[HN Gopher] Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its w...
___________________________________________________________________
Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water
Author : Jimmc414
Score : 456 points
Date : 2025-03-29 19:19 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| dboreham wrote:
| You can provide your own flouride (live in a house with well
| water).
| jedberg wrote:
| Assuming you're wealthy enough and well informed enough to know
| that you should.
| kstrauser wrote:
| You can provide lots of stuff yourself if the state abandons
| the whole idea of public health. Of course, be prepared for
| your taxes and/or insurance going up to cover your neighbors
| who don't pay for the same preventative care.
| csdreamer7 wrote:
| Pretty much-was told by an insurance broker one of the
| biggest factors past history of weather and the obvious
| things (flooding possibility, dry trees) is my neighbors.
| Didn't get into specifics but I suspect drugs and gangs.
| lurk2 wrote:
| >one of the biggest factors
|
| One of the biggest factors of what?
| Vegenoid wrote:
| Based on the context, I believe insurance prices
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Public health is a conspiracy to attempt to get our young men
| prepared for war!
| XorNot wrote:
| Children can't, and a lifetime of dental issues they didn't
| have the knowledge or good fortune to have prevented is a
| serious issue.
| Pigalowda wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_countr.
| ..
| XorNot wrote:
| What does this have to do with childhood dental outcomes?
|
| For example: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC61690
| 31/pdf/10.1177...
|
| Which finds that fluoridated water likely conservatively
| prevents about 30% of childhood dental caries.
| jedberg wrote:
| And dentists rejoiced at their newfound source of income! /s
|
| This is so dumb, and based on psudoscience at best, and straight
| up falsities at worst.
|
| In 10 years we're going to hear about how cavities are so much
| higher in Utah than anywhere else.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| I'm not following closely, but is this pseudoscience?
|
| https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/fluoride-childrens-health-gran...
|
| https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/...
| jedberg wrote:
| Those are based on countries with much higher levels of
| fluoride than the USA adds.
|
| Follow up studies have found the levels in the USA to be
| perfectly safe and in fact beneficial since poor people don't
| get dental care like they do in other countries.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| Please share study that shows it is safe in the US for
| children. The EPA allows up to 2mg/L in water and we have
| some evident that 1.5mg/L has negative effects on children.
|
| HN Comments were very credulous before the election. Shows
| how flexible belief in science is.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39235663
| otterley wrote:
| It doesn't take much to observe that we've been
| fluoridating municipal water for over half a century and
| children are doing mostly fine. It's the actions of
| children's parents that contribute the most to their IQ
| losses.
| abletonlive wrote:
| > levels in the USA to be perfectly safe
|
| because everybody drinks the same amount of water right?
|
| ridiculous position to argue from.
| boringg wrote:
| I think the argument they make is fair. The levels that
| the US aims to have fluorinated water concentrations. If
| theres a bad actor county well thats on them not the
| standard thats set.
| cosmotic wrote:
| I didnt look too closely, but the concentration recommended
| by the FDA is much lower than many of the sample sets in that
| linked study. Some 10 times as much. One is a hundred times
| as much.
|
| Not sure if that first link was to the Harvard summary
| intentionally but heres the actual study:
| https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1104912
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| The second link showed a concentration as little 2x the US
| amount was impactful.
|
| *The NTP monograph concluded, with moderate confidence,
| that higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking
| water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per
| liter, are associated with lower IQ in children. The NTP
| review was designed to evaluate total fluoride exposure
| from all sources and was not designed to evaluate the
| health effects of fluoridated drinking water alone. It is
| important to note that there were insufficient data to
| determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L currently
| recommended for U.S. community water supplies has a
| negative effect on children's IQ.*
| jcranmer wrote:
| Fluoride is known to be problematic at high concentrations
| (hell, everything is). The problems of fluoride really start
| to come into play at concentrations of around 10-20mg/L, and
| some of the areas being studied are running well in excess of
| 100mg/L of fluoride.
|
| The EPA limit for fluoride is 4mg/L. There's an argument to
| be made that it should be lowered to 2mg/L. When fluoride is
| added to drinking water, the target is around 0.9mg/L--no
| one's coming close to the EPA limit, and that exists because
| groundwater sources can end up being naturally high in
| fluoride. (I'm not sure what the typical natural occurrence
| of fluoride is in Utah, but I strongly suspect that they're
| not making any moves to actually remove fluoride from
| existing systems.)
| verteu wrote:
| Seems to cause problems at lower levels than that:
|
| > The NTP monograph concluded, with moderate confidence,
| that higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking
| water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per
| liter, are associated with lower IQ in children.
|
| https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer
| /...
| TMWNN wrote:
| >This is so dumb, and based on psudoscience at best, and
| straight up falsities at worst.
|
| I don't know whether water fluoridation is worthwhile. But I do
| know that various European countries have discontinued it. <htt
| ps://web.archive.org/web/20160303202219/http://www.appgaf...>
| Are they also working off of pseudoscience and falsities?
| stop50 wrote:
| Don't they sell toothpaste with flourid in Utah?
| jedberg wrote:
| Generally kids don't use toothpaste with fluoride because of
| the risk of swollowing it. Yes, we know it's bad in high
| doses, which is why kids toothpaste often doesn't have it.
| You have to wait until they are old enough to spit when
| brushing.
|
| In reality what will happen is that rich kids will be just
| fine because they will get their fluoride treatments at the
| dentist every six months.
|
| It's the poor kids who will suffer because they don't see the
| dentist regularly because it's expensive, so they won't get
| their treatments.
| tayo42 wrote:
| The recommendation from doctors is to use a small amount of
| toothpaste with fluoride. Apparently even if they cant spit
| yet. I was surprised to be told that, even though there are
| a ton of fluoride free toothpastes available.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| You sound concerned about the kids. We are on the same
| side. There is evidence that fluoridation level is
| correlated (dose dependent) with sleep problems, lower IQ
| scores, early onset puberty and bone cancer in children.
| There are specific areas outside blood brain barrier that
| it accumulates to the degree of fluoridation (100x to 200x
| levels of other tissues), all postmortem tests verify this.
|
| It is true that many studies were at higher doses(2x to
| 4x), but that should not mean that it is acceptable to
| intentionally raise fluoride levels to half of harmful
| levels, because we want to protect teeth.
|
| If you don't want cavities _decrease sucrose_ , brush and
| floss. Can I brush my teeth with use baking soda, use
| whatever? Arent they are OUR teeth? What if we find some
| additive might help some other health issue? Should we add
| that to _everyone 's_ drinking water?
| kacesensitive wrote:
| Afaik these findings primarily involve populations
| exposed to fluoride levels above 1.5 mg/L, which is
| higher than the 0.7 mg/L recommended for U.S. water
| supplies. There is insufficient evidence to conclude that
| fluoride at recommended levels negatively impacts IQ.
|
| At safe levels fluoridation is a public health measure
| akin to fortifying foods with vitamins (e.g., iodine in
| salt or folic acid in flour something we do all the
| time).
| sokka_h2otribe wrote:
| Honestly 1.5mg is not that different than 0.7mg..is there
| some reason to believe a 2X factor makes a big deal? I
| was expecting to hear of 10x differences or something,
| but 2x is not much of a factor in these kind of gradient
| effects.
| kacesensitive wrote:
| 1.5mg is literally twice the recommended limit. I don't
| really understand the logic in saying 2x overdosed is
| negligible. If you consistently eat 2x your daily
| calories you'll see the results fast. If you drink twice
| what you can handle, it would be bad. Etc
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| the question is regardless of the stated benefit, dont I
| still have the right to opt out of this all or nothing
| additive?
| kacesensitive wrote:
| You have the right not to drink tap water of course
| krona wrote:
| > insufficient evidence
|
| That's a very high standard of evidence.
|
| Toxicity testing is often carried out on mice, up to the
| dosage required for _any_ observable effect. From that
| safe levels for humans are derived, e.g. the NOAEL (No
| Observed Adverse Effect Level).
|
| To say that a study done in _humans_ , got observable
| effects at only twice the intended dose (who knows what
| the s.d. of the dose is, but anyway) and we conclude
| there's simply not enough evidence?
|
| Many chemicals have been banned on the basis of far less
| evidence.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Yes, we should.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| What additives am I missing? I want to stay healthy.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Well, we don't have that many things that can be added to
| water and have health benefits with basically no
| downside. Fluoride is one of the few things where it
| makes sense to do this. (If you are willing to broaden
| your horizons, you can buy things like iodized salt or
| golden rice to get the benefits of those. But food, alas,
| is not a government service.)
| fzeroracer wrote:
| > Should we add that to everyone's drinking water?
|
| Consider the following: Many water sources have a ton of
| salts and such in them naturally. Fluoride being one of
| them. The reason why water fluoridation became a thing in
| the first place is because it was noticed that higher
| natural levels of fluoridation resulted in fewer caries.
|
| Water treatment in order to make it safe to drink often
| involves processes that remove and filter out these
| minerals and chemicals. Which means said things need to
| be added back in, as part of the treatment process.
| freehorse wrote:
| Kids until which age? Ime somewhere between 4-5 seem to be
| perfectly able to spit their toothpaste without swallowing.
| Guidelines in the EU typically suggest normally fluoride
| toothpaste in increasing amounts after 4.
|
| Also, fluoride helps with remineralisation when it is used
| pretty much regularly, not once per 6 months. Fluoride
| treatments once per 6 months are not gonna bring back the
| enamel lost.
|
| I do not understand what is the big deal here. In many
| countries there are specific recommendations wrt to
| fluoride and kids brushing their teeth that seem to work
| fine. This seems to be a solved issue in many places in the
| world without fluoridating water.
| ryao wrote:
| There is a such thing as baby teeth. Presumably most
| children learn to brush properly while they still have
| them. If they do something wrong, they get a second chance
| when their adult teeth replace them. Why does this even
| need to be explained?
|
| As for "fluoride treatments", those are applied to the
| teeth, not drank. They are not a substitute for regular
| brushing.
| dataflow wrote:
| What is the best evidence in favor of this?
| jsbisviewtiful wrote:
| There isn't any. The very little research showing any effects
| on cognitive abilities are experiments using very high fluoride
| levels - nowhere near the levels in water. Like most
| conservative "stances", it's a farce.
| dataflow wrote:
| Thanks. I guess then my next question is, why are they doing
| this? Whom is it benefiting? Big Water?
| piker wrote:
| Is there scope to believe they just think it may be better
| not to have it in the water?
| dataflow wrote:
| > Is there scope to believe they just think it may be
| better not to have it in the water?
|
| Are you asking if there's room to believe it's just a
| sincere "everything you eat or drink should stay
| untouched, like it's found in nature" belief? OK sure,
| let's go with that. So why aren't they working to
| dismantle water treatment plants altogether and e.g.
| fighting against modern industrial farming practices in
| that case?
| piker wrote:
| No, I'm asking if it's possible they might just rightly
| or wrongly believe water fluoridation is bad.
| dataflow wrote:
| > No, I'm asking if it's possible they might just rightly
| or wrongly believe water fluoridation is bad.
|
| I'm happy to believe it if I can understand what is
| leading them to that belief, which is exactly what I'm
| asking. Is it a general aversion to unnatural stuff
| (hence my previous comment) or based on some evidence
| (hence my initial question) or something else (what?)?
| piker wrote:
| I believe they think water fluoridation is linked it
| lower IQs, again, rightly or wrongly. I could be mistaken
| but that's always seemed pretty clear.
| dataflow wrote:
| > I believe they think water fluoridation is linked it
| lower IQs, again, rightly or wrongly. I could be mistaken
| but that's always seemed pretty clear.
|
| Again, we go back to my initial question [1]: _what is
| the best evidence in favor of this?_
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43518377
| mrkeen wrote:
| He's just doing whatever's politically expedient.
|
| [1:20] "I do believe that autism comes from vaccines"
| [https://www.foxnews.com/video/6330950198112]
|
| Does it matter what he actually believes? If it's
| different from the Trump's policy he'll keep it to
| himself.
| ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote:
| Why should his beliefs be considered at all over
| scientific evidence?
| ergocoder wrote:
| By default, we should not add anything to the water.
|
| The burden of proof should be on the people who want to
| add it. Because that is extra cost, extra chemical. If
| they can't prove it, then we don't do it.
| charintstr wrote:
| It doesn't always have to monetarily benefit anyone. It's
| just fringe leaders playing to fringe ideas in this case
| UltraSane wrote:
| Dentists are going to make a lot of money filling so many
| more cavities.
| rayiner wrote:
| Why did many European countries discontinue fluoridation?
| https://www.euronews.com/health/2024/11/23/trump-could-
| push-...
|
| > However, in 1973, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that there
| was no legal basis for fluoridation.... The debate hasn't
| been meaningfully revived since then, Hofman told Euronews
| Health. "People started to say, 'Well, the government should
| not give us some medicine [when] we cannot choose where to
| buy our drinking water from," she said.
|
| That's the "little c" conservative viewpoint. You don't need
| to prove it's harmful. The default should be not putting
| chemicals in everyone's drinking water.
| dataflow wrote:
| Thanks for sharing the link. Learned something new today.
| basch wrote:
| but youre taking chemicals out right? and lots of water has
| natural flouride?
|
| there is definitely an argument for an optimal amount of
| minerals in water being non zero (not only because having
| it that clean would be practically expensive) but also
| because we benefit from natural minerals. now if some
| natural water source isnt as good as another one, why not
| correct it? we have the technology.
|
| especially at the community level. the little c stance
| should be to let communities decide, not ban it from the
| top down.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| > and lots of water has natural flouride?
|
| 100% the treatment plant is adjusting for the natural
| amount of flouride to meet specific target PPM
| basch wrote:
| im not saying they are putting too much in. im saying
| natural water is already fluorinated in many places and
| doesnt need supplementation. so to treat fluorinful water
| as unnatural is disingenuous.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > im saying natural water is already fluorinated in many
| places
|
| Fluoridated water seems not to have major effects.
|
| I wouldn't want to drink, touch, or be near _fluorinated_
| water.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| You are assuming they are just randomly flouridating
| water without measuring for target levels. I don't even
| know if you are thinking this through clearly as if they
| are just randomly dumping flouride into water supplies
| without measuring against specific targets.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Why did many European countries discontinue
| fluoridation?_
|
| Could it have something to do with the increasing use of
| fluoridated toothpaste?
| rayiner wrote:
| Probably. But why take fluoride out of the water?
| TeaBrain wrote:
| Because if adding fluoride to water isn't additionally
| preventative beyond the use of toothpaste, then adding
| the fluoride to the public water system is just wasting
| public funds.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Do not discount the tendency of Europeans to be wellness
| hippies.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Nobody tell him what chemicals were put in his drinking
| water to produce it. This might be the dumbest sentence
| uttered yet.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Why does the "little c" conservative look to Europe when
| convenient, hmm?
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| How do you prove no effect on any bodily system long term?
| People don't like to talk about it, or they pretend
| otherwise, but this is basically impossible.
|
| If the benefit is great enough then the risk makes sense.
| That is the case in a lot of areas. Is it worth taking a risk
| of an unknown effect somewhere in the body in exchange for...
| a marked but not even drastic reduction in cavities...? Not
| sure...
| ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote:
| Fluoride stays in your body, should be some way to measure
| it?
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| The bitch about scientific studies is you can't find what
| you don't know to look for. That has to be part of the
| trade off calculus when deciding what substances to
| introduce to our internal environment.
| ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote:
| Okay? You can still come up with a correlation between
| net fluoride mass of bones and teeth and negative health
| traits or outcomes. You can also compare occupational
| exposure against normal exposure, no drinking water
| exposure (lived life in country without this policy),
| etc. There are many different types of scientific
| studies.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| I am much less confident than you appear to be that we
| are able to detect a significant percentage of negative
| health traits.
|
| Let's say that hypothetically there is a 3rd order effect
| on the excretion pattern of some neurotransmitter. Can we
| detect that? Could it negatively affect mood regulation?
| There are a million things like that.
| Spivak wrote:
| I guess the question is why your priors are so far
| weighted to the side of negative outcomes. If we're
| talking about yet undiscovered effects of something it
| seems equally plausible for those effects to be positive.
| Aspirin is a pretty good example of this where we keep
| discovering more positive effects. And I can understand
| somewhat the bias toward the state of nature but there's
| lots of examples where our deviations were positive, the
| biggest one being the cognitive effects of cooking food.
| dataflow wrote:
| > If we're talking about yet undiscovered effects of
| something it seems equally plausible for those effects to
| be positive.
|
| Where do you get this from? If you ingest a random
| chemical (or imagine licking random objects...), do you
| really expect the chances of it being beneficial vs.
| detrimental to your health to be remotely close to 50/50?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The bitch about scientific studies is you can't find
| what you don't know to look for.
|
| This is only true if you assume that all effects are too
| small to notice. If you run an experiment on adding
| fluoride to water, declare an interest in enamel
| thickness, and then observe that 30% of the experimental
| group died within six months, you just made a finding
| that you didn't know you should have been looking for.
| cyberax wrote:
| Fluoride rapidly forms a highly insoluble calcium
| fluoride salt. So you won't find a lot of it in blood or
| other easily accessible body fluids.
| ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote:
| > The fractional retention or balance of fluoride at any
| age depends on the quantitative features of absorption
| and excretion. For healthy, young, or middle-aged adults,
| approximately 50 percent of absorbed fluoride is retained
| by uptake in calcified tissues, and 50 percent is
| excreted in the urine. For young children, as much as 80
| percent can be retained owing to increased uptake by the
| developing skeleton and teeth (Ekstrand et al., 1994a,
| b). Such data are not available for persons in the later
| years of life, but based on bone mineral dynamics, it is
| likely that the fraction excreted is greater than the
| fraction retained.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK109832/=
|
| > .9 Radiographic detection of teeth and skeletal changes
| and microscopic examination of affected bone are helpful
| adjunct procedures for diagnosis.
|
| > Histopathologic and radiographic examination of bones
| detects bone lesions and tentatively confirms
| osteofluorosis.14,26 Biopsy or rib or coccygeal vertebrae
| is used to obtain samples for skeletal fluoride
| analysis.23
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B03
| 230...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeletal_fluorosis
|
| > We have developed a localized noninvasive nuclear
| magnetic resonance (NMR) method for determining the
| accumulated bone fluoride content in human index fingers
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2339643/
|
| ---
|
| It sounds like people who have time to pay attention to
| this have a better chance of discerning a methodology of
| assay.
| cyberax wrote:
| Oh, certainly. I'm just saying that it's not easy and
| straightforward.
| chneu wrote:
| I'd like to point out that fluoride was previously very much
| a liberal stance until the rise in MAGA/Qanon conservatives.
|
| I grew up in the PNW of the USA and lots of small hippie
| towns have been removing fluoride for decades. It comes up on
| city ballots every year in Oregon.
| concordDance wrote:
| This stance is a bit confusing...
|
| When it comes to things like radioactivity we assume a linear
| no threshhold model (e.g. that lower concentrations still
| have effects, just our measuring tools aren't good enough to
| detect it) and spend billions as a result. Why wouldn't we do
| the same for flouride?
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| Here's a list of the most convincing studies or meta analyses.
|
| 2023 - NTP Monograph on Fluoride Neurotoxicity - National
| Toxicology Program (USA)
|
| 2020 - Till et al. - Infant Formula Fluoride Exposure & IQ -
| Till C, Green R, Lanphear B, Hornung R, Martinez-Mier EA
| (Canada)
|
| 2019 - Green et al. - Maternal Fluoride Exposure & IQ - Green
| R, Lanphear B, Hornung R, Flora D, Martinez-Mier EA, et al.
| (Canada)
|
| 2017 - Bashash et al. - Prenatal Fluoride Exposure & Offspring
| IQ - Bashash M, Thomas D, Hu H, et al. (Mexico/USA)
|
| 2012 - Choi et al. - Meta-analysis on Fluoride &
| Neurodevelopment - Choi AL, Sun G, Zhang Y, Grandjean P
| (Harvard/China)
|
| 2006 - NRC Report - Fluoride in Drinking Water - National
| Research Council (USA)
|
| [1]
| https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/...
|
| [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31743803/
|
| [3]
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
|
| [4] https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP655
|
| [5] https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1104912
|
| [6] https://www.nap.edu/catalog/11571/fluoride-in-drinking-
| water...
| ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote:
| How did you compile this list? Asking some LLM service?
|
| From the first link:
|
| > It is important to note that there were insufficient data
| to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L currently
| recommended for U.S. community water supplies has a negative
| effect on children's IQ
|
| It doesn't seem in favor of this?
| dataflow wrote:
| Regardless of where they got the list (edit: which I _do_
| think is a fair question)...
|
| > the first link [...] doesn't seem in favor of this?
|
| To me that falls under "the best evidence [available] in
| favor of this." It's not great, but it's not nothing; it's
| certainly something in favor. After all.. I guess I don't
| know about you, but I feel like if someone told me dose X
| of something is toxic, I would not feel comfortable feeding
| myself and the entire country 50% of that dose, on that
| basis alone.
| saalweachter wrote:
| I mean, technically our atmosphere gives us oxygen at 35%
| of a toxic dose/concentration.
|
| Granted, 35% < 50%, but not really that much less.
| dataflow wrote:
| Yes, this completely demolished my argument.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| Why does it matter how the list was compiled? Is the
| information accurate or not? The first link you referenced
| with the cherry picked sentence about uncertainty for
| levels below .7mg/l was a meta analysis of 74 different
| studies, 64 of which showed a negative correlation between
| child IQ and fluoridation. This isn't even taking into
| account evidence of a positive correlation for early onset
| puberty, sleep disruption and bone cancer with
| fluoridation.
| ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote:
| It matters when you say it has the "most convincing"
| evidence as if you have read them all and are keeping up
| with the field and didn't just summarize them with some
| service like https://consensus.app/
|
| I don't know if what you are repeating is slop, etc. I
| can't trust the source.
|
| A single recent systematic review is more trustworthy
| than that.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| You don't know, but it is not. Feel free not to read it.
| ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote:
| Okay, well, let me know how you came up with the list?
|
| Also, nothing in that list of papers supports your
| initial claim? I know you'll say you didn't claim
| anything, so I will say also, that nothing in those links
| provides for what the prior commenter asked for evidence
| for.
|
| Other than, fluoride consumption at high concentrations
| is bad (which is something that was already agreed upon,
| and is not being questioned in this thread)?
| matsemann wrote:
| It matters because your statement of "Here's a list of
| the most convincing studies or meta analyses." assumes
| some kind of curating. If all you're doing is providing
| something akin to a google search, it's not really
| valuable.
| kelipso wrote:
| So what? Asking "What is the best evidence in favor of
| this" is equivalent to saying I don't want to google
| this, so google this for me. Literally all researchers at
| all levels in all fields use google for this stuff. I was
| in academia for years.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _So what?_
|
| Put simply, it's a wall of links. No quotes. No claims.
| Its valid to ask if the person posting the links has
| actually read those articles, or if there is a primary
| source recommending them. (Or no source if it's LLM
| copypasta.)
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| It was a direct response to a question with the answer
| they were looking for. It was provided in good faith,
| previously researched and sourced by me within the last
| 12 months.
|
| I am the OP and someone asked for evidence and the only
| answer after an hour, falsely stated there was no
| evidence. I didn't want to challenge anyone directly so I
| posted what I thought were the top few more convincing
| links I have compiled out of 30+.
|
| I am disappointed that I am getting downvoted and this is
| somehow being made into something political when people
| deserve to see the evidence for and against supplementing
| fluoride the drinking water of every living thing because
| the government wants to improve the health of our teeth.
| It is a fair question to ask.
| defrost wrote:
| The main problem with your wall of links from a
| professional medical PoV is it utterly lacks any context.
|
| The very famous meta studies with all the negative
| correlations get all the bad associations with flouride
| from regions where water naturally has _extremely high_
| (relative to most other parts of the world) levels of
| fluoride in addition to high levels of many other
| uncommon concentrations.
|
| Some of these regions also have additional problems with
| industry waste.
|
| Put simply, negative correlations about unattended
| children in swimming pools cannot be extrapolated to
| infer negative correlations about young children and
| sippy cups of water.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| Again, it was in response to an (mis)unanswered question
| for that specific information. I don't get what the issue
| is.
| kelipso wrote:
| It's basically coping responses from people who are
| starting to realize they have been loudly wrong for
| years. It's a fairly human response I suppose. They'll
| get over it eventually after they go through the stages
| of grief or whatever.
| ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote:
| > coping responses
|
| No? What is a coping response? I asked the commenter to
| provide context to their links that supposedly show
| evidence for what the initial question was (does fluoride
| at the concentrations in drinking water cause harm),
| which they definitely do not show evidence for.
| kelipso wrote:
| The thing is you are not being curious. You are basically
| putting your head in the sand and goading at people to
| drag it out for you.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I am disappointed that I am getting downvoted and this
| is somehow being made into something political when
| people deserve to see the evidence_
|
| I didn't downvote. (I don't think.) But as a non-expert,
| I also didn't see value in a wall of links. (Particularly
| when you wouldn't confirm it wasn't AI generated.)
|
| A better presentation would pull quotes or make an
| argument, in your voice, with the citations as
| scaffolding for your arguments.
|
| To illustrate the issue, I believe I could construct a
| context-free wall of links justifying just about
| anything.
| dataflow wrote:
| Honestly, I think people downvoted it because it sounded
| a lot like LLM output.
|
| If you could explain the process that led to the
| production of the list & what led you to the belief that
| those are the best studies/evidence so far, that would
| probably help people view it more favorably.
| dataflow wrote:
| > Asking "What is the best evidence in favor of this" is
| equivalent to saying I don't want to google this, so
| google this for me.
|
| Perhaps I should note that I had indeed (believe it or
| not) already Googled this before asking the question. I
| asked not because I was too lazy to search but because I
| didn't know if my search was turning up the best studies
| from _anyone 's_ perspective.
|
| So, no, this wasn't equivalent to saying "I don't want to
| google this, so google this for me."
| freehorse wrote:
| Yeah finding some random links through google that one
| does not go through to -to some degree- verify/vouch for
| is identically bad practice. Researchers do not cite
| studies that just happen to come up in their google
| searches, they actually try to assess the quality of the
| research, understand the methods/results etc. Nothing
| like this happened here. Giving such a wall of links as
| an argument to a discussion without checking their
| quality or relevance is more akin to trolling behaviour
| than academic research.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| I agree with you and think you should reread. My response
| was not an argument, it was a response of requested
| information that I had compiled.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| > It matters because your statement of "Here's a list of
| the most convincing studies or meta analyses." assumes
| some kind of curating.
|
| Agreed
| culi wrote:
| Actual reseachers don't really talk about links to IQ. The main
| concern is actually around dental fluorosis. Too much flouride
| can replace minerals in your teeth causing them to become
| brittle over time
|
| There's a subset of researchers that argue that now that
| fluoride toothpaste is widespread, the benefit of fluoridating
| water is much much smaller than it first was and the (small)
| risk of fluorosis is now comparatively more significant
| stefan_ wrote:
| Where "main concern" means not a practical concern at all.
| You are adopting the talking points of cranks when what is of
| actual concern is things like drinking sugar, negligent
| parents or basic access to dental healthcare or even just
| dental education.
|
| The CDC tracks some key indicators like mean decayed, missing
| or filled teeth (DMFT) and in critical age groups like 12-15
| there has been no progress made in the past 20 years and the
| US continue lagging behind European countries:
| https://www.cdc.gov/oral-health/media/pdfs/Oral-Health-
| Surve...
|
| And none of that has anything to do with fluoride in the
| water or not.
| kilimounjaro wrote:
| " Actual reseachers don't really talk about links to IQ."
|
| Sorry but this reddit consensus is out of step with actual
| researchers. The #1 paediatric journal has published quite a
| bit on this recently. Basically the evidence isn't of high
| quality but what we have doesn't look great.
|
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/.
| ..
| TeaBrain wrote:
| Another question is whether there's still evidence for
| continuing to fluoridate water with how common toothpaste use
| is now. If nothing else, if it isn't providing benefits over
| toothpaste use, then fluoridating water could just be a waste
| of public funds.
| Heyso wrote:
| 2012: https://fluoridealert.org/content/50-reasons/
|
| Highly recommend visiting the link for details about each point
| an references (it is not that long), here is a summary, don't
| comment if you haven't visited the link:
|
| 1) Fluoride is the only chemical added to water for the purpose
| of medical treatment. 2) Fluoridation is unethical. 3) The dose
| cannot be controlled. 4) The fluoride goes to everyone
| regardless of age, health or vulnerability. 5) People now
| receive fluoride from many other sources besides water. 6)
| Fluoride is not an essential nutrient. 7) The level in mothers'
| milk is very low. 9) No health agency in fluoridated countries
| is monitoring fluoride exposure or side effects. 10) There has
| never been a single randomized controlled trial to demonstrate
| fluoridation's effectiveness or safety. 11) Benefit is topical
| not systemic. 12) Fluoridation is not necessary. 13)
| Fluoridation's role in the decline of tooth decay is in serious
| doubt. 14) NIH-funded study on individual fluoride ingestion
| and tooth decay found no significant correlation. 15) Tooth
| decay is high in low-income communities that have been
| fluoridated for years. 16) Tooth decay does not go up when
| fluoridation is stopped. 17) Tooth decay was coming down before
| fluoridation started. 18) The studies that launched
| fluoridation were methodologically flawed. 19) Children are
| being over-exposed to fluoride. 20) The highest doses of
| fluoride are going to bottle-fed babies. 21) Dental fluorosis
| may be an indicator of wider systemic damage. 22) Fluoride may
| damage the brain. 23) Fluoride may lower IQ. 24) Fluoride may
| cause non-IQ neurotoxic effects. 25) Fluoride affects the
| pineal gland. 26) Fluoride affects thyroid function. 27)
| Fluoride causes arthritic symptoms. 28) Fluoride damages bone.
| 29) Fluoride may increase hip fractures in the elderly. 30)
| People with impaired kidney function are particularly
| vulnerable to bone damage. 31) Fluoride may cause bone cancer
| (osteosarcoma). 32) Proponents have failed to refute the
| Bassin-Osteosarcoma study. 33) Fluoride may cause reproductive
| problems. 34) Some individuals are highly sensitive to low
| levels of fluoride as shown by case studies and double blind
| studies. 35) Other subsets of population are more vulnerable to
| fluoride's toxicity. 36) There is no margin of safety for
| several health effects. 37) Low-income families penalized by
| fluoridation. 38) Black and Hispanic children are more
| vulnerable to fluoride's toxicity. 39) Minorities are not being
| warned about their vulnerabilities to fluoride. 40) Tooth decay
| reflects low-income not low-fluoride intake. 41) The chemicals
| used to fluoridate water are not pharmaceutical grade. 42) The
| silicon fluorides have not been tested comprehensively. 43) The
| silicon fluorides may increase lead uptake into children's
| blood. 44) Fluoride may leach lead from pipes, brass fittings
| and soldered joints. 45) Key health studies have not been done.
| 46) Endorsements do not represent scientific evidence. 47)
| Review panels hand-picked to deliver a pro-fluoridation result.
| 48) Many scientists oppose fluoridation. 49) Proponents usually
| refuse to defend fluoridation in open debate. 50) Proponents
| use very dubious tactics to promote fluoridation.
| kelipso wrote:
| Way past time. The link between fluoride ingestion by children
| and pregnant women to lower IQ in children has been known for
| years. It's incredible how the scientific community in the US is
| so ignorant of this fact.
|
| Also, dentists have no neuroscience background! So let's take
| recommendations by dentists to ingest a neurotoxin with deep deep
| skepticism, shall we?
| jcranmer wrote:
| As the saying goes, it's the dose that makes the poison.
|
| Vitamin D is also quite toxic, would you celebrate banning that
| as well?
| kelipso wrote:
| Yes, there is no need to add vitamin D into the water supply.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Yeah, because it's not water soluble.
| jedberg wrote:
| > The link between fluoride ingestion by children and pregnant
| women to lower IQ in children has been known for years
|
| Not at the levels it is found in water in the USA. Those
| studies were done in countries with much higher levels of
| fluoride.
| stop50 wrote:
| Or where the people drink much more water
| kelipso wrote:
| A low dose of this neurotoxin can still have smaller adverse
| effects on IQ, and in all likelihood do, especially for
| fetuses and small children. Lots of countries have banned
| fluoridation of the water supply. The US has one of the
| highest fluoride levels in the water supply. The default
| should be to not add neurotoxins into the water supply (I
| cannot believe I have to actually say this).
| otterley wrote:
| If that were true, nearly the entire state of California
| would have developmental issues.
|
| Anyway, lots of things in this world that are bad for
| people in high doses are beneficial in smaller doses. Water
| is a great example, as are salt and sugar.
| kelipso wrote:
| This logic is so flawed. We. know the biological
| mechanisms in the body that makes use of salt and sugar.
| And we know both are safe in relatively large amounts
| too.
|
| With fluoride, relatively small amounts in the drinking
| water is known to cause lower IQ.
|
| But somehow even smaller amounts are safer?
|
| Do you just not see the problem here or are you purposely
| blinding yourself to the reality because of your
| political biases? Is it an unconscious thing for you?
|
| You are simply not being rational. You are making excuses
| and excuses for holding a belief you have had and
| probably defended for years. And now you are too invested
| to left the belief go. Just let it go already.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| The relationship appears to be linear down to zero, but it's
| very hard to study near those levels. From what I've seen,
| the best current science is that the fluoridation levels in
| typical western countries are reducing average IQ by about
| 0.5-1.5 points.
|
| For reference, adding lead to fuel was far, _far_ worse.
| robocat wrote:
| Any citations?
|
| I suspect it is hard to control for confounding
| correlations - specifically I would guess it is more likely
| that poorer areas are flouridated. HV electric power lines
| and nuclear stations have the issue that poorer people are
| more likely to live next to those, and poorer people have
| have worse health outcomes so it falsely appears that both
| of those cause the health problems.
| tayo42 wrote:
| > Republican state lawmaker Stephanie Gricius - who introduced
| the bill in the state legislature - has argued that there is
| research suggesting fluoride could have possible cognitive
| effects in children.
|
| It's kind of amazing to say something like that then be so
| inconsistent on things that will have real outcomes that make
| life better for kids. They're all for cutting school support and
| social services.
| poisonarena wrote:
| is Utah cutting school support and social services?
| tayo42 wrote:
| Is there a reason to expect this republican to hold views
| that differ significantly from the rest of the party?
| bennettnate5 wrote:
| Fun anecdote: Utah's Republicans actually rejected the MAGA
| candidates in the Republican primary for both Senator and
| Governer by a wide margin, despite the MAGA candidates
| having Trump's endorsement. If nothing else, Utah doesn't
| vote MAGA-or-bust like some other states have been.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Interesting. Alright then maybe there is a possibility.
| Thanks for sharing!
| rayiner wrote:
| Utah has among the best schools in the nation:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Utah/comments/1idrt6j/utah_spends_t...
|
| It also has among the happiest citizens:
| https://www.deseret.com/utah/2024/09/09/utah-mental-health-h...
|
| It has the highest economic mobility in the country:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/adammillsap/2023/12/22/utah-top...
|
| Despite being filled with guns, it's got a homicide rate only a
| little higher than Canada:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
|
| And it's ranked in the top 10 states for life expectancy:
| https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2022/08/24/utah-t...
|
| Utah and Massachusetts are basically the steel-man versions of
| their respective ideologies. But Utah doesn't have the benefit
| of Harvard and MIT, major Pharma companies, etc. It's
| surrounded by desert and has no natural resources to speak of.
| croes wrote:
| Doesn't that contradict the negative outcome of fluoride in
| the water?
| jedberg wrote:
| A lot of that is due to the Mormons. While they tend to vote
| Republican, they are some of the biggest socialists out
| there. They believe in giving 10% of their income to the
| church (and enforce it!).
|
| Then they redistribute to their poorest members in the form
| of free private education at all pre-college levels and
| highly subsidized college as well. And with food banks, free
| or subsidized medical services, and whole bunch of other
| things the government doesn't provide.
|
| They've essentially traded one government for another, but
| theirs requires belief in their religion and only applies to
| their believers (who happen to concentrate in Utah).
| robocat wrote:
| > [The Mormons] believe in giving 10% of their income
|
| Is that income before tax or after tax?
|
| "After tax" seems like it should be obvious, but then
| wouldn't that require tax specialists to decide how to deal
| with tax exceptions (retirement taxation incentives,
| donations, etcetera).
|
| If the 10% donation is tax deductible, doesn't that require
| some mathematics to work out the 10%?
|
| Irrelevant aside: I think the efficient altruist 10% is
| "We're often asked how exactly to calculate income --
| should it be pre-tax or post-tax? Generally, we recommend
| choosing the option that makes most sense to you, though we
| think it makes sense to choose pre-tax if your donations
| are tax-deductible (for example, GiftAid counts towards
| your Pledge!) and post-tax if they're not.".
| https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge
| jedberg wrote:
| It's pre-tax. It comes from the Bible where you set it
| aside "before anything else".
| robocat wrote:
| What about capital appreciation? Business losses?
|
| I presume there are guidelines that get complicated? Like
| Halakha or Sharia?
| jedberg wrote:
| I'm not Mormon, so I don't know for sure, but what I hear
| from people are or were Mormon, the enforcement is a
| combination of social pressure and the Church demanding
| you provide them with a copy of your taxes to remain a
| member. I assume it's pretty loose from there.
| smj-edison wrote:
| I'm a Mormon, so I can answer these :)
|
| I can't speak to how enforcement was in the past (I
| haven't researched it enough to say), but the way it
| currently stands is there is a yearly "tithing
| settlement". No tax documents are requested, all that our
| church has is the amount I donate. The bishop asks if I'm
| a full tithe payer, and accepts my answer.
|
| Social pressure perhaps? But at least where I've been
| it's appeal to morality as taught in our canon.
|
| Membership is not rescinded for not paying tithing, but a
| temple recommend requires being a full tithe payer (as
| reported by me).
|
| EDIT: link to the official handbook:
| https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-
| han...
| jedberg wrote:
| Thanks for the info! Maybe the tax forms are on a per
| ward basis or per bishop?
| smj-edison wrote:
| Not that I know of? I double-checked the handbook and
| there's nothing in there that mentions requesting tax
| forms, so it's certainly not official policy and if it
| did happen it should be reported. (We're very
| bureaucratic, lol)
|
| The only tax form I can think of is a form they send me
| so I can deduct it from taxes (as it's legally a tax-
| deductible donation).
|
| EDIT: Section 34.4, 34.5.2, and 34.5.6 are applicable.
|
| 34.4:
|
| > Confidentiality of Tithing and Other Offerings
|
| > The amount of tithing and other offerings paid by a
| donor is confidential. Only the bishop and those who are
| authorized to handle or view these contributions should
| have access to this information. Stake presidencies,
| bishoprics, and clerks should never inappropriately
| discuss a member's tithing status. Nor should they
| discuss the total amount of tithing or other offerings
| received.
|
| 34.5.2:
|
| > Receiving Tithing and Other Offerings
|
| > The Lord has given bishops the sacred trust of
| receiving and accounting for the tithes and other
| offerings of the Saints (see Doctrine and Covenants
| 42:30-33; 119). Only the bishop and his counselors may
| receive tithes and other offerings. Under no
| circumstances should their wives, other members of their
| families, clerks, or other ward members receive these
| contributions. The only exception is when Aaronic
| Priesthood holders are assigned to collect fast offerings
| (see 34.3.2).
|
| > Church leaders and members should not leave donations
| unattended.
|
| 34.5.6:
|
| > Donation Statements
|
| > Donor Statements of Contributions are available to all
| members at donations.ChurchofJesusChrist.org. Leaders
| should encourage members to regularly review their donor
| statements. Where applicable, official tax statements are
| also available at donations.ChurchofJesusChrist.org, from
| the local unit, or from the area office.
| bruckie wrote:
| No. I've been a member all my life in several U.S. states
| and internationally, and I've also been a volunteer
| finance clerk at church for many years. I've never been
| asked for tax forms, or even heard of anyone being asked
| for tax forms. It's not a thing.
|
| Also, there's no prescriptive guidance on pre-tax vs.
| post-tax, or how to handle many edge cases, such as
| capital gains, tax deductions, etc. The church's stance
| is that it's between you and God to figure out how to
| apply the "pay 10%" guidance.
|
| Old, but still observed: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.
| org/study/ensign/1974/04/i-h...:
|
| "...the simplest statement we know of is that statement
| of the Lord himself that the members of the Church should
| pay one-tenth of all their interest annually, which is
| understood to mean income. No one is justified in making
| any other statement than this. We feel that every member
| of the Church should be entitled to make his own decision
| as to what he thinks he owes the Lord, and to make
| payment accordingly."
| buzzerbetrayed wrote:
| The quote you provide is grossly misleading, as that
| isn't what tithing meant in the early days of the church.
| The church just says "which is understood to mean income"
| so causally that it's essentially a lie. They say that to
| get more money. They hold peoples salvation at gun point
| to make sure it gets paid. And then they use their wealth
| and influence to drive state policy. It's all very gross.
| smj-edison wrote:
| Not quite following your point? What about that is a lie?
|
| At the beginning of The Church of Jesus Christ, saints
| were asked to consecrate all that they had to the bishop.
| Legally they signed away all rights to their property and
| the bishop leased it back to them.
|
| They found that that wasn't sustainable (due to debts and
| disputes) and switched to 10% of interest (see Section
| 119 in D&C,
| https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-
| test...). While tithing was paid in the past with
| animals, food, etc, that just doesn't scale beyond local
| communities.
|
| Yes, our church does use funds for advocacy, but it's
| hard to ascribe pure malice to a church that spends $1
| billion annually on humanitarian aid every year, and is
| expanding affordable education to tens of thousands of
| people in developing countries.
|
| Not all of us agree with how much money is being held in
| reserve, but it's important to understand that we don't
| have a testimony in the church because of what we get
| from it, or even agree with all policies, but rather
| because of a personal witness of its truth. It is true
| that some stay in our church because of social pressure,
| and I'm not going to defend that practice. But, that's
| not what our core doctrine teaches.
|
| I understand that it's easy to think that we are all a
| homogenous group that all thinks the same, but peek under
| the surface and you'll find many of us who find the core
| doctrine so compelling that we are willing to stick with
| the church and to enact change in constructive instead of
| destructive ways.
| mrkstu wrote:
| There are endless debates about gross vs net and as with
| many things in the CoJCoLDS it is left up to the members
| to decide/define and to self-certify their compliance.
| Welfare programs are financed via a separate donation
| program via a monthly fast where the skipped meals
| expenses are donated to the program.
| cornstalks wrote:
| > _Is that income before tax or after tax?_
|
| It's up to personal interpretation. Some do before tax,
| some do after. Some only pay tithing on their regular
| income (i.e. from a normal job) but not on "already
| tithed" income (e.g. birthday money from parents), while
| others do it differently.
|
| The church's stance is that they say you should pay 10%
| tithing on your income. They don't define income. And all
| they do is ask "do you pay a full tithe?" And it's up to
| you to decide if you do or not based on how you view what
| "income" means.
| rayiner wrote:
| That's the steel-man version of (american) conservatism:
| civic institutions provide the safety net instead of the
| government.
|
| And in terms of aggregate outcomes, Utah's results are
| impressive. The LDS apparently does a better job teaching
| kids to read than the government here in Maryland.
| jedberg wrote:
| > Utah achieves great aggregate outcomes even compared to
| states that spend a lot more money
|
| That's because you're not counting the money the church
| spends to replace government programs, which in Utah is
| significant.
| rayiner wrote:
| Utah has less money to start with, though. It doesn't
| have big industries or things like that. Median income is
| $40,000 versus about $50,000 in Maryland and
| Massachusetts.
| Sabinus wrote:
| >civic institutions provide the safety net instead of the
| government
|
| Now that the internet has destroyed local community and
| trust in institutions, what will conservatism do?
| voidhorse wrote:
| Yeah, but extremely regressive views on equality and
| women's rights come along with it....
|
| You can get a lot done when you establish regressive
| control structures for enforcement. Generally speaking,
| most people usually don't want that trade-off.
| bennettnate5 wrote:
| > and only applies to their believers (who happen to
| concentrate in Utah)
|
| Worth noting here that the church additionally spends north
| of $1 billion _annually_ on humanitarian aid across the
| globe [1] (separate from the redistributions to the poor
| mentioned by OP). Aid is provided independent of religious
| affiliation.
|
| [1] https://philanthropies.churchofjesuschrist.org/humanita
| rian-...
| bink wrote:
| Al Capone ran soup kitchens. He seemed like a good dude.
| What percentage of their global wealth is $1 billion? I
| wish I knew but for some reason they keep that a secret.
| And don't leave or they'll expect your family to cut you
| off.
|
| *: searches suggest the wealth of the church to be around
| $265 billion. So their members give 10% annually to the
| church and the church gives less than 0.5% of their total
| wealth to the poor (but mostly to other Mormons or
| prospective converts). If you're wondering why they keep
| this massive horde of wealth, it's because they think
| it'll be needed for the apocalypse. Yes, it's for the
| apocalypse.
| krupan wrote:
| Calling Mormons socialist is inaccurate. Socialism is
| government-forced redistribution of wealth. A large
| majority of Mormons, at least in Utah, are very much
| opposed to that. You are correct that a large majority of
| Mormons _voluntarily_ share their wealth with the poor and
| needy.
|
| You are incorrect saying that you have to be a member of
| The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the actual
| name of the "Mormon church") to receive these benefits. In
| some cases there will be conditions, like if you want to
| attend one of the church universities you will need to
| promise to abstain from alcohol (one example), but becoming
| a baptized member of the church is not required
| jedberg wrote:
| > Calling Mormons socialist is inaccurate
|
| I would say it's very accurate. They are forced to share
| their wealth to get into the Kingdom of God. The only
| choice they have is to not go to heaven. I'd say that's
| being forced, just by a different power.
|
| > but becoming a baptized member of the church is not
| required
|
| You don't get the BYU discount unless you're baptized.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think you are missing the key element, that socialism
| isnt just a structure or institution, but a _government_
| policy and applied to all people within a society.
|
| It is neither optional or excludable.
|
| This is why the monopoly man choosing to share caviar
| with his family or paying dues to a yacht club does not
| make them a socialist. The monopoly man retains full
| agency over who they share with.
| krupan wrote:
| That's pretty different than getting arrested and thrown
| in jail by government thugs for not paying up, whether
| you believe in the cause or not, but ok?
|
| Even the non-member BYU tuition is subsidized and a much
| lower price than other comparable colleges. But really,
| BYU is not the best example of Mormon charity, it can
| only accommodate a limited number of students.
| BJones12 wrote:
| Note that while this may be first state to _ban_ fluoride, it 's
| not the first state to not have fluoride in the water. That would
| be Hawaii (effectively).
| culi wrote:
| all states were "the first to not have flouride". In 1945 Grand
| Rapids, MI became the first city _in the world_ to flouridate
| its water
| codybontecou wrote:
| Hawaii does not add fluoride to their water. Utah may be the
| first to out-right ban it, but there are quite a few local
| communities and cities that opt-out of adding it to their
| drinking water.
|
| https://chatgpt.com/share/67e8572d-c5f4-8000-9393-c2e894c922...
| TMWNN wrote:
| The US is, according to Wikipedia, among a small minority of
| countries in which a majority of people drink fluoridated
| water. Various European countries have discontinued doing so.
