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Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water

bbc.com

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Re: Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water

#101

Post by bruckie »

timeon wrote: post #76
elif wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fluoridation, imperial measurement, 20% tips, taxes added at the register, and circumcision are the weirdest things Americans think everyone does.

> 20% tips Is this real?

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.

Re: Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water

#102

Post by mjevans »

lolinder wrote: post #24
TMWNN wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 >

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.…

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.

Re: Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water

#103

Post by Jimmc414 »

culi wrote: post #73
jiggawatts wrote: post #44

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 ca…

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 calc…

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Re: Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water

#104

Post by kacesensitive »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #92
singpolyma3 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this and it doesn't fit in my brain. They never drink water? Ever?

Something like 10% of SNAP benefits go towards purchases of soda pop and other sugary drinks made by PepsiCo/etc.

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.

Re: Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water

#105

Post by crazygringo »

Jimmc414 wrote: post #103
culi wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 calc…

[flagged]

What do you mean? There's literally tons of evidence. Do you think fluoride doesn't actually reduce cavities?

Re: Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water

#106

Post by 0xEF »

timeon wrote: post #76
elif wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fluoridation, imperial measurement, 20% tips, taxes added at the register, and circumcision are the weirdest things Americans think everyone does.

> 20% tips Is this real?

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.

Re: Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water

#107

Post by stefan_ »

rayiner wrote: post #33
jsbisviewtiful wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 bu…

Nobody tell him what chemicals were put in his drinking water to produce it. This might be the dumbest sentence uttered yet.

Re: Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water

#108

Post by kacesensitive »

Jimmc414 wrote: post #100
jedberg wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 suff…

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 s…

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).

Re: Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water

#109

Post by whycome »

habosa wrote: post #85

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 gravi…

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.

Re: Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water

#110

Post by twothamendment »

mjevans wrote: post #98
apothegm wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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