[HN Gopher] Man says he lowered his town's water fluoride for ov...
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       Man says he lowered his town's water fluoride for over a decade
        
       Author : HieronymusBosch
       Score  : 15 points
       Date   : 2022-10-21 19:53 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
        
       | jleyank wrote:
       | Send the guy all of the bills for fillings and the like.
        
       | kbos87 wrote:
       | How is there not a single mention of the potential of criminal
       | liability on his part?
        
       | V__ wrote:
       | How is it possible (even for a small town of only 4100) that one
       | person can change the water composition for a decade without
       | anyone noticing? Besides the health implication, isn't this a
       | huge national security risk if there is no monitoring in place?
        
         | codyogden wrote:
         | My parent worked at a water treatment plant in a small town.
         | They could have easily screwed around with the chemical
         | compositions without anyone knowing. Nearly anyone could have
         | brute forced the control room: a single key/lock would need to
         | be bypassed. There was no access control or logging to the room
         | itself, and everyone who worked there had a master key to all
         | buildings and facilities. Lab tests were done on site and were
         | recorded manually, so they could easily just lie about the
         | results.
        
         | rejectfinite wrote:
         | You think somebody checks? On anything, ever?
         | 
         | The guy who did it was the water guy, not some random.
        
         | toomuchtodo wrote:
         | No governance, controls, or risk management over life critical
         | systems. It's everywhere, you just don't know or see it until
         | it fails.
        
       | DIARRHEA_xd wrote:
       | Any data on cavities per capita in the area over the past decade?
        
         | AdamJacobMuller wrote:
         | > there is not a lot of high-quality data looking at all the
         | possible effects of fluoridating community water
         | 
         | This guy just inadvertently (or not) created a great study
         | pool.
        
       | nkurz wrote:
       | One question I had was whether fluoridated water provides
       | additional benefit beyond if you are already using a fluoridated
       | toothpaste. Obviously, having it in the water would benefit
       | people who don't regularly brush their teeth, but it's not
       | obvious that it's helpful if you already are getting your
       | fluorine from the toothpaste. It's of interest to me because I
       | drink non-fluoridated well water, but brush my teeth daily with a
       | modern toothpaste. Anyone know?
       | 
       | My quick attempt to research this lead me to this nice Nature
       | article from last year:
       | https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02924-6. The article
       | helps to quantify the positives of fluoridation of water: real,
       | but not as large as one might guess. The bulk of the article is
       | about someone who sued the EPA to prevent fluoridation of public
       | water supplies. From what I can tell the suit is much delayed but
       | still in progress: https://fluoridealert.org/issues/tsca-
       | fluoride-trial/.
        
       | Trouble_007 wrote:
       | The Arstechnica comments are worthy of a read, I particularly
       | liked the 'Dr. Strangelove' reference.
       | 
       | 'How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb' :
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove
       | 
       |  _> General Jack D. Ripper : You know when fluoridation first
       | began?
       | 
       | Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake : I... no, no. I don't, Jack.
       | 
       | General Jack D. Ripper : Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946,
       | Mandrake.                 How does that coincide with your post-
       | war Commie conspiracy, huh?            It's incredibly obvious,
       | isn't it?            A foreign substance is introduced into our
       | precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual.
       | Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core
       | Commie works.
       | 
       | Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake : Uh, Jack, Jack, listen... tell me,
       | tell me, Jack.                  When did you first... become...
       | well, develop this theory?*
       | 
       | _
        
       | ParksNet wrote:
       | People rebel against fluoride, but ignore pesticide residues,
       | PFAS contamination, leachates from plastic piping...
        
         | lotsofpulp wrote:
         | I found it funny how pro science the voters of Portland, OR /
         | Multnomah County were when it came to enacting COVID protocols,
         | but have rejected the science of water fluoridation multiple
         | times, most recently in 2013.
        
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       (page generated 2022-10-21 23:02 UTC)