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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.
Wisconsin tap water tastes fine. Waco, Texas tap water is really nasty.
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.
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What do you mean? There's literally tons of evidence. Do you think fluoride doesn't actually reduce cavities?
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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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I'd really like to hear your take
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 se…
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
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What do you mean? There's literally tons of evidence. Do you think fluoride doesn't actually reduce cavities?
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.
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...
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.
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> 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.
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.
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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"
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.
We're either bigger, or denser, or less dense, or ... essentially whatever suits the argument.
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 w…
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 pe…