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

841–850 of 1001 posts

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

#841

Post by bdzr »

cpursley wrote: post #755
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 issue is not the fluoride in the water, it's all the sugar that poor people eat and drink (especially sodas). And we actively fund the corn syrup industry at both ends via the farm bill (production and consumption via SNAP).

Also tariffs on cane sugar.

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

#842

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#843

Post by arijun »

mlyle wrote: post #807
tashar wrote: post #776

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thoroughly scientifically debunked. Repeatedly, over decades. "The NTP monograph concluded, with moderate confidence, that higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, are associated with lower IQ in children" This is from an NIH meta-analysis. Its a pretty rigorous study. https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/... "It is…

> It is IMO both very reasonable to fund more research into this to know conclusively if 0.7mg/L is indeed safe How exactly do you propose we do this? It's tough to prove absence of harm. The meta-analysis put together tons of research under different situations, and found a weak and relatively small dose-response relationship above 1.0 mg/L and failed to find a relationship below. The evidence between 1.0mg/L and 1.…

> but it's not like we have an absence of research below 1.5 mg/L).

But it is?

>> "It is important to note that there were insufficient data to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies has a negative effect on children’s IQ"

Yes you would need a higher powered study to rule out the potentially smaller effect, but when your treatment can affect tens of millions of children, it doesn't seem crazy to ask for more funding.

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

#844

Post by uppost »

verall wrote: post #796
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…

> 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. This is so incurious. Obviously most people, poor or not, have access to fluoridate…

You're close but still a bit strawmanny. If we want poor kids to have better dental outcomes we should do more than just flouridate. We should find out why the poor have worse dental outcomes and address the root problem(s), which I would imagine in the US is something like soda consumption or lack of dentists in poor areas.

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

#845

Post by oaktrout »

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…

The conclusion from the largest and strongest studyies is that there is a certain level of fluoride that harms IQ: https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/....

"The NTP monograph concluded, with moderate confidence, that higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, are associated with lower IQ in children"

They found fluoride in drinking water concentrations was associated with lower IQ, the opposite of your claim of "proven safe".

Show us some evidence that is proven safe, so far as I can tell all evidence points to unsafe or "we're not sure".

> 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.

I couldn't agree more. The study that is cited above started when Obama was president by the way.

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

#846

Post by stevebmark »

cladopa wrote: post #511

For me as a European, adding fluoride to water for your teeth is as ridiculous as cutting the foreskin of babies' penis in name of (dubious) "hygienic reasons". But people get used to it. Specially when they don't get to experience the alternative. Most people rationalise it is a good thing. Stockholm syndrome.

Which part of Europe are you in? Countries in Europe add fluoride to water, salt, milk, and Italy has naturally fluoridated water.

> The European Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (EAPD) recently called water fluoridation "a core component of oral health policy" and adds that salt fluoridation "is suggested when water fluoridation cannot be implemented" due to technical, logistical or political reasons.

https://static.spokanecity.org/documents/citycouncil/interes...

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

#847

Post by gruez »

rusk wrote: post #787
gruez wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ignor…

>You took an absurd comparison of a tried and tested naturally occurring substance

It's ironic that you assert this, and then go on to claim that I'm ignorant, when you seem to be the ignorant one. Penicillin was originally derived from a mold and is one of the popular antibiotics out there, so it's arguably "tried and tested naturally occurring". The same is true of lithium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_(medication)

>with a substance that public health professionals are trying to get us to use less of.

Under the hypothetical of "if the Science™ said it was good", this would not be a problem. If you can't understand how hypotheticals work, I suggest you stop wasting my time.

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

#848

Post by sieabahlpark »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #633
impossiblefork wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you will brush your teeth anyway, and then you apply fluoride topically. It works. Here in Sweden we decided against fluoride for this reason and the fact that it is in fact toxic. It isn't sensible to use systemic exposure when we can use topical exposure and can improve mouth health by education, so that people do what they're supposed to. The fluoride approach achieves a basic level of health, but you can do s…

Water is also toxic.

[dead]

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

#849

Post by maxerickson »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #562
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.

In the political philosophy of the US, the unit whose freedoms matter is the individual, not the community. Freedoms for individuals necessarily come from reducing the freedom of "the community."

Why are the remaining individuals in the community forced to include your individual in their decisions?

(I'm not being serious, I'm pointing out that you may not have found your first principle just yet)

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

#850

Post by rayiner »

__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…

In many US states, Medicaid covers dental. CHIPs, for kids, covers dental in every state.
Post reply on HN