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

641–650 of 1001 posts

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

#641

Post by nulbyte »

kebman wrote: post #611
karparov wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also restricting the freedom of communities if you ban them from adding fluoride to their water if they like to. This ban is anti-freedom. (Just like forcing them could be argued to be, even though that's what you argued against.) So, this ban is arguably reducing freedoms on multiple levels.

Personal freedom ≠ "freedom of communities"—there is no such thing. Freedom applies to individuals, not collectives. When a community makes a decision that affects all its members, that’s democracy, but democracy is not unlimited authority. A majority vote does not grant the right to infringe on individual autonomy, which is why safeguards exist against the tyranny of the majority. Banning fluoride does not restrict…

> Freedom applies to individuals, not collectives.

In the US, it most certainly does. We have freedom to associate, and associations also have freedoms. Were it not so, we wouldn't have even been able to arrive at the conclusion we have with regard to corporate money in politics.

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

#642

Post by nulbyte »

kebman wrote: post #634
alistairSH wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But nobody is forced to drink municipal water. You can go to the grocery and pallets of gallon jugs if you prefer.

Then the community is exactly forcing people to seek other, and way more expensive and way more inconvenient, sources of water. That's the opposite of a freedom.

Why is the city required to provide water in the first place?

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

#643

Post by aziaziazi »

hilbert42 wrote: post #612
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…

So then, you'd also be against adding folate/folic acid to bread for the same reason? For those who don't know many countries including the US mandate the inclusion of folic acid in bread and certain other foods to ensure pregnant women get enough. A deficiency of folic acid during pregnancy causes birth defects in infants. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folate

I never heard of that supplement (not a father) and was very surprised to find 80 countries mandate it. I checked the list (below) and it turns out the 80 countries are a bunch of poor nations plus USA, UAE, Qatar, Canada and Australia. I guess our medicare system supports the EU mothers fine enough so we don’t need to put that in the staple of food.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5809909/ (Table 1)

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

#644

Post by pbhjpbhj »

torginus wrote: post #456
jdminhbg wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Generally speaking I see fluoridation as a ridiciulous idea, on the grounds that the vast majority of tap water ends up being used for things other than brushing your teeth. It is wasteful and damaging to the environment, that excess flouride that has no business being there ends up in the drain, or the water you use for your plants. Flouride should be put in the toothpaste. Then people can make a choice on whether t…

Fluoridation for public health is done at lower levels than fluoride is found naturally in water in other areas.

If it's harmful as you imply, lots of water would need defluoridation.

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

#645

Post by shireboy »

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…

This take has a few problems: Poor people in the US are capable of using fluoride toothpaste and flossing. At least at homeless shelters at outreach things I’ve been to, toothpaste and toothbrushes are freely available. Your argument hinges on them being incapable on the whole and needing a Benevolent But Superior Intelligence to provide an alternative for them.

Second, it completely ignores any debate over effectiveness or side effects. It could well be that fluoride in water is great for teeth but bad for brains. The objections to fluoride in water I’ve seen are more along those lines. Im not clear the validity of those claims but for example anti fluoride advocates don’t typically object to chlorine in water to kill germs. That seems the core issue- without bias from stakeholders, is the benefit of fluoride proven and the risks disproven? It’s hard to answer because a study needs to span many years and exclude many variables.

And in general I think that is what needs to happen with these type debates. Take them _out_ of the sphere of charged political opinion and focus on getting to the objective truth of risks and benefits, then be transparent. People can handle “here are the known pros and cons and what we think that means” over “there are only pros and no cons and if you disagree you hate poor people”

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

#646

Post by somenameforme »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #608
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…

> The contrasting view is that putting fluoride in water is literally medicating people without their affirmative consent. Is that the contrasting view, or the contrasting view that is preferred, because it is more easily demolished? The stronger contrasting view isn't that the government is medicating people without their affirmative consent. It's that it's poisoning people, and no amount of consent by laymen to be…

I think his view is much stronger, since the intent is obviously to medicate even if it may indeed be inadvertently poisoning people in practice. So it doesn't assume one truth (poison or not) one way or the other, but still argues that it should be unlawful. While your view is much more narrow and suggests it should only be unlawful because it's poisoning people, which then begs the question of whether it is or not.

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

#647

Post by pbhjpbhj »

consp wrote: post #333
arp242 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same discussion happened in Netherlands in the 70s, and water in NL is no longer fluoridated since the 70s for that reason. So it's not that "US-specific". I don't know about other countries from the top of my head.

Funny thing you mention that. Since it is now monitored and maintained by natural source. There is fluoride, just not added anymore. (It is at lower levels than when added obviously)

>(It is at lower levels than when added obviously)

This is not obvious. Some water has high levels of fluoride, which can cause harm (fluoride added for public health reasons is not the highest level of fluoride you will find [in the UK]).

Fluoridation could be done by mixing of naturally high fluoride water sources into other water.

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

#648

Post by pbhjpbhj »

nostromo wrote: post #236
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.

I’d agree that Europe has solved this issue by removing fluoride from drinking water. But beyond Europe there’s still no global consensus. I do agree that the US is an outlier with fluoride being nearly universal.

Which European countries _remove_ fluoride from water generally? UK adds it in naturally low fluoride areas.

Some countries no longer add it (but their water still has naturally occurring fluoride that they don't remove).

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

#649

Post by nulbyte »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #575
espadrine wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 mak…

"Your community could decide" is not freedom in the American political sense. In US political theory, the unit of freedom is the individual, full stop.

I've seen this retort elsewhere. It's not true. It's why corporations are persons with first amendment and other freedoms.

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

#650

Post by FollowingTheDao »

hilbert42 wrote: post #612
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…

So then, you'd also be against adding folate/folic acid to bread for the same reason? For those who don't know many countries including the US mandate the inclusion of folic acid in bread and certain other foods to ensure pregnant women get enough. A deficiency of folic acid during pregnancy causes birth defects in infants. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folate

I am against adding anything to a whole population to treat a few, folate included. Here is why. Folate is a known stimulant of some cancers.

https://aacrjournals.org/cebp/article/17/9/2220/169762/Folic...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13668-018-0237-y

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1463-1318....

(And you know that the first line cancer treatments, like methotrexate, are anti-folates.)

So while we are lowering birth defects, are we increasing cancers at the same time? Has this ever been studied?

We are not a homogeneous population.

The same is true for fluoride. Some people have a fluoride allergy:

https://www.aaaai.org/allergist-resources/ask-the-expert/ans...

And while fluoride is known to prevent cavities, it also makes tooth enamel brittle:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43246-024-00709-8

https://www.medindia.net/news/healthwatch/fluoride-strengthe...

So I prefer to medicate myself, according to my own needs and my own genetics, thank you.

Post reply on HN