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Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water

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

#761

Post by sorcerer-mar »

mdorazio wrote: post #710
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…

I'm not saying you're wrong, but you made multiple strong claims without a single citation or study link. We could have a better conversation with data to look at. There's a decent (though somewhat biased) review of the debate in [1]. It's worth noting that if you read the linked studies there closely you'll find the truth is, as usual, nuanced. Specifically, that "fluoridation is a population-level caries preventive…

[flagged]

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

#762

Post by brigandish »

foldr wrote: post #526
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’s a very American perspective (which is fine, given that we are talking about America). Most countries would view this as a non-partisan public health policy issue which has nothing to do with the abstract philosophical debates about freedom beloved of 90s internet libertarians.

Isaiah Berlin wrote about the two concepts of liberty[0] in 1958 and the constitution of the US is based on negative liberty, so it goes back a bit further than the 90s.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Concepts_of_Liberty

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

#763

Post by wisty »

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…

I think it's a reductionist word game to reduce everything to a single dimension ("freedom") and then say "I think my policy is better, and since everything can reduce to a single variable it means there is more freedom".

If a right-wing voter thinks banning gay marriage is good for society, it is also positive freedom? If your counter-argument is "no, because while it would be positive freedom if it was good for society, it's not" then maybe I'm just disareeing on your terminology, but I suspect you would say "heck no, telling people what they can't do is not freedom, that's an abuse of the English language as well as being bad for society".

Governments exist to take away some freedoms, it's the whole point of them. People vote for governmets to take away freedoms (with laws and taxes) and get things like public services, justice systems and infrastructure in return. Ideally, they lean towards things that give you a lot of bang for your buck (like flourine), because taking away freedom is not good for creating a dynamic society, and they should be accountable to voters.

Just say that anyone who objects is an anarchist if you want to take the moral high ground from the right in terms they understand.

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

#764

Post by freeone3000 »

lionkor wrote: post #520
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 many Americans consume enough tap water for this to be beneficial?

74.6% of Americans get fluoridated tap water; https://jada.ada.org/article/S0002-8177(24)00204-6/fulltext shows that even with instructions to brush and floss and instructions to use it, water flouridation reduces cavities in a community by at least 20%.

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

#765

Post by iab »

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…

“Objective truth” - I’d love to know how one goes about this, feels like a Nietzsche reading here would be helpful

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

#766

Post by freehorse »

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…

Regardless of whether the water is fluoridated or not, the main guideline is "brush your teeth with fluoridated toothpaste". No policy maker elsewhere is pushing narratives against fluoride at large like in the US. These narratives there are even dangerous. One can easily look at dental associations reviews, or official state guidelines and see that more or less they say very similar things. It is very easy to find these policy-informing reviews online.

And regardless of whether the water is fluoridated or not, there is no big debate elsewhere about it, nobody cares that much about it, because all the evidence is that in smaller amounts prob it is does not matter much either way, in the presence of people brushing their teeth. A lot of countries stopped it due to logistic purposes. In netherlands they tried fluoride in the water, a court said they should actually pass a law in order to be able to do it, and they did not even bother with that and dropped it. The fact that some countries may not use fluoride in the water is not due to some deeply-held conviction about how destructive fluoride is for the iq of the kids. In terms of risks of fluoride, fluorosis is what is mostly discussed anyway, and to a degree, unless it is too serious, this may just be an aesthetic issue.

From the perspective of one that watches this craziness from outside, the whole debate is non-sense, and whether some european countries use water fluoridation or not is not very important, it does not cause any heated debate in the EU. The debate in the US is not because the US considers some things that others do not consider. There is no actual truthseeking mentality from the current administration or anybody on this to actually find for sure if fluoride decreases iq, or if fluoride in the water is absolutely essential for dental health even if people are brushing their teeth.

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

#767

Post by jodrellblank »

VincentEvans wrote: post #713
themgt wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What needs to stop happening is people ignoring objective reality just because the results happen to align with the other "team's" position on something. "Out of a population of about three-quarters of a billion, under 14 million people (approximately 2%) in Europe receive artificially-fluoridated water." The problem I continually see in the USA is the ascription of differences of opinion on [any topic] to America's…

When you watch any British tv the first thing you notice is teeth indeed.

in better condition than American teeth, studies find: https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20150602-do-the-british...

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

#768

Post by brigandish »

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 contrast between positive freedom, the freedom to do something, and negative freedom, the freedom from interference in your life, is the core political argument in America right now.

True.

> Negative freedom, freedom from government interference, is being promoted by those seeking to weaken the government enough to supplant it.

Tenuous. Then again, like you, all of my political opponents are either stupid or evil or both.

> People who are poor and sick are likely unable to stand up for themselves or participate in solidarity against authority.

Contentious. Sometimes this is true, sometimes it is not - giving negative liberty rights (e.g. first amendment speech protections) to individuals has proven an incredibly effective tool to protect the individual against the state. Not perfect, but incredibly effective all the same.

> This individual issue is relatively small, but you take 100's of issues like this, and the effect is to create a class of people who aren't able to do anything but be obedient workers.

Any supporter of negative liberty (i.e. someone who is for small government) would tell you, that is what government does, which is a big reason why they want small government.

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

#769

Post by dcow »

lee_ars wrote: post #740
mdorazio wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but you made multiple strong claims without a single citation or study link. We could have a better conversation with data to look at. There's a decent (though somewhat biased) review of the debate in [1]. It's worth noting that if you read the linked studies there closely you'll find the truth is, as usual, nuanced. Specifically, that "fluoridation is a population-level caries preventive…

That's a whole lot of words for you acknowledging that I'm right. Fluoridated drinking water, at the appropriate levels, has no effect on IQ. Would you like to debate the reality of anthropogenic climate change next? This will be another area where any links you dig up will only point to a single conclusion.

You missed the point. It’s not objectively true in all situations that if you don’t believe fluorinating water is necessary that you’re an a-scientific bad faith actor. One can argue the opposite position in good faith, reasonably. Your statements very strongly supposed that this is a solved case closed topic and any challenges are not supported by evidence. The response was that there is nuance and a better conversation would acknowledge it.

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

#770

Post by EliRivers »

VincentEvans wrote: post #713
themgt wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What needs to stop happening is people ignoring objective reality just because the results happen to align with the other "team's" position on something. "Out of a population of about three-quarters of a billion, under 14 million people (approximately 2%) in Europe receive artificially-fluoridated water." The problem I continually see in the USA is the ascription of differences of opinion on [any topic] to America's…

When you watch any British tv the first thing you notice is teeth indeed.

Indeed. While the UK and the USA have comparable levels of dental health, in US television actors typically require very good (or rather, cosmetically appealing according to local norms) teeth in order to succeed. In the UK, it's less important.
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