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation>
| lolinder wrote:
| Yeah, this is one of those places where because RFK Jr took
| the anti- stand there's an understandable assumption that
| it's more nutty anti-science stuff, but it's much less clear
| cut when it comes to fluoridation. Europe has much lower
| rates than the US, which is an outlier on these stats only
| approached by Australia, and before Utah the major high
| profile anti-fluoride stance was made by Portland:
|
| https://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-30229-portland-voters-
| so...
|
| To the extent this is a polarized left-right issue, it's only
| recently and only because _everything_ is polarized right
| now.
| ics wrote:
| Using certain family members as a personal rubric,
| fluoridated water has been a right-left issue for at least
| 2.5 decades. I think it's been pretty polarized for longer,
| though it may have taken a long time to gain steam in
| mainstream "discourse".
| lolinder wrote:
| I'm not sure you can use personal anecdotes to come to
| any conclusions about broad trends. To look at some
| actual data, I took the 2008 and 2024 election results
| and compared them with fluoridation rates. The split is
| pretty even:
|
| The top 10 most fluoridated states went 5/5 Rep/Dem in
| 2008 and 6/4 Rep/Dem in 2024. These were Kentucky,
| Minnesota, Illinois, North Dakota, Virginia, Georgia,
| South Dakota, Maryland, Ohio, and South Carolina. Hardly
| a blue wall.
|
| The bottom 10 least fluoridated states with 6/4 Rep/Dem
| in 2008 and 6/4 Rep/Dem in 2024. These were Hawaii, New
| Jersey, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Louisiana, Alaska, Utah,
| New Hampshire, and Mississippi. Hardly a red wall.
|
| The bottom three least fluoridated states are all
| hardcore blue: Hawaii, New Jersey, and Oregon.
|
| I just don't see any evidence here that this has been a
| left-right polarized issue until this year. The
| distribution of fluoride by political leanings is just
| too random.
| nerdponx wrote:
| It's a great demonstration of the granola-to-libertarian
| pipeline. Jumping the gap in the horseshoe, so to speak.
| Maken wrote:
| Fluoridated water was already a plot point in Kubrick's
| Strangelove from 1964.
| mjevans wrote:
| I'd be happier if that broken-but-correct-2x-a-day guy
| banned HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) instead. It is my
| personal hypothesis that it is the cause of 'sugar cancer'
| (general cases of bad sugars / imbalances of sugars in the
| body), including Diabetes.
| hattar wrote:
| Interesting hypothesis, is it based on anything specific?
| I think refined/added sugars in general are probably
| something best avoided, but admittedly still eat plenty.
| The idea that one sugar is materially worse than another
| feels off, but I can't quite put my finger on why.
| EmuAGR wrote:
| Some sugars ingress faster than others to the
| bloodstream, causing higher insulin spikes:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_index
|
| AFAIK, HFCS is one of the worst offenders.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| The GI of sugar (sucrose) and HFCS is largely the same.
| Indeed, the HFCS-55 used in colas actually has less
| glucose and more fructose, and fructose actually doesn't
| lead to a blood sugar spike (or, more correctly, a much
| lower impact), leading to HFCS-55 having a _lower_
| glycemic index. HFCS and sugar are both just combinations
| of glucose and fructose molecules.
|
| HFCS is not worse than sugar unless you're consuming such
| an outrageous amount that the fructose leads to a fatty
| liver (which does happen). But if you're consuming that
| much HFCS, it's only a small amount more of sucrose to
| yield the same outcome, as of course both have loads of
| fructose.
|
| The one viable argument to vilify HFCS is simply that
| it's so convenient and inexpensive (courtesy of massively
| subsidized corn production) that it led to many more
| products having added sugars. But people who carefully
| pour over ingredients looking for HFCS, but treat sugar
| as wholesome, are usually operating on ignorance.
| fashion-at-cost wrote:
| Not a chance that will happen, given the corn production
| of America. We have the most productive land in the world
| for growing maize, and Lord knows we'll find shit to do
| with it.
| gblargg wrote:
| You can avoid HFCS without any cost. Avoiding fluoridated
| city water is costly.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| Sucrose is 50% fructose, 50% glucose. HFCS has from
| 42-55% fructose (there are grades), the rest being
| glucose (well some 25% of HFCS is water, but simplifying
| to the nutritive parts)
|
| In the body it's literally all the same with minor
| variations in ratios. Indeed, the revered Mexican coke
| with cane sugar...the sucrose is broken down to component
| glucose and fructose in the acidic environment [1],
| exactly as happens with HFCS variants, and it would have
| been the moment it hit your digestive tract anyways.
|
| There is zero scientific justification for the weird
| focus on HFCS. Yes, _glucose_ and grossly excessive
| amounts of fructose are a serious problem. Especially in
| forms that rapidly get absorbed and go off like a glucose
| bomb -- our bodies are not adapted to the extremely rapid
| intake of glucose forms of food we eat now, including
| ultra-processed foods fill with refined carbs.
|
| The #1 source of glucose in most diets is white breads,
| rices and so on. White flour is 60-80% starch, while
| white rice pushes 90% starch. Starch is strings of
| glucose molecules, and indeed enzymes turn that starch to
| free glucose almost immediately when eaten. So from a
| glucose perspective flour is much worse than an equal
| amount of sugar.
|
| And of course nutritive sweeteners in all their forms
| should be avoided. But table sugar isn't more wholesome
| or better than HFCS.
|
| [1] - Fun video about the sucrose in Mexican coke -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY66qpMFOYo
| jemmyw wrote:
| I was surprised to learn this. "Worldwide, the Irish
| Republic, Singapore and New Zealand are the only countries
| which implement mandatory water fluoridation."
|
| I live in New Zealand and my town doesn't put fluoride in the
| water but it seems like they'll be made to do so fairly soon.
| I don't really care one way or the other from the point of
| view of ingesting the stuff, but I do consider it a bit of a
| waste of money. People who brush with toothpaste don't need
| this and people who don't are probably drinking too much
| soda. A more useful thing to do might be to subsidize
| toothpaste for people who can't / won't buy it for their
| kids.
| fao_ wrote:
| > People who brush with toothpaste don't need this and
| people who don't are probably drinking too much soda
|
| I think every person in my social circles with any kind of
| illness or disability would be incredibly grateful for
| fluoridation, and it's not because of drinking too much
| soda
| elif wrote:
| Fluoridation, imperial measurement, 20% tips, taxes added at
| the register, and circumcision are the weirdest things
| Americans think everyone does.
| timeon wrote:
| > 20% tips
|
| Is this real?
| kevingadd wrote:
| Yeah the lowest option on some point of sale systems now
| is 20.
| NortySpock wrote:
| Yes, for nearly any restaurant this is the unspoken
| recommendation, and sometimes enforced automatically if
| your group is larger than 6-8. Source: I am an American.
| boringg wrote:
| When i read it now it is ridiculous how high the tip rate
| is. Yes 18-25% a lot of them tip on the taxed total bill
| which is bananas
| bruckie wrote:
| Yes, it's pretty common. It's also common for businesses
| where customers tip to underpay their employees on the
| expectation that they'll make it up with tips. It's legal
| to do this in many jurisdictions.
|
| As an American, I wish we didn't do this, but it's a
| collective action problem that's very hard to solve.
| missingcolours wrote:
| What exactly is the definition of "underpay" here? Back
| when my wife was a server, it seemed like a cheat code to
| the service industry - she was making way more money
| waiting tables for $2.65/hr + tips than she had made at
| any other job she'd had (something like $18-20/hr 15
| years ago)
| TMWNN wrote:
| Correct. bruckie has never actually worked as a server;
| otherwise he would know that tipping in the US is
| _hugely_ beneficial to waiters, bartenders, etc., even
| with the legally allowed lower minimum wage. This is why
| tipping has never gone away through legislative means
| despite no shortage of waiters and bartenders in the
| populace, and why the occasional restaurant that proudly
| announces that it is a "no-tipping" establishment, and
| gets the requisite amount of slavering coverage in the
| usual virtue-signaling subreddits, never stays open long.
| bruckie wrote:
| My dislike of tipping isn't to help the "poor servers"
| (and other employees partially compensated via tips).
| You're correct that I've never been a server, but I've
| had several friends and roommates who have been, and I'm
| aware of how it works. The good ones make (relatively) a
| lot of money; the bad ones sometimes don't, and usually
| find a different job pretty quickly. (I totally see how
| mentioning the lower minimum wage muddled my point,
| though.)
|
| The reason I wish we didn't tip is because I think the
| list price should reflect the true cost of whatever I'm
| buying. I think that is more honest, encourages healthy
| competition, and is a pleasant consumer experience.
|
| I was really glad when the DOT forced airlines to include
| taxes and fees in ticket prices in 2012, and wish there
| were a similar law/regulation that applied to all
| commerce. (And yes, I realize this is hard, given the
| incredible complexity of U.S. tax laws in a bazillion
| different--and often overlapping--jurisdictions.)
| alabastervlog wrote:
| > What exactly is the definition of "underpay" here?
|
| > $2.65/hr+
| gblargg wrote:
| Are they agreeing to pay employees one amount, then
| underpaying them? Why would an employee keep working if
| they don't get paid the agreed-on salary?
| conradkay wrote:
| The restaurant pays them tipped wage which is a lot
| lower, but the employee more than makes up for it from
| all the tips
| kelnos wrote:
| One thing that annoys me is that some states, like
| California, don't have a tipped minimum wage. (Well, we
| do, it's just set to the same number as the non-tipped
| minimum.) And yet we're still expected to tip. I guess
| the real problem is that it's expensive to live in CA,
| and our minimum wage needs to be hiked up quite a bit.
| 0xEF wrote:
| Yep. My favorite thing is when I am not even at a
| restaurant and I'm being asked to tip a retail worker
| making well above minimum wage. As a former bartender who
| made $2.65US an hour and relied on tips for my "paycheck"
| each week, seeing this new "tipping everyone" trend is
| like a slap in the face.
|
| Bottom line, if your business can't afford to pay its
| people a living wage, then it can't afford to operate.
| jorvi wrote:
| Two of the most hilarious things I've seen are tips at
| self-serve kiosks, and tips where you carry the food to
| the person behind the counter. Tipping them for ringing
| up an item..
| kelnos wrote:
| At a corner store I frequent, they recently changed POS
| systems, and the new ones show a tipping screen. The
| person there always quickly dismisses it; I think they
| haven't figured out how to disable it, and are a little
| embarrassed that the machine is asking you to tip for
| just ringing up your items.
|
| (Well, they also make espresso drinks and made-to-order
| deli sandwiches, so I guess it's appropriate to tip if
| you order those.)
| TMWNN wrote:
| >(Well, they also make espresso drinks and made-to-order
| deli sandwiches, so I guess it's appropriate to tip if
| you order those.)
|
| I disagree. I tip for delivery, and for table service.
| Not for a service that does not require leaving the
| counter.
| welder wrote:
| One of the many reasons I left the USA. Too bad US-
| Americans are so used to tipping 20% they even do it when
| traveling... giving the rest of us a reputation as being
| suckers.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Tipping is why you left the US? Really?
| welder wrote:
| Yes, one of the MANY cultural reasons. One less thing I
| have to think about when paying for food. There's
| honestly too many reasons to list: cost, safety, food,
| transportation, work life balance, education, being near
| family, and to see more of the world.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| Sounds like the "one of" is doing a lot of work there
| UltraSane wrote:
| You said one of the main reasons which is really silly.
| sampullman wrote:
| Tipping isn't the reason I left, but after some years
| away, it's in the top 10 or so reasons I'm unlikely to
| move back.
|
| It's pretty nice to go to a cafe, pay a fair price, and
| not be guilted into 20% extra by a PoS machine.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > It's pretty nice to go to a cafe, pay a fair price, and
| not be guilted into 20% extra by a PoS machine.
|
| Are you worried the machine will think less of you if you
| don't tip? Where does guilt come into it?
| sampullman wrote:
| "Guilt" is an exaggeration, but the human behind the
| machine might care. It's a tiny inconvenience all things
| considered, and more of a principal than a practical
| issue. It helps tip the scale of where I'd rather live.
| UltraSane wrote:
| That is very silly.
| osigurdson wrote:
| In Canada, these days, even Subway expects a tip. It is
| insane.
| dgellow wrote:
| Yes, at least in NYC. And you get to tip in coffee places
| too, even when your coffee is to go. The card payment
| device (whatever they are called) gives you options such
| as 20%, 40%, 60% when you try to pay.
| elif wrote:
| I kid you not, majority of Americans (myself included)
| feel some level of guilt pushing the 15% button.
| brikym wrote:
| They're doing both tipping and untipping.
| habosa wrote:
| Many other places fluoridate salt. There's many ways to get
| flourish (toothpaste being the best if you can get people to
| use it correctly) but the evidence that mass fluoridation of
| some kind is good for dental health is enormous.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| I initially dismissed it as the same category of stupid as anti-
| vax beliefs, but it turns out that there are a decent amount of
| good studies showing a link between fluoride in water and
| (slightly) lower IQ when pregnant mothers ingest the fluoride.
| Note that there is no significant effect after birth.
|
| The idea is to remove fluoride from water and advise pregnant
| women to use fluoride-free toothpaste.
|
| Everyone else can get enough fluoride from modern toothpastes, or
| regular dentist treatments.
|
| The logic is that fluoride in tap water made sense in the era
| before toothpaste had it, but now it is "overmedicating" a
| vulnerable fraction of the population.
| culi wrote:
| The IQ link is very heavily lacking in evidence.
|
| In the actual research the main "risk" posed by flouridated
| water is actually fluorosis. This causes minerals in your
| enamel to be replaced with flouride which can cause them to be
| brittle in the long term. It's pretty uncommon but the thought
| is that now that flouride toothpaste are commonplace, the
| benefit of flouridated water is also way less. Which changes
| the calculus.
|
| A not insignificant number of researchers are advocating for
| the view that flouridating water just isn't worth it anymore
| and the (slight) risk of flourosis is more significant than the
| (slight) benefit of decreased dental caries.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| > The IQ link is very heavily lacking in evidence.
|
| Where is the evidence that _you_ have the authority to add
| 7mg /L of fluoride to _my_ drinking water when I request the
| option? I get that it helps with cavities but me personally
| want the option to brush my teeth and drink basic water
| without additives.
| crazygringo wrote:
| What do you mean? There's literally tons of evidence. Do
| you think fluoride doesn't actually reduce cavities?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| You can't win. Freedom, IQ, precious bodily fluids.
| There's no end to the nonsense.
|
| My city started fluoridating a few years ago. The crazy
| was off the chart, they're still active. NYC has
| fluoridated for 60 years, you'd think someone would have
| figured out that the entire city is dumber.
| like_any_other wrote:
| Bodily autonomy is "nonsense"?
| scheeseman486 wrote:
| How do you feel about the fossil fuel industry, because
| they're responsible for far more carcinogens entering
| your body than Big Flouride.
| grues-dinner wrote:
| Not just regular toxic chemicals, either, through the is
| plenty of that. Quite a bit of radiation too.
|
| And companies that adulterate, misrepresent and obfuscate
| what they put in food as well. No-one is putting corn
| syrup or brominated vegetable oil in food with any
| intention other than money money money.
|
| In fact, if I were an evil subgenius and really actively
| wanted to damage the IQs of the nation for some nefarious
| purpose, and it has to be substance-based, I'd avoid
| things with annoying oversight like public drinking water
| and vaccines and focus on food and pollution as a vector.
| If challenged, I just say "why do you hate my freedom to
| make a profit and provide jobs". Sure, the FDA and EPA
| exist, but even then you can get away with far, far more
| in those areas. Food wise, HFCS, BVO, etc, pollution
| wise, almost everything to with plastics or polymers,
| oil, coal, gas the list goes on and on.
| TheBicPen wrote:
| Do you think bodily autonomy is absolute? Your comments
| seem to imply that bodily autonomy is the only relevant
| thing to consider when discussing patient care. The world
| doesn't work that way. Believe it or not, a doctor won't
| amputate a limb when you show up with a runny nose even
| if you insist that that's the procedure you want. Search
| up the 4 principles of biomedical ethics if you want to
| learn more about the factors that influence doctors'
| ethical decisions.
|
| Or do you mean that your opinion _should_ trump that of
| any doctor or expert in any field when the issue pertains
| to your person? If that 's the case, I wonder why you
| choose to participate in society at all, given that
| you're uncomfortable with the idea that other people
| might know more than you.
| like_any_other wrote:
| > Do you think bodily autonomy is absolute?
|
| No. When decisions I take could affect others, that can,
| in a limited way, justify overriding bodily autonomy.
| E.g. preventing someone with an infectious disease from
| spreading it by quarantining them. Or when they can't
| make their own decisions, e.g. if they're children,
| suffering dementia, or are unconscious and time is
| critical.
|
| > Believe it or not, a doctor won't amputate a limb
|
| I struggle to understand how this is a reasonable, much
| less charitable, interpretation of my words. Bodily
| autonomy does not include commanding others. But people
| can refuse care, even when it is medically sound. Except
| in very limited circumstances, doctors may not _force_
| procedures or medicine on unwilling patients.
|
| > Or do you mean that your opinion should trump that of
| any doctor or expert in any field when the issue pertains
| to your person? If that's the case, I wonder why you
| choose to participate in society at all, given that
| you're uncomfortable with the idea that other people
| might know more than you.
|
| One does not at all follow from the other. Experts in the
| field will tell me excessive sweets are bad for me (and I
| believe them) - should they get to put a block my credit
| card so it cannot be used to buy unhealthy snacks, only
| healthy food?
|
| I have humored your post, now please explain to me: How
| does believing people have a right to refuse medical
| treatment imply I am uncomfortable with others being more
| knowledgeable?
| wqaatwt wrote:
| > you'd think someone would have figured out that
|
| Maybe that's why they haven't?
|
| But being serious if it's relatively low and the negative
| effects only occur during pregnancy it's not that easy to
| measure it.
|
| Obviously there is no conclusive evidence (even if the
| studies from China seem somewhat credible) but IMHO even
| if the likelihood of this being true is e.g. only 5-10%,
| risk of a population wide loss of 1-2 IQ points seems
| like a massively too high price to pay just to slightly
| reduce cavity rates.
|
| Also dismissing all credible (albeit weak) scientific
| evidence out of hand just because crazy people hold
| similar beliefs is a about as stupid as what they are
| doing..
| somenameforme wrote:
| Well one issue with your snark here is that IQs within
| the country are going down, and nobody really knows why.
| [1]
|
| The Flynn Effect was the observation that real IQ scores
| were increasing over time. But sometime around 1990 this
| seems to have stopped in pretty much the entire developed
| world, including the US. I'm not implying that this is
| solely due to fluoridation, though it's certainly a
| plausible contributing factor. But as for your snark
| about 'someone would have figured out people are getting
| dumber' - well, they have, and we don't know why.
|
| [1] (pop media coverage of study) - https://www.popularme
| chanics.com/science/a43469569/american-...
|
| [1] (study - no paywall!) - https://www.sciencedirect.com
| /science/article/pii/S016028962...
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Flouridation of drinking water does not happen in the
| entire developed world, though.
|
| And lower IQ scores don't necessarily say much about pure
| intelligence directly, a worsening education system could
| also contribute and that's not exactly far fetched. And
| your linked source says:
|
| > The steepest slopes occurred for ages 18-22 and _lower
| levels of education_
| oaktrout wrote:
| Fluorinated water minimally reduces cavities:
| https://www.cochrane.org/news/water-fluoridation-less-
| effect...
|
| It was probably much more effective 50 years ago when
| fluoride was not in everyone's toothpaste.
| afthonos wrote:
| There isn't any! GP doesn't have that authority! Well done!
|
| On the other hand, the society you live in probably has
| some sort of document establishing who does have the
| authority, and how it devolves to the actual policy-makers.
| Google "$YOUR_LOCATION government" and you'll have some
| good starting points. If you're lucky, you might even get
| to participate in the process; "$YOUR_LOCATION elections"
| will give you good pointers in that case.
| loktarogar wrote:
| The people of Flint, MI were (and some still are!) forced
| to drink bottled water for years when their water was
| contaminated with lead.
|
| When you drink from publicly supplied water, you accept
| risks that can be much worse than fluoride in your water.
| If you want to avoid that, you need to procure your own
| drinking water.
| cratermoon wrote:
| 7mg/L? Where the heck did you get that figure? The correct
| value is a tenth of that: 0.7 milligrams per Liter (mg/L)
| The limit is 2mg/L, and that's only found in places with
| _naturally occurring_ high levels of flouride.
| don_neufeld wrote:
| You can solve your "problem" for a very small price: it
| costs under $0.50 per day to distill your own drinking
| water per person.
|
| So for $15/mo, "problem" solved.
|
| Are you doing that?
| Sparkle-san wrote:
| It's not your water, it's municipal water you purchase with
| the fluoride in it.
| userbinator wrote:
| _Which changes the calculus_
|
| Was that intentional?
| (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dental_calculus for those who
| didn't get the reference.)
| kazinator wrote:
| The canonical form is "I see what you did there".
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Fluorosis is very common afaik. My dentist told me I have it:
| slightly whiter patches on my teeth. Then he showed me his
| own fluorosis. It actually is stronger than the old enamel.
| naasking wrote:
| > The IQ link is very heavily lacking in evidence.
|
| Not really: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/f
| ullarticle/...
| shlant wrote:
| your study has been heavily criticized where you already
| posted it:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43523900
|
| I can only assume once you see those very valid criticisms,
| you will update your references
| naasking wrote:
| Does the study not literally refute the claim that
| fluoride's negative impact on IQ is lacking in evidence,
| contrary to the original claim? What exactly do you think
| needs to be updated?
| hedora wrote:
| Children are the main group that benefits from fluoride in
| water because the fluoride helps strengthen teeth as they
| form. Lack of fluoride increases childhood cavities, leading
| to decreased academic performance.
|
| This was a real problem in the San Jose school district until
| recently. They started fluoridation of water in the last ten
| years, and were the biggest US city that didn't fluoridate.
| The evidence of the above is clear according to SJ dentists I
| have talked to.
| somenameforme wrote:
| The National Toxicology Program recently completed a fairly
| substantial meta study and concluded that "for every 1 mg/L
| increase in urinary fluoride, there is a decrease of 1.63 IQ
| points in children.". [1] This is also relevant to OP since
| it's not just pregnant women at risk from excessive
| fluoridation but also children. For now it seems that adults
| are, somewhat oddly, unaffected.
|
| [1] - https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/nonca
| ncer/...
| Aloisius wrote:
| In bold from your source:
|
| _> It is important to note that there were insufficient
| data to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg /L
| currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies has
| a negative effect on children's IQ._
| somenameforme wrote:
| Yeah, note the measurement is in urine. So there are two
| separate issues. Determining whether fluoride is damaging
| to IQ, and then whether the levels in water can drive
| this. The former is way easier to evaluate than the
| latter. The reason comes from that study's intro
| pargraphs:
|
| ---
|
| "Since 1945, the use of fluoride has been a successful
| public health initiative for reducing dental cavities and
| improving general oral health of adults and children.
| There is a concern, however, that some pregnant women and
| children may be getting more fluoride than they need
| because they now get fluoride from many sources including
| treated public water, water-added foods and beverages,
| teas, toothpaste, floss, and mouthwash, and the combined
| total intake of fluoride may exceed safe amounts."
|
| ---
|
| So the issue is trying to isolate the exact amount and
| source of fluoride people are getting. And that probably
| has no answer because it's going to vary dependent on how
| much fluoridated water somebody drinks, the rest of their
| diet, their other dental hygiene composition, and more.
| So levels that would be safe for one percent of the
| population, will be dangerous for another percent of it.
| Speedy218 wrote:
| > but now it is "overmedicating" a vulnerable fraction of the
| population.
|
| Makes sense, but the intention also is that many people do not
| brush their teeth, or at least do not brush them as often as
| they should, and so fluoride is added to drinking water to
| compensate so people's teeth don't start to fall out at an
| alarming rate.
| apothegm wrote:
| Sadly, an alarming percentage of Americans don't drink water.
| I've spoken to way too many people who think water tastes
| wrong because it's not sweet enough.
| singpolyma3 wrote:
| I've heard this and it doesn't fit in my brain. They never
| drink water? Ever?
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Something like 10% of SNAP benefits go towards purchases
| of soda pop and other sugary drinks made by PepsiCo/etc.
| kacesensitive wrote:
| It's heartbreaking, but not surprising. When you're
| dealing with limited resources, constant stress, and
| often living in areas where healthy options are harder to
| access or more expensive, sugary drinks can feel like an
| affordable comfort. Instead of judging SNAP recipients,
| we should be looking at the systems that make soda more
| accessible than clean, appealing , and fresh food.
| XorNot wrote:
| Another take would also just be that it hardly proves
| they don't drink water, just that they also like
| something else.
|
| But the "soda" category these days is also pretty
| overloaded: full sugar coke vs Coke zero is a _very_
| different calory intake.
| apothegm wrote:
| Coke zero is still murder on your teeth, though. (And not
| fluoridated, of course.)
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Are SNAP recipients not allowed to enjoy a soda at all? I
| really don't understand the problem with this. Society
| acts like signing up for SNAP involves signing a contract
| to lose 100 pounds and only eat iceberg lettuce or
| something.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| No, but I think spending 10% of your food budget on soda
| is unfortunate regardless. Of course they have a right to
| it.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Americans seem to love to gatekeep what the poor are
| allowed to have or not have. They have this image of the
| Welfare Queen driving a pink Cadillac to cash her welfare
| checks at the liquor store. It seems that no matter how
| desperately destitute someone might be, there's a person
| who will point at something they have, whether it's a
| tent to sleep in under a bridge (a gift from an
| organization providing assistance to the houseless), a
| bicycle that's their only means of transportation, or a
| garden planted on public property, and say "they can't be
| _that_ poor if they have that!
| jrflowers wrote:
| If an individual spends 10% of their SNAP benefits on
| soda, they've spent about ~$30 over a month on it, which
| is ten 20fl oz drinks. People drinking a bit more than a
| gallon of soda per month only supports the notion that
| they can subsist on that without any water if you believe
| that they categorically have some sort of exceptional
| unhuman biology.
| dwattttt wrote:
| Time to buy Brawndo shares
| rl3 wrote:
| Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.
| Water is for toilets, drink Brawndo! _The Thirst
| Mutilator._
|
| You know on a serious note, it occurred to me that Liquid
| Death's slogan "Murder your thirst" isn't far off. Wonder
| if it's a not-so-subtle nod.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| I wouldn't find that unusual. I hardly ever drink water;
| if it's available, I drink milk. Why would you drink
| water?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Water is great for hydration without filling you
| otherwise. Like, say you need to drink a lot of fluid
| because you are really active, you would probably get
| sick of milk pretty quickly.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > say you need to drink a lot of fluid because you are
| really active
|
| If you're replacing sweat, wouldn't you want sports
| drinks?
|
| https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1969/03/27
|
| But anyway, in most cases, the fact that drinking milk
| doubles as a source of food is clearly a benefit. It's
| hard to explain a common behavior by reference to a rare
| circumstance.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Sports drinks aren't really good for you, but you
| definitely can drink a lot more of them than you can
| milk.
| kelnos wrote:
| If I replaced my water intake with milk it would probably
| make me sick.
|
| Water has zero calories, is reasonably filling, neutral-
| tasting, and gives me what my body needs, without any
| other junk. What's not to like?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Well, it's true that water has zero calories and is
| neutral tasting. It's not filling to any degree, and milk
| will give you a lot _more_ of what your body needs.
| singpolyma3 wrote:
| Milk is water sugar and fat. Hardly a good source of
| things your body needs (except the water, which you can
| get from water)
| monetus wrote:
| - Along with extra enzymes that promote growing things
| kids need more than adults, and if all you drink is milk
| you _will_ overdo it.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| You're making me really curious what you think the
| purpose of eating is.
|
| Also, what you think cheese consists of.
| mjevans wrote:
| Particularly when traveling, I don't enjoy the taste of tap
| water. Filtered or (factory filtered then) bottled... and
| I'm not alone in that viewpoint.
| twothamendment wrote:
| When traveling by vehicle (pickup truck for me) I've
| thrown in a 5 gallon cooler of water from home. It was so
| nice to want to drink water because it was my own good
| well water that tastes like I'm used to.
|
| When I had to fly to NY for work I felt like I couldn't
| get water anywhere that was worth drinking.
| dcrazy wrote:
| Where in New York? If NYC, this sounds insane to me,
| because New York municipal water is objectively speaking
| among the purest (if not _the_ purest) in the country.
| muglug wrote:
| NYC tap water has spoiled all other tap water for me
| dcrazy wrote:
| San Francisco tap water is almost as good. It was better
| before they started mixing reclaimed water into it,
| though I've either gotten used to the new taste or
| they've fixed the treatment process.
| rangestransform wrote:
| Vancouver winter water (summer water tastes more off)
| >>>>>> NYC tap water and I will die on this hill
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| I question this as a bad take or a data-point of one,
| because NYC water is the best of Upstate water.
|
| I've travelled and lived across the country during my
| high school and college years; and I've travelled my
| extensively within Upstate very (Adirondacks, Catskills,
| and Finger Lakes) and the taste of local water is the
| first thing I notice.
|
| Bad building pipes aside, I have not tasted any water
| that exceeds NYC's tap water in taste.
|
| I'm not the only person who's expressed this, and guests
| from other regions have also admitted the same
| consistently over the years.
| viraptor wrote:
| When travelling where? The blanket statement here just
| doesn't work. Every major area has very different water
| in the tap. A lot of the bottled water is just tap water
| from another region.
| roland35 wrote:
| This is one benefit of growing up with awful well water.
| Literally anywhere tastes pretty darn good by comparison!
| jorvi wrote:
| Probably because the overwhelming majority of countries
| chlorinates their water to various degrees because they
| don't have the exceptional plumbing quality needed to
| otherwise guarantee potability.
|
| Countries where the tap water is drinkable without
| chlorination have quality that exceeds bottled water, and
| it might even be sourced from the same aquifers.
| loopdoend wrote:
| The best tap water on earth is in Iceland. Volcanic
| filtered and so clean tasting... one of the joys of being
| in the country.
| viraptor wrote:
| Once you get over the sulfur smell anyway... (or was that
| only the northern thing?)
| freehorse wrote:
| Maybe instead of removing fluoride from the water they
| should add sweetener in there along with it /s
| UltraSane wrote:
| Wisconsin tap water tastes fine. Waco, Texas tap water is
| really nasty.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| It can vary much more closely than that. I moved from one
| town to another 12 miles away, and the tap water in the
| new town tasted horrible compared to my old town's tap.
| thayne wrote:
| I bet those people drink fountain drinks, cofee, tea, etc.
| made from tapwater.
| floriannn wrote:
| > many people do not brush their teeth
|
| many? (!!!)
|
| Googling it all I found was one dentist website that said 2%,
| but didn't seem that reliable
| dullcrisp wrote:
| 2% is definitely many
| kelnos wrote:
| If that figure is for the US, then that's ~7M people. Feels
| like "many" to me.
| kelnos wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that no amount of fluoridated water is going
| to save you if you do not brush your teeth.
|
| Even if the fluoride somehow manages to overcome all that and
| prevent you from getting cavities, the gum disease will
| eventually cause all your teeth to fall out.
| mountainriver wrote:
| Agree, my biggest issue is often where they source the fluoride
| and whether they test it. We found out in my (liberal) hometown
| that they were actually sourcing some derivative which has no
| human studies.
|
| Given that everyone gets enough in toothpaste I just don't see
| the reason to keep doing it, too much can go wrong. It's kind
| of a strange mass medication that I'm not sure the government
| needs to be involved in.
| someperson wrote:
| What was the derivative?
| thayne wrote:
| > Everyone else can get enough fluoride from modern
| toothpastes, or regular dentist treatments.
|
| The advantage of putting it in water is that it ensures _all_
| children get it, not just the children whose parents can and do
| make sure they brush their teeth and go to the dentist.
| jaredklewis wrote:
| I think that link is only there when the fluoride levels are
| extremely high. See https://parentdata.org/fluoride-drinking-
| water/ for a good overview of the data
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Whether this is true or not, it's absolutely not why they
| banned it.
|
| They banned it as part of the culture war. That's 100% of the
| reason. "The libs" want it, so it must be banned.
| robbiep wrote:
| The levels of fluoridation in order to cause difference in IQ
| as I understand it, from the Chinese studies, suggest that
| basically the effect if true occurs at around 2x+ the
| concentration found in supplemented water supplies.
|
| My understanding also is that if you're a dentist wanting to
| get rich, move somewhere that has unfluoridated water.
| bigmadshoe wrote:
| 2x is honestly pretty small. I would expect the amount
| required to drop IQ to be larger by an order of magnitude or
| more to conclude that fluoridating water is totally safe.
| cortic wrote:
| So if your training and double your water intake your
| basically lowering you IQ? (according to the Chinese studies)
| I wonder the method this uses.. has anyone looked at dementia
| rates in high fluoride areas.. Particularly in people with
| high water intake?
|
| There is also a host of things we use water for from cooking
| to preserving, distilling and cooling.. i wonder if any of
| these things could concentrate the fluoride.
|
| Also since fluoride has a lower boiling point any studies
| tracked what breathing in fluoride gas over long periods
| cause?
| raincole wrote:
| 2x is basically no safe margin for something like water. Of
| course you can question the quality of the study, but if it's
| actually 2x, fluoride in tap water should be treated like
| lead pipes.
| windexh8er wrote:
| > The idea is to remove fluoride from water and advise pregnant
| women to use fluoride-free toothpaste.
|
| What most people don't understand here are the levels of
| fluoride being ingested. You can very easily remove all
| fluoride from your water with a relatively cheap RO system. But
| the recommendation to use "fluoride-free toothpaste" is just
| plain misinformation.
|
| The reason is that you don't eat toothpaste. And even when
| adults ingest small amounts of toothpaste, again, the amount of
| fluoride is basically beyond negligible. Fluoride can both be
| applied to teeth as a varnish and/or consumed in drinking
| water. Using a flouride-free toothpaste can oftentimes do more
| damage than good because of SLS in those alternatives and
| because those alternatives often have abrasives that do far
| more harm than good. It's amazing people will recommend a
| product that may likely be worse because they have no domain
| expertise. So, yes, people should talk to their Dentist about
| these things and ask questions of them vs the Internet.
|
| Really the downside to removing fluoride from city water is
| that low income families will be worse off with respect to
| dental related issues compared to more well off families that
| spend time instilling dental hygiene and preventative care for
| their kids. As you mentioned most people who have decent oral
| hygiene get enough flouride.
|
| Where we live we have well water. Fluoride in the water isn't a
| concern, and if it was in our drinking water it generally
| wouldn't be consumed because of the water filtration anyway.
|
| Source: spouse is a DDS.
| navigate8310 wrote:
| My anecdotal experience says that using fluride-free biomine
| toothpaste makes my tooth highly sensitive than using a good
| ol' Colgate. Now, I use it only twice or thrice per month
| randomly.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| > I initially dismissed it as the same category of stupid as
| anti-vax beliefs
|
| Dismissing things out of hand like this is a category of stupid
| in itself.
|
| Look at the current research, listen to people who devoted
| their careers to studying this, make up your own mind. If
| you're on HN, then you're qualified enough to at least figure
| out who the genuine experts are and read what they recommend.
|
| Putting any science-based debate into a "category" to dismiss
| is turning yourself into one of the stupid people.
| habosa wrote:
| I'm disappointed in the news media fails to mention the cascading
| effects of dental health. Yes, the primary and direct benefit of
| fluoride is to have a healthier mouth.
|
| But having a healthy mouth is far from the end goal, imo. If your
| mouth is full of cavities you're more likely to build up bacteria
| that cause downstream effects as serious as heart disease. Also
| if your mouth is routinely uncomfortable you may gravitate
| towards soft processed foods and away from healthy whole foods
| like fresh fruits and vegetables.
|
| I know water is not the only way to get fluoride into people. But
| these politicians who are trying to take it out of the water are
| just saying basically "it's fine, let's do nothing". They're not
| going to fluoridate the salt. They're not going to run public
| health campaigns stressing the importance of regular brushing.
| They're just willing to let people's teeth rot to score points.
|
| It's disgusting, and no matter how you feel about the water you
| should be able to see that these people are not on your side.
|
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in...
| whycome wrote:
| So you're saying that dental health is essential for the rest
| of the body? Yet, Canada doesn't include it in its famous
| 'universal free healthcare'...
|
| I'd actually just like to see more money put into public dental
| assistance. And education.
| davorak wrote:
| > I'd actually just like to see more money put into public
| dental assistance. And education.
|
| I would want to see that in anti fluoride campaigns and laws
| as well, but have not see that happen in the laws and
| campaigns I have followed. Or in the HN comments I have
| responded to on the subject, most focus on banning and
| provide no follow, or no structured follow up like - free
| toothpaste, required educations, and follow up studies,
| reassess in X years.
| loopdoend wrote:
| The Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP) was introduced to
| provide dental services to uninsured Canadians meeting
| specific criteria. Its rollout began in December 2023,
| starting with individuals aged 87 and above, and is set to
| expand to all eligible adults earning less than $90,000
| annually by May 1, 2025.
| koolba wrote:
| > They're not going to run public health campaigns stressing
| the importance of regular brushing. They're just willing to let
| people's teeth rot to score points.
|
| Do you really think there are sizable native born populations
| that are not aware of tooth brushing?
|
| There's plenty of people that don't bother with it, but I don't
| see a PR campaign being particularly effective at changing
| that.
| jmye wrote:
| I think there are lots of kids who don't know how bad their
| teeth can get and how that can impact their life in the
| future (and I mean kids like teens, not like four year olds).
|
| I think there are lots of adults who don't realize that poor
| dental health can cause heart failure and worsen basically
| every chronic condition.
|
| I think there are lots of goobers who don't realize that
| there's no reason that United and Elevance and the rest
| couldn't be forced to cover dental care via regulation.
|
| I get your point, but big picture there are a _lot_ of
| impactful education campaigns that should be possible.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > If your mouth is full of cavities you're more likely to build
| up bacteria that cause downstream effects as serious as heart
| disease.
|
| I don't know that you have the causality here correct.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| If I went to the store to grab a bottle of water, and they were
| selling fluoridated water and fluoridated water, I would choose
| the non-fluoridated water.
|
| I drink tap water now with fluoride so its not like I care
| strongly, but its a bit weird that many people buy only non-
| fluoridated water themselves and are confused when other people
| show a preference for non-fluoridated water in their own taps.
| freehorse wrote:
| This is one of these US-specific polarised debates I find really
| bizarre, around some kind of issue that the rest of the world has
| by large solved but without any acknowledgement of this fact.
| Maybe the US should look into how other countries have solved it?
| It is completely bizarre witnessing both sides getting so
| polarised around a basically non-issue.
| roland35 wrote:
| There are a few studies out which say fluoride is bad. But as
| is often the case with these health idiots, the studies
| actually refer to places where fluoride is naturally way too
| high in the water. The entire debate is dumb.
| nostrebored wrote:
| This was my perspective for awhile -- recommend you look into
| more recent studies if you haven't in the past 2y or so. I
| don't think it's the worst thing in our water but do think
| it's objectively a bad idea.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| It's far more than a few, and the level does not need to be
| that high:
|
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/.
| ..
| plaqueattack wrote:
| These people have been around forever but the pivotal point in
| my opinion is when the Lancet retracted the article on the link
| between MMR and autism.
|
| Suddenly everything was up for debate.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_autism_fraud
| UltraSane wrote:
| There is not real debate, just some people who don't understand
| how chemistry works.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| I'd really like to hear your take
| wokwokwok wrote:
| Talk to your dentist.
|
| They are experts in this field, and, unlike "random person
| on the internet who spent 2 minutes on google", have
| informed opinions on this topic.
|
| If you want a serious discussion on why fluoride is good or
| bad, that's where you need to go.
|
| Random person on the internet is very easy to disagree
| with, because we're all idiots right? It's a very easy lazy
| way of self confirmation.
|
| ...but if you are serious about critically considering the
| issue and facing your own biases, talk to an actual topic
| expert.
|
| My dentist told me he had carefully reviewed the literature
| and determined to his satisfaction that public fluoridated
| water was in the best interests of public health,
| currently. He offered to share some reading that he was
| convinced by.
|
| You can't really ask for more that that.
|
| Discussing this here is a bit like protesting by posting on
| social media; yes, I suppose it's better than doing nothing
| and not engaging with the topic _at all_ ... but only
| _barely_ , and not in any meaningful way.
| like_any_other wrote:
| Are teeth the only thing affected by water fluoridation?
|
| Why do almost no other countries fluoridate drinking
| water?
|
| Even if it does turn out to be unambiguously good, people
| have a basic right to make their own medical decisions.
|
| _Recent systematic reviews suggest an association
| between higher fluoride exposure and lower IQ in
| children._ -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation
| wokwokwok wrote:
| If you're not prepared to listen to an expert, _and that
| 's what your dentist is on this topic_, then nothing I,
| or anyone else can say, makes any difference to you.
|
| At some point, you have to accept that your random
| wikipedia page and 5 minutes on google is not a
| convincing argument.
|
| This is right up there in the conspiracy theory
| territory.
|
| Rational discussion means _listening to experts_ and
| _admitting that you are not an expert_.
|
| What do you want me to say?
|
| You aren't a qualified expert on this topic. If you want
| an expert opinion, talk to an expert, not some dubious
| fucking provenance wikipedia page.
| like_any_other wrote:
| > If you're not prepared to listen to an expert
|
| Who do you think conducted those peer-reviewed systematic
| reviews? I'm sorry if I don't take the word of some
| random guy's dentist over multiple meta analyses in major
| medical journals.
