anything.”

He is correct and there is no better example of this than the debate over whether to fluoridate the water in Newport Beach.

Each side is producing statistics to support its arguments, most of which serve only to delay a decision to fluoridate the water that is really good for kids and long overdue. And in citing this study or that result, each side has proven to be too dangerous to get further Internet privileges.

Online, I found discussions over whether a national increase in cavities in kids is being caused by the consumption of bottled water.

More than 60 percent of the U.S. population has access to fluoridated public water. But as distrust over the overall safety of municipal water has grown, consumers have turned to bottled water, most of which does not contain fluoride. Thus, an increase in cavities.

Then I found nofluoride.com, a website that makes arguments against fluoridation.

As the surgeon said, whatever you want, you can find.

If I looked long enough, I could find one of the 434,000 Google search results that would claim fluoridation is a Martian plot, or at least a communist one.

That communist plot argument is real.

I heard it years ago when I was a child in Chicago, which has had fluoridated water for more than 50 years.

This debate borders on the absurd. I find it interesting that the otherwise intelligent people who oppose the fluoridation of water in Newport Beach to help prevent childhood cavities, would not give a second thought to driving their kids around in an automobile, an activity that, over time, is likely to produce more bodily harm than a lifetime of drinking fluoridated water.

Statistically, 25 percent of those same people are smokers which, as we know, is a really good way to stop tooth decay.

And the homes of each of these people have potentially dangerous live electric currents running through them, as well as highly flammable gas used for cooking and heating.

But a few microscopic bits of fluoride in their water is enough to set the grassy knoll conspirators off.

The worst part about the fluoridation issue is the Newport Beach City Council which, once again, has shown it lacks a spine.

Whether it’s a new park, a new hotel on the water or the location of a new city hall, this body is showing it cannot make a major decision without a lot of hand-wringing, cowering and second-guessing.

Fluoridated water is completely safe. After all, I’ve been drinking it for 52 years and look how I turned out.

STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and a freelance writer. Send story ideas to [email protected].