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Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water

bbc.com

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

#671

Post by audunw »

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…

Fluoride occurs naturally in water, that’s literally how we discovered the effects of fluoride. People in areas where water naturally contained more fluoride had less cavities.

Anything, including water itself, is toxic (not poisonous, but I’m guessing you meant toxic, since fluoride is definitely not poisonous) in high enough doses. So you could say that about ANY mineral we may add to water to adjust its taste or health effects.

I happen to think adding fluoride isn’t worth the effort. But the hysteria against it is also really dumb.

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

#672

Post by elif »

timeon wrote: post #76
elif wrote: 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?

I kid you not, majority of Americans (myself included) feel some level of guilt pushing the 15% button.

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

#674

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

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.

Here in England, there's some areas that put fluoride into the water and other areas already have sufficient fluoride levels. People complaining about the side effects of fluoridation often forget that water can naturally contain high levels of fluoride - it's really not an issue.

https://www.uk-water-filters.co.uk/pages/areas-with-fluoride...

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

#676

Post by p3rls »

hayst4ck wrote: post #668
shireboy wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 effective…

Truth and even the idea that there is objective truth is a fundamentally political concept. Authoritarians are opposed to the idea of objective truth because objective truth gives a person a foundation on which to criticize and dissent from those in power. Truth is threatening to authoritarians. Truth is an alternative source of legitimacy. We are experiencing an assault on objective truth in the US in order to get s…

[flagged]

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

#677

Post by naasking »

lee_ars wrote: post #661
shireboy wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 effective…

> 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. Except it's not—fluoride in the drinking water concentrations is proven safe and it doesn't affect brains. > Im not clear the validity of those claims Thoroughly scientifically debunked. Repeatedly, over decades. > That seems the core issue- without bias from st…

> Except it's not—fluoride in the drinking water concentrations is proven safe and it doesn't affect brains.

You mean like this: Fluoride Exposure and Children’s IQ Scores A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...

"Findings: Despite differences in exposure and outcome measures and risk of bias across studies, and when using group-level and individual-level exposure estimates, this systematic review and meta-analysis of 74 cross-sectional and prospective cohort studies found significant inverse associations between fluoride exposure and children’s IQ scores. [...]"

Maybe you should reconsider that what you heard once was the definite truth.

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

#678

Post by hello_computer »

Taking compounds of the most electronegative element, and treating people with them systemically—drink it, bathe in it, cook with it—when local administration directly to the teeth is cheap, easy, & effective makes no sense at all.

Meanwhile, mining industries produce—and must dispose of—a steady stream of fluoride compounds that would otherwise have to be dealt with as toxic waste (i.e. very expensive) if they ever lost the green light to dump them into the water supply.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Hodge

or per Google:

Three chemicals are used to fluoridate drinking water in the U.S: sodium fluoride (NaF); sodium fluorosilicate (Na2SiF6); and fluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6). Fluorosilicic acid is a byproduct of the manufacture of phosphate fertilizer.

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

#680

Post by mlinhares »

hayst4ck wrote: post #668
shireboy wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 effective…

Truth and even the idea that there is objective truth is a fundamentally political concept. Authoritarians are opposed to the idea of objective truth because objective truth gives a person a foundation on which to criticize and dissent from those in power. Truth is threatening to authoritarians. Truth is an alternative source of legitimacy. We are experiencing an assault on objective truth in the US in order to get s…

Tolerating this slippery slope that “theres always the other side” is how we got to a place where I have to vaccinate again for measles at 40 because there are people out there saying the measles vaccine isn’t safe.
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