Fluoridation of drinking water has never been shown to be safe or effective in randomized trials and you could never get approval from the FDA today to use it. The claimed benefits are pretty small in both health and monetary terms and would be wiped out by even a fraction of an IQ point loss; the expected benefit is quite small and so conspiracy theorists incorrectly killing fluoridation would not cause much regret.
Polio vaccines on the other hand have been shown to be safe & effective, and even if the CIA were using the polio program to kill dozens of Pakistanis each year (rather than 1 known inconclusive case), that still would be less than the number of polio vaccinators who have been assassinated and the hundreds of polio cases annually which will continue indefinitely and prevent the permanent eradication of polio. In this case, the regret from the conspiracy theories about polio vaccination is real.
Less.
Fluoridation of drinking water has never been shown to be safe or effective in randomized trials and you could never get approval from the FDA today to use it. The claimed benefits are pretty small in both health and monetary terms and would be wiped out by even a fraction of an IQ point loss; the expected benefit is quite small and so conspiracy theorists incorrectly killing fluoridation would not cause much regret.
Polio vaccines on the other hand have been shown to be safe & effective, and even if the CIA were using the polio program to kill dozens of Pakistanis each year (rather than 1 known inconclusive case), that still would be less than the number of polio vaccinators who have been assassinated and the hundreds of polio cases annually which will continue indefinitely and prevent the permanent eradication of polio. In this case, the regret from the conspiracy theories about polio vaccination is real.