|
| And I don't need an expert to tell me people should have
| the right to make their own medical decisions.
|
| And finally, I live in a country where public health
| experts have decided against water fluoridation. This is
| represents the vast majority of countries. What now?
| Should I pick some other experts to listen to?
| wokwokwok wrote:
| You are not an expert in this field, and cherry-picking
| random articles in random journals does not make you an
| expert.
|
| > Should I pick some other experts to listen to?
|
| I think it's reasonably clear that you haven't spoken to
| an expert in this field.
|
| > I'm sorry if I don't take the word of some random guy's
| dentist over multiple meta analyses in major medical
| journals.
|
| Are you certain you're competent to review and understand
| the literature on the topic? It takes a lot of time and
| effort; that's what dentists do as a job. That's why they
| have to go to school. That's why random people on the
| internet do not do dentistry.
|
| If you don't trust _my_ dentist, then talk to _your_
| dentist.
|
| This is literally my point: I'm not telling you how it
| is; I'm telling you, _talk to someone who knows what they
| 're talking about_; and, don't believe that you are an
| expert because you put some trivial amount of effort into
| investigating it yourself.
|
| You can't be an expert at everything. No one can.
|
| As some point, you have to trust other people.
| kelnos wrote:
| I'm also not convinced that a dentist is credibly an
| expert here. Sure, I would absolutely expect my dentist
| to understand what benefits fluoridated water might
| provide to my teeth. I would not, for example, expect my
| dentist to be an expert in whether or not fluoridated
| water could cause damage to other parts of my body.
|
| My previous dentist pushed these $80 (not covered by
| insurance) fluoride treatments on every cleaning visit.
| There's no research that shows much of anything about
| their effectiveness (good or bad). Yet they push them
| anyway, because it (their words) might help and probably
| won't harm. That doesn't give me a good feeling about
| their competence to have an expert opinion on this sort
| of thing.
|
| I _would_ , however, trust the opinion of someone who is
| doing medical/dental research, and holds a doctorate in a
| relevant field.
| robbiep wrote:
| _Who do you think conducted those peer-reviewed
| systematic reviews? I 'm sorry if I don't take the word
| of some random guy's dentist over multiple meta analyses
| in major medical journals._
|
| I don't understand what you mean here. Are you just
| wholly rejecting the concept of expert knowledge, trials,
| meta analyses, basically the foundations of science, just
| because _in order to participate in it you have to have
| tainted yourself by rigorously studying it_?
| like_any_other wrote:
| > Are you just wholly rejecting the concept of expert
| knowledge
|
| I am _embracing_ expert knowledge in trusting meta-
| analyses and the decisions of EU health experts.
| nostrebored wrote:
| Your dentist is not an expert in this -- that's like
| saying the guy implementing your frontend is an expert in
| design. Yes, they're working in the space, but their job
| isn't understanding the whole system.
|
| If you're this deep on the appeal to authority train, the
| NIH released a report in the last year linking fluoride
| exposure to moderate drops in IQ with moderate
| confidence.
|
| It's probably not the worst thing in the world, but is
| definitely not inert.
| noodletheworld wrote:
| Dentists have to spend 8 years at school right? ...and do
| various annual training to stay licensed?
|
| I'd say that's a reasonable sign of someone qualified to
| have an opinion.
|
| I think you're getting confused with a dental technician.
| petesergeant wrote:
| You don't seem to understand the difference between
| public and private health.
|
| Your dentist is well qualified to have an opinion on the
| effects of fluoride on your teeth.
|
| They are poorly qualified to have an opinion on whether
| it should be added to the water supply at source.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| I would be really surprised if dentists had much
| expertise on the impact of fluorine on physiology or the
| mechanisms of action for its toxicity. They know what it
| does to your teeth, and maybe that it is known to have
| positive effects for cardiovascular health, but that is
| about the extent of it. The systematic effects on the
| rest of your body are outside their domain.
|
| Chemists who work in fluorine chemistry on the other hand
| have to become experts on the biological effects of
| fluorine exposure. Small and seemingly innocuous
| exposures can do a lot of damage and kill you, though not
| in a way that lends any support to the idea that
| municipal fluoridation will harm you. If you do
| understand how it kills you (basically by being
| exceptionally narrowly focused on making free calcium
| ions and to a lesser extent magnesium ions biologically
| unavailable), it is hard to describe a chemically
| plausible scenario that somehow avoids this basic fact of
| chemistry. Fluoride behaves the same way outside the
| body.
|
| Municipal water exposure is far below the noise floor for
| fluoride. Food has far higher levels of fluoride than
| municipal water and the body has ample excess calcium and
| magnesium to absorb the loss of bioavailability of a
| microscopic amount of those minerals. Humans consume
| calcium measured in grams per day, multiple orders of
| magnitude more than can be lost via municipal
| fluoridation. Natural dietary variation will have a far
| larger effect.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| I am competent on this particular subject matter, I have
| worked in fluorine chemistry and am familiar with the
| biology and medical literature of fluorine toxicity. The
| report made much weaker claims than people seem to think.
|
| There is a very serious mechanism of action problem.
| Fluorine poisoning is a thing that happens. The observed
| effects and empirical evidence, as well as the mechanisms
| of action that cause them, are incompatible with any
| mechanism of action that supports the hypothesis that it
| causes brain damage. Basically, it would invalidate the
| entire history of actual fluoride exposure.
|
| The other serious problem is that people are exposed to
| far more fluorine through what they eat than through
| water. What is special about trace levels in municipal
| water? And many parts of the world have far higher
| natural fluoride levels in their water than any municipal
| water supply with no evidence of adverse consequences.
| This has been studied many times in many countries! In
| fact, the only consistent correlation with naturally high
| fluoride levels is better cardiovascular health (for
| which there is a known mechanism of action).
|
| This notion that trace levels of fluoride in some
| municipal water is adversely impacting IQ based on thin
| evidence from the developing world is just the public
| health version of "faster than light neutrinos". Someone
| thinks they measured it but it contradicts everything we
| know about the subject. The rational approach isn't to
| discard everything we know without a hell of a lot more
| evidence.
|
| I don't think adding fluoride to municipal water does
| much these days but it also isn't harming anyone.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| It also seems to mirror the rhyme with the vaccine
| "debate."
|
| That debate is framed around being vaccinated vs the
| scare of "vaccine caused autism" (or myocarditis), but
| that frame is missing the risk of things like measles.
|
| Likewise tooth decay is not only expensive, but it can
| have dreadful health consequences if left unaddressed.
| Missing teeth is also socially costly. Being poor or
| "ugly" or poor looking is a serious adverse health
| consequence. Imagine parents barely making ends meet or
| working multiple jobs. It's easy to imagine disadvantaged
| kids missing out on dental care.
|
| I also explicitly remember reading multiple reports of
| poor tooth health correlating with dementia development.
| I've also read that serious infections of any sort can
| harm IQ.
| kelnos wrote:
| Sure, but we need to look at this from the other side,
| too. Does fluoridating water provide benefits? I think
| it's safe to say it did way back when we _started_ doing
| it. But we didn 't have fluoride toothpaste back then.
| Putting fluoride in the water is presumably more costly
| than not doing it. If it's actually providing benefits,
| and the risk of harm is below some very low threshold,
| then sure, let's keep doing it. But is it actually
| providing benefits?
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Dentists are experts on neurology now? I don't think the
| debate here has anything to do with the effects of
| fluoride on teeth.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| That study is taken grossly out of context. It doesn't
| claim what people claim it does and even the study states
| that the quality of the data on which the weaker claim
| was made is suspect.
|
| The bigger issue is that we have vast amounts of
| scientific data and empirical evidence around fluoride
| toxicity. People are injured and die due to fluorine
| exposure, we understand how it interacts with biology.
| Any mechanism of action that can support the hypothesis
| that fluorine causes brain damage necessarily invalidates
| all of this evidence and is difficult to explain as a
| matter of basic chemistry.
|
| And then we have to explain why fluoride in water has
| this effect but the much higher levels of fluoride in
| food does not.
|
| Fluoridating municipal water may not offer much benefit
| but there is no credible science that it is actually
| harmful. Large regions of the world have water that
| naturally has far higher fluorine content than municipal
| water and there is no evidence of IQ reduction in these
| regions either.
| petesergeant wrote:
| > Talk to your dentist
|
| The vast majority of dentists are not public health
| experts, and will have little to offer other than
| "exposing your teeth to fluoride regularly is good".
| kelnos wrote:
| Right exactly. And I do that, twice a day, when I brush
| my teeth with fluoride toothpaste.
| ars wrote:
| > Talk to your dentist. They are experts in this field
|
| No they are not. The are experts are filling cavities and
| treatment. They have no additional knowledge of fluoride
| in water vs any other interested person.
|
| For that you need to talk to someone in research, which
| is not someone seeing patients.
| UltraSane wrote:
| What do you mean? Florine creates a substance in human
| teeth that is much more resistant to decay than calcium.
| UltraSane wrote:
| fluoridated water drastically reduces dental cavities and
| has no evidence of being dangerous.
| lolinder wrote:
| What they're referring to is the fact that very few countries
| in the rest of the world even _consider_ the possibility of
| adding fluoride to the water supply. It 's basically just the
| US, Australia, and to a much lesser extent Canada.
|
| It's not a debate everywhere else because adding fluoride to
| the water is objectively an unusual thing to do that they
| just... don't. Presumably they get fluoride other ways.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| How many countries actually drink their tap water as their
| main source of water?
| int_19h wrote:
| Pretty much the entire Europe, for starters.
| lostmsu wrote:
| AFAIK all (former) USSR does that.
| slibhb wrote:
| How has the debate been solved by the rest of the world? My
| understanding is that many countries in Europe don't fluoridate
| the water supply.
|
| I'm skeptical of results showing IQ loss but I also think
| fluoridation should be phased out as fluoride toothpaste and
| mouthwash are now widely available. Banning it seems like the
| wrong move to me...states should simply decide to continue
| adding it or not.
| lolinder wrote:
| > Banning it seems like the wrong move to me...states should
| simply decide to continue adding it or not.
|
| Isn't that exactly what's happening here? A state deciding to
| not continue adding it?
| foenix wrote:
| Nope, the bill as written prevents local municipalities
| from making that decision.
| lolinder wrote:
| Right. The state made the decision to stop it from being
| added, which is what OP proposed.
|
| Did OP mean that _municipalities_ should simply decide to
| keep adding or not? If so, how do we decide (from our
| various armchairs in most cases far away from Utah) what
| the appropriate level of government for making this call
| is?
| throwup238 wrote:
| The state's Department of Health can issue a guidance
| explaining the states' experts' analysis of the available
| data and tradeoffs of the decision, and let the
| municipalities sort it out.
|
| I think the bigger complication though is going to be -
| depending on the state - how water districts are
| apportioned. I think even many counties (let alone
| municipalities) will share water infrastructure so it's
| not really clear who has the jurisdiction to make that
| decision other than the state.
| briandear wrote:
| It also makes it easier for the consumer: don't want
| fluoride, move to Utah. Rather than having to figure out
| what random water district is doing what.
| freehorse wrote:
| > How has the debate been solved by the rest of the world?
|
| By having official country-level guidelines by the health
| ministries or similar for people to brush their teeth with
| toothpaste containing fluoride, and specific guidelines
| around it for kids, as trivial as it may sound. Along with
| experts' reviews providing more details on these decisions,
| and explaining tradeoffs properly.
|
| Fluoride containing toothpaste is the main recommendation,
| even in places that fluoridate the water (which are the
| minority). There is not much to add to this apart from
| refining these guidelines. Eg in the EU where some countries
| fluoridate water, most don't, there is no huge debate about
| it overall. Most eu countries that fluoridated the water
| stopped doing it some point mostly because it was no longer
| needed in preventing cavities, and prob largely due to
| logistics/costs than possible risks.
|
| Your second paragraph reflects my personal views on it, too.
| The "banning" is weird, esp since, according to the article,
| it comes from people that seem to advocate against use of
| fluoride in general in toothpastes etc. The discussion should
| be around best policies to prevent cavities etc, but it does
| not seem to be around that. I see nothing wrong with local
| communities deciding if they want to put fluoride or not in
| their water, based on their own opinions but also general
| situation. Maybe in some much poorer areas fluoridation of
| water could be beneficial until some other measures take
| place, for example.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > Maybe the US should look into how other countries have solved
| it?
|
| How have other countries solved it?
| raincole wrote:
| By _not_ adding fluoride into the tap water and let people
| choose whether to buy toothpaste with fluoride themselves.
| a.k.a. the European way.
|
| Adding fluoride into tap water always sounds borderline
| insane to me. The only benefit is to protect your teeth,
| which, to me, strongly suggests that the correct approach is
| to put it into toothpaste or other oral hygiene products
| instead of water.
| ews wrote:
| The US rarely looks into how other countries solve problems.
| (i.e. Universal Healthcare, High Speed Trains and so), this is
| the sad part of "American Exceptionalism"
| nozzlegear wrote:
| A less cynical framing is that the US is a much different
| culture from European countries, and is massively larger in
| scale. Depending on the problem, some of their solutions
| simply can't or don't apply.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| This is exactly the framing. "What worked there can't work
| here", whether it's firearm control, socialized medicine or
| education, whatever.
|
| We're either bigger, or denser, or less dense, or ...
| essentially whatever suits the argument.
| int_19h wrote:
| The other weird thing in US discourse about other
| countries is that when it does enter the conversation,
| the "rest of the world", or at least other developed
| countries, are often treated as some kind of monolithic
| entity culturally and politically. For example, a lot of
| people on both left and right in US believe that the rest
| of the world is single payer, and generally that "single
| payer" is synonymous to "public healthcare". Similarly
| with gun control, there's no recognition of the fact that
| there are countries in Europe where you can own an AR-15
| just fine, and countries (different ones!) where
| silencers are over the counter items not requiring any
| special registration.
| neither_color wrote:
| Most Americans would be shocked to know that in Thailand
| there are signs at the airport advising you on the
| correct firearms procedures
|
| https://www.airportthai.co.th/en/aot-reiterates-the-
| guidelin...
|
| edit: But I will say it works both ways. Most countries
| do not know what it takes to keep hundreds of millions of
| people of various backgrounds together under a common way
| of life with a certain risk vs entitlement balance.
| Americans as a whole are more risk tolerant AND accepting
| of failure and reinventing yourself. In most cultures
| it's a great shame to quit your job with benefits, start
| a business and not succeed. In the states it's not
| shameful. You tried? Awesome.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Yes, that's my point. We are literally different people
| with different cultures, values and problems. Case in
| point: the firearm control you mentioned. I won't get in
| a gun control debate here, I have my own complicated
| views on the matter, but it's an undisputed fact that
| Americans have a right to own guns (maybe with
| limitations, maybe not) and many Americans deeply cherish
| that right. There is no gun control solution we can take
| from Europe that you could apply to the US, it's simply
| not compatible with our culture, not to mention our own
| Bill of Rights. It's not a bad thing to recognize that.
| yboris wrote:
| I got a Master's Degree in Education and spent 2 years in
| Educational Psychology Ph.D. program and absolutely 0 time
| was spent looking at how other countries do education.
|
| It's baffling how despite numerous other countries
| outperforming the US in educational outcomes we do not even
| look at other approaches!
| bdangubic wrote:
| cause we are the best and when you are the best you
| simply do not look back :)
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Best enough to even sing about it :)
| _heimdall wrote:
| Is national pride a problem now? I'd expect any country
| to have something like a national anthem and patriotic
| songs.
| theendisney wrote:
| Yes, in the Netherlands we have a culture of moaning
| about everthing. Youd beter not dare suggest sonething is
| good enough! This complaining is the only thing we are
| proud of. lol
|
| (If we had patriotic songs worth remembering im sure i
| would have)
|
| The problem is this, hoe do you fix something you are
| proud of? It seems a contradiction?
| _heimdall wrote:
| Agreed, I lives in the Netherlands for a couple years and
| can agree there isn't much patriotism so much as
| pragmatism! (I actually mean that as a good thing, I was
| a very fond of NL and the friends I made there).
|
| Speaking as an American, though, I can both be proud of
| something and recognize its faults. I'm proud of the core
| principles that America was based upon, for example, but
| very much recognize how far we've deviated from them and
| how much we need to fix.
| vasco wrote:
| > I'm proud of the core principles that America was based
| upon
|
| I think there's never much to gain in being proud of
| things you have nothing to do with or control over. If
| you like some principles you would be proud when you
| uphold them personally. It is when we start feeling proud
| in the abstract that we start having issues.
| kelnos wrote:
| Can't help but agree. I would go even further and say
| that pride itself is problematic. Sure, it can perhaps
| have some good effects, but pride usually blinds people
| to faults, even if the do acknowledge there _are_ faults.
|
| "Pride goeth before a fall" is a time-worn saying for
| good reason.
| input_sh wrote:
| Sure, but kids don't sing them in schools and there's
| definitely nothing even remotely comparable to the Pledge
| of Allegiance.
|
| Hell, in some countries even the national anthem has no
| lyrics but is purely an instrumental track (Spain being a
| notable example).
| cj wrote:
| > there's definitely nothing even remotely comparable
|
| Mexico's Pledge of Allegiance celebrated every Monday in
| schools.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance_to_the
| _Me...
| input_sh wrote:
| My parents had to do something similar, so I'm not too
| unfamiliar with the concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wik
| i/Union_of_Pioneers_of_Yugoslavi...
|
| But even that was once-in-a-lifetime event to emphasise
| the importance of the first day at school at age 7, it
| did not happen every Monday.
|
| Needless to say, it wasn't very effective. As evidenced
| by history, some of our parents definitely broke that
| pledge later in their life.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I'm not a big fan of patriotism in general, but something
| I noticed about the US patriotism is the tendency to call
| the US "the best country in the world". This crosses all
| political differences, e.g. I recall being surprised how
| Michael Moore was saying it in an interview or movie
| (when justifying criticising policy, he said he does it
| because he knows that America is the best country in the
| world). Even the most patriotic friends I have in other
| countries would typically not say this.
| kelnos wrote:
| Yeah, as an American I've always found this cringe-
| worthy, even kinda icky.
|
| Claiming to be the best (at anything) is just tacky and
| arrogant. Especially with something as impossible to
| quantify as "best country". There's no such thing as the
| best country in the world. Every one has strengths and
| weaknesses, and you can't really balance and rank them.
| bdangubic wrote:
| The only thing America is best in the world is number of
| incarcerated people per capita :)
| euroclear wrote:
| Is there a source for this claim? It appears to be
| untrue.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_in
| carcera...
|
| [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/262962/countries-
| with-th...
| foobiekr wrote:
| Nationalism is by far the most successful leftist
| project.
|
| It's kind of amazing that the left has forgotten that
| fact.
| cycomanic wrote:
| What does leftist mean in this context? Sure you could
| say the "nationalist" movements against monarchies and
| for more democratic processes were progressive at the
| time, i.e. they wanted to change the status quo. Calling
| them leftist in the modern sense (again with a huge
| caveat about what leftist even mean), doesn't make much
| sense IMO. Also it's important not to forget that the
| internationalist movements (which I'd argue fit modern
| definitions of "left" much more closely) developed quite
| quickly (in historical timeframes) after, e.g. it was
| only 50 odd years between the Warburg festival in Germany
| (generally considered the birth of German nationalism)
| and the Paris commune.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| most countries anthems celebrate how they are the best,
| if that's what you're referring to.
| Gud wrote:
| I doubt it. In my experience, most national anthems
| highlight their nations struggle for independence.
|
| Poland,
|
| https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/national-
| anthem/...
|
| Netherlands,
|
| https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/periods-
| genres/nati...
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I guess "the best" is doing a lot of work there, for
| example the most sung anthem for Denmark "Der er et
| yndigt land" - there is a lovely land does not explicitly
| say that Denmark is the best ever, there may indeed be
| other lovely lands, and in comparison with say America
| the Beautiful it is downright humble, but on the other
| hand it is my experience that anthems talk up their
| country, and if they are talking up their struggle for
| independence or freedom, like say Il Canto degli
| Italiani, it will be talking up the martial valor of the
| people so freed and probably talking about how they
| aren't going to be put down again, another aspect that
| America the Beautiful goes into.
|
| The difference between America the Beautiful and other
| anthems is how much it does, for how long, and making
| sure it gets everything it can possibly cram in there.
| It's like a bunch of people standing on a stand at a
| sporting match shouting "America, America, America"
| unremittingly, whereas most people might be satisfied to
| shout "Go {my country}" and be done with it.
| sejje wrote:
| America the Beautiful is not the national anthem.
| yxhuvud wrote:
| The anthem of my country claim us to be free, silent and
| green.
|
| And oh, that people used to talk about us and that
| despite they don't anymore we are still a pretty nice
| place to live.
| 6510 wrote:
| Maybe it's better not to look...
|
| https://www.tiktok.com/@guinnessworldrecords/video/747057
| 742...
|
| ha-ha f....
| hayst4ck wrote:
| You're not wrong in that our culture is different, but that
| cultural difference is chiefly a self fulfilling prophecy
| of "the government can't do it," promoted by billionaire
| owned media, so that those same billionaires can run for-
| profit industries like healthcare and transportation.
|
| The cultural difference is that our rich people are too
| rich, our media is too centralized, and none of those in
| power want to enrich and empower the country, when they
| could enrich and empower themselves.
| freehorse wrote:
| Which part here exactly cannot work in the US? I am talking
| about brushing one's teeth with toothpaste containing
| fluoride, which sounds as plain simple as possible to me.
| Is it regular brushing teeth that fails in the US for
| cultural reasons? Fluoride in the toothpaste? Supervising
| kids while brushing their teeth to make sure they do not
| swallow? It is an honest question.
| majormajor wrote:
| AFAICT most US toothpaste has flouride in it already.
|
| (For now, at least? How long until that gets cracked down
| on as dangerous?)
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| You can get fluoride free toothpaste, mainly for
| babies/young toddlers.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| In a word: poverty. People do not have free dental care,
| and poor people aren't guaranteed to have a toothbrush,
| toothpaste or sometimes even a sink to brush their teeth
| in. Fluoridated water is one of the few dental
| protections available to everyone regardless of their
| income. It's cheap, minimal and cost-effective cavity
| protection at scale for the entire country.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > poor people aren't guaranteed to have a toothbrush,
| toothpaste
|
| There is no person in the world who cannot have a
| toothbrush and toothpaste if they want to. And if you
| find one such person, they won't have access to any
| centrally treated water.
| wqaatwt wrote:
| > and poor people aren't guaranteed to have a toothbrush,
| toothpaste
|
| Considering that the number of such people is very low it
| would be very cheap to solve this issue.
| keybored wrote:
| Your less cynical explanation boils down to people being
| too poor to afford tooth paste (really?). So why are they
| poor?
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Assuming the "less cynical explanation" you're referring
| to was my original response talking about the cultural
| and scale differences between America and most countries,
| that was not in reference to fluoride or dental care. I
| was specifically referring to the OP's assertion that
| "American exceptionalism" is the reason that America
| doesn't just copy things like universal healthcare and
| gun control policies from other countries.
|
| > really?
|
| Yes, really.
|
| > So why are they poor?
|
| Why is anything the way that it is?
| keybored wrote:
| > Assuming the "less cynical explanation" you're
| referring to
|
| It was referring to the comment where you said "less
| cynical".
|
| > Why is anything the way that it is?
|
| America big? America different?
|
| It's more challenging to find non-cynical reasons for
| people being poor and suffering.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| I'm not sure what you're getting at here, I think we may
| have lost the plot. Are you simply implying that you find
| the cynical answer more appealing and believable than the
| non-cynical answer? In my opinion, the internet and
| today's modern zeitgeist has instilled a sense in
| everyone that if it's cynical, or dark, or depressing, it
| must be the correct answer. That's usually the laziest
| and easiest answer too.
| rafabulsing wrote:
| The scale argument is thrown around a lot as a
| justification for why the US couldn't possibly implement
| universal healthcare. The elephant in the room that I'm
| always surprises at how rarely it's mentioned in these
| discussions is Brazil, which is a huge country of
| comparable size (both territory and population wise), and
| it manages to make UHC work even though it's also a much
| poorer country.
|
| It's not perfect by any means, but it's definitely much
| better than nothing. So the US should absolutely be able to
| at the very least match that, but really most likely it
| should be able to do much better. That it doesn't is very
| much a choice.
| bumby wrote:
| Did Brazil start with a Byzantine kluge of private and
| public providers and intermediaries? Genuine question,
| not snark.
|
| I think the US would prefer a UHC if we were starting
| from a blank slate. The difficulty is mapping a path from
| what we have now to that.
| majormajor wrote:
| > I think the US would prefer a UHC if we were starting
| from a blank slate. The difficulty is mapping a path from
| what we have now to that.
|
| Do you remember when Republicans went on and on about how
| "Democrats rammed through the ACA without a single
| Republican vote"? As if that represented a problem on the
| Democratic Party side, and not the Republican one?
| Despite the similarities to models proposed by
| Republicans in the past, and the relative conservative
| step it represented from "Byzantine kludge of often poor-
| to-no-coverage" to "something with a higher floor"?
| That's how hard it would be to find a Republican to
| "prefer a UHC if we were starting from a blank slate."
|
| It's important not to underestimate the distrust of
| government services and regulation of any sort of the
| Republican base. The conservative media - talk-radio,
| then cable, then social/podcasts - has been intentionally
| undermining the credibility of government services at
| every opportunity for 40 years. And the politicians
| hamstring and sabotage whenever they get a chance to try
| to make sure that services offered in the US are sub-par
| compared to elsewhere.
|
| It's a well-oiled machine running a cycle that keeps
| people focused on anything else but the services _they
| actually use all the time_ so that cognitive dissonance
| can 't creep in. (Granted, sometimes, when necessary to
| acknowledge those things, they'll fall back to making it
| clear that YOU _earned_ / _paid for_ the things you use,
| but those other gross poor people are just freeloaders.)
|
| It's like with abortion - for decades "overturning Roe V
| Wade" was what Republicans said they wanted to do. And
| people kept trying to convince themselves "oh they don't
| really mean that, they wouldn't do that actually
| anymore." Take their word on it about wanting to tear
| down government services.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| > It's important not to underestimate the distrust of
| government services and regulation of any sort of the
| Republican base. The conservative media - talk-radio,
| then cable, then social/podcasts - has been intentionally
| undermining the credibility of government services at
| every opportunity for 40 years. And the politicians
| hamstring and sabotage whenever they get a chance to try
| to make sure that services offered in the US are sub-par
| compared to elsewhere.
|
| This is partly what I was getting at when I said the
| culture of the US is different and the scale is much
| larger than European countries. It's not just
| geographically larger, but it's politically and
| ideologically broader too. If you have a wonderful idea
| like UHC, you need to make it work with liberals,
| conservatives, and everyone in between. Like it or not, a
| universal healthcare or Medicare for all plan is either
| going to be DoA in Congress, or a considerably watered-
| down and Americanized version if it has any hope at all
| of getting enough senators to pass it without first
| seeing massive electoral college reform in this country
| first.
|
| _That_ is the scale of the US. You can 't assume that an
| idea that's well-liked and popular in another country is
| going to be popular and well-liked here.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Considering that Europe is composed of many countries
| with massively different histories, cultures, economies
| and languages I find that a very unconvincing argument.
| The US are much more culturualy homogeneous than Europe.
| I mean just go across the country and look at the
| patriotic displays of flags which also transcends
| political differences. In contrast in Europe you first
| would be seeing different flags, but also displaying
| flags has very different acceptance rates in different
| countries.
| kelnos wrote:
| Right, but we're not talking about "Europe", we're
| talking about each individual country. I don't think it's
| reasonable to say that France, for example, is more
| culturally diverse than the US.
|
| And the various countries in Europe _do_ have different
| healthcare systems, sometimes significantly different.
| BrenBarn wrote:
| > The difficulty is mapping a path from what we have now
| to that.
|
| It's difficult, but not as difficult as it's often
| presented to be, as long as you're okay with giving the
| finger to a relatively small number of wealthy health
| industry executives.
| kelnos wrote:
| That depends on who "you" is. Quite a few people in
| Congress _are_ ok with doing that, but not anywhere near
| enough to get anything passed. Look at the GOP side of
| the aisle and you 'll essentially find _no one_ willing
| to do that. Not to mention they are just simply
| ideologically opposed to the _concept_ of government-
| provided universal health care.
|
| And _that_ , is the difficulty. Sure, I agree that it
| wouldn't be _too_ logistically difficult to implement
| universal healthcare in the US. But that doesn 't matter
| when more than half the country has been propaganda'd
| into not even wanting it in the first place.
|
| Hell, I expect that there are a ton of Medicaid and
| Medicare recipients in the US who would tell you that
| they think government-provided, single-payer healthcare
| is a bad idea, when that's essentially what they have, to
| some degree.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > Did Brazil start with a Byzantine kluge of private and
| public providers and intermediaries? Genuine question,
| not snark.
|
| That's what it still has.
| fatbird wrote:
| The elephant in the room is that in every other sphere,
| scale is the solution, not the problem. The US should
| find it _easier_ to implement UHC just because of its
| scale. More tax dollars, more average outcomes, more
| resources for outliers, more incremental money for
| research into rarer conditions. That 10x smaller
| countries like Canada do it effectively is an indictment
| of America 's inability to do it.
| MajimasEyepatch wrote:
| America doesn't do it for political and cultural reasons.
| It has absolutely nothing to do with scale, economics, or
| America's "inability" to do it. Americans (unfortunately
| imo) have consistently chosen not to do it by not
| electing politicians who have pledged to do it.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Let's face it, America can't do it for corruption
| reasons.
|
| The current healthcare system is working perfectly (and
| by that I mean lucratively) for the 0.01% in control of
| the political system.
| panick21_ wrote:
| This is the excuse all American use about literally every
| single issue anytime anybody points out that other do
| things better. Most often without actually having thought
| about it beyond 'muhuhu US BIGGG! USA! USA! USA!'.
|
| If you want to make that argument, actually make it,
| because if you try, 99% of the time its not actually true,
| its simply ignorance.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here except
| that you take a dim view of Americans.
| hannasanarion wrote:
| The point is that flouride has the same effect on your
| teeth no matter how many hectares of lifeless desert
| happen to be controlled by your government.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Interesting, though I think _you_ may have missed a good
| deal of my own point. Regardless, I wasn 't actually
| commenting on the fluoride situation, I was commenting on
| the belief that American exceptionalism is the reason we
| don't look at Europe and other countries for a slew of
| solutions that won't work here. It had nothing to do with
| fluoride, so I think your comment and hostility are a bit
| off the mark.
| panick21_ wrote:
| My point is that those that continually point out 'but
| some things don't apply to the US because X and Y' are
| mostly themselves just falling into the same trap and
| almost never actually explain why X and Y change
| anything, making their 'defense' just more of the same.
| DeepYogurt wrote:
| Scale is a scapegoat. Take the US region by region and you
| can find analogs around the world.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| The US isn't several countries put together, region by
| region. It's one big ass country. I really don't see how
| taking it region by region somehow eliminates scale
| issues when you still have to apply it to the entire
| country.
| _heimdall wrote:
| It's a federal country of many states though. The
| original design of the US is fairly similar to the design
| of the EU today, US states used to be offered much more
| independence.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Sure, I don't disagree that in a vague sense the EU and
| US are kinda similar in terms of countries and states.
|
| > US states used to be offered much more independence.
|
| But even in your own example with the EU, the EU still
| mandates many health policies for its member countries:
| food safety; air and water quality; tobacco, sugar and
| alcohol regulations; and so on. That's not at all
| dissimilar to what the federal government does in the US,
| except our states don't implement those
| policies/directives themselves because the feds enforce
| it all.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Sure, but you're making my point.
|
| The comment I was replying to pointed out that the US
| isn't several countries put together. As you describe,
| the EU _is_ several countries put together and yet the US
| actually pushes _more_ power to the states.
| wqaatwt wrote:
| > yet the US actually pushes more power to the states.
|
| Doesn't their comment claim the opposite?
|
| Unlike the US Federal government EU has very limited
| direct means of imposing any if its laws or regulations
| on member states of they chose not to comply with them.
| _heimdall wrote:
| There shouldn't be a scale issue with regards to fluoride
| in the water. It is either scientifically shown to be
| beneficial or it isn't, scale and geography likely have
| nothing to do with it.
| nine_k wrote:
| Does it not depend on the chemical composition of local
| water? The US is vast, geologically diverse, and water
| quality varies hugely across it. Denmark can likely make
| a decision that's good for the entire country.
| scott_w wrote:
| Actually, what most countries seem to do (according to
| other comments I've seen here), is just delegate to local
| bodies, so country size is a complete non-issue.
| _heimdall wrote:
| It could, what do you have in mind with regards to
| chemical composition that may require fluoride in some
| circumstances?
|
| And are those conditions manmade? If so, would we be
| better off reversing the proximal issues rather than
| adding fluoride to try to fix it?
| attila-lendvai wrote:
| a decades long study with a gazillion of potential
| confounders is never "either scientifically shown to be
| beneficial or it isn't"...
|
| let alone the precautionary principle in a complex system
| with a gazillion variables... (i.e. things we don't know
| we don't know)
| Aeolun wrote:
| This argument works fine for high-speed rail, not so well
| for insurance and healthcare.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| If you focus only on the scale part of my argument, sure.
| But I think the culture part of my argument is more than
| enough of an answer for insurance and healthcare:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43521734
| thowawatp302 wrote:
| Why is it less cynical, what does the scale of the US have
| to do with it?
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Maybe it's just me, but I find the argument that
| "Americans won't do X cool thing that Europeans/the rest
| of the world do because they [are dumb/are corrupt/love
| money/hate each other/believe in American
| exceptionalism]" to be a very cynical and lazy argument.
| Note that the person I was replying to was talking about
| policies and goals like UHC and High Speed Rail, not
| specifically about fluoridated water - that was the
| context in which I was replying.
| kelnos wrote:
| I feel like this always comes up in these sorts of
| arguments, that the US is so unique that solutions that
| work elsewhere can't work here. And yet this point is
| always hand-waved in, without and specifics discussed, and
| is just presented as a given.
|
| I really don't buy it, at least not as a general statement.
| rayiner wrote:
| Those are two odd examples. The Affordable Care Act is
| similar to the Netherlands health insurance system:
| https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2011/lessons-abroad-
| du... ("These similarities are not entirely coincidental.
| American public officials, health industry leaders, and
| scholars made frequent visits to the Netherlands in the run-
| up to the debate over U.S. health care reform, borrowing
| ideas and, on occasion, citing the Dutch system as a model
| for what the U.S. might achieve.").
|
| As to rail, both the first-gen and second-gen Acela is based
| on the French TGV.
| redczar wrote:
| The U.S. has a pitiful amount of high speed rail. It serves
| no point to mention that this pitiful amount of high speed
| rail is based off of TGV.
|
| The comparison to the Dutch healthcare system is not apt.
| While the Heritage foundation may used ideas from the Dutch
| system our system is quite a bit more Byzantine and
| inefficient. We spend twice as much per capita on
| healthcare and have worse outcomes and fewer people
| covered. Our citizens have far more per capita medical debt
| than the Dutch.
|
| We didn't really implement the Dutch system and we didn't
| really learn from the French how to build and maintain high
| speed rail. Saying we learned healthcare from the Dutch
| because we have doctors like they do makes as much sense as
| your argument.
| seper8 wrote:
| You're also twice as fat so I think spending twice makes
| perfect sense
| 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
| The original claim was "The US rarely looks into how
| other countries solve problems". That claim appears to be
| false.
|
| Why does the US execution not match that of the countries
| it looks into? I think it's because talented people in
| the US disproportionately go into the private sector,
| leading to an incompetent public sector. American
| distrust of their government is arguably justified.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I thought the ACA was based on the Swiss system of
| mandatory insurance? The heritage foundation copied the
| Swiss, Romney took that proposal to Mass, and Obama thought
| going with a Conservative initiated plan would make it more
| bipartisan (it didn't, but mainly because republicans hated
| Obama).
| tomp wrote:
| Definitely not.
|
| IMO the most distinct parts of the Swiss health insurance
| system is that (1) copay is obligatory but limited (i.e.
| healthcare isn't _free_ but it's not expensive either),
| and (2) it's individual, companies cannot pay for it, so
| there's no US-like extreme benefit of having a good job.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Yes, having lived in Switzerland I experienced that, and
| it was the personal buy rather than having group plans
| was the feature missing from the ACA the most.
| waveBidder wrote:
| aca di. implement a market, it's just that most people
| buy through their job, because if that's legal you
| obviously want to be part of a larger bargaining pool for
| buying.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Group plans suck away cream of crop risk pools. People
| with good stable high paying jobs tend to be a lot
| healthier than people working part time crap jobs or
| working in the trades for themselves.
|
| It isn't really bargaining power of the pool, but the
| risk assessment of the pool you are in. Being in a hodge
| lodge personal pool means you are sharing risk with
| people who will have more expenses. That's why
| Switzerland throws everyone into the same pool, so no
| creme low risk can be siphoned away.
| rahkiin wrote:
| In the Netherlands we have those two as well, but it is
| also regulated: - the cheapest plan must not cost more
| than 115 eur (dont know exactly), and it has mandatory
| coverage ('basisverzekering') - there is a maximum copay
| of 850eur per year ('eigen risico') - some services are
| not allowed to have copay - low income people can have
| extra subsidies to pay for insurance - insurance is
| mandatory - insurance is a personal thing, not a work-
| thing. Your work absollutely knows nothing about your
| health insurance
|
| Due to the regulations it is not a big run to the bottom
| Aeolun wrote:
| > The Affordable Care Act is similar to the Netherlands
| health insurance systemh
|
| > The average Obamacare plan costs $483 monthly for a
| 30-year-old, $544 for a 40-year-old and $760 for a 50-year-
| old.
|
| > The bronze plan covers 60% of the costs associated with
| care.
|
| I feel like they missed the most important parts of the
| Dutch health insurance system...
| rayiner wrote:
| The Dutch system also requires payment of monthly
| premiums. The US premiums reflect the cost to insure the
| US's significantly less healthy population.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| When I was a kid the schools taught us the metric system,
| telling us it was the world standard, and would become the
| standard is the US by the time I was an adult. That was over
| 40 years ago. And that pretty much sums it all up.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| see that proves it - the U.S can't adopt the metric system,
| it's too big, you don't want to have to break out the
| megameters! /s
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| The US legally switched to metric when England did. It is
| taught in all schools and used for international trade.
| But, just like in England there is a mix of imperial and
| metric units used domestically. If you dont travel
| internationally, like many Americans, there is little need
| to use metric. Another generation and there won't be many
| people left in the US that didn't at least learn metric.
| ascorbic wrote:
| It's not like England in that respect at all. Yes, there
| is a mix of usage in the UK but it is very limited.
| People use metric for everything except miles in cars,
| pints in pubs, and height and weight of people.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| From what I have read about metrication, England required
| all industries to change. The US government doesn't have
| authority to do that and US industry wasn't going to
| change all their tooling at great cost if they didn't
| need to.
| Aeolun wrote:
| At least they were right about one thing. It definitely is
| the world standard.
| neRok wrote:
| Banning its addition is a step beyond -- but in Queensland,
| Australia for example, the state government no longer mandates
| its inclusion, and thus the local councils are able to set
| their own policy.
|
| > While more than 90 per cent of Australians have access to
| fluoridated water, that figure is significantly lagging in the
| sunshine state, where local councils have ultimate authority
| over whether it is adopted.
|
| > A decade after the Newman government handed responsibility
| for fluoridated drinking water to local governments, 51 out of
| 77 have opted out. That means about 28 per cent of
| Queenslanders do not have fluoridated drinking water
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-24/fluoride-dental-care-...
| declan_roberts wrote:
| So how does their dental conditions and IQs compare? Sounds
| like a nice little AB test.
| jaredklewis wrote:
| How has it been "solved?" There's just tradeoffs.
|
| There's evidence that despite widespread availability of
| fluoride toothpaste and mouthwash, fluoridated drinking water
| improves dental outcomes at the population level.
|
| There's also evidence that at high levels (not the normal
| levels it is added at, but at higher levels which can happen on
| accident) fluoride may reduce IQ.
|
| I'm ok with either trade off but the "solved" phrasing makes it
| sound like there is an obviously superior choice.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| What I love about this comment is that one person thought "of
| course every other country just does the right thing when the
| US doesn't" and posted it, and then a bunch of other people
| thought "of course every other country just does the right
| thing when the US doesn't" and upvoted it, and not a single one
| of them thought to check what the "right thing" is.
|
| Meanwhile, back here on Earth-1, there's no right thing, and
| countries all over the world have "by and large solved" the
| issue by doing completely different things:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_country
|
| > Water fluoridation is considered very common in the United
| States, Canada, Ireland, Chile and Australia where over 50% of
| the population drinks fluoridated water.
|
| > Most European countries including Italy, France, Finland,
| Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Hungary and
| Switzerland do not fluoridate water.
| nostromo wrote:
| Most developed countries have stopped using fluoride. I think
| that's the commenter's point. The US and Australia are
| outliers here for sure.
| ruph123 wrote:
| The world map is hilarious. Germany sure does not look like
| this anymore (and this is not the GDR split but goes further
| back). Maybe they should update this. Draws into the
| question, the whole data.
| ddulaney wrote:
| The map is drawing Germany and Czechia both with the same
| white color as the border.
|
| Unfortunate that the color scheme is confusing, but not any
| weird borders.
|
| You can see the uncolored map here:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BlankMap-
| World6-Equirec...
| decimalenough wrote:
| Both non-fluoridating countries and country borders are
| white, so it's not that Germany is drawn wrong, but that
| that countries near Germany (Czechia, Netherlands,
| Luxembourg) look like they're part of the same white blob.
| quitit wrote:
| The missing context here is that the science and established
| benefits of fluoride aren't a culture war political football
| in those countries.
|
| These countries largely publicly recognise the benefits of
| fluoride, but don't add it because:
|
| - Some countries opt for intake via supplementation.
|
| - Some have a naturally sufficient supply in drinking water
| via natural processes.
|
| - Some even need to reduce the abundance of fluoride in their
| water due to over supply.
| naasking wrote:
| Why is that missing context? I don't think anybody who is
| against fluoridated tap water rejects the benefits of
| fluoride, they just think the harms of adding it to tap
| water outweigh the benefits.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Might I introduce you to the US' head of antivax and
| conspiracy theories:
| https://x.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1852907832884285708
| naasking wrote:
| I don't see a statement of his opinion on fluoridated
| toothpaste, which is the real test.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| > dangerous neurotoxin
|
| I think you can pretty easily infer his opinion about
| toothpaste containing a "dangerous neurotoxin".
| somenameforme wrote:
| The lethal dose of fluoride is in the 5-10g range for an
| adult [1] with immediate gastrointestinal effects at
| 15-20x lower. While those levels are quite obviously far
| above the recommended level of 0.7mg/l, it's very
| reasonable to call anything that's lethal at 5g, to a
| human adult, as dangerous.
|
| The latest report from the National Toxicology Program
| has found a causal reduction of ~1.63 IQ per additional
| mg/L concentration of fluoride in their urine [2], which
| would seem sufficient to also call it a neurotoxin,
| though the NTP under extensive pressure chose to avoid
| any particular label after having previously declared it
| a "presumed neurotoxin."
|
| Notably the study from NTP also mentioned something most
| people here seem to be missing: "There is a concern,
| however, that some pregnant women and children may be
| getting more fluoride than they need because they now get
| fluoride from many sources including treated public
| water, water-added foods and beverages, teas, toothpaste,
| floss, and mouthwash, and the combined total intake of
| fluoride may exceed safe amounts."
|
| Fluoride being seen as desirable at safe levels, may have
| drove excessive multi-domain inputs of it, which can
| combine to drive it to unsafe levels.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoride_toxicity
|
| [2] - https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/n
| oncancer/...
