Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water • Hacker News Board

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

#431

Post by arghwhat » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 8:16 AM UTC

estebank wrote: post #390

artvandelai wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding fluoride to water was revolutionary in the 1940s, but its benefits have significantly declined since fluoride toothpaste became common in the 1970s. While fluoridation made sense when products containing fluoride weren't widely available, it is much less effective and necessary now. Sure, some countries and communities may still see benefits from it, but widespread fluoridation doesn't seem necessary in many p…

There's a huge difference between "no longer as necessary" and "let's ban it".

Not really when it comes to government initiatives. They'd like the water plants to stop adding fluoride, so they make a policy that the plants should not add fluoride.

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

#432

Post by kelnos » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 8:16 AM UTC

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.

I feel like this always comes up in these sorts of arguments, that the US is so unique that solutions that work elsewhere can't work here. And yet this point is always hand-waved in, without and specifics discussed, and is just presented as a given.

I really don't buy it, at least not as a general statement.

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

#433

Post by refurb » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 8:19 AM UTC

jvm___ wrote: post #396

hayst4ck wrote: post #347

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…

Freedom from is the American way. Freedom to is the Canadian way. That's why Canada becoming an American anything is ridiculous and pisses off Canada so much that, for example, we've reduced our flights to America by +70% over the coming months.

Canada does the opposite of America even if it hurts Canada - it’s a part of its identity.

Redefining freedom as “forcing something on people for their own good” is not how anyone actually defines freedom.

It’s like saying children have the most freedom because their parents force them to do things that will benefit them.

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

#434

Post by mook » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 8:20 AM UTC

I think I'm more interested to know if the fluoride also helps keeps bacteria down in the water. That is, if it's doing anything useful other than dealing with teeth.

A quick search didn't seem to turn up anything related, so maybe not (the concentrations might be too low to be relevant)?

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

#435

Post by nerdponx » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 8:21 AM UTC

theteapot wrote: post #392

estebank wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a huge difference between "no longer as necessary" and "let's ban it".

There is difference between banning and just deciding putting fluoride in public drinking water too. Who are they banning? Themselves?

Water treatment is usually done at the municipal or regional level. The state government is declaring that towns and cities may not do this. The alternative would be each and every municipal water authority deciding on its own.

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

#436

Post by aetimmes » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 8:22 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #422

hayst4ck wrote: post #347

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…

> Putting fluoride in water promotes freedom. I rather define freedom by the government not deciding what's good for me

You're free to get your water straight from the ground, then.

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

#437

Post by nerdponx » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 8:23 AM UTC

hayst4ck wrote: post #347

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…

How is fluoridating water better than giving out free toothpaste and toothbrushes? Has the latter been tried?

"Not keeping people trapped in poverty" would be nice too but for some reason that one seems off the table.

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

#438

Post by akg_67 » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 8:25 AM UTC

A list of references for both sides of arguments.

Calgary removed fluoride from its water supply. A decade later, it's adding it back https://www.npr.org/2024/12/13/nx-s1-5224138/calgary-removed...

Toxic Treatment: Fluoride's Transformation from Industrial Waste to Public Health Miracle https://origins.osu.edu/article/toxic-treatment-fluorides-tr...

Portland has a divisive relationship with water fluoridation https://www.opb.org/news/article/portland-oregon-water-fluor...

Fluoride Exposure: Neurodevelopment and Cognition https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/...

Effect of fluoridated water on intelligence in 10-12-year-old school children https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5285601/

A tale of two cities finds that community water fluoridation prevents caries https://adanews.ada.org/ada-news/2021/august/community-water...

Children exposed to higher fluoride levels have lower IQs, a government study finds https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/06/health/children-higher-fl...

DRAFT NTP Monograph on the State of the Science Concerning Fluoride Exposure and Neurodevelopmental and Cognitive Health Effects: A Systematic Review https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/sites/default/files/ntp/about_ntp/...

The finding’s of the NTP’s 6-year fluoride neurotoxicity evaluation https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/sites/default/files/ntp/about_ntp/...

Fluoridation cessation and children's dental caries: A 7-year follow-up evaluation of Grade 2 schoolchildren in Calgary and Edmonton, Canada https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34309045/#:%7E:text=Results:....

Toxicity of fluoride: critical evaluation of evidence for human developmental neurotoxicity in epidemiological studies, animal experiments and in vitro analyses https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7261729/

Low-to-moderate fluoride exposure in relation to overweight and obesity among school-age children in China https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31509932/

What happens when you remove fluoride from tap water? https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324086

Buffalo poised to resume fluoridation of city’s water supply https://adanews.ada.org/ada-news/2024/january/buffalo-poised...

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

#439

Post by pathartl » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 8:26 AM UTC

verisimi wrote: post #355

hayst4ck wrote: post #347

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…

Perhaps, vitamins, micro doses of aspirin, and other low level medical treatments should also be added to water, for the benefit of the silent poor and sick.

Should we not treat water at all? Should we instead all like off ground water or rivers and lakes?

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

#440

Post by wqaatwt » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 8:26 AM UTC

username332211 wrote: post #402

jdminhbg wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Well, whether it's better to fluoridate the water or not, ~half the world got the answer wrong. But the important thing is they didn't argue about it."

They do have a point. If you look at history, Americans do seem to have a bizarre habit of turning everything into a great controversy. The British abolished slavery with a vote of parliament. The Russian emperor signed a decree, and freed the serfs. Compromised were made, compensation provided and people were made free. But for some reason, Americans felt the matter is important enough to start a civil war around it…

> The British abolished slavery with a vote of parliament

The situation was fundamentally different. Colonies that allowed slavery had no representation in parliament and the slave owners received massive “compensation” that the British people had to spend decades paying off..

Also AFAIK most slaveholders were living in Britain and just viewed their plantations as just another investment. There was very little ideological/“way of life”/racial supremacy stuff involved. So if some Liberals wanted to buyout their not necessarily very liquid “property” with cash they didn’t really have much reason to oppose it.

And then there were 5x more slaves in the US in 1864 while the population was only ~30% higher than that of Britain in 1830 (only if we don’t count the colonies).

Not sure how excited would the inhabitants of New England and other free states would have been if they were forced to buy out all the slaves in the country (if that was even an option).

Slavery for the British was a side note at that point while it was a fundamental component of the US economy.