Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 1001 posts

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

#541

Post by bell-cot »

impossiblefork wrote: post #529
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…

But you will brush your teeth anyway, and then you apply fluoride topically. It works. Here in Sweden we decided against fluoride for this reason and the fact that it is in fact toxic. It isn't sensible to use systemic exposure when we can use topical exposure and can improve mouth health by education, so that people do what they're supposed to. The fluoride approach achieves a basic level of health, but you can do s…

> But you will brush your teeth anyway, and then you apply fluoride topically. It works.

Relatively few of the poor have the disposable income, time, education, and long-term worldview needed to reliably do that.

EDIT: This comment is about America's poor. Though the same applies in much of the world.

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

#542

Post by baxuz »

Perenti wrote: post #532
j_maffe wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're refuting a statment based on studies and statistics by anecdotal evedince. Also, GP never denied that flouridation is still helpful for non-brushing residents.

Poster claimed fluoridation was unnessecary in many parts of the world. This is true of places with natural fluoridation. But not everyone has access to fluoridated toothpaste, or even toothpaste. To assume otherwise is assuming everyone is neurotypical in a developed country.

And you're assuming that every neurodivergent person can't tolerate brushing their teeth.

I also don't see what access to toothpaste has anything to do with neurodivergent conditions.

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

#543

Post by thordenmark »

nerdponx wrote: post #437
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.

We've been trying for the history of mankind to figure out how to "not keep people trapped in poverty". No one has solved that problem yet, despite the best of intentions with monumental effort. I'll agree with Milton Friedman on this, Capitalism, as bad as it is, has been the most successful system to alleviate poverty.

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

#544

Post by krisoft »

atesti wrote: post #534
kleiba wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Germany for a while. There, the water that comes out of your tab doesn't get fluorized. Instead, they add fluoride to tooth paste. So, is Germany less free or more free?

Isn't it also added to salt?

Isn’t that iodine and not fluoride?

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

#545

Post by rusk »

baxuz wrote: post #538
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…

That is not a very good reason. An absurd version of that would be putting antibiotics into the water because a lot of people don't have health insurance and can get infections.

Comparing Fluoride and Antibiotics is absurd. At least one of these things is supported by public health officials and isn’t unequivocally stupid.

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

#546

Post by [deleted] »

AndrewSwift wrote: post #368

People who want to remove fluoride from the water should visit countries where fluoride is not added and look at people's teeth. I live in France and it's just so obvious that people grew up without fluoride — even celebrities try to talk without showing their teeth when they're on TV! I'm all for getting consent in most cases, but sometimes you'd have to be an idiot not to take the obvious win. It's like we were del…

[deleted]

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

#547

Post by russellbeattie »

briandear wrote: post #477

These American experts who are “disheartened” — do they not pay attention to Europe? Or do they only get upset when Republicans do something? Europe (and many parts of Asia,) is objectively healthier than most of the residents of the USA; so maybe rather than knee-jerking against anything RFK Jr., perhaps the so-called experts should start doing their jobs and looking at what healthier places in the rest of the world…

[flagged]

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

#548

Post by [deleted] »

bell-cot wrote: post #541
impossiblefork wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you will brush your teeth anyway, and then you apply fluoride topically. It works. Here in Sweden we decided against fluoride for this reason and the fact that it is in fact toxic. It isn't sensible to use systemic exposure when we can use topical exposure and can improve mouth health by education, so that people do what they're supposed to. The fluoride approach achieves a basic level of health, but you can do s…

> But you will brush your teeth anyway, and then you apply fluoride topically. It works. Relatively few of the poor have the disposable income, time, education, and long-term worldview needed to reliably do that. EDIT: This comment is about America's poor. Though the same applies in much of the world.

[deleted]

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

#549

Post by rusk »

ost-ing wrote: post #536
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…

Rather than taking choice away, we should be educating people on what the best choice is and letting them make it themselves. Brush your teeth in the morning and in the evening. Standard dental hygiene - If a person can be an obedient worker they can probably brush their teeth twice a day. If they cant, they have bigger problems to sort out.

This is a fair point, and in modern times, where we have good public health education it makes more sense to take this approach.

However this comes with the weighty caveat that there are public groups that actively agitate against public health campaigns.

On balance I think defluoridation makes sense where you have good public health communication.

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

#550

Post by wfme »

chrz wrote: post #483
concordDance wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK government is really big on doing things for our own good, but they don't seem to do much water flouridation. Which I think is some evidence that it's not a clearcut health benefit.

Uk is one of the unhealthiest countries

UK: 34th

USA: 69th

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/healthies...

Post reply on HN