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Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water

bbc.com

411–420 of 1001 posts

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

#411
post #76
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, 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.

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

#412
post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

What does a white-tooth culture look like specifically? People brush their teeth in France, they have modern dentristy etc.

Way more people having their teeth whitened? Braces being more popular.

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

#413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main study I can find referenced to this was based in China where levels of flouride in water appear to be much higher than in the US. Even the study itself calls out 'low-flouride' vs 'high-flouride.' Not 'no flouride.' Utah is going to have a dental crisis in a few years, as there already too few dentists.

reality check: europe never had fluoride in the water. still looking for the dental crisis.

What? Yes we do.

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

#414
post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

What does a white-tooth culture look like specifically? People brush their teeth in France, they have modern dentristy etc.

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

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

#415
post #164

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…

> 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.

Sadly people that don’t brush are probably not drinking plain water either.

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

#416

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 a…

[flagged]

That's not clear.

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

#417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

reality check: europe never had fluoride in the water. still looking for the dental crisis.

most people’s teeth in europe do not look great.. specially when compared to north americans. from my experience, only people who are serious about their mouth health and go to the dentist at least twice a year, seem to have healthy and good looking teeth.

> most people’s teeth in europe do not look great

What nonsense

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

#419
post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

What does a white-tooth culture look like specifically? People brush their teeth in France, they have modern dentristy etc.

Bleaching your teeth, specifically.

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

#420

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.

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.

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