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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

#911

Post by guerrilla »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #904
bko wrote: post #893

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's about hard data and optimization of health, but rather bodily autonomy. I'm sure there are plenty of chemicals that could be forcibly put in the drinking supply that, based on current scient, would be beneficial for the public. But I would still be skeptical. Sell me these substances in my food or toothpaste, but don't put it in my drinking water by default. It's also worth noting about 3% of weste…

[flagged]

This is textbook whataboutism and seemingly an example of the nirvana fallacy too. All of the above as well as euthenasia and abortion can be included under bodily autonomy and there's no reason we shouldn't support all of it.

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

#912

Post by kelipso »

otterley wrote: post #323
kelipso wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A low dose of this neurotoxin can still have smaller adverse effects on IQ, and in all likelihood do, especially for fetuses and small children. Lots of countries have banned fluoridation of the water supply. The US has one of the highest fluoride levels in the water supply. The default should be to not add neurotoxins into the water supply (I cannot believe I have to actually say this).

If that were true, nearly the entire state of California would have developmental issues. Anyway, lots of things in this world that are bad for people in high doses are beneficial in smaller doses. Water is a great example, as are salt and sugar.

This logic is so flawed. We. know the biological mechanisms in the body that makes use of salt and sugar. And we know both are safe in relatively large amounts too.

With fluoride, relatively small amounts in the drinking water is known to cause lower IQ.

But somehow even smaller amounts are safer?

Do you just not see the problem here or are you purposely blinding yourself to the reality because of your political biases? Is it an unconscious thing for you?

You are simply not being rational. You are making excuses and excuses for holding a belief you have had and probably defended for years. And now you are too invested to left the belief go. Just let it go already.

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

#913

Post by jedberg »

krupan wrote: post #896
jedberg wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of that is due to the Mormons. While they tend to vote Republican, they are some of the biggest socialists out there. They believe in giving 10% of their income to the church (and enforce it!). Then they redistribute to their poorest members in the form of free private education at all pre-college levels and highly subsidized college as well. And with food banks, free or subsidized medical services, and whole b…

Calling Mormons socialist is inaccurate. Socialism is government-forced redistribution of wealth. A large majority of Mormons, at least in Utah, are very much opposed to that. You are correct that a large majority of Mormons voluntarily share their wealth with the poor and needy. You are incorrect saying that you have to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the actual name of the "Mormon ch…

> Calling Mormons socialist is inaccurate

I would say it's very accurate. They are forced to share their wealth to get into the Kingdom of God. The only choice they have is to not go to heaven. I'd say that's being forced, just by a different power.

> but becoming a baptized member of the church is not required

You don't get the BYU discount unless you're baptized.

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

#914

Post by Aloisius »

somenameforme wrote: post #889
culi wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IQ link is very heavily lacking in evidence. In the actual research the main "risk" posed by flouridated water is actually fluorosis. This causes minerals in your enamel to be replaced with flouride which can cause them to be brittle in the long term. It's pretty uncommon but the thought is that now that flouride toothpaste are commonplace, the benefit of flouridated water is also way less. Which changes the calc…

The National Toxicology Program recently completed a fairly substantial meta study and concluded that "for every 1 mg/L increase in urinary fluoride, there is a decrease of 1.63 IQ points in children.". [1] This is also relevant to OP since it's not just pregnant women at risk from excessive fluoridation but also children. For now it seems that adults are, somewhat oddly, unaffected. [1] - https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/w…

In bold from your source:

> 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.

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

#915

Post by Thorrez »

anyonecancode wrote: post #701
naasking wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Isn't this talking about naturally-occurring fluoridation, not added? The concentrations they describe as having an inverse affect are far higher than what gets added to water on purpose: What the study measured: "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" And what the US feder…

If people getting under 2mg/L were getting harmed, doesn't it seem logical that people getting 0.7 mg/L would also get harmed, just by a smaller amount?

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

#916

Post by jyounker »

dcow wrote: post #686
hayst4ck wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 Republican party has been trying to squash inconvenient science for a long time.

One of the signature pieces of Gingrich's "Contract With America" in 1995 was the elimination of the Office of Technology Assessment. The office had the unfortunate duty to communicate well researched facts, and these facts contradicted conservative policy positions. (OTA: The planet is warming. R: No it's not. Exxon says it's not.) So the OTA had to go.

There are a nearly endless list of these things over the last 30 years.

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

#917

Post by agentultra »

oaktrout wrote: post #890
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...

All the evidence in that article is based on what a politician thinks. "And I think another meta study came out also". The actual high quality evidence shows that water fluorination has minimal impact on tooth health in 2025: https://www.cochrane.org/news/water-fluoridation-less-effect...

I was thinking of this study:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdoe.12215

Perhaps more could be done. The situation is complex because of several compounding factors for sure. There are European countries that have no water fluoridation and better oral health outcomes than in North America.

Regardless, there’s 10 years where a city in North America turned off water fluoridation and we have results of that decision to study.

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

#918

Post by verall »

uppost wrote: post #844
verall wrote: post #796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

What is strawman in my comment? I'm genuinely interested.

> We should find out why the poor have worse dental outcomes and address the root problem

The root problem is that parents that are absent, either for noble reasons (working multiple low-wage jobs) or less noble reasons (addiction, abandonment) will not have the presence to enforce good dental hygiene.

There will always be some subset of parents that are more or less absent, and the main solution that exists for that in the US currently i.e. the foster care system has measurably terrible outcomes, and so it is only applied in the most egregious cases.

Why should we let perfect be the enemy of good here? I'm all for removing fluoride from the water, once it has no benefit on the population. But currently, it has a huge benefit, just on people who are least likely to advocate for it.

"You're just pushing your "Benevolent But Superior Intelligence" onto people" is an appeal to emotion, not a solution to real problems that real children face.

More emotionally: it's fucking embarrassing we let bullshit arguments like this hurt people in real life.

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

#919

Post by abirch »

bko wrote: post #902
fzeroracer wrote: post #897

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many places in Europe have high levels of fluoride in their water naturally. In fact many of them are likely getting far too much fluoride. Also realistically, if people cared about bodily autonomy cars would've been banned immediately thanks to the amount of particulates and local pollution produced causing far more adverse health effects.

If a state wants to ban cars it should be free to do so. I think the benefits outweigh the costs and no one would choose to live there. Also important to note no one is banning flouride. They're preventing it from being put in the drinking water. The equivalent would be if cars were distributed upon arriving to the state.

The state is taking the rights away from the municipalities. Why not leave it up to the local people? No one was forcing local towns to fluoridate their water.

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

#920

Post by somenameforme »

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...

The study [1] that's based on seems pretty typical, and is precisely what drives skepticism towards these policies. The differences for permanent teeth were not significant. The paper claimed this may be because "7-year-olds have not had the time to accumulate enough permanent dentition caries experience for differences to have become apparent." The differences in temporary teeth had a deft (decay, extracted, filled teeth) of 66.1% in Calgary (no fluoride) and 54.3% in Edmonton (fluoridated).

So you're looking at a small positive improvements in dental outcomes, for what may be a permanent decline to IQ. That's obviously not a trade I think anybody would make, so the real issue is not whether or not it improves dental outcomes but whether it's having measurable effects on IQ as we have seen in other studies. [2] I don't understand why a study operating in good faith wouldn't also pursue this question in unison, or in fact as the primary question. I think relatively few people outright doubt the dental benefits of fluoride, but rather are concerned about the cost we may pay for such.

[1] - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdoe.12685

[2] - https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/...

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