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| > it's very reasonable to call anything that's lethal at
| 5g, to a human adult, as dangerous.
|
| No it is not. It is sensational and intentionally
| inflammatory. It is especially damming coming from
| someone in his position.
|
| Vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin B, iron, and caffeine are
| all deadly at that level. The first 4 are mandatory for
| life, shall we call them dangerous too? Or perhaps we
| have some nuance and acknowledge the co spirit oriel
| background (and other beliefs) of the people pushing the
| anti-fluoride message.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Obviously. In looking up the LD50/lethal dose for vitamin
| A, I ended up here. [1] You might notice the big red
| symbol "Health Hazard" at the top. And the LD50 for
| vitamin A ranges from 1500-3700mg/kg, contrasted against
| fluoride's 26-94! But really one of the biggest issues
| here is that unless you're actively trying to kill
| yourself with vitamins, an overdose generally has no
| major effects beyond some gastrointestinal issues. I've
| experienced it myself by supplementing with vitamins
| while body building and consuming an already extremely
| high nutrient diet.
|
| But with fluoride we're talking about extremely low
| doses, well below the lethal level, being able to
| potentially permanently damage the mind's of children.
| Such an extreme risk justifies an abundance of caution,
| especially when the reason we're doing it is for some
| relatively modest dental gains, which are likely
| increasingly obsolete with fluoride being in tooth paste
| and many other sources besides water. In fact, as per the
| study I linked to up above, this is precisely the
| problem!
|
| "Since 1945, the use of fluoride has been a successful
| public health initiative for reducing dental cavities and
| improving general oral health of adults and children.
| There is a concern, however, that some pregnant women and
| children may be getting more fluoride than they need
| because they now get fluoride from many sources including
| treated public water, water-added foods and beverages,
| teas, toothpaste, floss, and mouthwash, and the combined
| total intake of fluoride may exceed safe amounts."
|
| [1] - https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Retinol
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| > which are likely increasingly obsolete with fluoride
| being in tooth paste and many other sources besides
| water.
|
| See the rest of this thread. If you think the group (at
| RFK doing so in an official government capacity) using
| such inflammatory language is going to stop at removing
| fluoride from just water I don't know what to tell you.
| naasking wrote:
| Fluoride does have neurotoxic effects though.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Never let the truth get in the way of a good grift.
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| 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.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Are the levels in water consistently checked?
| vincnetas wrote:
| of course they are. tap water is continually monitored
| for the chemical composition. there are aprooved norms
| that need to be met. (LT)
| Xylakant wrote:
| At least in Germany, tap water is subject to higher
| standards than bottled water.
| Beretta_Vexee wrote:
| In most European countries, tap water is one of the most
| tested food products, and the standards are often
| stricter than for bottled water.
| ManBeardPc wrote:
| In Germany having salt with added fluoride is very common.
| There is salt without it if you don't want it though.
| weinzierl wrote:
| 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
| "Zusatzliche fluoridhaltige Praparate sollten nur auf
| arztliche Empfehlung eingenommen werden.", which means
| you should only use it on recommendation by your MD.
| ManBeardPc wrote:
| You are right, iodine is the more common one. Fluoride is
| a less common additive.
| Xelynega wrote:
| > Actually fluoride is prohibited in children's
| toothpaste in Germany because of its suspected
| neurotoxicity.
|
| I can't find any information on this, do you have a
| source? According to Wikipedia fluoride toothpaste is
| recommended by health officials in Germany for children(h
| ttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_coun
| tr...)
| Beretta_Vexee wrote:
| In fact, many countries even have a maximum permissible
| limit for fluoride in tap and bottled water.
|
| In France, for example, the limit is 1.5 mg/L in tap water.
| https://www.anses.fr/en/system/files/NUT2007sa0315q.pdf
|
| 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.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| What does the UK do? This will tell you what people should do
| because I've seen English teeth.
|
| > In England, approximately 10% of the population, or around
| 6 million people, receive fluoridated water, either naturally
| or through water fluoridation schemes, mainly in the West
| Midlands and the North East.
|
| Uh oh. I know it is better now but in 1978 a third of people
| in the UK didn't have their natural teeth.
| andai wrote:
| I was reading a while ago about populations that moved to
| England, and within 2 generations their teeth are messed up
| (the first gen of kids born is usually raised on the food
| of their original culture).
|
| You saw it too in Canada when the Inuit went on food stamps
| and went from eating mostly meat to mostly plants: their
| teeth went all over the place and full of holes within a
| single generation.
|
| We also saw that with the advent of agriculture in general,
| along with a massive decline in average height.
| ustad wrote:
| You're right that dietary changes can impact health, but
| there are other factors at play. Stress from moving to a
| new country or experiencing forced dislocation can have
| serious effects on physical health, weakening the immune
| system and disrupting overall well-being. Along with
| this, shifting away from nature-based vocations to more
| sedentary lifestyles contributes to health decline. The
| increased consumption of sugar and alcohol also
| exacerbates dental and general health issues. So, it's
| not just diet but a combination of stress, lifestyle
| changes, and modern substances that contribute to health
| problems in these populations.
| consp wrote:
| This was not much different everywhere else. Public dental
| care campaigns helped a lot, the same with affordable
| dental care products. Looking at my parents generation
| there are lots of false teeth going around. (Not uk)
| drcongo wrote:
| My grandfather, who was still alive in 1978, had all his
| teeth removed and was given a set of dentures when
| conscripted into WWII. From what I can gather this was
| pretty common - the service dentist would check you over on
| arrival and if you had at least one cavity they'd whip the
| lot out so that they wouldn't need to do anything else to
| them for the rest of your service.
| foldr wrote:
| This perception is out of date. The UK population actually
| has very healthy teeth as a whole:
|
| https://www.yongeeglintondental.com/blog/healthy-primary-
| tee...
|
| That, of course, is not quite the same thing as perfectly
| white, perfectly aligned teeth.
| frontfor wrote:
| The point is basically no one else has politicised this to
| the extent the US did. Pointing to how different countries
| solve it differently is missing the point completely.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| "Well, whether it's better to fluoridate the water or not,
| ~half the world got the answer wrong. But the important
| thing is they didn't argue about it."
| jpmoral wrote:
| More like "there are pros and cons but there doesn't have
| to be a big political fight about it".
| jdminhbg wrote:
| The "big political fight" here is that one out of fifty
| US states changed its mind, to be clear.
| jpmoral wrote:
| I'm not in the US but doesn't that downplay it a bit?
| Hasn't this been a contentious topic for some time? It's
| not like no one's been talking about it and Utah suddenly
| decided out of the blue.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > I'm not in the US but doesn't that downplay it a bit?
|
| No, not really. There are a couple municipalities
| (Portland, OR, e.g.) that have famously not fluoridated
| their water forever, but for the most part this is not
| something most places argue about. UT is an exception.
| briandear wrote:
| The irony is that people on the Left will claim that red
| Utah is ignorantly making public health policy, while
| deep deep blue Portland is considered "progressive." The
| public health "experts" are ripping into Utah but haven't
| seemed to care about Portland. Perhaps because the public
| health people are mostly Democrat and care more about
| politics than actual health? I would love to be wrong --
| but why is Portland (and much of Europe) getting a free
| pass from the controversy, but a (relatively low
| population) red U.S. state isn't?
| bee_rider wrote:
| Portland, Oregon is a city so the effects of their
| policies are a little more limited in scope. IMO if it
| really is a contentious health issue (well-founded or
| not, I guess people really do disagree about this issue)
| it is better to make the decision at the lowest level
| practical.
|
| I think most cities manage their own utilities. So,
| Portland has to make _some_ decision on this issue. Utah
| doesn't, it was an active choice to intervene.
| attila-lendvai wrote:
| recently they managed to bring this to a court, and the
| judge was convinced by the evidence, and ruled that water
| fluoridation is harmful.
|
| downplayed? you judge.
| jpmoral wrote:
| I'm not sure what you're getting at. What I meant was
| that it was my impression that the argument over fluoride
| has been going on for longer and is bigger than this one
| case. How and why the judge ruled and what the ruling was
| is tangential to that.
| username332211 wrote:
| They do have a point. If you look at history, Americans
| do seem to have a bizarre habit of turning everything
| into a great controversy.
|
| The British abolished slavery with a vote of parliament.
| The Russian emperor signed a decree, and freed the serfs.
| Compromised were made, compensation provided and people
| were made free. But for some reason, Americans felt the
| matter is important enough to start a civil war around
| it.
|
| People complain about America being divided and both
| sides there being unable to compromise, but if anything,
| that's been the defining feature of the nation since it's
| creation. "Y'all should take a chill pill, this ain't
| that important" is a perfectly valid position to have.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > If you look at history, Americans do seem to have a
| bizarre habit of turning everything into a great
| controversy.
|
| It sure is bizarre for the parts of the world where
| people are born to do as they're told and shut up.
| username332211 wrote:
| England has 3 or 4 civil wars in it's history entirely
| focused on the matter of whether people should do as
| they're told and shut up. The usual result in those
| conflicts was a resounding victory for the "No" side.
|
| What's rare is for a nation to have a civil war between
| sides that agree on almost everything, from the structure
| of the government to the economic system.
| wqaatwt wrote:
| > The British abolished slavery with a vote of parliament
|
| The situation was fundamentally different. Colonies that
| allowed slavery had no representation in parliament and
| the slave owners received massive "compensation" that the
| British people had to spend decades paying off..
|
| Also AFAIK most slaveholders were living in Britain and
| just viewed their plantations as just another investment.
| There was very little ideological/"way of life"/racial
| supremacy stuff involved. So if some Liberals wanted to
| buyout their not necessarily very liquid "property" with
| cash they didn't really have much reason to oppose it.
|
| And then there were 5x more slaves in the US in 1864
| while the population was only ~30% higher than that of
| Britain in 1830 (only if we don't count the colonies).
|
| Not sure how excited would the inhabitants of New England
| and other free states would have been if they were forced
| to buy out all the slaves in the country (if that was
| even an option).
|
| Slavery for the British was a side note at that point
| while it was a fundamental component of the US economy.
| username332211 wrote:
| Serfdom was fundamental to the Russian economy, but was
| abolished nonetheless. Alexander II forced the serfs to
| pay for their own freedom.
|
| The idea that no compromise was possible sounds somewhat
| absurd since America did end the civil war with a
| compromise. "You can free the slaves, but then we oppress
| them for 100 or so years." Not that it was a good
| compromise or anything, but it does show that the civil
| war was fundamentally pointless.
| wqaatwt wrote:
| Russia was a centralized absolutist empire. The Tsar
| could more or less do whatever he wanted as long as the
| army and some other elements of the bureaucracy supported
| him.
|
| So it's hardly applicable to the US (or Britain)
|
| > end the civil war with a compromise
|
| I'm not sure it's was a compromise per se.
|
| Most people in the north didn't really actively support
| country wide abolition before the war (neither did
| Lincoln) nor were they necessarily particularly concerned
| about the treatment of the African-American population.
|
| Opposing slavery is a very low bar. Most people in the
| free states were still deeply racist and segregation was
| effectively (while not necessarily legally) still a thing
| there. It only became a major issue in the mid 1900s.
| nerdponx wrote:
| > Americans felt the matter is important enough to start
| a civil war around it.
|
| The answer was the same then as it is now: big business.
| Slave labor cash crops were central to the economy of the
| South. Great Britain was not dependent on it in the same
| way.
| bsza wrote:
| While I acknowledge it is not a "solved" issue, I find it
| bizarre nonetheless, simply because it is so
| disproportionately low-stakes compared to the amount of
| controversy around it. Increased risk of cavities versus
| tentative evidence of losing 1-2 IQ points at 1.5 mg/L?
| Sounds like a Monty Python sketch to me that people would get
| so worked up over this.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| Agree, it's a little bit like child Covid vaccinations. Not
| much evidence for either benefit or harm, recommended in
| the US but not most of Europe.
| epgui wrote:
| It's not at all the same, that's a terrible example.
| Child vaccinations help reduce the Rt, regardless of
| whether the benefit to the individual is significant.
| Statements to the contrary have just confused the public.
| (biochemist)
| jdminhbg wrote:
| Tell that to the European health agencies, I guess, they
| seem to be confused too.
| llbbdd wrote:
| Nothing new there.
| logicchains wrote:
| Not necessarily, because excessive boosting is associated
| with increased infection rate/RTlt: https://www.journalof
| infection.com/article/S0163-4453(25)000...
| vasco wrote:
| What Rt are you worried about in 2025?
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Im sorry, but I think it's ridiculous that thinking
| something that knows off an IQ point or two isn't a big
| deal.
|
| For one, we're literally making everyone slightly less
| intelligent. While it's a very small factor, I sure as hell
| wouldn't want that for my daughters.
|
| For two, IQ is easy to measure. Through that, we know it's
| affecting the brain during development. How else is it
| affecting it? We don't know.
|
| Weighed against potentially higher risk of cavities pretty
| much only during childhood and the math seems incredibly
| clear to me. I feel like the only reason we haven't banned
| adding it to water supplies is because people have a knee
| jerk reaction to anything that sounds even vaguely anti-vax
| nowadays.
|
| The fact that until 10 years ago the US allowed
| significantly higher levels should be a really big deal to
| people.
|
| I'm on reverse osmosis well water so it doesn't matter to
| me personally, for what it's worth.
| adrian_b wrote:
| The risk of cavities is reduced by using toothpaste or
| mouth washes with fluoride, not by drinking fluoridated
| water.
|
| Almost all fluoride from the drinking water does not have
| any effect on tooth enamel, because it has contact with it
| only for a few seconds, except for an infinitesimal
| fraction that may exit again the body in saliva.
|
| On the other hand, the harmful effects of fluoride in
| drinking water are certain and it cannot be predicted
| exactly how much water will be ingested by someone, i.e.
| which will be the harmful dose of ingested fluoride.
|
| The only argument of those who support water fluoridation
| is that most people must be morons who cannot be taught to
| wash their teeth. I do not believe that this theory can be
| right.
| shlant wrote:
| > The risk of cavities is reduced by using toothpaste or
| mouth washes with fluoride, not by drinking fluoridated
| water.
|
| it always surprises me how willing people are to just
| make something up and be confident in doing so. We've
| know for almost 75 years that water fluoridation reduces
| tooth decay[1] and yet here you are straight up denying
| that.
|
| Do you just not care if you are correct? or do you know
| you aren't but are driven by the beliefs you already
| hold?
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/oral-health/data-research/facts-
| stats/fa...
| scintill76 wrote:
| > Almost all fluoride from the drinking water does not
| have any effect on tooth enamel, because it has contact
| with it only for a few seconds
|
| The contact via toothpaste or mouth wash isn't all that
| much longer, so why would they be effective if
| fluoridated water isn't? People intentionally wash out
| toothpaste and mouthwash after this short contact.
| danielscrubs wrote:
| To straw man, you could argue that 1-2 IQ extra might have
| a large affect on the salary as everything is relative. If
| you are on the lower IQ scale, a ten point reduction would
| double your likelihood of doing crime.
|
| I put in a spelling error in the above paragraph of 215
| characters, you still understand it but what was your
| perception of me from this very small error?
| wqaatwt wrote:
| IQ points is just an indicator that could be measured
| consistently. Who knows what else is going on.. and
| statistically (especially depending on the distribution) 2
| IQ points is quite a lot. After all 50% of the population
| fall into the 20 point range in the middle..
|
| Of course it comes down to whether the relationship
| actually exists. But picking a slightly higher risk of
| cavities when the other option is potential mental
| impairment (however mild) seems like a no-brainer..
| Xelynega wrote:
| Has this link been found to not exist in fluoride
| supplements or fluoride toothpastes?
|
| I don't think it's such a no brainer if every health org
| is recommending fluoride, and some people think it's
| scary.
| permo-w wrote:
| you're really genuinely shocked that people would get
| worked up over chemicals being added to their drinking
| water without their consent? chemicals which have not been
| conclusively proven to be non-toxic? chemicals which are
| already in toothpaste giving people the choice to use them
| anyway?
| kllrnohj wrote:
| flouride naturally occurs in water all over the world,
| and if you don't want any chemicals in your water you
| should be drinking distilled water. Almost nobody does,
| because "chemicals in the water reeeeeee!!!" is just a
| mindless idiotic shreak, not anything insightful or
| debatable
| permo-w wrote:
| >"chemicals in the water reeeeeee!!!"
|
| having to resort to childish attempts like this
| essentially invalidates anything "insightful" you might
| want to say. if you can't see that _manually_ adding
| safety-unproven chemicals to water without people 's
| consent is a weird and unethical thing to do, then that's
| fine, but don't embarrass yourself and everyone else like
| this
| kllrnohj wrote:
| > if you can't see that manually adding safety-unproven
|
| Nobody is doing that, so maybe don't embarrass yourself
| like that?
|
| > without people's consent
|
| Also not happening. Consent was established when it was
| voted on, and if people want to change their local
| policies they are always free to do so. People that
| object against majority are also free to drink
| alternative water from the free market instead of relying
| on socialist handouts
|
| If you want to have an actual, good faith debate about
| the pros/cons of a specific additive that's wonderful.
| But you didn't, you reduced the entire thing to
| "chemicals bad because chemicals". But, more
| significantly, so too has the US's administration which
| Utah is following suit on. The US is full on "feels not
| reals" government mode.
| permo-w wrote:
| my friend at this point you are just wildly throwing
| whatever pops into your mind into the air and hoping it
| sticks somewhere
|
| when was it voted on and by who? tell me.
|
| you're also aware that people pay for water, it's not
| free? quite an odd thing for an adult to not know
|
| "good faith debate". from someone who started making
| mocking autism noises in the middle of a normal
| conversation? _that 's_ what I suggested was
| embarrassing, you simply didn't read my comment because
| you yourself have no interest in having a good faith
| discussion and you're just blindly throwing terms like
| that as a way of dismissing an opinion you disagree with.
|
| "chemicals bad because chemicals" I never said anything
| of the sort, this is a strawman you invented to
| strengthen your struggling argument. there have quite
| literally been studies linking increased fluoride to
| toxicity. it's not "chemicals bad because chemicals" it's
| "there have been studies suggesting this chemical may be
| toxic so why are we putting it in drinking water without
| a public consultation in the last 70 years?"
|
| >The US is full on "feels not reals" government mode.
|
| okay and here we have your real motivation. 90% likely
| you quite obviously don't give a fuck about fluoridated
| water or human rights, you are pissed about the current
| executive branch and you're looking to take it out
| somewhere. this "debate" is over.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| The specifics of fluoride are low stakes.
|
| The general idea of the government medicating the people
| writ large isn't low stakes.
|
| In the US there are a lot of people who are of the opinion
| the government should just let people be.
| Xelynega wrote:
| Are those the people voting for the "have the government
| put restrictions on trans people" party?
|
| I have a feeling it's not about "letting people be". It's
| about "let me be and screw over those I don't like"
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| If you live in the US, you'll meet a lot of genuinely
| good people on both sides of the more/less government
| debate.
|
| Anyone who thinks this is a straightforward issue is
| dumb, frankly.
| Xelynega wrote:
| I'm just confused how parties that advocate for small
| government(in the US and Canada) seem to simultaneously
| target the rights of minorities.
|
| How can the issue people are concerned with be government
| overreach if they don't care about the government
| overreaching into others backyards?
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| What rights of minorities have been targeted? If the only
| example is trans rights, it's dumb to think it's a simple
| issue of trampled rights. There are two competing sets of
| rights, you grant one set you take away from the other.
| There isn't a good solution.
|
| If you think all the people advocating for small
| government must be fools or hypocrites, you don't
| understand the issues an any depth.
| Xelynega wrote:
| Why do trans people not count as a minority being
| targetted?
|
| I'm curious, what rights are "granted" by making it
| illegal for doctors to prescribe puberty blocks when they
| as a medical professional and a child's parents as their
| guardian agree they're the best medical course of action
| for a child?
|
| Saying "it's about granting and taking away" feels like
| it's ignoring the complexity of these issues more than
| what I'm saying.
| 827a wrote:
| Once you start trying to cross-reference a public health
| campaign with something related to peoples' diets, it becomes
| difficult to make super broad and conclusive statements.
|
| Here's some interesting data (2003 I believe, so pretty old)
| [1]: It reports that most of Europe, Canada, Australia, and
| South America experiences cavities at rates higher than the
| United States. However: Many of these countries have public
| health care; the US does not. Is the US under-reporting? (I
| didn't dig much deeper into the underlying data; may not be a
| relevant concern).
|
| Three things I think are likely to be true: (1) Fluoridated
| toothpaste is widely available and cheap. (2) Cavity rates
| are significant even in countries with high rates of
| fluoridation. (3) Fluoridating the water supply carries with
| it a non-zero monetary cost. I tend to believe that these
| three realities, at the very least, _justify_ the
| conversation as being one we should have. It could be the
| case that water fluoridation made a ton of sense in a world
| where people didn 't have as much access to fluoridated
| toothpaste, but nowadays the typical person has hit the limit
| on what it can do for them, and ingesting more is, at best,
| doing nothing.
|
| Here's another way I like to think about it: Put the science
| aside for a second (I know, hard, not ideal, but bear with
| me). You've got two people who are low income. Person A
| believes, for their own health and in the expression of their
| own personal liberties, they want access to fluoride; but the
| Government is not fluoridating their water. They can spend $5
| a month to buy fluoridated toothpaste; possibly not even more
| expensive than the toothpaste they were already buying.
| Person B is living in the opposite world: They believe that
| they do not want to ingest fluoride, but the government is
| fluoridating their water. They would have to spend many
| dozens to hundreds of dollars a month buying water bottled
| somewhere more natural. From a personal liberty and economics
| perspective: Its pretty clear-cut.
|
| [1] https://smile-365.com/what-countries-have-the-lowest-
| prevale...
| wqaatwt wrote:
| > a non-zero monetary cost
|
| Direct monetary cost is entirely insignificant, though.
| Potential risk of mental impairment (of course there is no
| conclusive evidence of that) seems like a much bigger
| issue.
| Xelynega wrote:
| Using your "person a" "person b" story, what about "persons
| c-z" that also want fluoride because they trust doctors?
|
| If one out of a hundred people don't want fluoride, can't
| they can spend slightly more on bottled water? Why require
| the other 99 to be up-to-date on research to get the best
| personal medical outcome?
| torginus wrote:
| Generally speaking I see fluoridation as a ridiciulous idea,
| on the grounds that the vast majority of tap water ends up
| being used for things other than brushing your teeth. It is
| wasteful and damaging to the environment, that excess
| flouride that has no business being there ends up in the
| drain, or the water you use for your plants.
|
| Flouride should be put in the toothpaste. Then people can
| make a choice on whether they want it, but most importantly,
| its in the only product that is actually used for brushing
| teeth
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _It is wasteful and damaging to the environment_
|
| It's basically a waste product and water naturally has
| fluoride in it at the same levels, or more, that
| fluoridated water has, and the environment has been just
| fine in those places.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Fluoridation for public health is done at lower levels than
| fluoride is found naturally in water in other areas.
|
| If it's harmful as you imply, lots of water would need
| defluoridation.
| bowmessage wrote:
| https://www.npr.org/2024/08/23/nx-s1-5086886/fluoride-
| and-iq
| Tade0 wrote:
| Germany and France don't fluoridate water, but they add
| fluorine compounds to table salt.
|
| Meanwhile growing up in Poland in the 90s as kids we had
| these fluoridation sessions in school, for which everyone had
| to bring their toothbrush and brush their teeth with some
| kind of sour tasting fluid that contained fluorine.
| barotalomey wrote:
| > we had these fluoridation sessions in school
|
| We had the same in Sweden up until the early 90s, and it's
| apparently doing sort of a revival in some schools.
|
| https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluortant
| nicbou wrote:
| In Germany, you can buy salt with or without fluorine. Both
| options are available at my local Lidl. It's clearly marked
| on the front of the box.
| verytrivial wrote:
| I thought the comment was about resolving the issue one way
| or the other _without it becoming yet another polarization
| topic_ . It probably matters less in either resolution than
| the cost due schisms and distrust the "debate" causes.
| wil421 wrote:
| How much natural fluoride does Europe have in their water?
| kzrdude wrote:
| The map accounts for that
| nxpnsv wrote:
| Sure, but they are also not fighting about it, this seems
| crucial.
| evantbyrne wrote:
| Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. The
| whole "everyone else agrees on X" bit is such a reliable
| tell.
| freehorse wrote:
| Regardless of whether the water is fluoridated or not, the
| main guideline is "brush your teeth with fluoridated
| toothpaste". No policy maker elsewhere is pushing narratives
| against fluoride at large like in the US. These narratives
| there are even dangerous. One can easily look at dental
| associations reviews, or official state guidelines and see
| that more or less they say very similar things. It is very
| easy to find these policy-informing reviews online.
|
| And regardless of whether the water is fluoridated or not,
| there is no big debate elsewhere about it, nobody cares that
| much about it, because all the evidence is that in smaller
| amounts prob it is does not matter much either way, in the
| presence of people brushing their teeth. A lot of countries
| stopped it due to logistic purposes. In netherlands they
| tried fluoride in the water, a court said they should
| actually pass a law in order to be able to do it, and they
| did not even bother with that and dropped it. The fact that
| some countries may not use fluoride in the water is not due
| to some deeply-held conviction about how destructive fluoride
| is for the iq of the kids. In terms of risks of fluoride,
| fluorosis is what is mostly discussed anyway, and to a
| degree, unless it is too serious, this may just be an
| aesthetic issue.
|
| From the perspective of one that watches this craziness from
| outside, the whole debate is non-sense, and whether some
| european countries use water fluoridation or not is not very
| important, it does not cause any heated debate in the EU. The
| debate in the US is not because the US considers some things
| that others do not consider. There is no actual truthseeking
| mentality from the current administration or anybody on this
| to actually find for sure if fluoride decreases iq, or if
| fluoride in the water is absolutely essential for dental
| health even if people are brushing their teeth.
| ineedasername wrote:
| The issue, to my eyes at least, is much less of water, and
| much more of fluoride itself. That is what seems mostly a
| settled and non controversial topic elsewhere such that it is
| not perennially raised anew with tone of fans quoting Dr.
| Strangelove except meaning it.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Incisive comment, thanks for questioning the assumptions
| here.
| nostromo wrote:
| I'd agree that Europe has solved this issue by removing
| fluoride from drinking water.
|
| But beyond Europe there's still no global consensus.
|
| I do agree that the US is an outlier with fluoride being nearly
| universal.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Which European countries _remove_ fluoride from water
| generally? UK adds it in naturally low fluoride areas.
|
| Some countries no longer add it (but their water still has
| naturally occurring fluoride that they don't remove).
| cameldrv wrote:
| I remember the first time I went to a German dentist and he
| told me how amazing my teeth looked and that he could tell I
| must be American. Fluoride may have some downsides but it
| definitely has upsides.
| nichos wrote:
| Is it good for teeth because it's "applied" when drinking it,
| or is it due to ingesting it? I think ingesting is the issue.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Food often has much higher levels of fluoride than water,
| but the fluoride isn't as bioavailable to teeth when it is
| in food, hence putting it in water. Fluorine in food may
| become more bioavailable further down the digestive tract
| where it does much less good.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > This is one of these US-specific polarised debates I find
| really bizarre, around some kind of issue that the rest of the
| world has by large solved but without any acknowledgement of
| this fact.
|
| > Maybe the US should look into how other countries have solved
| it?
|
| I mean Utah is trying, sorry it took a while. I know Germany
| and Sweden don't fluoridate its water, I assume you mean
| Western Europe by the "world" (sorry if I am interpreting too
| much here, but that's usually what's popular to compare US to
| and bash US on how bad it is), so US is getting "with the
| program", finally I suppose. States having individual laws here
| is a benefit, one state doesn't have to wait for the Federal
| Government to act.
|
| > This is one of these US-specific polarised debates I find
| really bizarre,
|
| I don't think it's that polarizing? Unless 1) you're listening
| to US media more and 2) you're not getting many non-polarizing
| issues in the news, because those are well are just boring and
| don't sell ads.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _completely bizarre witnessing both sides getting so polarised
| around a basically non-issue_
|
| This isn't a sensible way to think about it. Every contentious
| conversation I've ever had has gone this way:
| Me: why do people want to ban fluoride Them: [anti
| government paranoia] Me: um...but how about tooth decay
| Them: pineal gland calcification Me: idk sounds pretty
| far-fetched Them: THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK
|
| It's irrational to complain about 'both sides' when only one
| side is insisting on making it into an issue. I generally just
| try to disegnage from people as soon as they start freaking out
| about fluoride/ chemtrails/ vaccinations etc, but people like
| this frequently treat skepticism as a personal attack.
| Increasingly they occupy positions of political power (see eg
| RFK) having acquired them by public displays of conviction
| rather than any objective criteria.
| protocolture wrote:
| 1. Its a fringe issue in Australia 2. The US doesnt believe in
| other countries so why check.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| Even in Europe Fluoridation is not uniform.
|
| Some place do it. Others partially, many not at all.
| arp242 wrote:
| The same discussion happened in Netherlands in the 70s, and
| water in NL is no longer fluoridated since the 70s for that
| reason. So it's not that "US-specific". I don't know about
| other countries from the top of my head.
| consp wrote:
| Funny thing you mention that. Since it is now monitored and
| maintained by natural source. There is fluoride, just not
| added anymore. (It is at lower levels than when added
| obviously)
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| >(It is at lower levels than when added obviously)
|
| This is not obvious. Some water has high levels of
| fluoride, which can cause harm (fluoride added for public
| health reasons is not the highest level of fluoride you
| will find [in the UK]).
|
| Fluoridation could be done by mixing of naturally high
| fluoride water sources into other water.
| bcssimulationz wrote:
| If you look at the US as a simulation that branched of the
| mother tree of Europe in the 15th century, you won't find it
| odd that it is rediscovering what Europe has already figured
| out. Just in it's own way and time. (No chemicals/colors in
| foods and adequate drinking water) Wait till they figure out
| mass transit, that will be a shocker.
| briandear wrote:
| Has Europe figured out mass transit? In Barcelona, a trip
| that takes me 1.5 hours of total time using "transit" takes
| me 28 minutes on my motor scooter. I think there is still
| some figuring out that needs to happen before I'll add 2
| hours to my daily commute.
| kelnos wrote:
| No no, in the US we figure out the worst way to do something,
| and then do that, and invent reasons why the US is unique such
| that the reasonable solutions that other countries employ just
| couldn't possibly work here.
|
| (To be fair, though, many [most?] Western countries do _not_
| fluoridate their water. The US is actually not doing the common
| thing here.)
|
| It's honestly not clear if water fluoridation in the US is
| necessary or all that useful here anymore, as we started doing
| it when fluoride toothpaste wasn't really a thing. Now pretty
| much all(?) toothpaste in the US has fluoride in it. If someone
| can't afford toothpaste, then they probably can't afford
| regular dental care either, and fluoridated water isn't going
| to make much of an impact anyway.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Here in England, there's some areas that put fluoride into the
| water and other areas already have sufficient fluoride levels.
| People complaining about the side effects of fluoridation often
| forget that water can naturally contain high levels of fluoride
| - it's really not an issue.
|
| https://www.uk-water-filters.co.uk/pages/areas-with-fluoride...
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| Think slightly more broadly about the issue.
|
| For context... some people think statins should be put in the
| water. Maybe they should. But were does mass medication of the
| people stop?
| maleldil wrote:
| It stops when we run out of easy things that can be done to
| improve the lives of people. It's not that hard.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| And when you get a tyrant at the top? Every capability you
| give the government needs to be viewed through the lens of
| "what happens when we get a really really bad leader?". If
| you haven't been paying attention, the majority of
| countries have had at least one really really bad leader
| over the past few hundred years. Many have one _right now_.
| maleldil wrote:
| If you're always looking at things through that lens, the
| government can never do anything at all, and you'll be
| left with "complete freedom" to just die from easily
| preventable issues.
|
| There's absolutely no need to resort to a slippery slope
| here. We have plenty of examples around the world for
| things that work without anyone invoking a boogeyman.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| They can, you just have to look at each issue and it's
| costs and benefits and risks over time. You desperately
| want to world to be simple. It isn't. There is a slippery
| slope, you can stand on it but you want to have some
| concept of what happens when you slip.
|
| There are examples of the boogeyman existing in real life
| - just 80 years ago we had one of the worst. Right now we
| have some boogeymen although not Hitler level. Get a
| little historical perspective.
| ourmandave wrote:
| Does filtering your water with a whole house filter take the
| fluoride out?
|
| Because I live in a small township that delivers well water to
| you tap. It tastes horrible, shortens the life of pipes and
| appliances, and smells like sulfur.
|
| Every year they mail a flyer that explains how the lead levels
| are dangerously above the national standard and you should run
| the tap before you drink from it.
|
| Like, sorry there's nothing we can do about it. =(
| ein0p wrote:
| If it's reverse osmosis based, yes. If it's some other kind of
| filter, likely no, and you should buy a TDS meter and use it,
| because in all likelihood it's not really filtering anything. I
| did exactly this. It turned out that my carbon based filter had
| more TDS than completely unfiltered water from a tap in the
| garden. RO water, even re-mineralized, had 1/15th the TDS IIRC.
| mortos wrote:
| TDS is just Total Dissolved Solids. What solids though you
| don't know and you could be adding carbon while removing
| others which is likely the case.
|
| Also those dinky little TDS meters don't even measure TDS.
| They measure electrical conductivity and with a little math
| they use the EC as a proxy for TDS. It's typically only
| calibrated to one specific ion, others will be off by some
| factor. Also keep in mind TDS is expressed in PPM as CaCO3.
| alabastervlog wrote:
| > Because I live in a small township that delivers well water
| to you tap. It tastes horrible, shortens the life of pipes and
| appliances, and smells like sulfur.
|
| Oh man, I used to live in a place like this. You could _smell_
| if a restaurant served filtered water (lots filter for the soda
| machine, to keep mineralization in it down I assume, and use
| the same water to serve) or straight from the tap, without
| taking a drink. Like with your nose six inches above the cup,
| you could smell it. Luckily, almost all served filtered.
| Quarrel wrote:
| I looked in to this recently.
|
| Turns out that carbon filters do filter fluoride, but only on
| the first few X litres of water, where X is in the first 0.01%
| or so of their expected lifespan. So, they do, but not really
| usefully in any sense.
|
| My filter that I wanted to know about (so that my kid is
| getting fluoride) is a 2-stage filter, with the other stage
| being a particle filter, but fluoride is very small and
| unaffected.
|
| Your filter might be different of course.
|
| FWIW, in my city, the water has essentially zero fluoride if it
| isn't added, and it has been a great intervention.
| adrr wrote:
| Utah has naturally occurring fluoride in their water and some
| water systems its more than double(2.0mg/l) what they add to
| prevent dental issues. Why were they fluorinating their water?
|
| https://cascadefamily.com/images/WaterFluoridationLevelsUtah...
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Ok, but then you just say, we have enough naturally occurring
| fluoride. Adding more is just a waste of money.
|
| Or, toothpaste has enough extra fluoride, adding it to water is
| just a waste of money.
|
| This is not that. This is the US health system being lead by a
| bunch of woo-woo people who don't understand how research
| works.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > This is the US health system being lead by a bunch of woo-
| woo people who don't understand how research works.
|
| The majority of the developed world does not fluoridate their
| water supply. The US has one of the highest rates of
| fluoridation in the developed world. Within America,
| fluoridation rates are highest on the East Coast and in the
| South, and lowest on the Left Coast.
| adrr wrote:
| There's also fluoride salt added to table salt that is
| widely used to accomplish the same thing as fluoridating
| water.
|
| https://www.acffglobal.org/salt-fluoridation/
| adrr wrote:
| I am saying it's weird to fluoridate water in areas with high
| levels of naturally occurring fluoride. Also to point out
| that there is naturally occurring fluoride. If Utah believed
| fluoride was a health risk, why aren't they spending tens of
| millions to filter it out. Or is it just virtue signaling.
| starfezzy wrote:
| The people leading the health system are highly credentialed.
| Moreover, highly credentialed people, in medicine as in all
| fields, frequently disagree on what studies show, how valid a
| study is, what it's flaws and limits are, how conclusive it
| is, and so forth. And the consensus has a long, time honored
| tradition of being wrong from time to time.
|
| Ultimately, the woo woo people are the ones who rely on
| someone in a labcoat to tell them whether ingesting
| government approved (there's your first red flag) synthetic
| fluoride from industrial byproducts is "necessary".
|
| If it's useful, brushing it onto your teeth and into your
| gums 56,000 times in your life is probably sufficient,
| particularly given that we don't know with absolute certainty
| beyond any shadow of a doubt that the industrial waste
| options are totally without health consequences. I'll
| literally just take care of my teeth and cross my fingers
| over listening to modern medical consensus on a range of
| topics where I simply trust intuition and common sense more.
| thayne wrote:
| Most places in Utah already don't add flouride to water. So why
| pass a law to ban it?
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Virtue signaling.
| driverdan wrote:
| That's not how it works. There is an ideal amount of fluoride.
| If the natural amount is lower more is added. If it's higher
| the extra is removed.
| efitz wrote:
| It is trivial today to get whatever level of fluoride is
| recommended for dental health, via toothpaste. So there is no
| compelling need to fluoridate as there exist viable alternatives
| to achieve the same that fluoridation is for any other purpose
| than dental health.
|
| In the USA, dental care is not covered by public insurance, and
| is an optional add-on to insurance through one's employer.
|
| So without addressing at all whether fluoridation is effective or
| safe, there doesn't seem to be any compelling need to fluoridate
| public water, and there's no economic down side for the public if
| governments choose not to do so.
|
| Given this, why not just leave people alone to make their own
| choices? If the citizens in a city or state want to fluoridate
| the public water supply, then do so; if they choose not to, then
| leave them alone. It's a free country and voters are grownups;
| let them choose for themselves.
|
| If you live in a place that chooses the choice you dislike but
| for some reason fluoridated public water supply is a critical
| issue for you, either campaign to change it or vote with your
| feet.
|
| This issue just doesn't seem important enough to me to spend any
| effort arguing either way.
| gazook89 wrote:
| > via toothpaste.
|
| I wonder how many people really brush their teeth on a regular
| basis.
|
| > either campaign to change it or vote with your feet.
|
| I imagine that campaigning to change it requires notifying
| people there is a problem, and getting it into the news and
| spreading that news.
| timewizard wrote:
| > I wonder how many people really brush their teeth on a
| regular basis.
|
| Whatever the number is it's not appropriate for the state to
| medically intervene on their behalf.
| MajimasEyepatch wrote:
| Why not?
| Quarrel wrote:
| Perhaps, sadly, because if the State doesn't have to pick
| up the costs in health care, as in large parts of the
| developed world, then they lose their incentive to be
| proactive in addressing health issues.
|
| In countries with some form of universal health care,
| simple proactive health interventions can save the State
| large amounts of money.
| nerdponx wrote:
| In theory health insurance in the US has the same
| incentive. But it's cheaper to deny preventative care
| _and_ then deny or minimize or cap coverage later on.
| efitz wrote:
| Why is a one-size-fits-all state intervention that
| assumes or targets the least responsible people
| appropriate?
|
| Why is it appropriate especially in light of many people
| actively opposing the intervention?
|
| These are questions about what is the proper relationship
| between the state and the citizen.
|
| And they are a litmus test for current political belief
| bifurcation in the US.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Sadly people that don't brush are probably not drinking plain
| water either.
| efitz wrote:
| I was thinking the same thought- maybe we should fluoridate
| Brawndo :-)
| preisschild wrote:
| Thats not really true. I had problems brushing during my
| childhood, because most toothpastes triggered my gag
| reflex, but I mostly drank tap water.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| I think one thing you're not considering (especially when you
| say we should vote with our feet) is poverty. It's true that
| fluoride toothpaste is widely available, but for people in
| poverty, of which there are millions in our country, basic
| hygiene items like toothpaste and a toothbrush aren't
| guaranteed. Neither is it guaranteed that everyone has a
| perfect daily brushing habit like the dentist tells us; there
| are people who don't brush every day, or even every week.
|
| You talked about dental care not being covered by public
| insurance -- is it not worth considering that some basic level
| of dental care is already being applied to the country via
| fluoridation? It's a minimal, cost-effective way to prevent
| tooth decay at scale. Fluoridated water is one of the few
| dental protections available to everyone regardless of their
| income.
| kelnos wrote:
| If you're not brushing your teeth, periodontitis will get
| you; the resulting bone decay will cause your teeth will fall
| out. But sure, great, the water was fluoridated, so I guess
| it's nice that those now-missing teeth are free of caries?
| nozzlegear wrote:
| I really don't feel like you're interpreting my comment in
| good faith. Do you really think I was arguing that poor
| people literally never brush their teeth, and every single
| poor person in the country will eventually suffer from
| periodontitis? If you read my comment again, I'm sure you
| could find a way to engage in better faith.
| iamtheworstdev wrote:
| there are people who own a toothbrush but do not purchase
| toothpaste. money is not something everyone has and when
| you start having to choose between certain things, tough
| choices get made.
| wtcactus wrote:
| I don't believe there's a single person in the USA that's so
| poor they can't pay $3 for toothpaste every 3 months. I also
| believe that having such a low personal hygiene where you
| don't brush your teeth altogether, even if you drink water
| with fluoride, will have terrible results anyway for your
| teeth anyway.
|
| I'm completely sure that any people that don't brush their
| teeth is just because they are too lazy to even bother.
|
| This trope of justifying everything with "but there are
| millions of poor people in the USA" is really tiresome.
| akutlay wrote:
| It's not that they can't afford a $3 toothpaste, it is the
| environment they are in that makes it hard to prioritize
| things like this. It is the education and the overall life
| quality (or the lack there of) that causes this problem.
| shmerl wrote:
| In general it's some weird relic of medieval view on dentists
| not being medical professionals but someone akin to barbers. It
| shouldn't exits but it persists.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > This issue just doesn't seem important enough to me to spend
| any effort arguing either way.
|
| Your comment is well-stated, and in the spirit of a free and
| liberal society. The problem--not with your argument, but with
| the world--is that today there seems to be literally no issue
| unimportant enough not to argue about, or use as the
| battlefield for an unending ideological proxy war. My guess is
| that few of the people arguing this issue on HN have strong
| feelings about flouride _qua_ flouride, but have strong
| feelings about the _kinds of people_ they believe oppose or
| support the use of flouride in water, and this notion is what
| they 're really railing against.
| HEmanZ wrote:
| This rings true for my gut reaction. The family and
| acquaintances in my life who have been up in arms against
| fluoride for years now are actual neo nzs (like "deport all
| non whites", "you-know-who controls america", "superiority of
| the white race" level).
|
| So my instinct is to really be afraid of this anti-fluoride
| wave, even tho practically I don't care one way or another.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Trivial is what we have now. Taking fluoride from the water
| means people will have to spend extra time and money on
| fluoride and dental treatments. When I viewed it, your comment
| appeared directly after this one
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43524171), which talks
| about a town in Canada that voted to abandon fluoride , saw
| worse health outcomes, and then voted to reinstate it. This
| tells us that fluoride is _not_ trivially available to people,
| and taking it away from them enriches corporations while making
| people less healthy.
| ryao wrote:
| Fluoride in Toothpaste: Do not ingest.
|
| Flouride in Water: Ingest away.
|
| I do not understand how these two can co-exist.
| malcolmgreaves wrote:
| Concentrations.
| christianqchung wrote:
| Radioactive isotopes in nuclear fuel: do not ingest.
|
| Radioactive isotopes in banana: consume away.
|
| Understand now? I'm not even defending anything other than how
| two things that vaguely appear contradictory, are in fact, not.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| I don't.
|
| Because your banana example doesn't have additives meant to
| be reactive -- so is unlike adding fluoride to water at
| levels which impact dental health.
| varenc wrote:
| It's the concentration that matters. Toothpaste has over
| 1000x the concentration of fluoride vs 0.7mg/L as tap
| water. Many well water sources have naturally occurring
| fluoride that exceeds the additive levels.
| ryao wrote:
| Very low concentrations of medicine are usually
| ineffective at its stated purpose outside of pseudo
| scientific theories, so even if it is safe to ingest, it
| is not clear it is able to do anything for people's
| teeth.
|
| That is why I do not understand how the two can co-exist.
| Either the concentration is so low that drinking it for
| dental health is pointless, or it is not something people
| should be drinking. If there was a middle ground, we
| would have a 1 a day pill for this and not bother
| brushing our teeth or putting fluoride in water.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > If there was a middle ground, we would have a 1 a day
| pill for this
|
| We do; fluoride tablets are common.
|
| > and not bother brushing our teeth
|
| Brushing your teeth does a lot of things besides applying
| fluoride to the surface. It's mostly about getting stuff
| that's already there _off_ the surface.
| ryao wrote:
| My initial searches suggest that these are by
| prescription only. Do you have any information to the
| contrary? I did find toothpaste tablets, but those are
| meant to be used as toothpaste from what I can tell.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > My initial searches suggest that these are by
| prescription only. Do you have any information to the
| contrary?
|
| No, I don't. Does that matter?
| ryao wrote:
| This is not a one a day pill then. If ingesting it is
| regulated, that would be consistent with it not being
| something regular people should ingest regularly.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| It is exactly a one a day pill. What are you imagining?
| almog wrote:
| Maybe another example will help?
|
| Chlorine for water treatment in the backcountry when
| applied to a liter of water: Ingest.
|
| Chlorine straight from a household bleach bottle: Do not
| ingest.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Fluorine is a dietary mineral.
|
| At higher dosages, _every_ dietary mineral becomes harmful,
| then (generally) lethal.
|
| Without iron, humans die. Yet accidental (over-)ingestion of
| iron supplements is a leading cause of poisoning in small
| children.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Pretty sure I read that fluoridation is a communist plot to
| undermine American public health [1].
|
| Sorry, that was the John Birch Society from the 1960's.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_water_fluoridati...
|
| (I'm having some fun, but it is in fact the first thing that
| comes to mind when I hear objections to fluoridated water. Since
| we're talking about RFK and Utah, I kind of assume it more or
| less stems from the same fears.)
| thakoppno wrote:
| > Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous
| communist plot we have ever had to face.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Ice cream, Mandrake. _Children 's ice cream_.
| thakoppno wrote:
| It's just sublime to me the cadence and intonation Sterling
| Hayden uses pronouncing Mandrake.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| Fluoridation is literally one of the most successful efforts at
| improving public health in history. Dental health is keystone to
| general health.
|
| The idea that the conspiracy theorists are winning the public
| policy debate enrages me. There's rock solid proof of the
| benefits of fluoridation extending decades, and there is little
| to no proof of any adverse side effects.
|
| Oh well, good luck Utah. I'm glad I don't live there, but if I
| were a young dentist, I know where I'd set up my new practice.
| jongjong wrote:
| Well you can buy as much fluoride paste as you like and add it
| to your own water.
| lunarboy wrote:
| According to these "it lowers kids IQ" people, is the average IQ
| of Hawaiian kids higher than other states?
| bigmadshoe wrote:
| There are latent variables there. You can't just compare the IQ
| of two areas and only isolate a single variable out of
| thousands.
| beezle wrote:
| Funny, I watched Dr. Strangelove two weeks ago. POE!
| fungiblecog wrote:
| Fluoride in water wouldn't be necessary is sugary drinks were
| taxed heavily (or just banned altogether) and dental care was
| affordable. But obviously that's considered communism if you're a
| typical american.
| Clubber wrote:
| Or you could just put fluoride in the sugary drinks.
| donnachangstein wrote:
| Before someone tries to pin this as a decisively left-right
| political issue, Portland, Oregon has been virulently anti-
| fluoride for over 70 years (which is probably the last time
| Portland and Utah agreed on anything):
|
| https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2013/05/portland_fluorid...
|
| Portland is a bit odd when it comes to water; they drained an
| entire (uncovered, open to the elements) city reservoir because a
| guy peed in it. True story. I assume they have signs for the
| birds flying aloft to not defecate over the reservoir.
|
| Edit: It appears many posts all over this thread are being
| brigaded with downvotes. Why? Is Big Fluoride in trouble? Grow
| up. You people are brain damaged (possibly from fluoride).
