451–460 of 1001 posts
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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.
Like the vitamins and minerals added to cereals/milk or the iodine added to salt?
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Why not?
Perhaps, sadly, because if the State doesn't have to pick up the costs in health care, as in large parts of the developed world, then they lose their incentive to be proactive in addressing health issues. In countries with some form of universal health care, simple proactive health interventions can save the State large amounts of money.
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
Does that mean you are against this bill?
Before the bill, your community could either use your own water system, without fluoride, or use the wider system, which has fluoride.
After this bill, your community no longer can use your own water system with fluoride, and the wider system also does not have fluoride.
On a first read, this bill makes the government remove a choice for you, deciding what is good for you.
(I don’t have a horse in this race honestly. Assuming everyone can get toothpaste and toothbrushes, the effect is the same. But the wording of the bill is strange: “may not add fluoride” rather than just “is allowed not to add”.)
Source: https://archive.is/Nustz
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.
The American way is completely devoid of that concept. It's all built on that Pilgrim Fathers founding myth and only ever cares about keeping the state from getting in the way of individual beliefs. It's so focused on that part and only that part that even an almost-all-out theocracy would be fine as long as it did not mess with individual beliefs. "Freedom to" without the tiniest trace of "freedom from".
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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.
"freedom to", a prevention will be provided. You can always decide to take alternatives, if you can afford it. A significant portion of the population can't. They will be able to enjoy life.
Equating freedom with the liberties the rich have is absurd. In any society, the rich will have the most freedom, even in the most oppressive ones. The true litmus test for freedom is seeing the freedoms the poor can enjoy. By that standard, the US doesn't score very well.
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.
What I love about this comment is that one person thought "of course every other country just does the right thing when the US doesn't" and posted it, and then a bunch of other people thought "of course every other country just does the right thing when the US doesn't" and upvoted it, and not a single one of them thought to check what the "right thing" is. Meanwhile, back here on Earth-1, there's no right thing, and…
Flouride should be put in the toothpaste. Then people can make a choice on whether they want it, but most importantly, its in the only product that is actually used for brushing teeth
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…
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…
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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.…
Using certain family members as a personal rubric, fluoridated water has been a right-left issue for at least 2.5 decades. I think it’s been pretty polarized for longer, though it may have taken a long time to gain steam in mainstream “discourse”.
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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.
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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.