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

781–790 of 1001 posts

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

#781

Post by karaterobot »

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…

Incisive comment, thanks for questioning the assumptions here.

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

#782

Post by nicbou »

Tade0 wrote: post #471
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…

Germany and France don't fluoridate water, but they add fluorine compounds to table salt. Meanwhile growing up in Poland in the 90s as kids we had these fluoridation sessions in school, for which everyone had to bring their toothbrush and brush their teeth with some kind of sour tasting fluid that contained fluorine.

In Germany, you can buy salt with or without fluorine. Both options are available at my local Lidl. It's clearly marked on the front of the box.

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

#783

Post by gruez »

rusk wrote: post #545
baxuz wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So if the Science™ said it was good to add antibiotics (reduces illness!) and anti-psychotics (reduces violence!) to the water supply, you'd be for it?

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

#784

Post by bryanrasmussen »

__s wrote: post #703
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…

Fluorinated table salt. Naturally fluorinated water sources. Public healthcare that covers dental European policy isn't based on modern fluoridation being dangerous, it's based on having alternative systems in place (which vary by country) In Windsor Ontario, across from Detroit, they took fluoride out of water for nearly a decade before reversing that decision based on results: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor…

> based on another thread it sounds like they have an interesting Mormon safety net

as long as you're Mormon. Approximately 60% of the state.

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

#785

Post by hedora »

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…

> Poor people in the US are capable of using fluoride toothpaste and flossing

This is absolutely not a substitute for fluoride in drinking water, which is most important for kids. When your teeth are forming below the gumline, the fluoride you ingest strengthens them. Brushing gums with fluoride doesn’t help.

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

#786

Post by karaterobot »

efitz wrote: post #164

It is trivial today to get whatever level of fluoride is recommended for dental health, via toothpaste. So there is no compelling need to fluoridate as there exist viable alternatives to achieve the same that fluoridation is for any other purpose than dental health. In the USA, dental care is not covered by public insurance, and is an optional add-on to insurance through one’s employer. So without addressing at all w…

> This issue just doesn’t seem important enough to me to spend any effort arguing either way.

Your comment is well-stated, and in the spirit of a free and liberal society. The problem—not with your argument, but with the world—is that today there seems to be literally no issue unimportant enough not to argue about, or use as the battlefield for an unending ideological proxy war. My guess is that few of the people arguing this issue on HN have strong feelings about flouride qua flouride, but have strong feelings about the kinds of people they believe oppose or support the use of flouride in water, and this notion is what they're really railing against.

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

#787

Post by rusk »

gruez wrote: post #783
rusk wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So if the Science™ said it was good to add antibiotics (reduces illness!) and anti-psychotics (reduces violence!) to the water supply, you'd be for it?

That’s an even stupider comparison than the antibiotics one.

Let’s dismantle what you did here that you think is so clever.

You took an absurd comparison of a tried and tested naturally occurring substance with a substance that public health professionals are trying to get us to use less of.

You took that, and replaced it with an even more far-fetched and even more generalised hypothetical.

At least, given your ignorance around antibiotics you might be forgiven for thinking it would be a good thing to give antibiotics for all. I mean if it’s good enough for your food supply it should be good enough for humans right? Ignore egg prices going through the roof cause your flock has no innate immune system.

So then you replace that reasonable sounding but stupid supposition and you replace it with “a word” that you pulled out of the air that sounds like it might be a thing and then wowed us with your abuse of glyphs™

You are nothing but a depressing waste of time and whoever is putting you up to this I’d suggest you go back to them with your cap in hand and admit you’re not up to it.

I enjoyed that. Thanks for the run-out.

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

#788

Post by gruez »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #517
verisimi wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, vitamins, micro doses of aspirin, and other low level medical treatments should also be added to water, for the benefit of the silent poor and sick.

The difference is that fluoride is effectively an industrial waste product and thus it benefits multiple parties to use it. If vitamins were also an industrial waste product, we would indeed be adding them to lots of things.

>The difference is that fluoride is effectively an industrial waste product and thus it benefits multiple parties to use it

Source? Moreover, how much of a market can municipal water fluoridation create that companies would bother lobbying for it?

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

#789

Post by ryandrake »

bavell wrote: post #705
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.

I heard they were going to mandate seatbelts next! Where are our freedoms?!?!?

You joke, but a lot of these freedom-rah-rah-rah people absolutely cried like babies and resisted seatbelt laws back in the 80s and 90s, too. Half my family believed it was evidence a communist takeover, and they all had those little defeat devices that you plugged into the latch, which silenced the car's seatbelt-off indicator.

"You can't tell me what to do" has been a religion in the USA for a long, long time.

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

#790

Post by hedora »

artvandelai wrote: post #372
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…

Adding fluoride to water was revolutionary in the 1940s, but its benefits have significantly declined since fluoride toothpaste became common in the 1970s. While fluoridation made sense when products containing fluoride weren't widely available, it is much less effective and necessary now. Sure, some countries and communities may still see benefits from it, but widespread fluoridation doesn't seem necessary in many p…

It’s still necessary. It is crucial when kids teeth are forming, and brushing does not achieve the same effect.

I find the lack of science in this thread disturbing.

Post reply on HN