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| I truly don't care one way or the other on the dental advantage
| that fluoride offers in drinking water, or the alleged risks it
| poses to the IQ of unborn children. I simply hate the fact that
| public policy is now being driven by what are essentially New
| World Order conspiracy theorists
| piuantiderp wrote:
| Book by Christopher Bryson. Needed context
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| I think it's worth reminding people of Occam's Razor, and the
| point of it is: a simple explanation is often better than a
| complicated one.
|
| The US has had water fluoridation for 65 years, affecting 346
| million people. That's a pretty big god damn sample size and long
| amount of time in which to observe effects. If we still have no
| proof of significant negative health effects, _it 's probably not
| bad for you_.
|
| That said: you can always lower the amount of fluoride if it
| turns out the local area already gets a lot of fluoride from
| other sources. You don't need to _ban_ it, you can just lower the
| levels.
|
| So please don't defend this decision by Utah. They're being
| children.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
| ckw wrote:
| Using a prospective Canadian birth cohort, we found that
| estimated maternal exposure to higher fluoride levels during
| pregnancy was associated with lower IQ scores in children. This
| association was supported by converging findings from 2
| measures of fluoride exposure during pregnancy. A difference in
| MUFSG spanning the interquartile range for the entire sample
| (ie, 0.33 mg/L), which is roughly the difference in MUFSG
| concentration for pregnant women living in a fluoridated vs a
| nonfluoridated community, was associated with a 1.5-point IQ
| decrement among boys. An increment of 0.70 mg/L in MUFSG
| concentration was associated with a 3-point IQ decrement in
| boys; about half of the women living in a fluoridated community
| have a MUFSG equal to or greater than 0.70 mg/L. These results
| did not change appreciably after controlling for other key
| exposures such as lead, arsenic, and mercury. To our
| knowledge, this study is the first to estimate fluoride
| exposure in a large birth cohort receiving optimally
| fluoridated water. These findings are consistent with that of a
| Mexican birth cohort study that reported a 6.3 decrement in IQ
| in preschool-aged children compared with a 4.5 decrement for
| boys in our study for every 1 mg/L of MUF.10 The findings of
| the current study are also concordant with ecologic studies
| that have shown an association between higher levels of
| fluoride exposure and lower intellectual abilities in
| children.7,8,26 Collectively, these findings support that
| fluoride exposure during pregnancy may be associated with
| neurocognitive deficits.
|
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| 1. IQ is not an objective measurement, it is inherently
| flawed
|
| 2. A 1.5-3 IQ level difference is not noticeable in any
| practical way. Things like _birth order_ have a more
| significant impact on IQ.
|
| 3. Comparing Canadian children to Mexican is pretty dramatic,
| like comparing rich kids to poor kids; you will _always_ see
| a marked difference between the two, in intelligence, in
| health, in crime, in all sorts of things. Mexican communities
| often over-fluoridate their water (I know because I grew up
| in Mexico and my teeth are stained because of it). Again,
| _this is no reason to ban it, just lower it_.
|
| This finding is a _suggestion_ of a link, it 's not empirical
| proof. The methods and findings have many questionable
| aspects. You can always find some paper that suggests
| something random like vegetables are bad for you or
| something. One paper does not a water-tight case make.
| concordDance wrote:
| > The US has had water fluoridation for 65 years, affecting 346
| million people. That's a pretty big god damn sample size and
| long amount of time in which to observe effects. If we still
| have no proof of significant negative health effects, it's
| probably not bad for you.
|
| The problem is there will have been a lot of confounders.
|
| E.g. despite huge sample sizes, isolating the cause of the
| obesity crisis is too hard because so many different things
| changed at once.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Sure, it's not easy to find a smoking gun. That doesn't mean
| we go _all in_ on whatever we think _might be_ the issue (if
| there even _is_ an issue).
|
| The answer to the obesity crisis wasn't to ban Pizza. We
| don't we ban sodas and junk food at schools, which we _know_
| would have a positive impact on health. But we do ban
| fluoride, _without_ proof that it will help? With actually
| the only scientific proof being that it would be
| _detrimental_ to remove?
|
| If people's concern is really that it might slightly lower
| IQ, consider that 1) IQ has been steadily increasing since
| the 40's, and 2) you can get better IQ by _investing in
| education_ , something that we do an embarrassing job of
| already and need to improve on.
|
| The other concern touted is that it might cause cancer. As we
| well know by now, nearly _everything_ causes cancer.
|
| Banning fluoride is just a move by politicians to take
| advantage of ignorant scared people to drum up more
| votes/support. It's like every other action they take to
| vilify something scary or unknown and then claim victory over
| the evil thing they purged. This isn't new, either - this
| clearly partisan stance was being pointed out in the 1950's
| when it was first being considered for nationwide use.
|
| _" After more than 70 years of investigation, there are
| still questions about how effective water fluoridation is at
| preventing dental decay and whether the possible risks are
| worth the benefits. Although water fluoridation undoubtedly
| did improve the dental health of many children in the 1960s
| and 1970s, fluoride proponents were perhaps too hasty in
| declaring that community water fluoridation was the best (or
| only) solution for dental decay. A less fractious debate
| might have encouraged a more open discussion in which the
| possible harms could have been more fully discussed and other
| options, such as providing fluoridated toothpaste, more fully
| considered."_ -
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4504307/
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Putting fluoride in water promotes freedom. That sounds crazy,
| but let me justify it.
|
| If you are poor you can't go anywhere or buy anything. You're not
| free if you're poor. If you are sick, you may be confined to a
| hospital bed or not feel good enough to do anything. If you are
| sick you're not free.
|
| Putting fluoride in water reduces dental costs and incidence of
| cavities and therefore tooth infections, particularly among
| societies poorest. Therefore, due to fluoridation in water some
| people are less sick and have more money and therefore are more
| free.
|
| The contrasting view is that putting fluoride in water is
| literally medicating people without their affirmative consent. It
| is the government forcing you to take a medication. It is
| coercive and therefore an attack on your freedom to not take
| medication. It is the government interfering in your life.
|
| The contrast between positive freedom, the freedom to do
| something, and negative freedom, the freedom from interference in
| your life, is the core political argument in America right now.
| Negative freedom, freedom from government interference, is being
| promoted by those seeking to weaken the government enough to
| supplant it. People who are poor and sick are likely unable to
| stand up for themselves or participate in solidarity against
| authority. This individual issue is relatively small, but you
| take 100's of issues like this, and the effect is to create a
| class of people who aren't able to do anything but be obedient
| workers.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > The contrast between positive freedom, the freedom to do
| something, and negative freedom, the freedom from interference
| in your life, is the core political argument in America right
| now.
|
| Interesing take but I don't buy this part at all. The core
| political argument in the US is epistemological. What's real
| and what counts as true? There are some axiological differences
| but I think they are minor in comparison to not being able to
| agree on how the world is in the first place.
| rocqua wrote:
| It seems to be that the battleground is epistemological, but
| not so much the argument. The difference being that Trump
| uses 'claims of truth' without any care of how true they are.
|
| I feel the majority of epistemological disagreement is the
| result of propaganda (not exclusively from MAGA). With only a
| small bit that is actually a disagreement on core values.
| Suchs true disagreement does exist, but it is no longer what
| the political discourse is about.
| guerrilla wrote:
| That sounds like what I meant.
| verisimi wrote:
| Perhaps, vitamins, micro doses of aspirin, and other low level
| medical treatments should also be added to water, for the
| benefit of the silent poor and sick.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Like the vitamins and minerals added to cereals/milk or the
| iodine added to salt?
| pipes wrote:
| Or the iron that I wish they wouldn't add as it means I
| can't eat them due to my medical condition.
| aikinai wrote:
| Those don't have a monopoly.
| hkt wrote:
| Are they silent, or just not being represented by the
| American press?
| mptest wrote:
| Or even crazier, hear me out, maybe we can just let people
| have healthcare without cost-gating it? Like oh idk, every
| other even semi-wealthy nation in the world _except_ the one
| where measles is making a comeback?
| starspangled wrote:
| What do you mean by "without cost-gating"?
|
| Public healthcare systems in other countries have
| procedures they don't cover, and significant wait periods
| (i.e., shortages) to see doctors and specialists and have
| procedures done. Because of the cost.
|
| I'm not saying they aren't better than America's, but the
| idea you can just _let_ people have it and not worry about
| costs isn 't true. Health is like around quarter of entire
| government expenditure, it's fantastically expensive.
| Around the same amount of welfare expenditure, so you could
| double the number of people receiving welfare or double the
| amount that welfare recipients get for the same price, for
| example, which would be lifechanging for millions of the
| poorest and most disadvantaged people.
|
| > except the one where measles is making a comeback?
|
| Measles is growing globally. In the "European region" there
| were double the number of measles cases in 2024 as there
| were in 2023. https://www.unicef.org/press-
| releases/european-region-report...
| mptest wrote:
| >what do you mean by that
|
| I mean, raise taxes on businesses (wanna guess how many
| walmart employees are on government aid, i.e how much we
| tax payers are directly subsidizing their exorbitant
| profits while they pay their employees below a living
| wage?)Tax the rich, (3 individuals hoard more wealth than
| 50% of the country combined) + Cut some large percentage
| of insurance jobs, military spending, and use that money
| to provide healthcare to every american, without spending
| time and money making sure they're poor before we deign
| them able to receive help. really, it's quite simple.
|
| >Public healthcare systems in other countries have
| procedures they don't cover, and significant wait periods
| (i.e., shortages) to see doctors and specialists and have
| procedures done.
|
| Agreed there. Ever wonder why?
|
| Taking your point earnestly for a moment, can you
| earnestly tell me that's not _still_ miles better than
| America, with more expensive outcomes, worse care
| outcomes, _lowering life expectancy_ compared to poorer
| nations, record maternal mortality rates, and tons of
| medical bankruptcies?[2]
|
| Cmon, be serious. Go fund me is one of the bigger health
| insurance systems in the country.[3] Btw, medicare for
| all saves tremendous amounts of money vs our current
| system.[1] Much like ubi, the science is clear, but the
| rich and the naive are too brainwashed or dumb by the
| propaganda of the oligarchy owned media to think
| American's deserve healthcare, housing, a dignified life.
|
| Seriously, Compare your "worst case" to america, where
| people simply can't afford to see the specialists, or get
| the procedures at ALL. I know which one I would have and
| my opinion is backed by the sentiment, and empirical data
| of, like I said, literally every even half developed
| nation in the world. Your can offer nothing against this.
| It's simply fact.
|
| That's not even to speak about women dying from things
| like birth complications because their draconian state
| let the theocratic fascists dictate what a women and
| their doctor can and can't do with their own body.[0]
|
| >because of the cost
|
| Drastic, brazen or glib misunderstanding of history and
| politics. Throughout conservative governments, from
| reagan to thatcher to bush to trump, the objective of
| these ayn rand reading dummies, (read, austerity
| politicians) are as follows:
|
| 1. cut funding to vital social agency.
|
| 2. point to resulting difficulties as proof it's a silly
| system.
|
| 3. sell it off to private corporations and get hefty
| kickbacks.
|
| THAT is what causes all of the (still lesser than ours)
| problems you lament.
|
| >the idea you can just let people have it and not worry
| about costs isn't true
|
| Where did I say that again?
|
| Man, if only someone had thought of that. If only we had
| a 1% that controls almost 40% of the wealth in this
| country. We could raise taxes to pay for such a program.
| Btw, I reiterate, every study, (even from neocon think
| tanks) recognize it would save us hundreds of billions.)
| But austerity/conservative politicians don't want to
| improve the lives of us, they want to enrich their fellow
| oligarchs.
|
| Even thinking about this for a second will validate the
| notion. Instead of hundreds and thousands of employees
| whose job it is to give the least care to the least
| people for profit, maybe spend that money oh, idk, giving
| people healthcare? How much healthcare could've been
| provided from Luigi's _cough_ victim 's salary? If
| instead of getting paid millions to use AI to deny
| healthcare to those in need, that money was oh idk, spent
| on healthcare?
|
| >Health is like around quarter of entire government
| expenditure, it's fantastically expensive.
|
| Gee, I wonder what the cause of that is. Oh wait, I know
| this one too. Pretty common conservative talking point.
| Have you heard of the phrase "an ounce of prevention is
| worth a pound of cure?"
|
| Do you think a system where people are afraid to go to
| the dr for economic reasons contribute at all to the
| drastic healthcare expenses? I know someone that works as
| an ER nurse, people do not come in til they're at deaths
| door, with an issue that would have been remedied for a
| 100th the cost had they simply been able to see a doctor
| when first troubled. And again, all studies point to
| medicare for all saving hundreds of billions vs our
| current system.[1]
|
| >Around the same amount of welfare expenditure, so you
| could double the number of people receiving welfare or
| double the amount that welfare recipients get for the
| same price, for example, which would be lifechanging for
| millions of the poorest and most disadvantaged people.
|
| Or we could idk, just stop wasting money on evil "who
| deserves help" jobs and just you know, give that money
| directly to the people our government is supposed to
| improve the lives of? This goes for welfare, healthcare,
| unemployment, etc, too. How much of our social safety
| nets' budgets are spent in bureaucrats meant to make it
| difficult to get those benefits? To subsidize billion $
| corporations? To bail out banks who speculated on
| subprime mortgages? To fund a $9T war on terror that did
| nothing but make us more enemies?
|
| [0] https://steady.substack.com/p/women-in-texas-are-
| dying
|
| [1]https://www.commondreams.org/news/medicare-for-all-
| introduce...
|
| [2] https://www.pnhp.org/docs/AJPHBankruptcy2019.pdf
|
| [3] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/02/go
| fundme-...
| starspangled wrote:
| This is a fairly unhinged reply to my quite specific
| question and comment. Pretty rude saying things like this
|
| > Drastic, brazen or glib misunderstanding of history and
| politics
|
| while pretending you weren't just spouting on about
| measels htat you had no idea about.
|
| Healthcare is extremely expensive and taxing more won't
| magically make costs irrelevant or the cost of healthcare
| having to be weighed against other important and
| worthwhile government expenditure like welfare. That's
| just the reality of it no matter how much you're going to
| prattle on.
| keybored wrote:
| Apparently the US spends twice on healthcare for the same
| outcomes compared to comparable nations with universal
| healthcare. Therefore the concern about costs does not
| add up.
| mptest wrote:
| Yeah, almost like he's a dishonest fool at best, or
| propagandist who will do anything to avoid acknowledging
| the simple, universally backed by data assertion that
| healthcare for all is cheaper, provides better outcomes,
| and the source of the problems of universal systems -
| austerity politicians who's m.o i laid out plainly.
| Defund, claim it doesn't work, privatize.
|
| Complains I didn't answer every one of his points AND
| that my response was too long. Clearly a dishonest
| propagandist or a fool.
| starspangled wrote:
| > Apparently the US spends twice on healthcare for the
| same outcomes compared to comparable nations with
| universal healthcare.
|
| Sure, but I was talking about costs in other developed
| countries, not USA. Healthcare in Australia is about 1/4
| of government expenditure with welfare being another 1/4,
| for example.
|
| > Therefore the concern about costs does not add up.
|
| Non-sequitur. Costs obviously do and I explained in very
| simple terms why (e.g., you could _double_ welfare
| payments for about the same cost). Please explain your
| reasoning if you want to support the claim that cost is
| not a concern.
| caseyy wrote:
| Being kind and civil with your words would strengthen
| your message.
| mptest wrote:
| Disagreed, If you need soft kind words to believe the guy
| telling you the sky is blue over the guy speaking softer
| but telling you the sky is red, you're the problem, not
| me.
|
| I respond in good faith until the other party shows
| themselves not to be, and his glib rhetoric of "what do
| you mean, cost-gated?" while in the next sentence
| demonstrating he knows exactly what I'm speaking of - a
| public healthcare option - made it clear what type of
| person I was dealing with, and it wasn't a good faith
| commenter.
|
| I've heard every argument that guy made and can make 1000
| times over from fox news talking heads or an equivalent
| level person.
|
| What strengthens _my_ positions are, well, the
| truthfulness of them. All of the facts and studies
| support my message, playing nice with a bad faith
| commenter has no bearing on any of the facts I presented.
|
| Not to mention he calls a thought out, four citation
| response "unhinged prattle" because he refuses to engage
| with any of my responses (he knows i'm right) to his
| dishonest comment. It's the conservative m.o, I've seen
| it a thousand times.
|
| If you can't/won't accept reality because there was some
| extremely mild condescension, that's on you. Plus that
| guy deserved no good faith, I've heard his exact comment
| from every conservative talking head for a decade+, I
| _know_ guys like him backwards to forwards (politically)
| danparsonson wrote:
| The trouble with slippery slopes is that they carry you away
| from productive discussion.
| verisimi wrote:
| One man's slippery slope, is another man's exploration of
| an idea. I don't think exploring widely is unproductive.
|
| I could also say, that discussing slippery slopes (a
| linguistic discussion) is itself what moves the discussion
| too far from the original topic. You protest too much.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| The trouble with slippery slopes is that not all of them
| are fallacious, as you are suggesting. This is a reasonable
| point: if we are doing delivery of medicine through tap
| water, where's the line? A few people have seriously
| suggested putting low doses of lithium in the tap water as
| a societal antidepressant.
| danparsonson wrote:
| The line is where we've drawn it now - nothing has
| changed in decades. A few people suggest all kinds of
| things, that doesn't make them at imminent risk of
| happening.
| pathartl wrote:
| Should we not treat water at all? Should we instead all like
| off ground water or rivers and lakes?
| verisimi wrote:
| Do you think there's a difference between a/ treating water
| to make it clean and b/ adding minerals and vitamins for
| the benefit of others, whether they want it or not?
| thfuran wrote:
| Not really. I'm sure some people want distilled water to
| come out of their tap. You can't provide any service to a
| large group of people without giving some of them
| something they don't want in some way or another.
| sambeau wrote:
| Here in the U.K. at least, vitamins are added to many of the
| basic foods: like breakfast cereal and bread.
|
| Putting aspirin in the water would be incredibly dangerous:
| brain bleeds and stomach ulcers would quickly knock out any
| other health benefits.
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| The difference is that fluoride is effectively an industrial
| waste product and thus it benefits multiple parties to use
| it. If vitamins were also an industrial waste product, we
| would indeed be adding them to lots of things.
| gruez wrote:
| >The difference is that fluoride is effectively an
| industrial waste product and thus it benefits multiple
| parties to use it
|
| Source? Moreover, how much of a market can municipal water
| fluoridation create that companies would bother lobbying
| for it?
| zo1 wrote:
| I can't help but come away from this conversation with the
| impression that you people are talking about livestock and
| not human individuals with rights to their own body and
| bodily autonomy. This to me is straight out of the
| nazi/communist/fascist type of mindset.
| rcpt wrote:
| Same question but for giardia. Natural water from the river
| doesn't pass through filters that Science built.
| pipes wrote:
| "freedom from government interference, is being promoted by
| those seeking to weaken the government enough to supplant it"
|
| That is a very big generalisation. There are many legitimate
| reasons for reducing government interference and reducing the
| size of government.
| danparsonson wrote:
| No it isn't - OP didn't say everyone who promotes that idea
| wants to weaken the government, but rather those who wish to
| weaken the government are promoting that idea.
| rocqua wrote:
| Currently, there is a very effective push by people who want
| to weaken the government enough to supplant it. They are
| giving themselves ideological coverage by claiming they
| protecting people from interference.
|
| Is that a rephrasing you could live with?
| artvandelai wrote:
| Adding fluoride to water was revolutionary in the 1940s, but
| its benefits have significantly declined since fluoride
| toothpaste became common in the 1970s. While fluoridation made
| sense when products containing fluoride weren't widely
| available, it is much less effective and necessary now. Sure,
| some countries and communities may still see benefits from it,
| but widespread fluoridation doesn't seem necessary in many
| parts of the world.
| estebank wrote:
| There's a huge difference between "no longer as necessary"
| and "let's ban it".
| theteapot wrote:
| There is difference between banning and just deciding
| putting fluoride in public drinking water too. Who are they
| banning? Themselves?
| nerdponx wrote:
| Water treatment is usually done at the municipal or
| regional level. The state government is declaring that
| towns and cities may not do this. The alternative would
| be each and every municipal water authority deciding on
| its own.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| The horror.
| emmelaich wrote:
| Yeah but anyone can buy fluoride toothpaste so not really
| banned.
| arghwhat wrote:
| Not really when it comes to government initiatives. They'd
| like the water plants to stop adding fluoride, so they make
| a policy that the plants should not add fluoride.
| Retric wrote:
| That wouldn't require a ban. The state banned it because
| some towns wanted to add it to their water supply. It's
| literally big government stopping the will of the people.
| arghwhat wrote:
| Of course it does. Their goal was to stop it from being
| added, including in said towns.
|
| Policy makers make things happen by passing laws that
| make it a requirement or provide financial incentives to
| do it, and make things stop by outlawing it or taxing it.
| It is what they are elected to do.
|
| This is not "big government" - democracy does not mean
| that small groups that disagree should be allowed to do
| whatever they want, and water additives is a quite
| signficant thing to mess with.
| Retric wrote:
| Democracy and big government aren't in opposition. Social
| Security for example is extremely popular.
|
| Letting small groups that disagree do what they want is
| the definition of small government. Outlawing water
| additives _is_ a significant thing to mess with, it's a
| meaningful intrusion on people's heath and general
| welfare.
|
| What makes this entire thing silly is many areas of the
| US ~11% naturally have fluoride levels high enough not to
| need supplementation, but nobody seems to want to drop
| that to some ultra low level when they argue for
| outlawing adding fluoride. It's not an argument that
| these levels are unhealthy, just the naturalist fallacy
| in action. https://www.usgs.gov/publications/fluoride-
| occurrence-united...
| ekianjo wrote:
| You can add fluoride in your own water if you want to.
| Nobody is preventing your own freedom to drink fluoride.
| ath3nd wrote:
| Nobody's preventing you from going and finding your own
| water source either. The government is too much of a
| nanny state for putting flouride in water for public
| health, but it's just fine for providing water to you in
| the first place?
| amazingamazing wrote:
| In the USA it's generally illegal to collect rain.
| ericmay wrote:
| That's definitely true for some places but how are you
| measuring that? By population or perhaps state and
| territory?
|
| Where I live the city subsidizes rain collection barrels.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| Where do you live where you can collect rain at a
| quantity that would allow you to forgo central water?
|
| I'm not talking about having a barrel. Most states don't
| care about that quantity. I'm talking about storing on
| the order of 10k gallons. A rain barrel is nothing. An
| average family in the USA uses hundreds of gallons a day.
| It doesn't rain daily so you'd need thousands of gallons.
| Most states do not allow this, nor is it actually
| feasible for everyone to do this due to space
| constraints, which is why it's generally not allowed.
| batch12 wrote:
| My state provides rainwater collection guidance in the
| plumbing code. We also have wells. I use a well.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| Which state is this? Some states such as Massachusetts
| and Maine, will allow you to have a well, but then you
| cannot have central water. Thus, the dichotomy is
| irrelevant since it's not like someone actually has a
| choose, since it's done on the municipal level.
|
| In fact, generally the places in Connecticut, and New
| England that have well water are because they
| specifically cannot have the other.
|
| I don't know much about western USA, but I suspect it's
| similar.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| You're being actively misleading. Like on a scale of
| normal people to politicians to liars you're at least in
| the politicians range.
|
| The only states with restrictive surface water policies,
| generally, are the western ones, because every drop of
| water is allocated according to interstate agreements and
| letting peasants take what falls on their land is like
| the toddler version of letting privateers crap on a
| treaty.
|
| In New England and the east generally, you can either
| have a well or municipal water, not both, because they
| don't want to worry about back flows and contamination of
| the municipal water supply, etc. It's not the big deal
| you're making it out to be.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| > In New England and the east generally, you can either
| have a well or municipal water, not both, because they
| don't want to worry about back flows and contamination of
| the municipal water supply, etc. It's not the big deal
| you're making it out to be.
|
| this just isn't true. Can you have private well water in
| Boston, Hartford or Portsmouth? The answer is no. In
| general in the northeast, those who have well water have
| it explicitly because they're not served by the
| municipality. Feel free to give counter examples with
| specific cities or towns that serve both and actively let
| you switch between both for a given address that supports
| both.
|
| There are some towns in New Hampshire for example where
| the town has municipal water but a given house does not
| (it has well water), but usually that's due to specific
| characteristics of the lot that forbid it from having a
| municipal without a large cost, so the developer sets up
| well water instead.
|
| What you're saying doesn't even make sense - municipal
| water is routed to a treatment plant, so it wouldn't
| matter anyway.
| ericmay wrote:
| > Can you have private well water in Boston, Hartford or
| Portsmouth? The answer is no
|
| Why do you think that is?
| ericmay wrote:
| Well you wrote that in the US it's _generally illegal to
| collect rain water_ and I don't think that is true.
|
| But if your point was that it's illegal to collect enough
| rain water for XYZ purpose or scale I think that's a bit
| different.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| that's fair - I should've said that it's illegal to
| collect enough rain to not need municipal water.
| ath3nd wrote:
| > Most states do not allow this, nor is it actually
| feasible for everyone to do this due to space
| constraints, which is why it's generally not allowed.
|
| You are getting into something there. You understand the
| necessity of municipal water collection mandates due to
| space constraints, but when it comes to public health
| (e.g vaccines) or public dental health (e.g fluoride in
| water), that's beyond comprehension and an infringement
| on your right (to have bad teeth)?
|
| Also, in the real world, most (emphasis on most) states
| don't have any restrictions on collecting rainwater, and
| some actively encourage people to do so.
|
| - https://todayshomeowner.com/gutters/guides/states-
| where-it-i...
|
| - https://sfyl.ifas.ufl.edu/lawn-and-garden/saving-and-
| using-r... (Florida highly encourages people to collect
| rainwater)
| amazingamazing wrote:
| We are talking about drinking, e.g potable. Your links
| explicitly say don't collect to drink.
| shrubble wrote:
| That's not true in general especially if you weight it
| with population in mind, such as the wet states of NJ,
| PA, MD etc. that have more population; though there are
| areas where the states have passed laws concerning water
| rights where it is true(CO, WY).
| quikoa wrote:
| Defaults matter. Most people won't care or know about the
| change.
| j_maffe wrote:
| Yes that's where the freedom of citizens comes into play.
| ath3nd wrote:
| Nobody is preventing the citizens from digging their own
| well and ensuring their own water supply and having bad
| teeth.
|
| I like it how when it comes to fluoride in water, that's
| the nanny state pushing things on people, but when it
| comes to municipal water, said people can't bother to use
| their freedom and get their own water supply. It's the
| same that parents refuse to vaccinate their children for
| measles and then hurry to the doctors when the child
| inevitably gets sick. The freedom to die of preventable
| diseases is a great thing!
| idiotsecant wrote:
| No, they're banning communities from making the decision
| for themselves. Government so small it fits right into
| your drinking tap!
| beowulfey wrote:
| That argument works both ways. You can also source your
| own water if you don't want municipal water.
| foldr wrote:
| You can also remove fluoride from your own water if you
| want to. Although I don't know if there are any filters
| that can distinguish between naturally occurring fluoride
| (ok) and fluoride added by the government (evil).
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Yes, why don't the poor just eat cake when they can't get
| bread?
| Vegenoid wrote:
| Local governments are prohibited from adding fluoride to
| their drinking water, even if their community wants it.
| Avshalom wrote:
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdoe.12685
| Perenti wrote:
| Not true. Every time I see a dentist here in Queensland (non-
| fluoridated water) he asks me where else I lived as my teeth
| are so much better than what he usually sees, and if drilling
| my teeth are much harder than most Queenslanders.
|
| My early years were spent in Melbourne, where fluoridation
| was introduced around 1970. That's the only time I lived with
| fluoridated water, for about 3 years. yet dentists can see
| the effects 50+ years later.
|
| I don't use a toothbrush or toothpaste, and haven't ever
| really, as my ASD makes it unbearable.
| j_maffe wrote:
| You're refuting a statment based on studies and statistics
| by anecdotal evedince. Also, GP never denied that
| flouridation is still helpful for non-brushing residents.
| Perenti wrote:
| Poster claimed fluoridation was unnessecary in many parts
| of the world. This is true of places with natural
| fluoridation. But not everyone has access to fluoridated
| toothpaste, or even toothpaste. To assume otherwise is
| assuming everyone is neurotypical in a developed country.
| baxuz wrote:
| And you're assuming that every neurodivergent person
| can't tolerate brushing their teeth.
|
| I also don't see what access to toothpaste has anything
| to do with neurodivergent conditions.
| Retric wrote:
| No, he's assuming _some_ neurodivergent people can't
| tolerate brushing.
| mkoubaa wrote:
| A dentist sees thousands of patients -a big sample size!
| Calling it anecdotal evidence is reductive.
| j_maffe wrote:
| This isn't an opinion or take given by a dentist, it was
| given by a patient.
| DFHippie wrote:
| It was a patient reporting their dentist's opinion.
| giantg2 wrote:
| The real question is, fluoridated water in the past or
| not, how is any non-brushing patient being told they're
| teeth are top tier?
| XajniN wrote:
| Brushing is much less important for your teeth than your
| genetics and/or nutrition.
| foepys wrote:
| True. Part of the reason is aggressive saliva that just
| doesn't let some bacteria live and thus keeps the teeth
| healthy for longer. Dry mouth is literally damaging your
| teeth as well.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Anything to back that up? And even if it's true, the
| person would logically still not be to tier as the people
| with good nutrition and genetics who also brush would
| likely be better.
| mimentum wrote:
| As a recent QLD convert thanks for this. I had been
| wondering why the water up here was so hard.
| quinndexter wrote:
| Hi. Check where you actually are located in Qld, because
| chances are you are fluoridated just fine.
| https://www.health.qld.gov.au/public-health/industry-
| environ...
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| > I don't use a toothbrush or toothpaste, and haven't ever
| really, as my ASD makes it unbearable.
|
| 99% of the world does brush their teeth, so I don't see how
| this is relevant to their health.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| No, no they do not. Where do you make up these
| statistics?
| zouhair wrote:
| 25% of the world population do not have access to
| drinkable water[0], brushing their teeth is a luxury for
| them.
|
| [0]: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/03/22/un-26-of-
| world-lacks-...
| heeton wrote:
| You need zero water to brush your teeth with toothpaste.
| Many dentists even say it's preferable to not rinse your
| brush before and not rinse your mouth after.
| b2w wrote:
| So when you go to brush your teeth you don't wet the
| toothpaste and toothbrush from the tap? Is it the fear of
| tap water that centers around this? I am curious about
| this as it seems the answers carry some cultural
| significance.
| ixfo wrote:
| No - toothpaste is in part an abrasive. If it's wetter,
| the abrasive is less effective at removing
| biofilm/plaque, and the chemical components are diluted
| in situ. Your mouth is plenty wet enough as-is.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| That implies toothpaste isn't designed with this water
| dilution in mind, as that is common practice. If I don't
| wet it beforehand it's too thick and doesn't get
| distributed as easily.
| zouhair wrote:
| They can also just move where water is, right?
| nsonha wrote:
| When you do so, which I do too, is the amount of fluoride
| you potentially swallow more than that in fluoridated
| water?
| ReptileMan wrote:
| do they live in Utah?
| Mystery-Machine wrote:
| You see there's a difference between world and Utah/USA.
| In Utah nearly 100% of the population has access to
| drinking water.
| ViscountPenguin wrote:
| Are you in FNQ? Around Brissie and the Goldie we're all
| flouridated.
|
| I've heard similar rumours about army recruitment in the
| 80s though.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Black Tea has an astounding amount of fluoride. You dentist
| is stupid for only asking where you live and not what you
| eat and drink.
| hedora wrote:
| It's still necessary. It is crucial when kids teeth are
| forming, and brushing does not achieve the same effect.
|
| I find the lack of science in this thread disturbing.
| rcpt wrote:
| Kids really suck at brushing their teeth
| vasco wrote:
| The government can give out toothpaste in school, it doesn't
| need to add things to water.
|
| The inviolability or integrity of one's own body to me is more
| important than any of this. You have the right to decide what
| medication to be given to you with informed consent always, or
| you have no freedom. Otherwise the freedom argument collapses
| and you stop having reasons to allow abortions, or a bunch of
| other informed consent situations.
|
| And "knowing better" than poor people "for their own good"
| usually doesn't go well (for the people).
| mcny wrote:
| Would you also ban iron in wheat flour?
| vasco wrote:
| I support the language here: https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-
| charter/article/3-right-integrit...
|
| Article 3 - Right to integrity of the person
|
| 1. Everyone has the right to respect for his or her
| physical and mental integrity.
|
| 2. In the fields of medicine and biology, the following
| must be respected in particular:
|
| (a) the free and informed consent of the person concerned,
| according to the procedures laid down by law;
|
| (b) the prohibition of eugenic practices, in particular
| those aiming at the selection of persons;
|
| (c) the prohibition on making the human body and its parts
| as such a source of financial gain;
|
| (d) the prohibition of the reproductive cloning of human
| beings.
| wqaatwt wrote:
| You can presumably buy a different brand of flour or find a
| different source quite easily? Same applies to most other
| "fortified" products. With water your'e basically forced to
| waste money on bottled water or very expensive filtration
| systems.
|
| But yes, adding additional vitamins or minerals to food
| products is generally unnecessary when supplements are
| generally cheap and highly available these days.
| mcny wrote:
| The knowledge about the supplements we need also cheap
| and highly available and yet lots of people don't have
| it. I myself don't know all the supplements I need.
|
| I feel like for better or worse we are being forced into
| an era of individual responsibilities where the
| safeguards that we used to rely on without having to
| think are being actively dismantled.
| pathartl wrote:
| Except schools handing out toothpaste will get brought up at
| thousands of board meetings across the country with sensitive
| or bored parents claiming government overreach and misuse of
| budgets.
| jvm___ wrote:
| Freedom from is the American way.
|
| Freedom to is the Canadian way.
|
| That's why Canada becoming an American anything is ridiculous
| and pisses off Canada so much that, for example, we've reduced
| our flights to America by +70% over the coming months.
| refurb wrote:
| Canada does the opposite of America even if it hurts Canada -
| it's a part of its identity.
|
| Redefining freedom as "forcing something on people for their
| own good" is not how anyone actually defines freedom.
|
| It's like saying children have the most freedom because their
| parents force them to do things that will benefit them.
| jclulow wrote:
| > Canada does the opposite of America even if it hurts
| Canada - it's a part of its identity.
|
| As a duel citizen of the US and another Commonwealth
| nation, I have to say that this is exactly the ridiculous
| self-caricature perspective that gives foreign nationals a
| sort of combination of pity and contempt for the average US
| citizen.
|
| While it's true that your cartoonish portrayal of freedom
| is one possible interpretation, there are most certainly
| others, many of which present citizens with actual
| measurable freedoms that they would _not_ enjoy in the US.
|
| For instance, Australians have, since the late 1990s, been
| relatively free of mass shootings, especially in schools or
| other public areas. Because the police are allowed to force
| you to take a random breathalyser test without probable
| cause, we are generally substantially freer of drunk
| driving. Because we have a social safety net, people are
| free from the need to opt out of life saving surgery
| because they fear the abject economic violence that the US
| visits upon the "uninsured".
|
| On the other hand, the US has substantially more sensible
| libel laws than most Commonwealth countries. These things
| can cut both ways, but it would be a mistake to interpret
| other countries as attempting a childish breath holding
| exercise just to differentiate themselves from the hip and
| cool nation.
| kvdveer wrote:
| "freedom from", you will not be given a prevention from
| some horrible disease. You can buy it if you can afford it,
| but a significant portion of the population can't, and some
| of them will not be able to enjoy life because of it.
|
| "freedom to", a prevention will be provided. You can always
| decide to take alternatives, if you can afford it. A
| significant portion of the population can't. They will be
| able to enjoy life.
|
| Equating freedom with the liberties the rich have is
| absurd. In any society, the rich will have the most
| freedom, even in the most oppressive ones. The true litmus
| test for freedom is seeing the freedoms the poor can enjoy.
| By that standard, the US doesn't score very well.
| jvm___ wrote:
| How free a country is can be determined by this question.
|
| Would you choose to be a randomly chosen citizen? You
| could be anyone in that country with all the rights,
| privileges - or lack thereof - that that random person
| has.
|
| I think I'd rather be a random Canadian with healthcare
| and education than a random American.
|
| It's an interesting thought experiment.
| karparov wrote:
| As a random US citizen, chances are high though that you
| voted Trump and are ok with all this nonsense. So, should
| be ok?
