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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

#221

Post by dullcrisp »

floriannn wrote: post #112
Speedy218 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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

2% is definitely many

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

#222

Post by nostrebored »

roland35 wrote: post #127
freehorse wrote: post #123

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.

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.

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.

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

#223

Post by thakoppno »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #171

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…

> Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face.

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

#224

Post by LeoPanthera »

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…

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.

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

#226

Post by bumby »

rafabulsing wrote: post #217
nozzlegear wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

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.

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

#227

Post by jdminhbg »

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…

> 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.

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

#229

Post by [deleted] »

freehorse wrote: post #123

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.

[deleted]

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

#230

Post by panick21_ »

nozzlegear wrote: post #185
ews wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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