IIRC _some_ of the European countries that “do not fluoridate their water” have naturally occurring fluoride levels in their water, obviating the need for them to do it.
Supplementation mainly concerns iodine for non-marine salts. Sea salt naturally contains iodine and fluorine. Salt from salt mines contains much less. For this reason, iodine deficiency was relatively common in the Alps until the beginning of the twentieth century.
To my knowledge, there is no debate or controversy on the subject. Endemic goiters are exceedingly rare and are linked to behavioral and eating disorders.
That is not true. You are probably thinking of iodine. Actually fluoride is prohibited in children's toothpaste in Germany because of its suspected neurotoxicity.
EDIT: I checked. It is possible to buy salt with added fluoride in Germany but it comes with the health note "Zusätzliche fluoridhaltige Präparate sollten nur auf ärztliche Empfehlung eingenommen werden.", which means you should only use it on recommendation by your MD.
Thanks for pointing that out. I wrote "prohibited" from what I remembered when my child was little and the discrepancy to the info you provided made me research the topic, so here is a summary of what the law (1223/2009 Cosmetic Products Regulation Annex III) has to say:
Tooth paste with more than one per mille of fluoride has either to be marked as unsuitable for children or has to have a note that children have to be supervised using it and a doctor or dentist has to be consulted in case the child swallows more than a pea-sized amount.
So, not quite prohibited, but far from recommended.