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Fortunately for everyone, even some of the people who
| voted for trump are having second thoughts now they are
| living it.
| immibis wrote:
| Only a few. American Republican voters consistently show
| a pattern of not regretting their vote because bad things
| happen to other people, but _only_ because bad things
| happen to themselves.
| sambeau wrote:
| I like to take it one step further.
|
| _Which country would you choose if you had to be poor?_
|
| I'd probably choose Cuba.
| keiferski wrote:
| This is an actual thought experiment by John Rawls:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position
| j4coh wrote:
| Wouldn't the question better be "would you be happy with
| the freedoms of a random person" otherwise you're
| including all kinds of other factors?
| karparov wrote:
| As a European who has lived in both countries I can only
| laugh at this. From our perspective, US and Canada are 99%
| identical, culturally.
| swat535 wrote:
| It doesn't appear to be that way. If that 1% difference
| lies in how each country _fundamentally_ defines freedom,
| then I'd argue that's more than enough to say Americans
| and Canadians are not alike. When the core values differ
| at such a foundational level, the rest of the cultural
| similarities become irrelevant.
| usrusr wrote:
| Not when it comes to religion though: the European way (and I
| feel very much like considering Canadians something like
| honorary Europeans these days) was forged in painful wars
| stemming from and fueled by influence of religion on
| politics, and abuse of religion by politics. Both on the
| collective level, not so much on the individual level. The
| European way is all about having a strong firewall between
| religion and politics, to keep the former out of the later.
| Freedom from.
|
| The American way is completely devoid of that concept. It's
| all built on that Pilgrim Fathers founding myth and only ever
| cares about keeping the state from getting in the way of
| individual beliefs. It's so focused on that part and only
| that part that even an almost-all-out theocracy would be fine
| as long as it did not mess with individual beliefs. "Freedom
| to" without the tiniest trace of "freedom from".
| Y_Y wrote:
| > The European way is all about having a strong firewall
| between religion and politics
|
| I find this quite contrary to my experience of e.g. modern
| Germany, Spain, Poland, Italy where many politicians are
| explicitly religious, laws are written with majority
| religious affiliation in mind, religious taxes may still be
| levied. Even France still feels in many ways like a
| "catholic country", even if they do have good explicit
| separation of church and state.
|
| I would have said that government and (Christian) religion
| are completely inextricable for most Europeans, even if the
| majority of the population isn't seriously devout or even
| practicing.
| usrusr wrote:
| Things like church taxes handled by the state in Germany
| (entirely opt-in, even when it's effectively opt-out for
| individuals opted in by their parents) have the opposite
| effect though, they make the churches boring institutions
| (except for the occasional child abuse wtf that haunts
| them just like any other church) far from any
| radicalization.
|
| When you dig deeper in Germany it gets surprisingly
| murky, e.g. bishops not paid out of those church taxes
| but out of regular state taxes, e.g. those paid by
| atheists and Muslims, which dates back to Napoleonic age
| secularization when those payments were introduced as a
| (meager) compensation for the enormous income the
| (catholic) church had from being worldly lords of
| enormous realms. But this as well contribute to keeping
| the churches out of politics. They know pretty well what
| is their place and what isn't.
| Ruphin wrote:
| This is factually incorrect. Even though in most European
| countries there is a formal separation of religion and
| state, there is nothing that "forbids" any political party
| from having a strong religious affiliation. In fact, in
| nearly every European country there are major political
| parties with a strong Christian affiliation. See:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_democracy
|
| There are even countries which have political parties that
| are Islamic affiliated.
|
| The separation between religion and state refers to two
| things: the state not being able to enforce any religious
| aspects on citizens (freedom TO exercise any religion
| without interference from government), and religious
| entities not being able to influence or pressure the
| government outside the electoral process (freedom TO govern
| without interference from religious entities). Neither of
| these things prevents a political party founded on
| religious beliefs to participate in the electoral process.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Parent never said that political parties were forbidden
| from having a religious affiliation. Yet, the 'Christian'
| in European 'Christian democracy' is not remotely
| comparable to the role of religion in the society of the
| USA.
|
| The USA is overtly and intentionally Christian: American
| banknotes have "In God We Trust" emblazoned on one side,
| and schoolchildren (usually) recite an oath pledging
| allegiance to "one nation under God". Christian
| democracy, on the other hand, usually stands for a
| loosely defined, mildly conservative political ideology
| in a strictly secular system of governance.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > Putting fluoride in water promotes freedom.
|
| I rather define freedom by the government not deciding what's
| good for me
| aetimmes wrote:
| You're free to get your water straight from the ground, then.
| karparov wrote:
| Or just not consume any water.
| zo1 wrote:
| Are we also "free" to not pay "voluntary" taxes then? We
| have to understand that we're N-levels deep into this
| spaghetti mess, and as a consequence of that it's very hard
| to argue anything from first-principles or absolutes.
| espadrine wrote:
| > _I rather define freedom by the government not deciding
| what 's good for me_
|
| Does that mean you are against this bill?
|
| Before the bill, your community could either use your own
| water system, without fluoride, or use the wider system,
| which has fluoride.
|
| After this bill, your community no longer can use your own
| water system with fluoride, and the wider system also does
| not have fluoride.
|
| On a first read, this bill makes the government remove a
| choice for you, deciding what is good for you.
|
| (I don't have a horse in this race honestly. Assuming
| everyone can get toothpaste and toothbrushes, the effect is
| the same. But the wording of the bill is strange: "may not
| add fluoride" rather than just "is allowed not to add".)
|
| Source: https://archive.is/Nustz
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| "Your community could decide" is not freedom in the
| American political sense. In US political theory, the unit
| of freedom is the individual, full stop.
| nulbyte wrote:
| I've seen this retort elsewhere. It's not true. It's why
| corporations are persons with first amendment and other
| freedoms.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Corporations are not actually persons. You should read
| the _Citizens United_ opinion if that 's what you think
| it meant.
|
| Corporate owners are people engaging in voluntary
| transactions. Their freedom was essentially the question
| in _Citizens United_. "Corporations are people" emerged
| from the media as an oversimplified version.
| thfuran wrote:
| They are not natural persons, but they are juridical
| persons and were so before Citizens United.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Exactly this. But remember that "legal personhood"
| basically just means "able to enter contracts" and does
| not imply any sort of human rights or humanity. It does
| not mean anything like what "personhood" normally means.
|
| This has also been the case for the _entire_ history of
| corporations, which is longer than the history of the US.
| nerdponx wrote:
| How is fluoridating water better than giving out free
| toothpaste and toothbrushes? Has the latter been tried?
|
| "Not keeping people trapped in poverty" would be nice too but
| for some reason that one seems off the table.
| thordenmark wrote:
| We've been trying for the history of mankind to figure out
| how to "not keep people trapped in poverty". No one has
| solved that problem yet, despite the best of intentions with
| monumental effort. I'll agree with Milton Friedman on this,
| Capitalism, as bad as it is, has been the most successful
| system to alleviate poverty.
| nerdponx wrote:
| This is getting wildly off topic, but I firmly believe that
| "we tried everything and free market capitalism is the best
| we have" is a myth.
|
| It's incontrovertible that, under certain conditions, an
| unrestricted price system (a "market") is the most
| efficient allocation mechanism possible. There's a lot of
| research on that kind of thing.
|
| The myth is that we have ever tried anything resembling
| that on a nationwide scale, or maybe even that it is
| achievable at all. There is a fundamental "paradox of
| tolerance" in economics, where market participants have
| strong and persistent incentives to distort or damage the
| market. This is why business interests so often align with
| free-market liberalism or conservatism.
|
| Most of the so-called deregulation under the current Trump
| administration for example as little to do with improving
| the efficiency of market allocation. It's much more about
| making sure very large and powerful corporations can get
| even larger and more powerful, and removing the regulatory
| apparatus to prevent them from distorting and damaging
| markets to suppress competition, or to suppress labor
| costs.
| aikinai wrote:
| This started out as an interesting and fair take until
| "...enough to supplant it". Freedom from the government is the
| original vision and one of the core principles of America
| assuming that anybody that wants smaller government just wants
| to supplant it is a massive misunderstanding of most Americans
| today and certainly the founding principles.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| We can read this country's founding philosophy directly:
|
| We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
| created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
| certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
| Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.-- _That to secure these
| rights, Governments are instituted among Men_ , deriving
| their just powers from the consent of the governed,--That
| whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these
| ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
| it, and to institute new Government, _laying its foundation
| on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as
| to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
| Happiness_. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments
| long established should not be changed for light and
| transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn,
| that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
| sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms
| to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses
| and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces
| a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their
| right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and
| _to provide new Guards for their future security_.
|
| It's not freedom from government but freedom from tyranny.
| They believed that governments existed to promote the
| protection of rights.
| aikinai wrote:
| Yeah, that's just the start.
|
| "The powers not delegated to the United States by the
| Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are
| reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
|
| This demonstrates an intentional effort by the founders to
| strictly limit federal authority by explicitly enumerating
| government powers and leaving everything else beyond
| federal reach. It underscores that their conception of
| freedom involved a government that was deliberately
| restrained, designed primarily to safeguard individual
| liberties by minimizing governmental interference, rather
| than merely protecting from outright tyranny.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| They were anti tyranny. Governments tend to be
| tyrannical, but they weren't against governments, they
| were against tyranny.
|
| Timothy Snyder is the modern embodiment of founding
| father ideology/enlightenment philosophy and my original
| post was almost directly lifted from his talks/books.
|
| Yes they may have been in favor of small government, but
| we have the tyranny of corporate power now. When
| healthcare is tied to a job, women are working instead of
| doing child care, the combined wages are not
| enough/barely enough to afford rent and necessities, and
| there are no savings for emergencies, that leads to the
| tyranny of business and wage slavery.
|
| It leads to individuals without the means to withdrawal
| consent from a tyrannical government. It structurally
| disables acts of disobedience. Jefferson said rebellion
| unto _tyranny_ is obedience to god, not rebellion unto
| governments. They were not subject to the levels of
| concentrated corporate power that grew out of
| industrialization. Robber Barrons were also tyrants who
| acted tyrannically.
|
| There's probably something to be said about self reliance
| and protestant work ethic which can result in obedient
| workers willing to work under poor conditions for
| cultural reasons, but thinking that government is the
| only entity capable of unchecked power when we have
| businesses with a higher revenue than some entire
| countries/states shows a dogmatic chasing of a
| justification for a belief, rather than following the
| principles towards an assessment the principles
| themselves would lead to. It's a kind of originalism. The
| appearance of their beliefs, but not the substance of
| them.
|
| A republic... If we can keep it.
|
| Well good luck keeping it if the average citizen is too
| weak to project any kind of political power. Good luck
| having strong citizens (or a cohesive society) without
| strong social programs like public education.
|
| > rather than merely protecting from outright tyranny.
|
| Enlightenment ideology at it's core, the very central
| point of it, which our documents were written into
| respect to, says you give up some rights in order to have
| other rights protected [from tyranny]. That is why man
| leaves the state of nature... Greater protection from
| tyranny.
|
| The constitution was a document meant to be adapted. The
| goal of the implementation is plainly stated:
|
| We the People of the United States, in Order to form a
| more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic
| Tranquility, provide for the common defence, _promote the
| general Welfare_ , and secure the Blessings of Liberty to
| ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
| Constitution for the United States of America.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| No, it's very accurate about republicans today. "Supplant"
| might be the wrong word: traditionally the saying is "drown
| it in a bathtub".
| concordDance wrote:
| The UK government is really big on doing things for our own
| good, but they don't seem to do much water flouridation. Which
| I think is some evidence that it's not a clearcut health
| benefit.
| chrz wrote:
| Uk is one of the unhealthiest countries
| wfme wrote:
| UK: 34th
|
| USA: 69th
|
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-
| rankings/healthies...
| throwaway519 wrote:
| Exactly the opposite.
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-and-
| care-b...
|
| > We believe that water fluoridation is the single most
| effective public health measure there is for reducing oral
| health inequalities and tooth decay rates, especially amongst
| children. We welcome these proposals and believe they
| represent an opportunity to take a big step forward in not
| only improving this generation's oral health, but those for
| decades to come.
| concordDance wrote:
| Do they do much floridation though?
| karparov wrote:
| It's also restricting the freedom of communities if you ban
| them from adding fluoride to their water if they like to.
|
| This ban is anti-freedom. (Just like forcing them could be
| argued to be, even though that's what you argued against.)
|
| So, this ban is arguably reducing freedoms on multiple levels.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| In the political philosophy of the US, the unit whose
| freedoms matter is the individual, not the community.
| Freedoms for individuals necessarily come from reducing the
| freedom of "the community."
| regularjack wrote:
| AKA as the spoiled brat kind of freedom.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| In reality though, the freedom of the companies, which is
| just the freedom of the super rich ~100 - 1000 people
| (proxied via companies without taking direct
| responsibility: The sacred duty of company is to maximize
| shareholder returns!)
|
| 10,000 food additives that are banned in Europe are
| perfectly fine in US.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-food-additives-banned-
| europe...
|
| https://isitclean.org/the-ingredients-banned-in-the-eu-
| but-l...
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| But, taking the individual freedom argument to its ultimate
| implications, the Free individual is also Free to not drink
| tap water in a community that decided to add fluoride to
| their water supply, and is also Free to move to a community
| that decided against it.
| kebman wrote:
| It's not a "freedom" to be forced to move away from a
| community just because you want pure water. Moral
| philosophy: A democracy should not act as the tyranny of
| the majority, and governments (local or otherwise) should
| not overreach their mandate with monopolistic policies
| that negatively affect individual freedoms.
|
| Use the same argument on air and it falls apart. "The
| Free individual is also Free to not breathe air in a
| community that decided to add lead to their air supply."
| This was a big debate in the 70's btw due to car
| emissions.
| thfuran wrote:
| >A democracy should not act as the tyranny of the
| majority, and governments (local or otherwise) should not
| overreach their mandate with monopolistic policies that
| negatively affect individual freedoms.
|
| Then it shouldn't ban fluoridation when it could instead
| simply not mandate it.
| swasheck wrote:
| the point was good until you tried to compare it to lead
| in the air. there are a few factors that make it
| impossible to use the same argument between lead in the
| air and fluoride in the water
| swasheck wrote:
| yes, and i think that's a pretty recent reading of the US
| comprehension of freedom. my sense is that the collective
| individualistic tendencies have ballooned.
|
| even as recently as the early 90s, my civics classes
| emphasized the importance of other people's rights and that
| of the expression of your individual rights infringed on
| the rights of others then it was an irresponsible and
| improper use of individual rights.
|
| it seems like this has devolved into people whose
| perspective on individual rights loosely aligns enough to
| coalesce and shout the loudest to create policy. until
| someone in the in-group's individual freedom is impacted
| and the group fractures into smaller coalitions. rinse.
| lather. repeat.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| I disagree with you that this is a recent idea. It goes
| back to Locke, Hobbes, and the social contract theorists.
| The "collective freedoms" idea is more recent, if
| anything, coming from the subsequent generation of
| philosophers.
| swasheck wrote:
| i can agree with the theory behind what you're saying,
| but also sense that the practical application of
| individual freedoms has become increasingly prevalent and
| acute
| maxerickson wrote:
| Why are the remaining individuals in the community forced
| to include your individual in their decisions?
|
| (I'm not being serious, I'm pointing out that you may not
| have found your first principle just yet)
| kebman wrote:
| Personal freedom [?] "freedom of communities"--there is no
| such thing. Freedom applies to individuals, not collectives.
| When a community makes a decision that affects all its
| members, that's democracy, but democracy is not unlimited
| authority. A majority vote does not grant the right to
| infringe on individual autonomy, which is why safeguards
| exist against the tyranny of the majority.
|
| Banning fluoride does not restrict freedom--it prevents
| government overreach. In contrast, forcing fluoride on
| everyone would violate personal autonomy. Protecting
| individual choice is a fundamental principle, backed by real-
| world safeguards like constitutional rights, judicial review,
| and bodily autonomy laws. The burden of proof is always on
| those seeking to impose a policy, not on those defending
| individual freedom.
| alistairSH wrote:
| But nobody is forced to drink municipal water. You can go
| to the grocery and pallets of gallon jugs if you prefer.
| kebman wrote:
| Then the community is exactly _forcing_ people to seek
| other, and way more expensive and way more inconvenient,
| sources of water. That 's the opposite of a freedom.
| nulbyte wrote:
| Why is the city required to provide water in the first
| place?
| mystraline wrote:
| Please go away, libertarian troll.
|
| Really? 'Why is the government providing potable water'?
| Because that's the point of governments: to provide a
| framework and the bare essentials of civilization.
|
| And well, libertarian led governments are TERRIBLE.
|
| https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-
| int...
| foldr wrote:
| I think they're saying that the logical conclusion of
| kebman's libertarian line of argument is that no-one is
| entitled to municipal water anyway, so it is moot whether
| or not municipal authorities decide to add a particular
| substance to the water or not. After all, if you trace
| things back far enough, the municipal water supply
| depends on the government 'forcing' lots of people to do
| things (such as paying taxes and following various
| regulations).
|
| The whole argument gets weirdly metaphysical. Not many
| people have a problem with local authorities _removing_
| things from the water. That is, I don 't see many
| Americans demanding that their local authority provide
| them with completely untreated water. But apparently
| modifying the water by _adding_ something to it is
| importantly different. You 'd think that a more
| interesting discussion would be a practical one (about
| the pros of cons of treating water in different ways).
| But a certain current of American discourse would rather
| return again and again to essentially theological
| arguments. We must locate the original sin against
| freedom in our local water infrastructure!
| beeflet wrote:
| The opposite is true. If there was no municipal water
| supply, then you would in theory have a freer market
| where there would be multiple suppliers and consumers
| could theoretically make this decision themselves-
| assuming it doesn't result in a natural monopoly.
|
| Because there is a government monopoly on water, you need
| these protections to prevent government overreach,
| because this is the only way for the consumer to express
| their preferences.
| foldr wrote:
| Some people would prefer there to be fluoride added to
| the water and some people would prefer there not to be.
| There's one set of pipes (in a given municipality), so
| you can't please everyone. You might as well complain
| that the government doesn't offer you a choice of voltage
| or frequency for your electrical supply.
|
| Looking around the thread, the idea seems to be that
| there is some kind of important metaphysical distinction
| between the government "adding" something to the water
| that people could in principle add themselves or merely
| "filtering out" bad stuff like pathogens -- and that this
| metaphysical distinction is somehow linked to the
| difference between positive and negative liberties. As an
| aside, I think this probably makes no sense on a chemical
| level, as you generally can't remove stuff without also
| adding something else. But in any case, this strikes me
| as a uniquely American perspective. I think a more common
| perspective is the following:
|
| * Essentially no-one wants raw untreated water supplied
| to their homes.
|
| * The local government therefore needs to decide in which
| ways the water is going to be treated.
|
| * This has to involve some compromises (because there's
| one set of pipes).
|
| * These compromises are boring practical issues of
| municipal infrastructure and have no interesting
| philosophical or political implications.
| mystraline wrote:
| > I think they're saying that the logical conclusion of
| kebman's libertarian line of argument is that no-one is
| entitled to municipal water anyway
|
| Oh, I very much understand the libertarian 'argument',
| and I dismiss it as childish anarcho-primativist
| horseshit.
|
| Almost all (aside the rare Lefty libertarian types)
| libertarians utterly leave out the fact that helping each
| other and coming together collectively can fix problems
| in what amounts exponentiation, compared to the
| collective action problem of individualism.
|
| If everyone generated their own power, then grids would
| be mismatched and slow everyone down.
|
| If water grids were individual wells, we would tap out
| natural aquifers in short notice. By collectively coming
| together, desalination plants and mass water purification
| is doable.
|
| Libertarian types will demand absolute indepenendence for
| everything, but also want the spoils of a framework of
| governance. But even when they get their own community,
| as I linked, they so overwhelmingly fucked it up.
|
| Communism is a better idea than rugged right-wing
| libertarianism (the common one in the USA). Turns out,
| none of the richies want to pay for anything.
| alistairSH wrote:
| But adding fluoride WAS everybody coming together to
| solve a problem (poor dental health). We could have a
| reasonable argument about whether or not fluorine in the
| water continues to serve that goal. Instead we've got
| this weird quasi-debate about types of freedoms.
| nulbyte wrote:
| > Freedom applies to individuals, not collectives.
|
| In the US, it most certainly does. We have freedom to
| associate, and associations also have freedoms. Were it not
| so, we wouldn't have even been able to arrive at the
| conclusion we have with regard to corporate money in
| politics.
| bavell wrote:
| I heard they were going to mandate seatbelts next! Where are
| our freedoms?!?!?
| ryandrake wrote:
| You joke, but a lot of these freedom-rah-rah-rah people
| absolutely cried like babies and resisted seatbelt laws
| back in the 80s and 90s, too. Half my family believed it
| was evidence a communist takeover, and they all had those
| little defeat devices that you plugged into the latch,
| which silenced the car's seatbelt-off indicator.
|
| "You can't tell me what to do" has been a religion in the
| USA for a long, long time.
| gruez wrote:
| >This ban is anti-freedom. (Just like forcing them could be
| argued to be, even though that's what you argued against.)
|
| By that logic is the first amendment "anti-freedom", because
| it prevents communities from instituting censorship laws,
| even if they actually want them?
| kleiba wrote:
| I lived in Germany for a while. There, the water that comes out
| of your tab doesn't get fluorized. Instead, they add fluoride
| to tooth paste.
|
| So, is Germany less free or more free?
| Xelynega wrote:
| I think you missed the point of "positive" versus "negative"
| freedoms.
|
| They have more of one, less of the other.
| kleiba wrote:
| Sorry if you read my post as snarky - I don't think I
| missed that point, I meant the question at the end more as
| food for thought.
|
| The OP contrasts adding fluroide to water vs. not adding
| fluoride to water and brings up the freedom question. I
| find that very interesting. But he omits that there's also
| the variant I sketched, namely that fluoride could _still_
| be made available to the population, but not through water.
|
| Now, how does this factoid relate to the freedom (positive
| or negative) question?
|
| So, please don't read my post as negative, my intent was to
| bring an additional perspective to the table.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| America has that too so it's irrelevant to the question?
| hanspeter wrote:
| While they don't add fluoride, the natural levels in German
| tap water can reach 0.3 mg/L. Compared to the US recommended
| level of 0.7 mg/L in fluoridated water, that's not an
| insignificant amount.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _So, is Germany less free or more free?_
|
| Can communities choose to fluoridate their water at the
| utility level or are they banned from doing so by legislation
| like they are in Utah?
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Federal limit is 1.5 mg/l. All water suppliers have to
| regularly chemically/biologically analyse their water and
| publish fairly detailed reports. Example:
| https://www.bwb.de/de/assets/downloads/analysewerte-
| wasserwe... Some states add extra reporting requirements.
| starspangled wrote:
| Can communities choose to permit murder or ban people of
| certain races? Is America not free because they cannot
| choose to vote for a government that would prohibit women
| from voting or jail people for expressing political
| opinions?
|
| You're using an extreme definition of freedom that I
| suspect is not quite the trump card you think it is. No,
| "communities" can't just do whatever they want because they
| "choose" to, and nobody ouside the lunatic fringe thinks
| that's a prerequisite for freedom.
| atesti wrote:
| Isn't it also added to salt?
| krisoft wrote:
| Isn't that iodine and not fluoride?
| maxnoe wrote:
| Both. You get untreated, just with iodine and iodine +
| fluoride.
|
| https://www.bad-
| reichenhaller.de/de/produkte/alpensalze/alpe...
| jahnu wrote:
| Well said. Being poor charges interest.
| bambax wrote:
| This is the same reasonning with vaccine (only worse because
| you can die faster from not being vaccinated than from cavities
| -- although in some cases they can be lethal too).
|
| People who want to be free from government interference should
| be prevented from using public roads, or public infrastructure
| of any kind. Want to mail something? Hire a courrier to deliver
| it for you. Etc.
| tonis2 wrote:
| I should pay 0 taxes then too
| ryandrake wrote:
| Sure, go ahead, no taxes! But along with OP's rules against
| using public roads, or public infrastructure: You also
| can't use the public's air, because regulation keeps it
| clean. You can't eat at any restaurants, because the
| government regulates them and make sure they are serving
| safe food. No access to medicine, either, for the same
| reason. No airline travel, which is heavily regulated and
| safe, No working for any company subject to OSHA and other
| workplace safety regulations. No calling the police or fire
| department if you need help. Just you in your homestead in
| the woods--oh, and if someone robs your homestead, you
| don't have access to the courts to get your money back,
| either, money that you can't use anyway because it's issued
| by the government.
|
| No taxes in exchange for you not benefiting from anything
| taxpayer-funded. How does that libertarian paradise sound?
| lionkor wrote:
| How many Americans consume enough tap water for this to be
| beneficial?
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| About 60% of bottled water in the US is sourced from
| municipal tap water systems:
|
| https://www.nyruralwater.org/news/study-shows-
| nearly-64-bott...
| freeone3000 wrote:
| 74.6% of Americans get fluoridated tap water;
| https://jada.ada.org/article/S0002-8177(24)00204-6/fulltext
| shows that even _with_ instructions to brush and floss and
| instructions to use it, water flouridation reduces cavities
| in a community by at least 20%.
| foldr wrote:
| That's a very American perspective (which is fine, given that
| we are talking about America). Most countries would view this
| as a non-partisan public health policy issue which has nothing
| to do with the abstract philosophical debates about freedom
| beloved of 90s internet libertarians.
| brigandish wrote:
| Isaiah Berlin wrote about the two concepts of liberty[0] in
| 1958 and the constitution of the US is based on negative
| liberty, so it goes back a bit further than the 90s.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Concepts_of_Liberty
| foldr wrote:
| I'm aware of the history (I said "beloved of", not
| "invented by"). My point is that it's idiosyncratically
| American to think of decisions about municipal water
| treatment as being fundamentally questions of political
| liberty.
| basisword wrote:
| >> fluoridation in water some people are less sick and have
| more money and therefore are more free
|
| This is the real problem. That dental care, or any medical
| care, is costly.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| But you will brush your teeth anyway, and then you apply
| fluoride topically. It works.
|
| Here in Sweden we decided against fluoride for this reason and
| the fact that it is in fact toxic. It isn't sensible to use
| systemic exposure when we can use topical exposure and can
| improve mouth health by education, so that people do what
| they're supposed to.
|
| The fluoride approach achieves a basic level of health, but you
| can do so much better.
| bell-cot wrote:
| > But you will brush your teeth anyway, and then you apply
| fluoride topically. It works.
|
| Relatively few of the poor have the disposable income, time,
| education, and long-term worldview needed to reliably do
| that.
|
| EDIT: This comment is about America's poor. Though the same
| applies in much of the world.
| NomDePlum wrote:
| I agree with this in an American context. In Sweden, it
| will be much less true. This difference can also however be
| attributed to government "interference" with higher
| taxation supporting better social care for those at the
| poorer end of the scale.
|
| Freedom comes at a cost, the US and Sweden are paying that
| cost in different ways.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| Your GDP per capita is 50% higher than ours. You have money
| for this.
|
| If there's no will to raise up the poor, you it should be
| straightforward to use the state directly to ensure that
| everyone is taught how to brush their teeth and ensured to
| have access to brushes and toothpaste.
| stavros wrote:
| I agree with you, but GDP per capita isn't the correct
| measure here when the bottom 8% in the US has no health
| insurance compared to Sweden's 0%, which I have to assume
| because I didn't even find this measured anywhere due to
| universal healthcare.
| 7bit wrote:
| It's a systemic issue that can be solved with one
| unanimous vote in Congress, that will NEVER happen in the
| foreseeable future.
| stavros wrote:
| That's because Americans believe that poor people are
| poor because they just didn't care enough to be rich.
|
| This might have been true 200 years ago, when there was a
| whole unexplored continent to exploit, but it's less true
| now.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Poor people are voting for policies that directly harm
| them because they don't want _other_ poor people and the
| "illegals" to benefit.
| stavros wrote:
| I think that's the same mentality, "yes I'm poor now, but
| I'll get the break I deserve soon enough, and I don't
| want all these undesirables to benefit when I do".
| zenolijo wrote:
| While Sweden has free health care, it does not completely
| include dental care. It's free until you turn 20, after
| that you pay out of your own pocket. This is to
| incentivize people to take care of their teeth, instead
| of not caring and then expecting free replacement of your
| teeth. One you're 20, you only get a very tiny deductible
| on your dental care which equates to almost the exactly
| the cost of a single basic check-up once a year.
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| It may not completely include dental, but poor teeth
| health shortens your life span and they cover that at
| least.
| fireflash38 wrote:
| Welcome to the USA, where using the stare to help with
| dental care would be communism, or socialism, or big
| government, or violations of freedoms.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| > Here in Sweden we decided against fluoride for this reason
| and the fact that it is in fact toxic.
|
| How?
|
| Please don't express that it damages development. That's
| trivially refutable by statistics. We can compare Canada's
| and UK's IQs for example, or some other proxy to the G
| factor, said countries were chosen for their similar cultural
| demographics, we find then that the metrics are mostly
| identical, while the difference in consumption of fluoride is
| staggering.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP14534 is one
| study. We did earlier studies in the 50s when we made the
| decision to only use fluoride orally.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| doesn't discuss any confounding variables that may also
| correlate with the use/disuse of flouride.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| So anyone willing to tell me how this constitutes a low
| quality comment that warrants this reception?
| imacomputertoo wrote:
| Fluoride is not "in fact toxic". A substance becomes toxic in
| high amounts. Vitamin D becomes toxic in high amounts. The
| level of fluoride in drinking water is well below the toxic
| level.
| logicchains wrote:
| Fluoride exposure beyond a small amount has a statistically
| significant effect on childhood IQ: https://jamanetwork.com
| /journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
| impossiblefork wrote:
| I really don't agree with that Paracelsian view. Some
| substances are Paracelsian, other are like lead, and I'd
| place fluorides in-between these two, a neither fully
| Paracelsian or non-Paracelsian poison.
| zouhair wrote:
| Just an FYI, water is also toxic.
| belter wrote:
| Indeed: "Water Intoxication" -
| https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/water-
| intoxic...
| abrookewood wrote:
| There was an infamous death in Australia when a young
| girl drank too much water after taking MDMA. It's blamed
| on the drug, but the thing that actually killed her was
| water intoxication:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Wood_(born_1980)
| mongol wrote:
| It happened to a Swedish girl too. Not sure if it was
| after taking MDMA but it was after drug use.
| abrookewood wrote:
| Yes, I was going to mention this. Had a friend who went
| down the coast for a day trip with a bunch of mates. On the
| way back on the train (1.5 hour ride) they had a
| competition to see who could drink the most water and most
| of them had several litres, a few of them managed a bit
| more. My mate also had a bunch of chips/snacks, but not
| everyone did.
|
| Later that night, he got a desperate phone from his friends
| mum, screaming at him "What did you take! What drugs did
| you take!!!", he replied that they hadn't taken anything,
| but wasn't really believed. His friend was rushed to
| hospital with severe seizures and convulsions. The doctors
| eventually put him on a saline drip and he recovered.
|
| Basically his friend lowered the salt content in his body
| so much that his body could not pass electrical signals. My
| friend was fine because he had consumed a bit of salt in
| his snacks. Kinda crazy.
| prox wrote:
| Is this why after a day on the beach you want both drinks
| and salty snacks?
| iamacyborg wrote:
| It's why electrolyte drinks are a thing for sports.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| You know what has electrolytes?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Three DJs and 7 other employees got fired for running a
| contest where whoever could hold their pee for the
| longest after drinking too much water would win a prize
| and someone died.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna16660273
| roywashere wrote:
| Somewhat related, as a teen in the 90s I worked at McDonald's
| in The Netherlands. Because of the diet in the US, the bread
| used for hamburgers contained extra calcium to be more
| 'healthy', because many people did not get enough calcium
| intake. In The Netherlands, where people drink much more
| dairy products, especially back in the 90s, people would get
| plenty of calcium so there was no need to put extra in the
| bread. But because a hamburger should be a hamburger no
| matter where you buy it worldwide, the Dutch McDonald's
| hamburger bread still had the added calcium
| theGnuMe wrote:
| You have to drink 32 ounces of milk per day to get enough
| daily calcium.
| meetingthrower wrote:
| They drink A LOT of milk! I went to a business meeting in
| the Netherlands and the cafeteria had buttermilk machine
| on tap like an elementary school in the US. They set the
| meeting table with pitchers of milk and buttermilk. And
| breakfast / lunch always has cheese.
| jjice wrote:
| I was surprised when I realized that milk didn't have
| that much calcium by volume, relative to how it was
| promoted to me as a kid.
|
| I found that almond milk had a good bit more by volume
| and the US dairy industry probably just had some good
| marketing in the 2000s with the Got Milk campaign.
| ryao wrote:
| Too much calcium is a bad thing. I had enormous amounts
| of milk as a child, a multivitamin containing calcium and
| a calcium supplement. I probably had 2 to 3 people's
| recommended daily amount of calcium per day. Now as an
| adult, the calcium is in my muscles and it occasionally
| causes me to feel like my arm has been dislocated from my
| socket for days whenever there is a flare up. Moving my
| arm during a flare up makes it worse. It occurs in my
| dominant arm and the pain is so bad that during flare
| ups, I sometimes contemplate amputation. There is no cure
| for this condition. The "get enough calcium" stuff really
| backfired in my case since I clearly overdosed on calcium
| because of it. On the bright side, I have excellent bone
| health.
| kebman wrote:
| For the rest of the world: 32 ounces is almost one litre
| of milk.
| jeltz wrote:
| Which is also happens to be the average daily milk
| consumption in the Netherlands. They drink 340 kg per
| year on average which is 33 oz per day. And people used
| to drink more milk back then.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| That's assuming you don't eat or drink anything else
| containing calcium, which is silly.
| bluedino wrote:
| It has a lot of calories and other things in it. If you
| don't have access to a lot of food, milk supplements well
| graemep wrote:
| In the UK at least some areas have fluoridated water, despite
| almost all toothpaste being fluoridated. I suppose it most
| benefits the minority of people who do not brush their teeth.
| That benefit has to be balanced[1] against some evidence of
| risk.
|
| IMO the right fix is better dental hygiene, and a better
| (less sugary) diet. These are in turn are in part symptomatic
| of other problems (poverty, long working hours with regards
| to lack of supervision of children).
|
| [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/water-
| fluoridatio...
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Good link.
|
| There a really unfortunate use of "significant" in that
| document. The scientific meaning and the general meaning
| will cause very different interpretations from laymen.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" Here in Sweden we decided against fluoride for this reason
| and the fact that it is in fact toxic."_
|
| All water collected from natural sources contains some level
| of fluoride and other salts (which varies greatly from place
| to place). Does then your local water authority remove these
| naturally-acquired chemicals?
| impossiblefork wrote:
| Generally not, but we choose where we take our from water
| from.
|
| If there's too much fluoride in the rock water we take soil
| or surface water instead, for example. If there's too much
| fluoride in the water we do not supply it to people's taps,
| but this is for values like 4 mg/L.
|
| So we mostly don't take any measures. In Stockholm it's
| apparently less than 0.2 mg/L though.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| Is 0.2 mg/L the upper limit in Stockholm?
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Water is also toxic.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Fluoridated water, enriched flour, iodized salt, vaccines, etc.
| are why we don't see diseases and conditions that plagued us in
| the past and continue to plague people in places without these
| measures.
|
| Fluoridated water is the reason I've never had a cavity despite
| growing up poor with a terrible diet, dental hygiene and care.
| manmal wrote:
| > Fluoridated water is the reason I've never had a cavity
| despite growing up poor with a terrible diet, dental hygiene
| and care.
|
| I don't follow the leap here. You could just be blessed with
| a good oral microbiome, proper calcium, D3 (sunlight
| exposure?), K2 etc.
|
| Going by your logic, there should be no dentists in the US.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Enriched flour is another good example that I was hoping
| someone would mention*.
|
| It's worth noting that it's also slightly different in that
| processed flour is deficient in thiamin and calcium, so the
| fortification _adds back_ these nutrients.
|
| On the other hand, processing water to make it potable
| doesn't remove fluoride and so fluoridation is _not_ the
| process of adding back something that was there beforehand.
|
| *I searched this page and found _flouride_ and _flouridation_
| four times before your comment.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I've seen the enriched flour brought up a few times in this
| thread, and not with the important caveat: This is a poor
| substitute for the micronutrients that occur naturally in the
| bran and endosperm; parts of the grain that we've been
| stripping out for dubious reasons or 50-100 years. (In ~100%
| of restaurant and bakery food; ~90% of grocery food)
| ost-ing wrote:
| Rather than taking choice away, we should be educating people
| on what the best choice is and letting them make it themselves.
|
| Brush your teeth in the morning and in the evening. Standard
| dental hygiene - If a person can be an obedient worker they can
| probably brush their teeth twice a day. If they cant, they have
| bigger problems to sort out.
| rusk wrote:
| This is a fair point, and in modern times, where we have good
| public health education it makes more sense to take this
| approach.
|
| However this comes with the weighty caveat that there are
| public groups that actively agitate against public health
| campaigns.
|
| On balance I think defluoridation makes sense where you have
| good public health communication.
| NomDePlum wrote:
| Is that not just a passive form of putting fluoride in the
| water though? Government is still spending money but without
| the desired outcome of having a healthier fitter population.
| ericb wrote:
| > educating people on what the best choice is and letting
| them make it themselves.
|
| If we go that way, we should have some sort of Department, to
| make sure Of the Education being consistent.
| baxuz wrote:
| That is not a very good reason. An absurd version of that would
| be putting antibiotics into the water because a lot of people
| don't have health insurance and can get infections.
| rusk wrote:
| Comparing Fluoride and Antibiotics is absurd. At least one of
| these things is supported by public health officials and
| isn't unequivocally stupid.
| gruez wrote:
| So if the Science(tm) said it was good to add antibiotics
| (reduces illness!) and anti-psychotics (reduces violence!)
| to the water supply, you'd be for it?
| rusk wrote:
| That's an even stupider comparison than the antibiotics
| one.
|
| Let's dismantle what you did here that you think is so
| clever.
|
| You took an absurd comparison of a tried and tested
| naturally occurring substance with a substance that
| public health professionals are trying to get us to use
| less of.
|
| You took that, and replaced it with an even more far-
| fetched and even more generalised hypothetical.
|
| At least, given your ignorance around antibiotics you
| _might_ be forgiven for thinking it would be a good thing
| to give antibiotics for all. I mean if it's good enough
| for your food supply it should be good enough for humans
| right? Ignore egg prices going through the roof cause
| your flock has no innate immune system.
|
| So then you replace that reasonable sounding but stupid
| supposition and you replace it with "a word" that you
| pulled out of the air that sounds like it might be a
| thing and then wowed us with your abuse of glyphs(tm)
|
| You are nothing but a depressing waste of time and
| whoever is putting you up to this I'd suggest you go back
| to them with your cap in hand and admit you're not up to
| it.
|
| I enjoyed that. Thanks for the run-out.
| gruez wrote:
| >You took an absurd comparison of a tried and tested
| naturally occurring substance
|
| It's ironic that you assert this, and then go on to claim
| that I'm ignorant, when you seem to be the ignorant one.
| Penicillin was originally derived from a mold and is one
| of the popular antibiotics out there, so it's arguably
| "tried and tested naturally occurring". The same is true
| of lithium.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_(medication)
|
| >with a substance that public health professionals are
| trying to get us to use less of.
|
| Under the hypothetical of "if the Science(tm) said it was
| good", this would not be a problem. If you can't
| understand how hypotheticals work, I suggest _you_ stop
| wasting my time.
| rusk wrote:
| You seem to be saying that because Lithium and Flouride
| are both naturally occurring minerals, that would make it
| okay to put Lithium in the water supply.
|
| Please go on, the sun is out and I'm enjoying this.
| gruez wrote:
| >You seem to be saying that because Lithium and Flouride
| are both naturally occurring minerals, that would make it
| okay to put Lithium in the water supply.
|
| 1. If you do a quick skim of the comment section, you'll
| find no shortage of people unironically making such
| argument.
|
| 2. It might _seem_ I 'm making such claim if you're
| rushed or have reading comprehension issues, but if you
| read my comments more carefully you'd see I'm not making
| no such claims, only posing it as a hypothetical.
| pembrook wrote:
| Always question whenever a highly educated and thoughtful (and
| likely wealthy) person like this commenter is telling you poor
| people are too stupid for their own good and can't make
| decisions for themselves.
|
| This is the definition of the principal-agent problem.
|
| Also, "positive freedom" is a hilarious rebranding of
| dictatorial decision making.
|
| Why not grant more "positive freedom" to the people by deciding
| exactly what these poor people should do for a living, how they
| should live, and how they should spend their money. The experts
| know best, after all.
|
| I'm not even particularly against fluoride in water, but this
| kind of reasoning is insidious. If the people have voted for
| representatives that are against it, we should follow the will
| of the people. This is the definition of democracy.
| logicchains wrote:
| Excessive fluoride exposure is associated with reduced
| childhood IQ:
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
| . Giving poor people (the ones who can't afford to drink
| bottles water or buy a fancy filter) means to moderate their
| fluoride intake this risk is creating lower-iq, more obedient
| workers.
| immibis wrote:
| The American view of "freedom" is all messed up. You're "free"
| if the government doesn't tell you to do stuff. Even if
| corporations make you do stuff, even if they make you do more
| stuff the government did, that's somehow "free". And "stuff"
| somehow only includes trivial things like water fluoridation.
| No freedom-loving American patriot ever said America isn't free
| because cops can just murder you if they don't like you.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| > The contrasting view is that putting fluoride in water is
| literally medicating people without their affirmative consent.
|
| Is that the contrasting view, or the contrasting view that is
| preferred, because it is more easily demolished?
|
| The stronger contrasting view isn't that the government is
| medicating people without their affirmative consent. It's that
| it's poisoning people, and no amount of consent by laymen to be
| poisoned would be acceptable.
| somenameforme wrote:
| I think his view is much stronger, since the _intent_ is
| obviously to medicate even if it may indeed be inadvertently
| poisoning people in practice. So it doesn 't assume one truth
| (poison or not) one way or the other, but still argues that
| it should be unlawful. While your view is much more narrow
| and suggests it should only be unlawful because it's
| poisoning people, which then begs the question of whether it
| is or not.
| audunw wrote:
| Fluoride occurs naturally in water, that's literally how we
| discovered the effects of fluoride. People in areas where
| water naturally contained more fluoride had less cavities.
|
| Anything, including water itself, is toxic (not poisonous,
| but I'm guessing you meant toxic, since fluoride is
| definitely not poisonous) in high enough doses. So you could
| say that about ANY mineral we may add to water to adjust its
| taste or health effects.
|
| I happen to think adding fluoride isn't worth the effort. But
| the hysteria against it is also really dumb.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| So then, you'd also be against adding folate/folic acid to
| bread for the same reason?
|
| For those who don't know many countries including the US
| mandate the inclusion of folic acid in bread and certain other
| foods to ensure pregnant women get enough. A deficiency of
| folic acid during pregnancy causes birth defects in infants.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folate
| aziaziazi wrote:
| I never heard of that supplement (not a father) and was very
| surprised to find 80 countries mandate it. I checked the list
| (below) and it turns out the 80 countries are a bunch of poor
| nations plus USA, UAE, Qatar, Canada and Australia. I guess
| our medicare system supports the EU mothers fine enough so we
| don't need to put that in the staple of food.
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5809909/ (Table 1)
| hilbert42 wrote:
| It would be interesting to know why EU countries chose not
| to mandate it. Also, I wonder if EU flour millers/producers
| add it voluntarily, and whether flour produced in Canada
| destined for EU markets leaves out the folate that's
| mandated for inclusion in the Canadian market.
| WrongAssumption wrote:
| Or you have just been sweeping preventable birth defects
| under the rug. The UK determined that had been happening
| and are going to start doing it.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c206d60xe7no
| mandevil wrote:
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8264257/
|
| 2023 Study:
|
| "Despite Public Health Initiatives across Europe
| recommending that women take 0.4 mg folic acid before
| becoming pregnant and during the first trimester, the
| prevalence of NTD pregnancies has not materially decreased
| in the EU since 1998, in contrast to the dramatic fall
| observed in the USA. This study aimed to estimate the
| number of NTD pregnancies that would have been prevented if
| flour had been fortified with folic acid in Europe from
| 1998 as it had been in the USA."
|
| "Conclusions: This study suggests that failure to implement
| mandatory folic acid fortification in the 28 European
| countries has caused, and continues to cause, neural tube
| defects to occur in almost 1,000 pregnancies every year."
|
| The most famous NTD is Spina Bifida, and most of them
| aren't really fixable by modern health care. So this is
| 1000 babies a year who are either born with severe birth
| defects, or, in what I'm guessing is many cases, terminated
| when they could have been born healthy with a flour
| enrichment mandate.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| I am against adding anything to a whole population to treat a
| few, folate included. Here is why. Folate is a known
| stimulant of some cancers.
|
| https://aacrjournals.org/cebp/article/17/9/2220/169762/Folic.
| ..
|
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13668-018-0237-y
|
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1463-1318..
| ..
|
| (And you know that the first line cancer treatments, like
| methotrexate, are anti-folates.)
|
| So while we are lowering birth defects, are we increasing
| cancers at the same time? Has this ever been studied?
|
| We are not a homogeneous population.
|
| The same is true for fluoride. Some people have a fluoride
| allergy:
|
| https://www.aaaai.org/allergist-resources/ask-the-
| expert/ans...
|
| And while fluoride is known to prevent cavities, it also
| makes tooth enamel brittle:
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s43246-024-00709-8
|
| https://www.medindia.net/news/healthwatch/fluoride-
| strengthe...
|
| So I prefer to medicate myself, according to my own needs and
| my own genetics, thank you.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| Presumably, if you're in the US or any of those countries
| that mandate folate then you don't eat bread or anything
| containing flour--or you have to get special flour without
| it.
|
| I'd imagine that must be very difficult for you.
|
| BTW, that fluoride reference refers to _excessive_ fluoride
| in water whether natural or added. I 've not entered the
| fluoride debate here except to ask a question. I'd
| certainly object if fluoride levels were excessive in my
| water supply.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| It is difficult, but not impossible. Many bakeries do not
| add them to their dough and Whole Foods has some brands
| without them.
|
| Do not get me started on the IMP and GMP they are adding
| to foods now...excitatory purine flavor enhancers in the
| form of things like "Malted Barely Flour"
|
| https://www.eurofins.com/media-centre/newsletters/food-
| newsl...
|
| https://www.cspinet.org/article/guanosine-monophosphate-
| gmp-...
|
| https://www.cspinet.org/article/inosine-monophosphate-
| imp-di...
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" Folate is an essential water-soluble B vitamin found
| in foods, including dark-green leafy vegetables and
| legumes."_
|
| The above quote from that Springer reference reminds me
| of plant toxins in common foods especially in dark-green
| leafy ones, spinach, rhubarb, etc. Oxalic acid is one of
| the main ones but there are many others.
|
| If you worry about what you eat you ought to be concerned
| about these. It's understandable that these toxins exist
| in these plants as they use them as protection against
| insects etc. Incidentally, I use oxalic acid industrially
| and I'm very careful how I handle it.
| hansvm wrote:
| Anti-folates (similarly with magnesium and a few other
| things) are closer to chemotherapy than anything else. They
| promote cancers because they promote nearly every human
| cell, and the logic behind removing them is that since
| cancer cells divide so comparatively rapidly they'll be
| selectively targeted by a lack of division-enabling
| nutrients. Most people absolutely shouldn't be restricting
| their folate intake.
|
| If we take your claim to its logical conclusion (that we
| shouldn't add those vitamins and minerals to our foods
| because they might hurt a small percentage of people), the
| other side of the coin is that we should _remove_ extra
| vitamins and minerals. If we don't, we're just implicitly
| medicating a whole population rather than proactively
| medicating them. Peanuts hurt some people; let's ban them
| everywhere. End-stage kidney patients without full renal
| failure often can't tolerate salt or phosphorus; let's not
| salt any of our food and ban the sale of eggs and meats.
| Diabetics can't easily tolerate a high glycemic load; let's
| be extra safe and not use any sugars or alcohols.
|
| Or...make reasonable population-level interventions and let
| people with special needs handle their own special needs.
| There are gluten-free breads, no-excess-folate flours, and
| all sorts of things on the market.
|
| While we're talking about baseline levels of B vitamins
| (folate), did you know that most bakers are also dumping a
| rich, broad-spectrum source of most B vitamins and trace
| minerals into your bread? It's not just folate. They then
| let that yeast further multiply for 2hr+ just to bump the
| vitamin levels up (or, worse, add extra yeast at the start
| to speed up the baking cycle).
