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Lots of people across the world don't have fluoride in their water, you could compare populations right now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_country
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Why specifically call out fluoride?
It's a bit of a thing with a particular political persuasion in the US right now (RFK Jr has made his anti-fluoride position a big part of his deal for his future role as Secretary of Health and Human Services), and there was a report in the news recently that some see as backing up the claims against fluoride: https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2025-01-06/what-a-new-... It's not as conclusive a study as some peop…
That seems dismissive as hell, especially since the US is the odd man out here by choosing to medicate their water supply.
You could have simply answered that both fluoride and lead seem to lower IQ so using either as an additive would be questionable.
I have no idea if this is true (and honestly can only barely remember the reference, which I read maybe a decade or two ago), but I believe I saw a comment that the interior of lead pipes eventually develop a "calcified" (don't know what else to call it) lining of the lead reacting to water, such that lead stops leeching into the water that passes through the pipes. I believe this came up when reading something about…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a bit of a thing with a particular political persuasion in the US right now (RFK Jr has made his anti-fluoride position a big part of his deal for his future role as Secretary of Health and Human Services), and there was a report in the news recently that some see as backing up the claims against fluoride: https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2025-01-06/what-a-new-... It's not as conclusive a study as some peop…
> It's a bit of a thing with a particular political persuasion... That seems dismissive as hell, especially since the US is the odd man out here by choosing to medicate their water supply. You could have simply answered that both fluoride and lead seem to lower IQ so using either as an additive would be questionable.
This would have inaccurately reflected my understanding of the science: the link between fluoride and IQ is far more tenuous than lead at this point. See the study in the link above.
> That seems dismissive as hell, especially since the US is the odd man out here by choosing to medicate their water supply.
It's not intended to be dismissive, it's the primary reason why someone would have fluoride and IQ on their mind at the moment.
Similarly, arsenical bronze (copper + arsenic) was common before tin started to be used, and I've often wondered how common arsenic poisoning was in the copper age / early bronze age. When we think of the nastiness of industry, it's often industrial 19th century Britain and so on, but some of these villages (often quite remote) back then were full on industrial sites with massive smelting operations and the entire po…
And the first industrial revolution was already over.
Lead contamination is still fairly widespread: carrots, sweet potatoes, chocolate, spices. It’s a good idea to get your blood tested and try to find any sources of exposure if your levels are high.
Wait until you hear about leaded gas!
Similarly, arsenical bronze (copper + arsenic) was common before tin started to be used, and I've often wondered how common arsenic poisoning was in the copper age / early bronze age. When we think of the nastiness of industry, it's often industrial 19th century Britain and so on, but some of these villages (often quite remote) back then were full on industrial sites with massive smelting operations and the entire po…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42513706 ("Ancient copper industry in King Solomon's mines did not pollute environment")
- "...We took hundreds of soil samples from both sites for chemical analyses, creating high-resolution maps of heavy metal presence in the region. We found that pollution levels at the Timna copper mining sites are extremely low and confined to the locations of the ancient smelting furnaces. [...] The new study contradicts a series of papers published since the 1990s about pollution caused allegedly by the ancient copper industry."