991–1000 of 1001 posts
People who want to remove fluoride from the water should visit countries where fluoride is not added and look at people's teeth. I live in France and it's just so obvious that people grew up without fluoride — even celebrities try to talk without showing their teeth when they're on TV! I'm all for getting consent in most cases, but sometimes you'd have to be an idiot not to take the obvious win. It's like we were del…
Tremendous boon for the dental industry. Congratulations for everyone involved in getting this through.
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…
https://theunbiasedscipod.substack.com/p/the-well-runs-deep-...
The NTP report is flawed and likely biased.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fluoridation for public health is done at lower levels than fluoride is found naturally in water in other areas. If it's harmful as you imply, lots of water would need defluoridation.
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/23/nx-s1-5086886/fluoride-and-iq
Sounds like it's not important to address fluorine reduction if a casual relationship can be established.
I do wonder how they compensated properly for fluoride being added in poorer areas. Will dig it out when I get chance.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Here is a concise detailed analysis of the concerns with the metaanalysis provided by the NTP: https://theunbiasedscipod.substack.com/p/the-well-runs-deep-... The NTP report is flawed and likely biased.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
I'm aware of the history (I said "beloved of", not "invented by"). My point is that it's idiosyncratically American to think of decisions about municipal water treatment as being fundamentally questions of political liberty.
I on the other then havnt seen a dentist in 25yrs, have no fillings after 40, and wouldnt say i brush my teeth twice a day, everyday, as recommended. I do however consume water tainted with fluoride.
So maybe there are more factors at play here then simply washing our teeth. I cant fathom how dirty our parents generations teeth must have been before toothpaste to result in the amount of fillings they have compared to people my age (unless your a meth head).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but now it is “overmedicating” a vulnerable fraction of the population. Makes sense, but the intention also is that many people do not brush their teeth, or at least do not brush them as often as they should, and so fluoride is added to drinking water to compensate so people's teeth don't start to fall out at an alarming rate.
> many people do not brush their teeth many? (!!!) Googling it all I found was one dentist website that said 2%, but didn't seem that reliable
I have no doubt most people brush their teeth in one capacity or another, but do you really think 98% of people brush them regularly and sufficiently? I reckon that drops down quite a few double digits at that point, and since we're talking about populations here that's quite a lot of people.