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| So instead of the niche individuals and groups working
| around society to meet their needs--because this absolutely
| can be done today---those with an anti-flouridation belief
| are mandating that the majority give up economy of scale
| for something that it still wants and needs.
|
| It's doubtful that this stance is being promoting in good
| faith.
| shireboy wrote:
| This take has a few problems: Poor people in the US are capable
| of using fluoride toothpaste and flossing. At least at homeless
| shelters at outreach things I've been to, toothpaste and
| toothbrushes are freely available. Your argument hinges on them
| being incapable on the whole and needing a Benevolent But
| Superior Intelligence to provide an alternative for them.
|
| Second, it completely ignores any debate over effectiveness or
| side effects. It could well be that fluoride in water is great
| for teeth but bad for brains. The objections to fluoride in
| water I've seen are more along those lines. Im not clear the
| validity of those claims but for example anti fluoride
| advocates don't typically object to chlorine in water to kill
| germs. That seems the core issue- without bias from
| stakeholders, is the benefit of fluoride proven and the risks
| disproven? It's hard to answer because a study needs to span
| many years and exclude many variables.
|
| And in general I think that is what needs to happen with these
| type debates. Take them _out_ of the sphere of charged
| political opinion and focus on getting to the objective truth
| of risks and benefits, then be transparent. People can handle
| "here are the known pros and cons and what we think that means"
| over "there are only pros and no cons and if you disagree you
| hate poor people"
| lee_ars wrote:
| > Second, it completely ignores any debate over effectiveness
| or side effects. It could well be that fluoride in water is
| great for teeth but bad for brains.
|
| Except it's not--fluoride in the drinking water
| concentrations is proven safe and it doesn't affect brains.
|
| > Im not clear the validity of those claims
|
| Thoroughly scientifically debunked. Repeatedly, over decades.
|
| > That seems the core issue- without bias from stakeholders,
| is the benefit of fluoride proven and the risks disproven?
| It's hard to answer because a study needs to span many years
| and exclude many variables.
|
| No, it's not hard to answer, because all those studies have
| been done and the results were that fluoride is safe.
|
| > And in general I think that is what needs to happen with
| these type debates.
|
| What needs to stop happening is people ignoring objective
| reality just because the results happen to align with the
| other "team's" position on something.
| themgt wrote:
| _What needs to stop happening is people ignoring objective
| reality just because the results happen to align with the
| other "team's" position on something._
|
| "Out of a population of about three-quarters of a billion,
| under 14 million people (approximately 2%) in Europe
| receive artificially-fluoridated water."
|
| The problem I continually see in the USA is the ascription
| of differences of opinion on [any topic] to America's Great
| Divide between enlightenment and barbarism. I find it often
| helpful to just check, what do these policies look like
| outside of America? It doesn't mean Europe got it right on
| fluoride, it just suggests against adopting the framing
| that your POV is 100% objective reality proven beyond doubt
| by Science(tm) and no rational person not in the throes of
| "own the [other team]" bad faith might disagree.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_country
| #...
| __s wrote:
| Fluorinated table salt. Naturally fluorinated water
| sources. Public healthcare that covers dental
|
| European policy isn't based on modern fluoridation being
| dangerous, it's based on having alternative systems in
| place _(which vary by country)_
|
| In Windsor Ontario, across from Detroit, they took
| fluoride out of water for nearly a decade before
| reversing that decision based on results:
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/fluoride-water-
| system...
|
| Maybe Utah will be a place with alternative systems,
| based on another thread it sounds like they have an
| interesting Mormon safety net. But I would hope states do
| pilot tests first at least. If studies show that the
| historic gap in dental health between fluorinated &
| unfluorinated communities no longer apply, then that
| would be data driven policy
|
| But it seems like this policy is based on someone's
| common sense that you shouldn't put minerals in water
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Look - all for whatever science says is best, but
| wouldn't countries with public healthcare also be
| incentivised to have fluoride in the water to reduce
| costs/public efficiency of public dental healthcare?
| shlant wrote:
| this is a red herring. Who cares what other people are
| doing - we should look at the evidence and make decisions
| based on that.
| airstrike wrote:
| the evidence can clme from seeing the results of what
| other people are doing
| __s wrote:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7546136 over half the
| table salt in France has fluoride
|
| This Nevada health info has an in depth response on page
| 5 https://dpbh.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/dpbhnvgov/content/Pro
| grams...
| formerly_proven wrote:
| themgt quoted the 2% figure to show that the europoors
| reject fluoride in water, but neglects to mention that
| tap water often naturally contains significant levels of
| fluoride already, nevermind other fluoride-fortified
| foodstuffs.
| m-s-y wrote:
| It's iodine in table salt not fluoride. In the US.
|
| Never knew that France fluoridated their salt.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| "Dual fortification" is mandatory in Mexico.
| mandevil wrote:
| "In Switzerland 85% of domestic salt consumed is
| fluoridated and 67% in Germany. Salt fluoridation schemes
| are reaching more than one hundred million in Mexico,
| Colombia, Peru and Cuba. The cost of salt fluoridation is
| very low, within 0.02 and 0.05 EUR per year and capita.
| Children and adults of the low socio-economic strata tend
| to have substantially more untreated caries than higher
| strata. Salt fluoridation is by far the cheapest method
| for improving oral health. "
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24308394/
|
| (Sea salt and Kosher salt are the salts that aren't
| fluoridated and iodated in those countries, fancy, more
| expensive salts, regular table salt- and the salt added
| in commercial/restaurants has both.)
|
| So sure, you don't need to fluoridate the water, if you
| fluoridate the salt instead. But you have to do it some
| way or another. And the US and Canada doesn't, at present
| fluoridate the salt because we have it in the water.
| Remove it from some people's water but don't add it to
| the salt because everyone else has it in the water? Bad
| combination.
| Muromec wrote:
| >Public healthcare that covers dental
|
| laughts nerviously in Dutch
| __s wrote:
| heh, I feel it, I'm in Canada where oral healthcare is
| deemed cosmetic. Giving us some 22minutes satire:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZsUp-DHMZ4 "do people
| really need to see & chew?"
|
| That said, WHO does profiles of dental health, providing
| comparison:
|
| https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/country-
| profil...
|
| https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/country-
| profil...
|
| & for my own interest, Canada:
| https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/country-
| profil...
| dashundchen wrote:
| Didn't the NDP and Liberals recently pass universal
| government payer dental coverage in Canada?
|
| It never made sense that dentistry somehow is considered
| a separate form of healthcare from the rest of your body.
|
| Especially considering researchers are increasingly
| finding links between oral health and other conditions
| such as Alzheimer's heart disease. And that preventative
| dental care is so much cheaper and less invasive than
| treating major decay when care is delayed.
| jagger27 wrote:
| It's not universal, but yes there is some coverage for
| young, old, and disabled people.
|
| https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/dental/dental-
| car...
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| yeah what EU country does that? Not Denmark...
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Neither Spain apart from under 18 and pulling teeth.
| davedx wrote:
| Ah yeah with our yearly widening own risk insurance too.
| Great system... for health insurance companies
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| > based on another thread it sounds like they have an
| interesting Mormon safety net
|
| as long as you're Mormon. Approximately 60% of the state.
| rayiner wrote:
| In many US states, Medicaid covers dental. CHIPs, for
| kids, covers dental in every state.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| When you watch any British tv the first thing you notice
| is teeth indeed.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| in better condition than American teeth, studies find:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20150602-do-the-
| british...
| EliRivers wrote:
| Indeed. While the UK and the USA have comparable levels
| of dental health, in US television actors typically
| require very good (or rather, cosmetically appealing
| according to local norms) teeth in order to succeed. In
| the UK, it's less important.
| darreninthenet wrote:
| Not just comparable, UK is actually a bit higher. The
| difference is the NHS doesn't cover anything cosmetic, so
| they are very healthy teeth but they look rubbish unless
| you're lucky.
| naasking wrote:
| > Except it's not--fluoride in the drinking water
| concentrations is proven safe and it doesn't affect brains.
|
| You mean like this: Fluoride Exposure and Children's IQ
| Scores A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, https://jaman
| etwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
|
| "Findings: Despite differences in exposure and outcome
| measures and risk of bias across studies, and when using
| group-level and individual-level exposure estimates, this
| systematic review and meta-analysis of 74 cross-sectional
| and prospective cohort studies found significant inverse
| associations between fluoride exposure and children's IQ
| scores. [...]"
|
| Maybe you should reconsider that what you heard once was
| the definite truth.
| anyonecancode wrote:
| Isn't this talking about naturally-occurring
| fluoridation, not added? The concentrations they describe
| as having an inverse affect are far higher than what gets
| added to water on purpose:
|
| What the study measured:
|
| "For fluoride measured in water, associations remained
| inverse when exposed groups were restricted to less than
| 4 mg/L or less than 2 mg/L but not when restricted to
| less than 1.5 mg/L"
|
| And what the US federal government recommends (or I guess
| soon, previously recommended):
|
| "Through this final recommendation, the U.S. Public
| Health Service (PHS) updates and replaces its 1962
| Drinking Water Standards related to community water
| fluoridation--the controlled addition of a fluoride
| compound to a community water supply to achieve a
| concentration optimal for dental caries prevention.1 For
| these community water systems that add fluoride, PHS now
| recommends an optimal fluoride concentration of 0.7
| milligrams/liter (mg/L)" [1]
|
| Note, too, the study's section on Study sample;
|
| "No studies were conducted in the United States."
|
| [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4547570/
| naasking wrote:
| The source of fluoride is irrelevant, the effect of
| fluoride is cumulative. If you're getting half of the
| "harmful dosage" just from your water, you're much more
| likely to pass that threshold than if the water had no
| fluoride. In nations with easy access to fluoridated
| toothpaste and where dental hygiene is common, the cost-
| benefit is not at all clear.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| If the source of fluoride is irrelevant, then shouldn't
| fluoridated toothpaste also be banned as a result of
| harmful dosages? Even assuming someone spits out said
| toothpaste, they are still increasing the fluoride levels
| in their body.
| Thorrez wrote:
| The US government isn't forcing people to use fluoridated
| toothpaste. There's plenty of non-fluoridated toothpaste
| available if people want it.
|
| Also: fluoride works topically, not when ingested. That
| implies we should try to deliver fluoride to teeth in a
| way that is focused on topical application (toothpaste),
| not ingestion (water supply).
| dcow wrote:
| Nobody is banning fluoride. They're just deciding not to
| include it by default in the drinking water.
| Thorrez wrote:
| If people getting under 2mg/L were getting harmed,
| doesn't it seem logical that people getting 0.7 mg/L
| would also get harmed, just by a smaller amount?
| anyonecancode wrote:
| Not necessarily. For instance, if you take enough
| ibuprofen you'll suffer liver damage, but it doesn't
| follow that a smaller dose you'll still suffer damage.
|
| I only really have enough general understanding of
| chemistry and biology to note that dosage generally is
| pretty important and often non-linear in its effects -- I
| write JavaScript, not drug formulations -- but "dosage
| makes the poison" has always struck me a good general
| purpose aphorism to keep in mind.
| SigmundA wrote:
| That is not a study of drinking water concentrations, but
| much higher naturally occurring levels. Its also has
| pretty poor confidence intervals:
|
| https://journalistsresource.org/home/how-to-read-this-
| study-...
|
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-
| abst...
|
| I would be careful throwing a single study around as
| proof of anything, here is one with a different
| conclusion:
|
| https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00220345241
| 299...
| naasking wrote:
| The source of fluoride is irrelevant, the effect of
| fluoride is cumulative. If you get 0.7mg/L from drinking
| water and then add toothpaste and other sources, you
| could easily surmount the level where harmful effects
| occur.
| SigmundA wrote:
| You are making a lot of assumptions to fit your
| narrative, the higher natural source would also be
| cumulative with toothpaste etc.
|
| There is no conclusive data to support your assertion and
| there is a lot of data to support the benefits of
| fluoridation.
|
| Did you actually read any of what I posted to understand
| it or is your mind already made up?
| NoahZuniga wrote:
| > For fluoride measured in water, associations remained
| inverse when exposed groups were restricted to less than
| 4 mg/L or less than 2 mg/L but not when restricted to
| less than 1.5 mg/L;
|
| So this study found no negative effects on IQ when the
| fluoride concentration is less than 1.5mg/L
|
| The U.S. Public Health Service recommends 0.7mg/L of
| fluoride[1]. This study supports the idea that the amount
| of fluoride used in the US drinking water is safe.
|
| I couldn't find any information on how much fluoride is
| in utah drinking water as a whole, but a report from
| Davis County shows that they stay between 0.6mg/L and
| 0.8mg/L [2]. I'd say its fair to assume basically all the
| water in Utah doesn't have too much fluoride, and if it
| did, lowering the amount to 0.7mg/L would be enough to
| address the health concerns.
|
| 1: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4547570 2:
| https://www.utah.gov/pmn/files/962361.pdf
| naasking wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43525098
| lee_ars wrote:
| Hah. Maybe, as noted by others, you should read the study
| cited before assuming its conclusions support your
| argument. Which they do not.
| naasking wrote:
| Maybe apply some critical thinking and notice that the
| water levels from fluoridation _add on top_ of any other
| sources of fluoride people ingest, eg. toothpaste, food,
| etc.
| dcow wrote:
| I think _you_ should read it. It literally says fluoride
| in higher concentrations is linked to lower IQ. It says
| there is insufficient evidence to draw any conclusions in
| lower concentrations. NOT that fluoride in lower
| concentrations is definitely without a doubt safe. It
| leaves open the question. And, it studied fluoride in
| urine, which means even if the drinking water levels in
| the US are in the "insufficient data" range, the
| cumulative effect of multiple sources of fluoride is
| still a factor.
|
| Also note that in reality 0.7 mg/L is the "low" value and
| 1.5 mg/L is the high water mark from the study. That's
| not a huge window by any means...
| jongjong wrote:
| > fluoride in the drinking water concentrations is proven
| safe and it doesn't affect brains.
|
| We can never be sure who funded the studies and whether or
| not the results can be trusted. Studies have shown that
| studies cannot be trusted. I err on the side of caution.
|
| You're welcome to put it in your own drinking water if you
| trust the studies.
|
| > What needs to stop happening is people ignoring objective
| reality just because the results happen to align with the
| other "team's" position on something.
|
| Nobody can perceive objective reality. Everyone is
| delusional concerning just about everything. The people who
| think they know what's going on, are most delusional of
| all.
|
| Dark times are ahead, I'm afraid, and people's trust-meters
| are going to be valuable again.
| drakonka wrote:
| > We can never be sure who funded the studies and whether
| or not the results can be trusted. Studies have shown
| that studies cannot be trusted. I err on the side of
| caution.
|
| What does this mean for you in practice? Do you see just
| fluoride studies this way, or "studies" in general? If
| the former, what makes those different? If the latter,
| what is your stance on science-backed decision-making and
| policymaking in general?
| Muromec wrote:
| Just listen to the dear leader, they use common sense and
| need no science to see obvious
| Aurornis wrote:
| > We can never be sure who funded the studies and whether
| or not the results can be trusted
|
| > Nobody can perceive objective reality. Everyone is
| delusional concerning just about everything
|
| This is just hyper-cynical fear mongering. An excuse to
| reject inconvenient things you see and substitute them
| with your own alternative reality.
|
| The people who sell fear and things like alternative
| medicine love to push this angle: They want you to
| distrust everything. Everything except what they tell
| you, of course.
| shlant wrote:
| > We can never be sure who funded the studies and whether
| or not the results can be trusted. Studies have shown
| that studies cannot be trusted
|
| the growing prevalence of anti science thinking like this
| has been a disaster for humanity. There's so much time
| and good faith effort put into trying to better
| understand our reality then people like you come along
| and handwave it all away because "well can we really know
| anything"
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| > Studies have shown that studies cannot be trusted.
|
| Well, that's basically the end of the debate, isn't it?
| Before we can have reasonable discourse, everyone has to
| agree on some points. Sure, individual studies have
| problems. That's why we make them reproducible and
| aggregate the results. So yeah, don't trust some
| individual paper; but if you're distrusting the
| _aggregate_ , well, you're distrusting all of science.
|
| > Nobody can perceive objective reality. Everyone is
| delusional concerning just about everything.
|
| This is the _entire point_ of the scientific method. It
| 's why we make sure tests are reproducible by other
| people in other teams in other countries. Each with their
| own funding and biases. What remains after all of that is
| as close to objective reality as possible without
| decompiling the universe.
|
| > Dark times are ahead, I'm afraid, and people's trust-
| meters are going to be valuable again.
|
| You know what _else_ has been shown to be unequivocal
| bullshit? People making decisions based on their "gut".
| Your personal "trust-meter" is just another form of that.
| Dark times are indeed ahead, but it's because there are
| people out there who want to do whatever the hell they
| want- and it's easier for them to get away with it if
| they discredit science and get the population to do so as
| well. This is what you're helping by spreading such
| things. Please stop.
| dahart wrote:
| How does one live or even function with no trust? You're
| going to do your own experiments on everything in your
| life? Do you purchase any food, take any medicines,
| travel in any vehicles, or use any technology? You're
| relying on products that are the outcome of studies if
| you do. Sure people are fallible and sometimes have
| agendas or are wrong, but approaching objectivity is not
| impossible, it just takes a little work. Science is the
| best thing we've got, it has brought humanity further and
| faster than anything else ever. There's nothing else to
| even compare it to. If we throw our hands up and insist
| on trusting no one, dismantle public health and public
| education and public trust, then yeah we could go back to
| the dark ages. If instead we trust that science works
| over time, and we are diligent about electing leaders who
| stop stoking fears and using pseudoscience and
| intentionally eroding trust in science and education,
| then we might have the chance to be able to trust each
| other and make forward progress.
| mdorazio wrote:
| I'm not saying you're wrong, but you made multiple strong
| claims without a single citation or study link. We could
| have a better conversation with data to look at. There's a
| decent (though somewhat biased) review of the debate in
| [1]. It's worth noting that if you read the linked studies
| there closely you'll find the truth is, as usual, nuanced.
| Specifically, that "fluoridation is a population-level
| caries preventive strategy" [which may or may not be
| effective at the individual or small community level due to
| other factors]. I.e., good at the national level for
| statistically significant reduction of tooth disease
| incidence, but at less-aggregated levels the confounding
| factors like diet and how often/well people brush their
| teeth are going to be bigger determinants of efficacy.
|
| It's also worth nothing that 1) over-fluoridation is pretty
| bad and can affect poor or malnourished communities (ex,
| [2]); and 2) there are alternatives to fluoride that may be
| equally effective with fewer risks at higher concentrations
| (ex. nano hydroxyapatite).
|
| [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2222595/
|
| [2] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10643380600
| 67811...
| lee_ars wrote:
| That's a whole lot of words for you acknowledging that
| I'm right. Fluoridated drinking water, at the appropriate
| levels, has no effect on IQ.
|
| Would you like to debate the reality of anthropogenic
| climate change next? This will be another area where any
| links you dig up will only point to a single conclusion.
| dcow wrote:
| You missed the point. It's not objectively true in all
| situations that if you don't believe fluorinating water
| is necessary that you're an a-scientific bad faith actor.
| One can argue the opposite position in good faith,
| reasonably. Your statements very strongly supposed that
| this is a solved case closed topic and any challenges are
| not supported by evidence. The response was that there is
| nuance and a better conversation would acknowledge it.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > You missed the point. It's not objectively true in all
| situations that if you don't believe fluorinating water
| is necessary that you're an a-scientific bad faith actor.
|
| That's not what was being debated. What was asserted was
| that fluoride in water lowers IQ, a position that has
| been so thoroughly debunked at this point, that if, much
| like being anti-vax or thinking climate change doesn't
| exist, any continued movement reinforcing it is almost by
| definition bad faith. The information exists and short of
| purposely going out and looking for contrarian nonsense
| relative to the established position of science on the
| subject, you and everyone else can find it.
|
| As frustrating as it is that "do your own research" has
| been basically ruined as a phrase by the professional
| internet bullshitter industrial complex, _you really
| should,_ with a nod to the need for critical analysis of
| sources, an important part of that that frequently gets
| left to the side.
|
| > Your statements very strongly supposed that this is a
| solved case closed topic
|
| Because it is, and we need more of that and less endless
| citation. Not because citation is impossible or bad, but
| because we don't need to keep arguing every last point.
| If you think certain things, like fluoride lowers IQ, or
| that climate change doesn't exist, you are not needing an
| intellectual rebuke, you're needing enough people making
| fun of you that you stop spouting horseshit and go learn
| about things. All of humanity's knowledge is at your
| fingertips. It is not the responsibility of reasonable
| people to educate you against your will.
| dcow wrote:
| I guess I (and probably the GGP) understood the response
| to be more general, picking out the IQ point as easily
| refutable therefore a short-circuit way to dismiss the
| broader narrative.
| uppost wrote:
| I've never thought much about it as tap water tastes
| nasty to me, but it does seem like legit scientists are
| still studying the issue, as of 2023.[0] Course we over
| produce scientists and so much of science is low
| efficiency, but they're getting funding and being
| published none-the-less.
|
| 0 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0892
| 03622...
| yunwal wrote:
| Maybe time to start making fun of the associated press
| then?
|
| https://apnews.com/article/fluoride-water-brain-
| neurology-iq...
|
| There are also other harmful side effects of fluoride,
| such as fluorosis, which I have. It's not a huge deal,
| and I personally still think it's a huge net positive,
| but people should be allowed to make their own decisions,
| and the science is far less settled than you claim, and
| not comparable at all to the debate over climate change.
| dcow wrote:
| I'm actually now much less certain that fluoride is
| unequivocally safe and newly skeptical of anybody arguing
| that anybody else questioning it, including effects on
| the brain, is a whacko. Thanks to down-thread links to
| the meta analysis from this year by the national
| toxicology program, it is crystal clear that high levels
| of fluoride ARE linked to lower IQ. It begs the question
| about working to better understand the effects of lower
| levels. Absolutely nothing presented thus far draws the
| conclusion that low levels of fluoride are safe, full
| stop. Thank you for changing my mind and making me look
| deeper, fervent fluoride supporters.
| uppost wrote:
| The "let's have a nuanced debate and use reason and
| intellect" bias is useful in most contexts. Bold claims,
| hot takes, that's the future. Citations can be ai'd now.
| losvedir wrote:
| > Fluoridated drinking water, at the appropriate levels
|
| Going to hijack this comment to ask about something I've
| always wondered: how robust are "appropriate" drinking
| levels to the different things you can reasonably expect
| people to do with the water? Not all water is simply
| drunk as is.
|
| For example, I like to make beans in my slow cooker. This
| involves simmering them for 9 or 10 hours, periodically
| adding more water. In theory, this will increase the
| concentration of fluoride because the fluoride doesn't
| boil off while the water does. I assume, based on how
| much water I need to keep adding, this could double the
| fluoride concentration. Is that still appropriate levels?
| What about a cup that has been left out such that a lot
| of the water evaporates? That won't increase the amount
| of fluoride, but will increase its concentration.
|
| I have to assume the "wiggle room" they build into the
| fluoridation rate handles these cases, but it's been hard
| to find any details on it since most of the results are
| about stuff like boiling water removing fluoride or
| turning it into poison fluorine gas and stuff.
|
| Nevertheless, every time I see discussion where people
| talk about safe levels, I wonder how that works with all
| the things people do with water other than just drinking
| it as is.
| scott_w wrote:
| If there were issues, they'd appear at population level
| studies. Lots of people boil coffee, tea, potatoes, rice,
| etc. and, as far as I know, are not suffering brain
| damage as a result.
| rayiner wrote:
| And how does the fluoride get in the water? Our water
| tastes strongly of chlorine because we are near the
| treatment plant and they put in enough so that it's still
| effective at the edges of the system. I don't know if
| fluoride works the same way, but what makes people think
| it's always added at exactly the right levels?
| thePhytochemist wrote:
| The chlorine you are tasting in your water is an active,
| reacting compound. It has to be because it literally
| reacts with cells to kill them and keep the water
| (relatively) free from living organisms. It's great as a
| cheap way to keep living things out of the water but at
| the end of the pipe it should be removed - a simple Brita
| filter is fine.
|
| Flouride added is in a chemical state that makes it
| stable, like the chlorine in table salt. It will stay at
| the same concentration as it travels in the pipe.
|
| I remember this from a water chemistry course at
| university.
| oaktrout wrote:
| Please define appropriate levels and then cite some
| evidence that proves with high certainty that level is
| safe.
|
| For the sake of argument, assume that only 1% of the US
| has levels that harm IQ. Would it not be worth it to
| remove fluoride from the water to improve the
| intelligence of 1% of the population? Especially when you
| consider we can get fluoride from toothpaste?
| tashar wrote:
| > Thoroughly scientifically debunked. Repeatedly, over
| decades.
|
| "The NTP monograph concluded, with moderate confidence,
| that higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking
| water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per
| liter, are associated with lower IQ in children"
|
| This is from an NIH meta-analysis. Its a pretty rigorous
| study.
|
| https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer
| /...
|
| "It is important to note that there were insufficient data
| to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L
| currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies has
| a negative effect on children's IQ"
|
| This is why there's such a fierce debate. Based on the most
| recent scientific literature there seems to be evidence of
| a dose-dependent effect of fluorine levels in water and
| lowered IQ in children, meaning it has some kind of
| neurotoxic effect. But we don't have robust evidence to say
| 0.7 mg/L has a similar effect. That doesn't mean it is
| DEFINITELY safe, it just means more research needs to be
| done and the current research that does cover the 0.7 mg/L
| range may not reach statistical significance.
|
| The fact though the NIH suggests 1.5mg/L is likely unsafe,
| which is only 2x what America's tap water contains, I would
| not blame people for being uneasy about. It is often the
| case the that the FDA regulates food additives that have
| potential negative side effects to be limited to
| concentrations 10x lower than what is seen as unsafe.
|
| I am not suggesting it's a straightforward choice to
| defluorinate water, but I see people often repeating claims
| like you have that dangers of fluoride are "thoroughly
| debunked" and that's simply not true. I don't blame people
| for having that sentiment either, because 0.7mg/L is
| seemingly still considered safe, and some of the loudest
| advocates of defluorination have no shortage of thoroughly
| debunked crazy views on things (possibly due to brains half
| eaten by worms). It makes it very easy to brush off the
| skepticism.
|
| But it's also important to keep in mind science is built on
| the premise that one must be ready to re-evaluate past
| assumptions when new data arises, and generally speaking
| the new data around fluoride I hate to say seems to show
| there is indeed smoke.
|
| It's also the case that when the US initially fluorinated
| water supplies it was a massive public health success, but
| these days it seems to make a much lower impact now that
| fluoride toothpaste use is ubiquitous (plus the levels were
| lowered from 1.0mg/L in the 70s, likely reducing its
| overall effectiveness). It is IMO both very reasonable to
| fund more research into this to know conclusively if
| 0.7mg/L is indeed safe, and also consider public health
| policy that focuses on promoting dental hygiene through
| other means in places that do defluorinate.
|
| I do not agree with Utah's decision here mostly because it
| seems to neglect that defluorination will create a void
| that requires other public health policy efforts to fill
| it, poorer and less educated communities will suffer unless
| government led efforts to promote and make dental hygine
| affordable are not also undertaken.
| mlyle wrote:
| > It is IMO both very reasonable to fund more research
| into this to know conclusively if 0.7mg/L is indeed safe
|
| How exactly do you propose we do this? It's tough to
| prove absence of harm.
|
| The meta-analysis put together tons of research under
| different situations, and found a weak and relatively
| small dose-response relationship above 1.0 mg/L and
| failed to find a relationship below. The evidence between
| 1.0mg/L and 1.5mg/L is particularly weak. And, of course,
| most dose-response curves are sigmoidal, so the failure
| to find a response under 1.0 mg/L is most easily
| explained by the inflection point being above that level.
|
| If you're not satisfied when combining 74 studies fails
| to find a relationship, will you be happy with 75? 76?
| 100?
|
| (Sure, a big proportion of the studies and study power
| focused on higher levels of fluorination-- and I always
| support filling gaps in research; but it's not like we
| have an absence of research below 1.5 mg/L).
| tashar wrote:
| Well I mean the flip side is... does community water
| fluorination at its current levels actually help?
|
| https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858
| .CD...
|
| The Cochrane Collaboration's research is near the gold
| standard, and yet they find surprisingly limited evidence
| of benefit for CWF in the modern research:
|
| "These low-certainty findings (a 4 percentage point
| difference and 3 percentage point difference for primary
| and permanent dentition, respectively) favoured CWF."
|
| 3-4% reduction in cavities is not nothing, but it's a far
| cry from the 60% drop observed in the 1940s and certainly
| much less than what I think most strong proponents of
| water fluoridation would have you believe. The ongoing
| discussion I find quite legitimate given we're no longer
| living in the 1940s and CWF seems to have a substantially
| lower benefit than it once did, and likewise we do notice
| a concerning trend with fluorine neurotoxicity that has
| only emerged in the last few decades of research.
|
| Public health policy is all about a risk/benefit
| analysis, and CWF is one of those topics that I feel
| legitimately should be discussed because much has changed
| over the many decades since the US first introduced it
| and since then the risks seemingly have gone up and the
| benefit has astronomically gone down.
|
| Again, I do not think there'd be much discussion if
| current water fluorination was at 0.15mg/L, and we
| started seeing a negative trend at 1.5mg/L. But I don't
| think its actually at all unreasonable for public health
| officials to be worried and possibly start considering
| alternatives to CWF out of an abundance of caution.
| jeffbee wrote:
| 3-4% of your teeth is an entire tooth.
| arijun wrote:
| > but it's not like we have an absence of research below
| 1.5 mg/L).
|
| But it is?
|
| >> "It is important to note that there were _insufficient
| data_ to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg /L
| currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies
| has a negative effect on children's IQ"
|
| Yes you would need a higher powered study to rule out the
| potentially smaller effect, but when your treatment can
| affect tens of millions of children, it doesn't seem
| crazy to ask for more funding.
| mlyle wrote:
| > > but it's not like we have an absence of research
| below 1.5 mg/L).
|
| > But it is?
|
| But it isn't. There's 7 studies included in that meta-
| analysis looking at levels below 1.5mg/L, covering 2832
| children. The effect measured so far across all of the
| studies is a statistically insignificant _increase_ in
| IQ.
|
| I'm in favor of additional research; I just don't think
| getting to n=10,000 showing little or no effect is going
| to convince anyone. I also don't think that these
| possible modest effects are going to be in the top 5 most
| important environmental stressors to measure the effects
| of.
| jeffbee wrote:
| > Except it's not--fluoride in the drinking water
| concentrations is proven safe and it doesn't affect brains.
|
| What's amazing is these anti-science wackos are rejecting
| the largest-scale experiment of all time, with the best
| evidence that anyone is ever going to have on the subject.
| We have both temporal and spatial boundary conditions with
| and without community water fluoridation, where a large
| population has it and another large population doesn't have
| it. There is _no_ evidence that the without-fluoridation
| population has higher intelligence! There is a _huge body
| of evidence_ that the people without fluoridation have more
| decayed teeth.
| oaktrout wrote:
| Before calling them "anti science wackos", why not review
| the evidence or cite some of your own. Ironic that the
| "wackos" seem to be the only ones providing any evidence
| for their claims.
|
| There is high quality evidence that fluoride at levels
| contained in some US water supplies is associated with
| lower childhood intelligence. For lower levels, the
| conclusion is "we don't know", not that there is no harm.
|
| https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncanc
| er/...
|
| There is also high quality evidence that in the age of
| fluorinated toothpaste, fluorinated water "may slightly"
| improve dental health.
|
| "The evidence suggests that water fluoridation may
| slightly reduce tooth decay in children," says co-author
| Dr Lucy O'Malley, Senior Lecturer in Health Services
| Research at the University of Manchester. "Given that the
| benefit has reduced over time, before introducing a new
| fluoridation scheme, careful thought needs to be given to
| costs, acceptability, feasibility and ongoing
| monitoring."
|
| https://www.cochrane.org/news/water-fluoridation-less-
| effect...
| jeffbee wrote:
| The literally bold-faced conclusion of your article is
| that no evidence exists that community water fluoridation
| affects childhood IQ.
|
| We have a natural experiment running for 80 years where
| each arm of the experiment has N > 100e6. If there was
| going to be evidence of community water fluoridation
| lowering IQ, it would have emerged by now.
| oaktrout wrote:
| "The NTP monograph concluded, with moderate confidence,
| that higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking
| water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per
| liter, are associated with lower IQ in children".
|
| They found drinking water with levels that lowered IQ.
| The actual conclusion was that higher levels (that were
| found in drinking water) lower IQ.
|
| For lower levels the conclusion is we don't know how it
| effects IQ. The actual bold face conclusion is "More
| research is needed to better understand if there are
| health risks associated with low fluoride exposures".
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| While I would like to think that I have gotten a lot
| smarter in the last 20 years it seems more likely that
| other people have on average gotten a lot dumber.
|
| While I'm sure there are many causes I'm of the opinion
| that no stone should remain unturned when looking for
| answers. Fluorine in water has a viable alternative
| (toothpaste that is spit out) so out of an abundance of
| caution my preference is for unflurinated water. In my past
| life as an applied researcher I have learned to be rather
| distrustful of academia and the 'science' that is produced,
| 'fruit from a poisonous tree'.
| oaktrout wrote:
| The conclusion from the largest and strongest studyies is
| that there is a certain level of fluoride that harms IQ: ht
| tps://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/.
| ...
|
| "The NTP monograph concluded, with moderate confidence,
| that higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking
| water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per
| liter, are associated with lower IQ in children"
|
| They found fluoride in drinking water concentrations was
| associated with lower IQ, the opposite of your claim of
| "proven safe".
|
| Show us some evidence that is proven safe, so far as I can
| tell all evidence points to unsafe or "we're not sure".
|
| > What needs to stop happening is people ignoring objective
| reality just because the results happen to align with the
| other "team's" position on something.
|
| I couldn't agree more. The study that is cited above
| started when Obama was president by the way.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Why did you omit the sentence immediately after the one
| you quoted?
|
| _> The NTP review was designed to evaluate total
| fluoride exposure from all sources and was not designed
| to evaluate the health effects of fluoridated drinking
| water alone._
|
| ...or the following sentence, which they bolded to ensure
| the reader wouldn't miss it?
|
| _> It is important to note that there were insufficient
| data to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg /L
| currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies
| has a negative effect on children's IQ._
|
| So no, they _very explicitly did not find_ that fluoride
| in drinking water concentrations was associated with
| lower IQ.
| tolidano wrote:
| I know why! I know why! Pick me!
|
| It's because it doesn't help prove their incorrect point.
| don_neufeld wrote:
| Anyone who talks about _who was President_ when a study
| was done is immediately clarifying for you that they have
| a political agenda.
|
| If there's a problem with a study, or a study is
| particularly strong, that should be due to something
| about the study itself (methodology, significance of
| results, etc), not its political environment.
| oaktrout wrote:
| The study and my quote literally say " drinking water
| containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per
| liter".
|
| It did not find it lowered IQ in all drinking water
| concentrations, but it definitely found it in some
| drinking water concentrations.
|
| So yes, they did explicitly find fluoride in drinking
| water at certain concentrations was associated with lower
| IQ.
|
| Are you defining "drinking water concentrations" as
| "concentrations that have not been shown to be associated
| with lower IQ."?
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| I see the goalposts are moving from "fluoride in drinking
| water concentrations" (implication: concentrations
| commonly found in municipal drinking water) to "fluoride
| in drinking water _at certain_ concentrations " (i.e. any
| arbitrary number that could support your position).
|
| Anyway, there's a pretty obvious definition of "drinking
| water concentrations": the recommended amount for US
| drinking water. Again, the authors of the study bolded
| this sentence to ensure you wouldn't miss it:
|
| _> It is important to note that there were insufficient
| data to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg /L
| currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies
| has a negative effect on children's IQ._
| oaktrout wrote:
| My first sentence in my original post was " The
| conclusion from the largest and strongest studies is that
| there is a certain level of fluoride that harms IQ." I
| did not move the goal posts from there.
|
| I was replying to a comment that said "fluoride in the
| drinking water concentrations is proven safe" (there is
| actually no proof of this).
|
| I never claimed that all fluoride levels harm IQ.
|
| It's great that the US recommends that fluoride doesn't
| exceed levels that are proven to harm children's IQ,
| instead they only recommend levels for which there is
| "insufficient data".
|
| I suppose we will ignore the people who are still
| drinking water with levels above what is known to be
| harmful.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| To be clear, about whom exactly are we talking here? Who
| are the _actual people_ drinking water with known harmful
| levels of fluoride that we're ignoring?
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Truth and even the idea that there is objective truth is a
| fundamentally political concept. Authoritarians are opposed
| to the idea of objective truth because objective truth gives
| a person a foundation on which to criticize and dissent from
| those in power. Truth is threatening to authoritarians. Truth
| is an alternative source of legitimacy.
|
| We are experiencing an assault on objective truth in the US
| in order to get scientific institutions to submit to
| political authority rather than the authority of reason.
|
| So I agree with you, it is policy that should not be handled
| by politicians but by experts, which none of us are.
| Unfortunately science is being politicized.
|
| The problem is science challenges those who derive power from
| means other than reason.
|
| Defending scientific consensus is seen as an equally
| political act as denying it.
| mlinhares wrote:
| Tolerating this slippery slope that "theres always the
| other side" is how we got to a place where I have to
| vaccinate again for measles at 40 because there are people
| out there saying the measles vaccine isn't safe.
| dcow wrote:
| I don't agree with the framing of "we are experiencing an
| assault on objective truth...".
|
| We are experiencing a challenge to some existing status quo
| practices, some of which have come out of science in the
| past.
|
| But nowhere in any conversation has the dialog been "we
| must question status quo institutional knowledge, and
| objective truth, to dismantle the institution". (That's
| left speak, actually, and I am acutely aware of leftist
| circles where that _is_ the conversation.)
|
| Look at RFK Jr. This guy doesn't need power and control.
| He's a whacko with some different beliefs about health--who
| fundamentally believes he's making humans safer because of
| his negative lived experience with health policy in the US.
|
| Occam's razor points to there being a credible benign
| reason for him to be motivated to challenge existing
| policy. (And if there is one area of science ripe for
| iteration, it's nutritional health.) We don't need to grab
| for more extreme alarmist narratives to explain what's
| happening.
|
| It simply doesn't take some autocratic utopian agenda to
| question whether fluoride is worth it and advocate for
| political change.
|
| It's honestly really disingenuous and disheartening to hear
| people towing this "the right is trying to dismantle the
| fabric of western liberal democracy and install fascism"
| line.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| The fluoride thing alone wouldn't even move the needle or
| be too worth talking about on its own, but when you see
| everything that is happening and you know it's just the
| public things, it gives a distinctly different context
| around what is happening. You know we are overtly
| threatening Canadian sovereignty right? Countries are
| setting up travel warnings. Plain clothes officers have
| abducted people in public. People have been robbed of due
| process. The head of the office of management and budget
| said he wants to put government workers in trauma.
| Deleting public data sets... At least two second in
| commands to the entire US military have said he is unfit.
| A chief of staff said the president said "I wish I had
| Hitler's generals." At least 4 prominent republicans have
| Sieg Heiled in front of a crowd, including Bannon who did
| not put his hand over his heart first.
|
| > question status quo institutional knowledge
|
| I am in favor of this when its done in good faith, but
| good faith hasn't been established.
|
| > It's honestly really disingenuous and disheartening to
| hear people towing this "the right is trying to take over
| the world and install fascism" line.
|
| I find it disheartening that people are in denial about
| it.
| dcow wrote:
| What does Canadian sovereignty have to do with even a
| broader picture argument that the right is using
| illiberal science to undermine and dismantle political
| institutions?
|
| "Anybody who wants to debate me must first demonstrate
| good faith by espousing my political stance before we can
| continue." Really now...
|
| People can't be in denial about something that isn't
| happening. That's called crazy.
| maximilianburke wrote:
| It's being premised on tariffs being good for the
| economy, contra to a century of demonstrated proof they
| aren't.
| dcow wrote:
| Tariffs aren't a binary good/bad. They're a tool in the
| policy toolbox, one that Canada has no problem using, by
| the way.
| pyth0 wrote:
| If you're alluding to the tariffs on things like dairy
| and egg products, those are only applicable beyond a set
| quota which the US has not exceeded.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| This is a direct quote from the guy running the Office of
| Management and Budget, Russel Vought:
|
| _We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected.
| When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not
| want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed
| as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so
| that the EPA can 't do all of the rules against our
| energy industry because they have no bandwidth
| financially to do so.
|
| We want to put them in trauma._
|
| Edit: Sieg Heil from Trump's ex Chief strategist in a
| speech to CPAC (Tea Party/GOP conference):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E9pXCuJnbc&t=10s
| woooooo wrote:
| RFK Jr brought roadkill home to cook and eat multiple
| times.
|
| Occam's Razor says he is a crank.
| dcow wrote:
| Sure! Which means he's either a really effective covert
| operative, or just a crank. To be clear I'm not arguing
| in support of crack science. I'm arguing against him
| being plugged into some broader insidious agenda.
| johnecheck wrote:
| If you've got a broader insidious agenda, installing
| useful idiots is definitely a way to enact it.
| jfengel wrote:
| He is a dangerous crank, but fresh roadkill is a
| perfectly fine practice.
|
| You have to cook it thoroughly, same as any other game
| meat. Do not eat the central nervous system, again same
| as game. But dead is dead, and a car is no worse than a
| bullet.
|
| That does not alter that we have a dangerous idiot
| running out health care policy.
| woooooo wrote:
| Dead is dead but for how long? If you hunt, you know when
| the animal died and presumably cleaned it promptly. It
| didn't bake on the pavement with all its guts inside for
| hours or days.
| rashkov wrote:
| Zoom out and you'll see that there is a broad attack
| against science institutions going on right now. RFK is
| just one aspect.
|
| NIH funding down 60% compared with one year ago:
| https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/03/report-us-
| scientists-...
|
| UMass disbands its entering biomed graduate class over
| Trump funding chaos:
| https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/03/umass-disbands-
| its-en...
|
| Not to mention the defunding of anything to do with
| climate change.
| jyounker wrote:
| The Republican party has been trying to squash
| inconvenient science for a long time.
|
| One of the signature pieces of Gingrich's "Contract With
| America" in 1995 was the elimination of the Office of
| Technology Assessment. The office had the unfortunate
| duty to communicate well researched facts, and these
| facts contradicted conservative policy positions. (OTA:
| The planet is warming. R: No it's not. Exxon says it's
| not.) So the OTA had to go.
|
| There are a nearly endless list of these things over the
| last 30 years.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" The problem is science challenges those who derive power
| from means other than reason."_
|
| There's been a fundamental shift away from science in the
| last fifty years or so. Some is understandable--chemical
| pollution, etc. which is unreasonably blamed on science
| instead of industry's bad behavior--but there's another
| thread running here and it's an anti-establishment one.
|
| The question I can't fully put a measure on is why nowadays
| so many people automatically reject anything that's
| mandated by government even when they'll benefit from that
| mandate. The fluoride debate is somewhat akin to the
| vaccination one, rather than weighing up the comparatively
| minor risks versus overwhelmingly beneficial outcomes of
| those mandates they'll simply reject them outright.
|
| That doesn't make much sense to me.
| Muromec wrote:
| It's pretty easy actually. Rejecting the mandate gives
| people political platform. If the issue at hand isnt
| directly affecting you in the meaningfull way, it works
| like a charm every single time.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Not to stir the pot even more however when a vaccine does
| go bad, it goes _really bad_
|
| The narrative around vaccines has been completely strong
| armed in different ways by both sides. Which has left
| legitimate cases of bad reactions to be largely ignored,
| underreported and/or not believed, and carries a negative
| stigma.
|
| My wife has had a medically verified bad reaction to
| vaccine it was extremely severe. It took multiple doctors
| before it was recognized and by that point she progressed
| to having permanent disability
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" Not to stir the pot even more however when a vaccine
| does go bad, it goes really bad"_
|
| I'm frightfully aware of that. I'm old enough to remember
| the polio epidemic in the 1950s and the bad batch of
| polio vaccine that killed kids.
|
| I wasn't in the US and the Salk vaccine wasn't available
| where I was living and it was another five or so years
| before we were vaccinated. Before that one kid in my
| school class died and another ended up in calipers.
|
| Despite everyone knowing about the bad batch and the
| deaths I cannot tell you how relieved everyone was when
| the vaccine finally arrived. No one--not one single kid--
| at my school skipped the vaccine. To not have it would
| have been unthinkable, it wasn't even a consideration.
|
| Frankly, it horrifies me how risk averse and timid people
| have become these days. How thinking has changed since
| that time is frightening.
|
| That's not to say things don't go wrong--they do and all
| too often as you are aware, and even at this distance I
| can't help but feel sorry for both you and your wife.
|
| Right, that Salk vaccine killed people but saved millions
| of others, even now the live attenuated Sabin vaccine
| occasionally goes rogue mutates and gives people polio
| but both of those vaccines have almost eradicated that
| fucking horrible disease from the face of the planet,
| it's only politics and misinformation that have stopped
| that from happening.
|
| What are we to do when things are beneficial on a large
| scale yet are nevertheless responsible for a small number
| of tragedies? For instance, almost everyone on the planet
| loves their smartphone yet they kill innocent people--
| albeit indirectly when irresponsible drivers who are
| driving and texting at the same time hit and kill
| pedestrians.
|
| When that happens we don't call for smartphones to be
| banned, same when a passenger jet clashes. But it's a
| different story with vaccines, fluoride in water,
| chemicals in foods. For some illogical reason suddenly
| all hell breaks loose and people become quite irrational.
|
| BTW, over the years I've had many, many dozen vaccine
| shots for many different diseases and I've never had a
| negative reaction. That's not to say it won't happen on
| my next visit to the doctor or, say, to next person who's
| next in line in the doctor's surgery.
|
| Unfortunately, life's dangerous and it's eventually
| fatal. As I see it, these scientific discoveries--whilst
| imperfect--ameliorate that condition somewhat.
| no_wizard wrote:
| I think there should be such a thing as just compensation
| when anyone effectively takes one for the team for the
| rest of humanity. There is one way to help significantly
| once something bad does happen.
|
| Awareness too, and more testing never hurts. One thing we
| learned about post incident is that a test of her immune
| system would have likely shown she shouldn't be
| vaccinated at all, due to potential reactions. Why not
| work on making such tests cheaper and faster so we can
| prevent needless harm?
