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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

#721

Post by MrMcCall »

hayst4ck wrote: post #704
dcow wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t agree with the framing of “we are experiencing an assault on objective truth…”. We are experiencing a challenge to some existing status quo practices, some of which have come out of science in the past. But nowhere in any conversation has the dialog been “we must question status quo institutional knowledge, and objective truth, to dismantle the institution”. (That’s left speak, actually, and I am acutely awar…

The fluoride thing alone wouldn't even move the needle or be too worth talking about on its own, but when you see everything that is happening and you know it's just the public things, it gives a distinctly different context around what is happening. You know we are overtly threatening Canadian sovereignty right? Countries are setting up travel warnings. Plain clothes officers have abducted people in public. People h…

[flagged]

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

#722

Post by travisgriggs »

shireboy wrote: post #645
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 effective…

I think equating poor people to homeless people is non sequitur.

What about the vast population of “barely making it” people?

But have it your way. I’ve given up on American people (I exist as a 54 year old one amongst them). Decades of wealth have created a society so “me” centric it makes me nauseous sick. Never have I respected those older than me so little. It makes me so sad what we’ve done for those younger.

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

#723

Post by nozzlegear »

kelnos wrote: post #491
nozzlegear wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one thing you're not considering (especially when you say we should vote with our feet) is poverty. It’s true that fluoride toothpaste is widely available, but for people in poverty, of which there are millions in our country, basic hygiene items like toothpaste and a toothbrush aren’t guaranteed. Neither is it guaranteed that everyone has a perfect daily brushing habit like the dentist tells us; there are pe…

If you're not brushing your teeth, periodontitis will get you; the resulting bone decay will cause your teeth will fall out. But sure, great, the water was fluoridated, so I guess it's nice that those now-missing teeth are free of caries?

I really don't feel like you're interpreting my comment in good faith. Do you really think I was arguing that poor people literally never brush their teeth, and every single poor person in the country will eventually suffer from periodontitis? If you read my comment again, I'm sure you could find a way to engage in better faith.

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

#724

Post by 1970-01-01 »

agentultra wrote: post #709

That’s going to go poorly. A Canadian city removed fluoride from water in 2011 and reversed that decision 10 years later. There’s hard data on the effects and they’re not good [0]. [0] https://www.npr.org/2024/12/13/nx-s1-5224138/calgary-removed...

Unfortunately, hard data is not acceptable. This is how it works for the current administration:

All previous data is ignored because of political reasons.

Teeth to slowly rot in heads.

Sometime in the 2030s, local voters will notice they have very bad teeth.

Locals will debate if adding fluoride is going to make teeth great again.

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

#725

Post by Clubber »

cenamus wrote: post #414
AndrewSwift wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does a white-tooth culture look like specifically? People brush their teeth in France, they have modern dentristy etc.

People don't bleach their teeth much outside the US as far as I know. You can see it especially well with US actors, their teeth looking like the someone photoshopped them to #FFFFFF

Those are actually veneers. They grind down their real teeth into basically fence posts to use as a structure to glue fake teeth on them.

https://davidfisherdds.com/how-long-does-it-take-for-porcela...

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

#726

Post by kllrnohj »

permo-w wrote: post #622
bsza wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I acknowledge it is not a "solved" issue, I find it bizarre nonetheless, simply because it is so disproportionately low-stakes compared to the amount of controversy around it. Increased risk of cavities versus tentative evidence of losing 1-2 IQ points at 1.5 mg/L? Sounds like a Monty Python sketch to me that people would get so worked up over this.

you're really genuinely shocked that people would get worked up over chemicals being added to their drinking water without their consent? chemicals which have not been conclusively proven to be non-toxic? chemicals which are already in toothpaste giving people the choice to use them anyway?

flouride naturally occurs in water all over the world, and if you don't want any chemicals in your water you should be drinking distilled water. Almost nobody does, because "chemicals in the water reeeeeee!!!" is just a mindless idiotic shreak, not anything insightful or debatable

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

#727

Post by Aurornis »

jongjong wrote: post #691
lee_ars wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> fluoride in the drinking water concentrations is proven safe and it doesn't affect brains. We can never be sure who funded the studies and whether or not the results can be trusted. Studies have shown that studies cannot be trusted. I err on the side of caution. You're welcome to put it in your own drinking water if you trust the studies. > What needs to stop happening is people ignoring objective reality just beca…

> We can never be sure who funded the studies and whether or not the results can be trusted

> Nobody can perceive objective reality. Everyone is delusional concerning just about everything

This is just hyper-cynical fear mongering. An excuse to reject inconvenient things you see and substitute them with your own alternative reality.

The people who sell fear and things like alternative medicine love to push this angle: They want you to distrust everything. Everything except what they tell you, of course.

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

#728

Post by NoahZuniga »

naasking wrote: post #677
lee_ars wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> For fluoride measured in water, associations remained inverse when exposed groups were restricted to less than 4 mg/L or less than 2 mg/L but not when restricted to less than 1.5 mg/L;

So this study found no negative effects on IQ when the fluoride concentration is less than 1.5mg/L

The U.S. Public Health Service recommends 0.7mg/L of fluoride[1]. This study supports the idea that the amount of fluoride used in the US drinking water is safe.

I couldn't find any information on how much fluoride is in utah drinking water as a whole, but a report from Davis County shows that they stay between 0.6mg/L and 0.8mg/L [2]. I'd say its fair to assume basically all the water in Utah doesn't have too much fluoride, and if it did, lowering the amount to 0.7mg/L would be enough to address the health concerns.

1: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4547570 2: https://www.utah.gov/pmn/files/962361.pdf

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

#729

Post by Clubber »

amelius wrote: post #659

Question: is there something I can do in the office to improve tooth health? E.g. after drinking a cup of coffee, maybe neutralize the pH with some antacid? Or, I don't know, chew some gum? Are there products that are relatively convenient and don't require a brush and water?

You can buy a bottle of it, swish it around your mouth and spit it out.

https://www.actoralcare.com/en-us/products/mouthwash/anticav...

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

#730

Post by evantbyrne »

jdminhbg wrote: post #234
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.

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…

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. The whole "everyone else agrees on X" bit is such a reliable tell.
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