Grand Rapids, MI, was the first city in the U.S. to be fluoridated, in 1945. Grand Rapids, MI, sits smack-dab in the middle of the goiter belt. Surely the powers that be recognized that fluoride would most likely displace the Iodine people were getting from salt?

Shoot, 25-30 years prior to this time, a good percentage of the populace were sporting goiters, so the degree to which the locals were deficient had to be known...

Coincidence?

BTW, there's a monument to fluoridation in Grand Rapids. A new one. The old one decayed:

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/news/16549


"This symbolizes strengthening the water and strengthening the teeth," said Amy DeYoung, president of the West Michigan District Dental Society. In fact, the dentists of Grand Rapids had never really warmed to the old monument. They wanted more "art," and only settled for the ragged-teeth-and-drinking-fountain because it was all that they could afford at the time. One early suggestion for the monument was a giant tooth on a pole in the middle of the Grand River, which would have been GREAT -- but it was dismissed by the dentists of Grand Rapids.

Another problem with the original monument was that, embarrassingly, it decayed. A combination of Grand Rapids winter weather and night-time vandals cracked and battered the marble. When the surrounding land was sold to an upscale hotel, and the dentists of Grand Rapids were told that their old monument would be lost in the shrubbery, they kicked their fund-raising into high gear. "Steel Water" cost a lot, but it's designed to last and to be noticed.

As for the fluoride part, Amy DeYoung insists that the muted tone of the new monument is not a concession to anti-fluoridationists who took offense at the old one. "We've been trying to push this more as the commemoration of an event in Grand Rapids," she told us. "Whether you agree with it or not, it did happen. And it's history now. So this is commemorating an historical event."