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" I think there should be such a thing as just
| compensation when anyone effectively takes one for the
| team for the rest of humanity."_
|
| I agree absolutely. What really pisses me off is how
| governments seemingly everywhere become misers--miserable
| bastards--and either deny responsibility or when cornered
| screw compensation down as far as possible.
|
| It's not only in matters such as vaccine failures, or
| Flint's lead-in-water crisis but you see this miserly
| attitude with war veterans, and so on.
|
| Trouble is, we the citizenry are ultimately responsible.
| For some reason we see someone getting something from
| government that we are not getting and that brings out
| the worst in us--we seem to forget too easily that the
| injured or those disadvantaged through no fault of their
| own deserve fair and reasonable compensation.
|
| In my opinion that all-too-common attitude is a blight on
| the human character.
|
| Awareness, that goes back to proper schooling. That
| that's lacking is another tragedy.
|
| _Edit: both government and the companies responsible for
| vaccines, pharmaceuticals, etc. ought to take much
| greater responsibly to inform people of the risks even if
| they are minor. One way of achieving this would be to
| hold those employees (both in government and in those
| companies) directly responsible for providing the
| necessary information. This would go a long way in
| stopping pharmaceutical companies hiding the
| unsatisfactory results of drug trials etc.
|
| Don't hold your breath though, I can't see that happening
| anytime soon._
| travisgriggs wrote:
| I think equating poor people to homeless people is non
| sequitur.
|
| What about the vast population of "barely making it" people?
|
| But have it your way. I've given up on American people (I
| exist as a 54 year old one amongst them). Decades of wealth
| have created a society so "me" centric it makes me nauseous
| sick. Never have I respected those older than me so little.
| It makes me so sad what we've done for those younger.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| It's even worse than that. People aren't even voting for
| their own self interest. The people in the poorest states
| and in poor counties in richer states in the United States
| are consistently voting against universal healthcare,
| affordable post high school education and are cheering the
| government taking away services that they depend on the
| most.
|
| There are two basic categories of causes.
|
| The first is being pure anti science - anti vaccine, anti
| fluoride, etc
|
| The second is they are more concerned about "God and guns",
| immigrants, and the demographic shifts in the US than their
| own interest.
|
| Oh and the third is the cult of MAGA.
|
| I'm 50, Native born American and on a meta level it
| concerns me. On a micro level, me and mine will be okay.
|
| While I am not one of these shrill people saying I'm
| leaving the US tomorrow, my wife and I are definitely
| putting plans in place to have a dual residency (not
| citizenship) in Costa Rica closer to when I get ready to
| retire.
| iab wrote:
| "Objective truth" - I'd love to know how one goes about this,
| feels like a Nietzsche reading here would be helpful
| mind-blight wrote:
| You're getting downvoted because you're retreating into
| philosophical nihilism rather than actually addressing the
| points. If you disagree with how people interpret the
| studies, the studies themselves, or how science measures
| reality - just say that.
|
| I also love SMBC's explanation of this: https://smbc-
| wiki.com/index.php/2010-09-23
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Objective truth isn't something you can know, but it's a
| destination that must exist for pursuit of
| knowledge/curiosity to have any meaning.
|
| With contradictions you know what is not true, and through
| knowing what is not true, you can approach what is true.
| Truth is expressed in consistency, _not completeness_.
|
| That's why anyone should be extremely suspicious of anyone
| who is not, or doesn't care about, being internally
| consistent.
| hedora wrote:
| > _Poor people in the US are capable of using fluoride
| toothpaste and flossing_
|
| This is absolutely not a substitute for fluoride in drinking
| water, which is most important for kids. When your teeth are
| forming below the gumline, the fluoride you ingest
| strengthens them. Brushing gums with fluoride doesn't help.
| verall wrote:
| > Poor people in the US are capable of using fluoride
| toothpaste and flossing. At least at homeless shelters at
| outreach things I've been to, toothpaste and toothbrushes are
| freely available. Your argument hinges on them being
| incapable on the whole and needing a Benevolent But Superior
| Intelligence to provide an alternative for them.
|
| This is so incurious. Obviously most people, poor or not,
| have access to fluoridated toothpaste and toothbrushes, and
| can brush.
|
| Yet OP cites data (not explicitly, but you can start here:
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6974062/, there are
| many like it).
|
| Fluoridated water makes the most impact on poor and
| undeserved communities: Why?
|
| Is it because poor people are less capable of brushing or
| have less access to fluoridated toothpaste?
|
| Is it because poor people are poor because they have poor
| self control, which prevents them from regular brushing?
|
| Does it matter? Nothing hinges on them being incapable at all
| - your conjecture can be as uncharitable - poor people are
| dirty and incapable - or charitable - poor people have less
| money and time to seek dental care, have higher rates of
| untreated mental and physical illness i.e. ADHD, disabilities
| that interrupt daily tooth-brushing routine - as you want.
|
| But the result is still that if we want children from poor
| families to have less cavities by the time they reach
| adulthood - we should fluoridate the water! If you trust the
| western medical establishment, it's broadly safe. If you
| don't, then none of the evidence above matters to you
| anyways.
| uppost wrote:
| You're close but still a bit strawmanny. If we want poor
| kids to have better dental outcomes we should do more than
| just flouridate. We should find out why the poor have worse
| dental outcomes and address the root problem(s), which I
| would imagine in the US is something like soda consumption
| or lack of dentists in poor areas.
| verall wrote:
| What is strawman in my comment? I'm genuinely interested.
|
| > We should find out why the poor have worse dental
| outcomes and address the root problem
|
| The root problem is that parents that are absent, either
| for noble reasons (working multiple low-wage jobs) or
| less noble reasons (addiction, abandonment) will not have
| the presence to enforce good dental hygiene.
|
| There will always be some subset of parents that are more
| or less absent, and the main solution that exists for
| that in the US currently i.e. the foster care system has
| measurably terrible outcomes, and so it is only applied
| in the most egregious cases.
|
| Why should we let perfect be the enemy of good here? I'm
| all for removing fluoride from the water, once it has no
| benefit on the population. But currently, it has a huge
| benefit, just on people who are least likely to advocate
| for it.
|
| "You're just pushing your "Benevolent But Superior
| Intelligence" onto people" is an appeal to emotion, not a
| solution to real problems that real children face.
|
| More emotionally: it's fucking embarrassing we let
| bullshit arguments like this hurt people in real life.
| yalogin wrote:
| See this is the problem today. Just because some one doesn't
| know doesn't make it non existent. We have decades of studies
| and evidence that fluoride is good and has no side effects,
| but the detractors ignore all of it and keep nullifying all
| that knowledge. Now they are successful too. In a society
| where everyone wants the whole boat to rise up, we need a
| certain amount of honesty and integrity and sadly these
| arguments don't have it
| thatcat wrote:
| Fluoride has to be applied to the surface at a high
| concentration for brief contact time to be effective. What is
| the freedom to sell industrial waste to the government to
| pointlessly add to the water supply for profit called?
| bobjordan wrote:
| What in the Berkeley kind of logic is this? You have a pretty
| solid core logical structure. But, the conclusion is weak. The
| argument's weakness lies in its simplifications and the final
| political assertion, which, although plausible within certain
| ideological frameworks, isn't logically proven by the earlier
| premise.
| _ZeD_ wrote:
| > Putting fluoride in water promotes freedom. That sounds
| crazy, but let me justify it.
|
| > If you are poor you can't go anywhere or buy anything. You're
| not free if you're poor. If you are sick, you may be confined
| to a hospital bed or not feel good enough to do anything. If
| you are sick you're not free.
|
| or, you know, you could avoid the problem in the first place
| and allow "even poors" to go somewhere or buy something... at
| least base items, and medicines...
|
| this way they could afford dental costs, and you could spare
| the need to add fluoride in the water
| cpursley wrote:
| The issue is not the fluoride in the water, it's all the sugar
| that poor people eat and drink (especially sodas). And we
| actively fund the corn syrup industry at both ends via the farm
| bill (production and consumption via SNAP).
| bdzr wrote:
| Also tariffs on cane sugar.
| wisty wrote:
| I think it's a reductionist word game to reduce everything to a
| single dimension ("freedom") and then say "I think my policy is
| better, and since everything can reduce to a single variable it
| means there is more freedom".
|
| If a right-wing voter thinks banning gay marriage is good for
| society, it is also positive freedom? If your counter-argument
| is "no, because while it would be positive freedom if it was
| good for society, it's not" then maybe I'm just disareeing on
| your terminology, but I suspect you would say "heck no, telling
| people what they can't do is not freedom, that's an abuse of
| the English language as well as being bad for society".
|
| Governments exist to take away some freedoms, it's the whole
| point of them. People vote for governmets to take away freedoms
| (with laws and taxes) and get things like public services,
| justice systems and infrastructure in return. Ideally, they
| lean towards things that give you a lot of bang for your buck
| (like flourine), because taking away freedom is not good for
| creating a dynamic society, and they should be accountable to
| voters.
|
| Just say that anyone who objects is an anarchist if you want to
| take the moral high ground from the right in terms they
| understand.
| brigandish wrote:
| > The contrast between positive freedom, the freedom to do
| something, and negative freedom, the freedom from interference
| in your life, is the core political argument in America right
| now.
|
| True.
|
| > Negative freedom, freedom from government interference, is
| being promoted by those seeking to weaken the government enough
| to supplant it.
|
| Tenuous. Then again, like you, all of my political opponents
| are either stupid or evil or both.
|
| > People who are poor and sick are likely unable to stand up
| for themselves or participate in solidarity against authority.
|
| Contentious. Sometimes this is true, sometimes it is not -
| giving negative liberty rights (e.g. first amendment speech
| protections) to individuals has proven an incredibly effective
| tool to protect the individual against the state. Not perfect,
| but incredibly effective all the same.
|
| > This individual issue is relatively small, but you take 100's
| of issues like this, and the effect is to create a class of
| people who aren't able to do anything but be obedient workers.
|
| Any supporter of negative liberty (i.e. someone who is for
| small government) would tell you, that is what _government_
| does, which is a big reason why they want small government.
| marhee wrote:
| According to that logic, why not distribute fluoride water
| freely for those who want it? That would serve boths camps,
| not?
| wtcactus wrote:
| There's no such thing as "free" when something is "given" by
| a public entity. It always costs the people that actually
| work and are forcibly taxed, something.
| rcpt wrote:
| > the government forcing you to take a medication.
|
| You're free to drink water that's not from the tap. Companies
| sell this legally. The government doesn't force anything
| ninalanyon wrote:
| > If you are poor you can't go anywhere or buy anything. You're
| not free if you're poor.
|
| The solution is lifting people out of poverty not papering over
| the cracks with fluoride.
|
| There is no fluoride in the water here in Norway yet dental
| health is good because of good education, free dental care for
| children, students pregnant women, and little absolute poverty.
| nokun7 wrote:
| So, Finland gave fluoride a shot in a few cities back in the '60s
| through the '90s, but they didn't see much point to it and
| dropped it. Now, some spots there are even filtering it out of
| the water. You can still get it in toothpaste and mouthwash,
| though.
|
| There's this study I read that says the top five countries for
| dental health are Denmark, Germany, Finland, Sweden, and the UK.
| The US? It's lagging at ninth. Funny thing is, out of those top
| five, only the UK messes with fluoride in their water, and even
| then, it's just for like 5% of folks.
|
| Honestly, it kinda feels like skipping the fluoride in water
| might be the smarter move.
| knowknow wrote:
| I feel like we are so privileged in the US that there's little to
| no personal consequences for being so wrong about a topic.
| Eventually there's needs to be a correction, whether it's because
| we regain our senses or we stray so far that the majority of
| people start to be majorly affected. I'm fearing it's the latter.
| kubb wrote:
| There's a tendency to backwards rationalize anything that is
| established in the US, that comes from a place of identity.
|
| The current shape of the US is already the best and people
| consider it a part of who they are, so suggesting a course
| correction may be seen as both wrong think and a personal
| attack and wanting radical change would be outright treason.
|
| There's an array of standard stencils for defense against
| change: this is the only thing that can work here, this is the
| only thing that guarantees freedom, this is actually not that
| bad, I actually prefer it like this, anything else would be
| expensive/impossible/unamerican.
|
| It's not even unique to the US, but who cares about other
| places.
| bell-cot wrote:
| That's because drinking non-fluoridated water is very cheap (a
| minimal disadvantage). Vs. opposing fluoridated water can be
| very valuable (give the current culture wars).
|
| Notice that nobody is arguing about keeping water-born
| pathogens out of the drinking water.
| sothatsit wrote:
| Fluoride in toothpaste already covers most people today. So, if
| there are legitimate concerns about adding it to the water supply
| due to fluorosis, even if those concerns are small, removing it
| seems reasonable to me. Are the number of people who don't brush
| their teeth really high enough to justify it?
| stevebmark wrote:
| Decades of science show it's beneficial, and we keep seeing the
| outcomes validated in practice. Calgary removed fluoride from
| drinking water, saw a significant increase in dental carries in
| children, and is adding it back. [1]
|
| Hawaii does not fluoridate and has high rates of children's
| tooth decay [2]
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/2024/12/13/nx-s1-5224138/calgary-
| removed...
|
| [2] https://www.civilbeat.org/2016/10/hawaii-children-have-
| highe...
| AndrewSwift wrote:
| People who want to remove fluoride from the water should visit
| countries where fluoride is not added and look at people's teeth.
|
| I live in France and it's just so obvious that people grew up
| without fluoride -- even celebrities try to talk without showing
| their teeth when they're on TV!
|
| I'm all for getting consent in most cases, but sometimes you'd
| have to be an idiot not to take the obvious win.
|
| It's like we were delivering flakes of gold with the mail and
| people complained -- that's not what mailboxes are for!
| abxyz wrote:
| You're misattributing: the U.S. has a perfect white teeth
| culture that doesn't exist elsewhere. Many people outside of
| the U.S. have healthier but uglier teeth. Fluoride isn't the
| reason for good/bad teeth inside/outside of the U.S, it's
| cultural. Many places outside of the U.S. do put fluoride in
| their water (nationally or regionally) and have "bad" teeth
| (e.g: England).
| AndrewSwift wrote:
| What does a white-tooth culture look like specifically?
| People brush their teeth in France, they have modern
| dentristy etc.
| wqaatwt wrote:
| Way more people having their teeth whitened? Braces being
| more popular.
| cenamus wrote:
| People don't bleach their teeth much outside the US as far
| as I know. You can see it especially well with US actors,
| their teeth looking like the someone photoshopped them to
| #FFFFFF
| Clubber wrote:
| Those are actually veneers. They grind down their real
| teeth into basically fence posts to use as a structure to
| glue fake teeth on them.
|
| https://davidfisherdds.com/how-long-does-it-take-for-
| porcela...
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Bleaching your teeth, specifically.
| __alexs wrote:
| US people wear facades to hide their teeth.
| blitzar wrote:
| People in the U.S. don't have perfect white teeth, they have
| are cosmetic procedures on their teeth equivalent to
| liposuction, silicone, botox, hair plugs and/or laminated
| face.
| kelnos wrote:
| I think that's exactly what the GP meant when they said
| "perfect white teeth _culture_ ".
|
| Perfect white teeth doesn't mean they're healthy.
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| While tooth whiteness in the US is often divorced from tooth
| health, fluoride does add a yellowish tint to your teeth, so
| the healthiest teeth -- those imbued with fluoride -- are
| slightly yellow. (In fact when they first decided to add
| fluoride to water, one of the questions was just how much
| they could add before your teeth would turn completely
| yellow. Health-wise the yellowing was fine, but it was
| obviously visually unappealing.) Ugly teeth may be due to
| poor/lack of orthodontia, but it's probably not due to better
| dental care.
| lukan wrote:
| But flakes of gold are not associated with a lower IQ in
| children.
|
| "The NTP monograph concluded, with moderate confidence, that
| higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking water
| containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, are
| associated with lower IQ in children."
|
| https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/...
|
| So it is also not clear, if the lower concentration typically
| found also has this effect.
|
| "It is important to note that there were insufficient data to
| determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L currently
| recommended for U.S. community water supplies has a negative
| effect on children's IQ."
|
| But the solution of just using (cheap) Fluor in toothpaste to
| apply the Flour where it should go - to the teeth and not the
| stomach, sounds smarter to me.
| kelnos wrote:
| So in other words, 0.7mg/L fluoridated water is _also_ not
| associated with lower IQ in children. That study did not
| prove it safe, but it did prove it unsafe, either.
| lukan wrote:
| That study did prove, that too much flouride is not good
| for intelligence.
|
| And there are other sources besides water from the tap, so
| I don't think it is intelligent to raise the base level,
| when the option of local applying exists. What is wrong
| with toothpaste?
| eigart wrote:
| Where I live, dental health is good and we don't have fluorides
| in the water (we have free, mandatory dental care for
| children). We recently banned the use of fluorides to make our
| skis go fast because of the environmental impact.
| wqaatwt wrote:
| > even celebrities try to talk without showing their teeth
|
| So fluoride would somehow magically replace braces or teeth
| whiteners?
| ekianjo wrote:
| > I live in France and it's just so obvious that people grew up
| without fluoride
|
| And yet France does not have a dental health crisis so it's
| just for cosmetic reasons we don't need fluoride
| xandrius wrote:
| Interesting how France does add fluoride to the water
| (according to Wikipedia) while many other countries aren't.
|
| US is an outlier there, so there is that.
| lerp-io wrote:
| maybe if we consumed less processed sugars and had normal diets,
| putting fluoride in the water would serve no purpose.
| mook wrote:
| I think I'm more interested to know if the fluoride also helps
| keeps bacteria down in the water. That is, if it's doing anything
| useful other than dealing with teeth.
|
| A quick search didn't seem to turn up anything related, so maybe
| not (the concentrations might be too low to be relevant)?
| akg_67 wrote:
| A list of references for both sides of arguments.
|
| Calgary removed fluoride from its water supply. A decade later,
| it's adding it back
| https://www.npr.org/2024/12/13/nx-s1-5224138/calgary-removed...
|
| Toxic Treatment: Fluoride's Transformation from Industrial Waste
| to Public Health Miracle https://origins.osu.edu/article/toxic-
| treatment-fluorides-tr...
|
| Portland has a divisive relationship with water fluoridation
| https://www.opb.org/news/article/portland-oregon-water-fluor...
|
| Fluoride Exposure: Neurodevelopment and Cognition
| https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/...
|
| Effect of fluoridated water on intelligence in 10-12-year-old
| school children https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5285601/
|
| A tale of two cities finds that community water fluoridation
| prevents caries https://adanews.ada.org/ada-
| news/2021/august/community-water...
|
| Children exposed to higher fluoride levels have lower IQs, a
| government study finds
| https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/06/health/children-higher-fl...
|
| DRAFT NTP Monograph on the State of the Science Concerning
| Fluoride Exposure and Neurodevelopmental and Cognitive Health
| Effects: A Systematic Review
| https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/sites/default/files/ntp/about_ntp/...
|
| The finding's of the NTP's 6-year fluoride neurotoxicity
| evaluation
| https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/sites/default/files/ntp/about_ntp/...
|
| Fluoridation cessation and children's dental caries: A 7-year
| follow-up evaluation of Grade 2 schoolchildren in Calgary and
| Edmonton, Canada
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34309045/#:%7E:text=Results:....
|
| Toxicity of fluoride: critical evaluation of evidence for human
| developmental neurotoxicity in epidemiological studies, animal
| experiments and in vitro analyses
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7261729/
|
| Low-to-moderate fluoride exposure in relation to overweight and
| obesity among school-age children in China
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31509932/
|
| What happens when you remove fluoride from tap water?
| https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324086
|
| Buffalo poised to resume fluoridation of city's water supply
| https://adanews.ada.org/ada-news/2024/january/buffalo-poised...
| Heyso wrote:
| 2012: https://fluoridealert.org/content/50-reasons/
|
| Highly recommend visiting the link for details about each point
| and references (it is not that long), here is a summary, don't
| comment if you haven't visited the link:
|
| 1) Fluoride is the only chemical added to water for the purpose
| of medical treatment. 2) Fluoridation is unethical. 3) The dose
| cannot be controlled. 4) The fluoride goes to everyone regardless
| of age, health or vulnerability. 5) People now receive fluoride
| from many other sources besides water. 6) Fluoride is not an
| essential nutrient. 7) The level in mothers' milk is very low. 9)
| No health agency in fluoridated countries is monitoring fluoride
| exposure or side effects. 10) There has never been a single
| randomized controlled trial to demonstrate fluoridation's
| effectiveness or safety. 11) Benefit is topical not systemic. 12)
| Fluoridation is not necessary. 13) Fluoridation's role in the
| decline of tooth decay is in serious doubt. 14) NIH-funded study
| on individual fluoride ingestion and tooth decay found no
| significant correlation. 15) Tooth decay is high in low-income
| communities that have been fluoridated for years. 16) Tooth decay
| does not go up when fluoridation is stopped. 17) Tooth decay was
| coming down before fluoridation started. 18) The studies that
| launched fluoridation were methodologically flawed. 19) Children
| are being over-exposed to fluoride. 20) The highest doses of
| fluoride are going to bottle-fed babies. 21) Dental fluorosis may
| be an indicator of wider systemic damage. 22) Fluoride may damage
| the brain. 23) Fluoride may lower IQ. 24) Fluoride may cause non-
| IQ neurotoxic effects. 25) Fluoride affects the pineal gland. 26)
| Fluoride affects thyroid function. 27) Fluoride causes arthritic
| symptoms. 28) Fluoride damages bone. 29) Fluoride may increase
| hip fractures in the elderly. 30) People with impaired kidney
| function are particularly vulnerable to bone damage. 31) Fluoride
| may cause bone cancer (osteosarcoma). 32) Proponents have failed
| to refute the Bassin-Osteosarcoma study. 33) Fluoride may cause
| reproductive problems. 34) Some individuals are highly sensitive
| to low levels of fluoride as shown by case studies and double
| blind studies. 35) Other subsets of population are more
| vulnerable to fluoride's toxicity. 36) There is no margin of
| safety for several health effects. 37) Low-income families
| penalized by fluoridation. 38) Black and Hispanic children are
| more vulnerable to fluoride's toxicity. 39) Minorities are not
| being warned about their vulnerabilities to fluoride. 40) Tooth
| decay reflects low-income not low-fluoride intake. 41) The
| chemicals used to fluoridate water are not pharmaceutical grade.
| 42) The silicon fluorides have not been tested comprehensively.
| 43) The silicon fluorides may increase lead uptake into
| children's blood. 44) Fluoride may leach lead from pipes, brass
| fittings and soldered joints. 45) Key health studies have not
| been done. 46) Endorsements do not represent scientific evidence.
| 47) Review panels hand-picked to deliver a pro-fluoridation
| result. 48) Many scientists oppose fluoridation. 49) Proponents
| usually refuse to defend fluoridation in open debate. 50)
| Proponents use very dubious tactics to promote fluoridation.
| danny_codes wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_water_fluoridati...
|
| I draw your attention to the first sentence.
|
| Also this is interesting:
|
| Fluoridation may be useful in the U.S. because unlike most
| European countries, the U.S. does not have school-based dental
| care, many children do not visit a dentist regularly, and for
| many U.S. children water fluoridation is the prime source of
| exposure to fluoride.
| barotalomey wrote:
| It's interesting how the MAGA crowd keep looking for reasons why
| they dumb.
|
| One time it was the covid vaccine, now it's the drinking water.
|
| You just dumb, guys.
| willy_k wrote:
| Sigh, another libtard completely divorced from reality,
| suckered by the fake news. Those are reasons why everyone
| _except_ MAGA is dumb, duh. /s
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| They also keep passing laws to specifically support burning coal,
| which is (slightly more credibly) shown to reduce IQ in children
| exposed to its pollution.
| briandear wrote:
| These American experts who are "disheartened" -- do they not pay
| attention to Europe? Or do they only get upset when Republicans
| do something?
|
| Europe (and many parts of Asia,) is objectively healthier than
| most of the residents of the USA; so maybe rather than knee-
| jerking against anything RFK Jr., perhaps the so-called experts
| should start doing their jobs and looking at what healthier
| places in the rest of the world are doing. The status quo in the
| USA is default fat and unhealthy. Why aren't the fluoride
| cheerleaders not using their "expert" status to shout against
| high fructose corn syrup, artificial coloring, or the fact that
| most American food tastes like sugar?
| Vegenoid wrote:
| Do you seriously think that dental and health experts don't
| rail against those things? They do, and they consider those
| things far more important than fluoridated water. Their
| opinions on fluoride are being shared because there is notable
| news about fluoridated water.
|
| Americans do not want to hear about how they should eat
| healthier.
| wolfi1 wrote:
| Anyone else gets reminded of General Jack D. Ripper in Dr.
| Strangelove?
| danny_codes wrote:
| First thing I thought too.
| cladopa wrote:
| For me as a European, adding fluoride to water for your teeth is
| as ridiculous as cutting the foreskin of babies' penis in name of
| (dubious) "hygienic reasons".
|
| But people get used to it. Specially when they don't get to
| experience the alternative. Most people rationalise it is a good
| thing. Stockholm syndrome.
| jimbohn wrote:
| I was thinking exactly the same thing, down to the circumcision
| thing. This whole discourse gives me the vibe of something the
| American society has randomly walked on and now is an "it has
| always been like this".
| stevebmark wrote:
| Which part of Europe are you in? Countries in Europe add
| fluoride to water, salt, milk, and Italy has naturally
| fluoridated water.
|
| > The European Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (EAPD) recently
| called water fluoridation "a core component of oral health
| policy" and adds that salt fluoridation "is suggested when
| water fluoridation cannot be implemented" due to technical,
| logistical or political reasons.
|
| https://static.spokanecity.org/documents/citycouncil/interes...
| amazingamazing wrote:
| Preventing cavities is far more effective with topical
| application of fluoride on the teeth, rather than ingestion.
|
| I personally don't buy the passive health benefit. Even if it's
| true, there's no proof that fluoridated water is superior to
| topical application.
|
| Not to mention that if we're going to just roll over and accept
| stuff in the water for public health reasons, what really should
| be added are more vitamins, not fluoride. In particular vitamin D
| nemo44x wrote:
| For children developing their "adult teeth" fluoride ingestion
| strengthens those teeth before they pop out. Topical has no
| effect obviously since they haven't surfaced yet.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| And for that there is fluoride mouthwash, which again isn't
| ingested and would be more effective.
|
| > Regular use of fluoride mouthrinse under supervision
| results in a large reduction in tooth decay in children's
| permanent teeth.
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6457869/#:~:text=Be.
| ..
| nemo44x wrote:
| That doesn't work because it's topical. You give kids
| vitamins to get fluoride into their system to strengthen
| their developing adult teeth.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| Great - so why do we need it in the water then? Not to
| mention that caries in kids teeth isn't really that
| relevant anyway since they fall out. Fact is, adult teeth
| is what matters and topical fluoridation is the most
| effective way, in addition to brushing and flossing to
| maintain dental health.
|
| Would love to see evidence to the contrary (ingestion is
| superior to topical application w.r.t. fluoride).
| nemo44x wrote:
| Where did I say it had to be put in water? I literally
| said kids should consume vitamins with fluoride. You're
| the one making up things about a topic you don't
| understand.
|
| You really want to strengthen teeth as they're
| developing. It's critical. Your "fact is" is wrong
| although you want to do that too. Continue to fortify
| after they grow in.
|
| May I ask what motivates you to post things here where
| you clearly have 0 knowledge about a subject and you just
| write things that sound logically right in your head but
| are wrong?
| amazingamazing wrote:
| My original post says this:
|
| > Preventing cavities is far more effective with topical
| application of fluoride on the teeth, rather than
| ingestion.
|
| Since you don't seem to disagree, there's nothing to
| discuss then. Cheers! Also, it is a fact that fluoride is
| most effective towards preventing cavities topically. You
| can Google Scholar this and see for yourself. There's a
| reason dentists prescribe high-fluoride toothpaste or
| gel, instead of just saying drink more fluoridated water.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Fluorinating all of the water just to deliver some milligrams to
| the teeth is incredibly inefficient. Especially when less and
| less of the stuff people people drink comes out of the tap.
|
| We have toothpastes and fluorinated mouthwash that both get the
| job done.
|
| Probably there are some people that are unable to afford those
| and unaware how to use them, but probably are tiny percentage of
| the state population, especially with the cult of teeth care that
| the US has.
|
| I also see the fortified flours as example (or iodine in salt) -
| but the US is different now than in the 30s. The US diet is more
| varied. Very few people get 80% of their calories from a single
| starchy staple so developing a severe deficiency of something
| requires some serious effort from the persons affected.
|
| So who is this policy of fluorination for - the people that are
| too poor to afford toothpaste, but still have access to
| municipality treated water and don't drink copious amounts of
| soda or bottled drinks.
| amelius wrote:
| Question: is there something I can do in the office to improve
| tooth health? E.g. after drinking a cup of coffee, maybe
| neutralize the pH with some antacid? Or, I don't know, chew some
| gum? Are there products that are relatively convenient and don't
| require a brush and water?
| Clubber wrote:
| You can buy a bottle of it, swish it around your mouth and spit
| it out.
|
| https://www.actoralcare.com/en-us/products/mouthwash/anticav...
| amelius wrote:
| Yes, I considered that, and I appreciate the suggestion, but
| I think it's not very office-friendly to spit out liquids.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Spit in the bathroom, not the office?
| amelius wrote:
| Well, then it's not an office solution anymore. Might as
| well brush my teeth ...
|
| Anyway, an llm suggested that eating some almonds can
| help neutralize pH. This is the type of solution I can
| work with.
| buttercraft wrote:
| A dentist once recommended Xylitol gum to me for this purpose.
| It's been too long to remember the details, but you can do some
| research on it.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| They should ban crash barriers. I've never crashed into one.
| jongjong wrote:
| Cynical take: Now that studies have shown that bottled water is
| loaded with nanoplastics, upper class people want to start
| drinking tap water again. Now suddenly states don't want fluoride
| in the tap water...
| hello_computer wrote:
| Taking compounds of the most electronegative element, and
| treating people with them systemically--drink it, bathe in it,
| cook with it--when local administration directly to the teeth is
| cheap, easy, & effective makes no sense at all.
|
| Meanwhile, mining industries produce--and must dispose of--a
| steady stream of fluoride compounds that would otherwise have to
| be dealt with as toxic waste (i.e. very expensive) if they ever
| lost the green light to dump them into the water supply.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Hodge
|
| or per Google:
|
| _Three chemicals are used to fluoridate drinking water in the
| U.S: sodium fluoride (NaF); sodium fluorosilicate (Na2SiF6); and
| fluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6). Fluorosilicic acid is a byproduct of
| the manufacture of phosphate fertilizer._
| jongjong wrote:
| I hope they will ban it everywhere. If my pineal gland gets any
| more calcified, I'll probably end up getting a full-chest tattoo
| and dye my hair pink.
| adonovan wrote:
| "Do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why,
| there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit
| juices, soup, sugar, milk, ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake?
| Children's ice cream!...You know when fluoridation began?...1946.
| 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, and certainly without any
| choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works. I first
| became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of
| love...Yes, a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness
| followed. Luckily I-I was able to interpret these feelings
| correctly. Loss of essence. I can assure you it has not recurred,
| Mandrake. Women, er, women sense my power, and they seek the life
| essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake...but I do deny them my
| essence."
| swasheck wrote:
| the debate in this thread is a reflection of the politico-
| scientific standing of the united states. it seems as though
| fluoridated water has come to be treated as a synechdoche for the
| role of science (and public health) in society. both sides are
| trying in earnest to defend their meta-position ("freedom" vs
| "society") but slip into logic errors (usually cherry picking and
| straw man). i think this is because of the context switching
| between the part (fluoridation) and the whole (freedom/society).
| kylecordes wrote:
| Tremendous boon for the dental industry. Congratulations for
| everyone involved in getting this through.
| agentultra wrote:
| That's going to go poorly. A Canadian city removed fluoride from
| water in 2011 and reversed that decision 10 years later. There's
| hard data on the effects and they're not good [0].
|
| [0] https://www.npr.org/2024/12/13/nx-s1-5224138/calgary-
| removed...
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Unfortunately, hard data is not acceptable. This is how it
| works for the current administration:
|
| All previous data is ignored because of political reasons.
|
| Teeth to slowly rot in heads.
|
| Sometime in the 2030s, local voters will notice they have very
| bad teeth.
|
| Locals will debate if adding fluoride is going to make teeth
| great again.
| oaktrout wrote:
| All the evidence in that article is based on what a politician
| thinks. "And I think another meta study came out also".
|
| The actual high quality evidence shows that water fluorination
| has minimal impact on tooth health in 2025:
| https://www.cochrane.org/news/water-fluoridation-less-effect...
| agentultra wrote:
| I was thinking of this study:
|
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdoe.12215
|
| Perhaps more could be done. The situation is complex because
| of several compounding factors for sure. There are European
| countries that have no water fluoridation and better oral
| health outcomes than in North America.
|
| Regardless, there's 10 years where a city in North America
| turned off water fluoridation and we have results of that
| decision to study.
| bko wrote:
| I don't think it's about hard data and optimization of health,
| but rather bodily autonomy.
|
| I'm sure there are plenty of chemicals that could be forcibly
| put in the drinking supply that, based on current scient, would
| be beneficial for the public. But I would still be skeptical.
| Sell me these substances in my food or toothpaste, but don't
| put it in my drinking water by default.
|
| It's also worth noting about 3% of western Europe has
| fluorinated so let's not pretend like this is unprecedented
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Many places in Europe have high levels of fluoride in their
| water naturally. In fact many of them are likely getting far
| too much fluoride.
|
| Also realistically, if people cared about bodily autonomy
| cars would've been banned immediately thanks to the amount of
| particulates and local pollution produced causing far more
| adverse health effects.
| bko wrote:
| If a state wants to ban cars it should be free to do so. I
| think the benefits outweigh the costs and no one would
| choose to live there.
|
| Also important to note no one is banning flouride. They're
| preventing it from being put in the drinking water. The
| equivalent would be if cars were distributed upon arriving
| to the state.
| abirch wrote:
| The state is taking the rights away from the
| municipalities. Why not leave it up to the local people?
| No one was forcing local towns to fluoridate their water.
| leereeves wrote:
| But municipalities that chose to do so would be taking
| the choice away from each individual.
|
| I don't know enough to form an opinion about whether
| Utah's new policy is good or bad, but it is clearly on
| the side of individual freedom. (of course that's not the
| only concern)
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| The equivalent would be if I'm forced to have a
| government funded road with cars just past my front yard.
| cherry_tree wrote:
| Is one due the right to potable water at a tap at their home?
| Or is purified water a service offered by the government as
| one source of many available to the us population?
|
| Are you not allowed to pay for bottled water instead of
| paying your local utility for drinking water?
|
| The bodily autonomy argument seems bad to me because you are
| buying water from the government when you could buy water
| from any other source instead.
|
| Is the argument that the government water is too convenient
| and so it should be unfiltered? Who is to say that filtering
| out poop is not infringing on my right to consume unfiltered
| water?
| somenameforme wrote:
| The study [1] that's based on seems pretty typical, and is
| precisely what drives skepticism towards these policies. The
| differences for permanent teeth were not significant. The paper
| claimed this may be because "7-year-olds have not had the time
| to accumulate enough permanent dentition caries experience for
| differences to have become apparent." The differences in
| temporary teeth had a deft (decay, extracted, filled teeth) of
| 66.1% in Calgary (no fluoride) and 54.3% in Edmonton
| (fluoridated).
|
| So you're looking at a small positive improvements in dental
| outcomes, for what may be a permanent decline to IQ. That's
| obviously not a trade I think anybody would make, so the real
| issue is not whether or not it improves dental outcomes but
| whether it's having measurable effects on IQ as we have seen in
| other studies. [2] I don't understand why a study operating in
| good faith wouldn't also pursue this question in unison, or in
| fact as the primary question. I think _relatively_ few people
| outright doubt the dental benefits of fluoride, but rather are
| concerned about the cost we may pay for such.
|
| [1] -
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdoe.12685
|
| [2] -
| https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/...
| raincole wrote:
| The most ridiculous part is that we have an alternative way
| to apply fluoride without intaking it. It's called
| toothpaste. But for some reason people act like Utah is
| banning vaccine.
| SapporoChris wrote:
| Using toothpaste with fluoride can be effective when used
| regularly as part of dental hygiene. What percentage of the
| population is going to do this? I've encountered grade
| school children who have never owned a toothbrush.
| broken-kebab wrote:
| Can you answer your own question?
| almog wrote:
| In the 2nd study that shows correlation between fluoride and
| lower IQ in children, the water had twice as much fluoride as
| the recommended amount in the US (0.7 mg/L vs 1.5 mg/L).
| zamalek wrote:
| Fluoride was introduced late enough in Zimbabwe that many of my
| childhood adults easily remembered life before it. There were
| many horror stories about the general state of teeth prior.
|
| That being said, your dentist can apply fluoride to your teeth
| (boggles the mind why insurance won't pay the $50), and
| flouride toothpaste is still much more common than not. It's
| probably not needed in the water supply for dental purposes.
|
| That being said, what are the other fringe benefits: such as
| microbe control?
| grepfru_it wrote:
| The city of Houston has stopped adding fluoride to water but
| allows natural fluoride levels to exist[0]. We are going on
| year 6 and the only thing we have noticed is harder water.
|
| There is probably more nuance to both stories tho.
|
| [0] https://houstonherald.com/2018/11/lindsey-and-long-win-
| count...
| gcanyon wrote:
| The studies in 20-30 years of the consequences of this will be
| fun.
| noefingway wrote:
| What I find fascinating about this debate is that only
| municipalities/cities add fluoride to water. If you are on well
| water, no fluoride. So any studies comparing the incidence of
| tooth decay between populations that are on well water and those
| that are on fluoridated city water?
|
| I get that this was a great public health benefit before fluoride
| in toothpaste became widely available but is this still the case?
| Couldn't it be argued that most of the benefit comes from
| brushing your teeth?
| cma wrote:
| Flouride incorporates into the tooth structure in developing
| teeth before they emerge, I'm not sure how effective that is
| but it is different than the more topical protection.
|
| Tea has enormous amounts of flouride depending on where it is
| grown and they aren't banning that yet.
| iterance wrote:
| For what it's worth, very few locations and processing styles
| result in significant doses of fluoride in tea. Within the
| United States, these types of tea are not typically consumed.
| For example, Tibetan brick tea is consistently high in
| fluoride, to the extent that fluorosis is actually somewhat
| common in certain regions. But it's a bit tricky to even buy
| a brick (meant for consumption) within the US. Bagged tea,
| more commonly available, has to be drunk regularly in very
| significant volumes to have a deleterious effect.
|
| Put another way, for issues to rise to the level of public
| policy, they have to affect a meaningful number of people in
| a region. In the US, tea-induced fluorisis is extremely rare.
| jebarker wrote:
| I hear they're going to start adding electrolytes to the plant
| water though.
| mmanfrin wrote:
| Why wouldn't they, it's what plants crave.
| TehCorwiz wrote:
| I love the cognitive dissonance in people who say both: "Don't
| medicate me without permission.", "Masks are oppression.", and
| "We have to stop those people from dressing and calling
| themselves what they want."
| dang wrote:
| Please don't be snarky in HN comments, and please don't take
| threads on generic flamewar tangents. Those are two of the
| worst things for the curious conversation we're trying to have
| here.
|
| Both of these points are in the site guidelines.
| zackmorris wrote:
| Middle-aged human LLM here.
|
| This debate is about evidence vs policy:
|
| * Evidence: fluoride displaces iodine and other halogens, which
| disrupts thyroid function and possibly negatively impacts other
| organs and bones.
|
| * Policy: wealth inequality in the US has created a situation
| where the poor struggle to such an extent that they don't have
| access to basic health services like fluoride treatments at the
| dentist every 6 months, while the rich have grown so greedy that
| they don't want to pay a fraction of a percent of their taxes for
| preventative care for children and the impoverished so they
| instead tolerate slightly more expensive fluoridated tap water at
| the expense of everyone's health.
|
| This comment is about my subjective experience with a sample size
| of 1, meaning that it doesn't apply to you or the public:
|
| * My father is a dentist and gave me fluoride treatments every 6
| months while I was growing up in Idaho. I was raised mostly on
| well water which isn't fluoridated. I have never had a cavity,
| despite not going to the dentist for the decade of my 20s while
| he lived away from me. My thyroid function is not as high as I
| would like after a lifetime of acute stress from struggle,
| multiple insults to the body, drinking fluoridated water after
| the age of 18, and being exposed to radioactive iodine at 80
| times the US drinking water standard for perhaps 1 year after the
| Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (which potentially either gave
| me a lifetime dose or was insignificant).
|
| This solution is as evidence-based and equitable as I can come up
| with:
|
| * We should remove fluoride from drinking water and reimburse all
| dentists for free 6 month fluoride treatments of the general
| public, which represents some nominal fee of perhaps $15-$20 per
| person annually (probably less) which is not materially
| significant to the federal budget of roughly $15-20,000 per
| person annually.
|
| This take is my personal subjective opinion followed by objective
| evidence supporting my claims:
|
| * I don't think highly of Robert Kennedy Jr's health initiatives,
| because they don't ethically weigh evidence and policy, and we
| don't have enough epidemiological studies to predict outcomes. So
| they will certainly cause unintended consequences. That said, I
| believe there is merit to his concerns. So a way forward is not
| to be anti-vax for example, but to recognize that there are
| dozens of types of vaccines and to prioritize vaccines for
| illnesses like polio that have a high risk of negatively
| impacting quality of life. Health experts should continue
| advising elected officials on policy decisions. Public health is
| not a domain that can be left in the trust of individuals acting
| unilaterally. So removing fluoride from water without providing
| state or federal funding for fluoride treatments every 6 months
| will most likely negatively impact public health.
|
| https://www.thyroid.org/patient-thyroid-information/ct-for-p...
|
| https://thyroidpharmacist.com/articles/fluoride-and-your-thy...
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11003687/
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30316182/
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38029816/
|
| https://theworld.org/stories/2016/08/02/fukushima-radiation-...
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Strangely, I never see the people demanding we ban fluoride also
| demand we ban cars, considering the amount of particulates and
| rubber wheels we inhale as a result of policy, road design and
| car design. And I can almost guarantee you that's resulting in an
| actual meaningful drop in IQ and health outcomes as opposed to
| fluoridating water.
|
| But I guess freedom to pollute matters more than bodily autonomy
| in terms of mental priority.
| kilimounjaro wrote:
| The solution to ALL of this is a very simple randomised
| controlled trial. Identify 1000 pregnant women in a fluorinated
| area, give half of them free unfluorinated bottled water for
| their pregnancy and first 2 years of babies life, and let the
| other half drink tap water, then measure all of the kids' iqs at
| 5 years.
|
| Sadly noone has done this because the topic is too radioactive
| for most researchers or science funders to touch.
| pona-a wrote:
| Water fluoridation conspiracy theories were a thing old enough to
| be a plot point in 1964 Dr. Strangelove. When there's an entire
| grift or political career to be a "Fluoride truther", it's really
| hard to take seriously any of these claims. Given it's naturally
| occurring and often in higher doses and there'd been so much time
| to control for any side effects, I'd need extraordinary evidence
| to be swayed on this. GENERAL JACK D. RIPPER:
| Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water,
| why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit
| juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake,
| children's ice cream. GROUP CAPT. LIONEL MANDRAKE:
| Lord, Jack. 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.
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