The question to me is - do we even have to fluoridate water and is this really the best approach?
For example, most European countries do not commonly use fluoride in their water supply, and everyone’s just fine! No extra cavities, no special health risks. People commonly drink tap water and do not care about potential for any adverse effects, because it’s just that - clean water. And for any teeth-related issues, you already have your toothpaste providing more than enough fluorine.
It depends if you believe in the apocryphal story behind fluoridation. This is a story that justifies the state and it’s right of medical intervention into your life with the need of your informed consent.
These types of stories are designed to justify the right to act of an entity/egregor using the least objectionnable scenario possible. Once this precedent is established it can built upon to justify other actions in other scenarios. All the other unobjectionnable things done to you or in your name
dihydrogen monoxide is also dangerous, we must ban it as well
Agreed. That’s why I only drink DMSO.
(Don’t actually drink DMSO please.)
I love how it has an ad for Acme Klein Bottles
I believe the objection to fluoride is that it is a tranquilizer that keeps us from achieving glory through violent uprising… or sweet sweet dentist profits.
This is a conspiracy by fluoridians.
Drink your water, or get the FOOF.
Thats what the fluoridiots say.
thanks Ron DeSantooth
fluorida man strikes again
Shawty had them blackened-out teeth (teeth)
Tooths with the fur (with the fur)
The whole clinic was looking at her
She hit the fluor (she hit the fluor)
Next thing you know
Shawty’s teeth got glow, glow, glow, glow, glow, glow, glowArtist: Fluo Rida
Song: GlowEdit: formatting
Tooths with the fur (with the fur)
This is too much
So miniscule it won’t poison you but just enough to prevent tooth decay. You really can’t have it both ways. Pretending there is any real control over measurement is also ridiculous. Not to mention there is no need to drink fluoride.
You know what does work? Using fluoride topically and getting good dental care.
Those are different mechanisms, why can’t they have different concentrations?
I don’t know. I do know fluoride works topically. I also know there is no mechanism in the body to return fluoride to the teeth topically after it is swallowed.
So drinking fluoride is pointless.
I don’t know.
You don’t need to know. Statistically dental health increases when municipal water is fluoridated.
Having read many studies on this the consensus is it probably does not help much if the population has adequate dental care.
https://www.cochrane.org/news/water-fluoridation-less-effective-now-past
We know what works, dental care and brushing have a huge benefit that is proven.
The idea of giving everyone fluoride in the water supply is pretty retarded really for several reasons.
If it naturally occurs fine, but adding it is ridiculous.
Ok, so for the poor people without care in those populations we say fuck them?
The mentally ill that don’t do self care?
Fluoridation is providing a baseline. “Does not help much” is a useless statement if that includes everyone with the means for higher levels of care.
There are a bunch of policy decisions that are like this. Yes, it won’t help you. Get over it, you aren’t the whole city.
so for the poor people without care in those populations we say fuck them?
The mentally ill that don’t do self care?
yes! someone finally arrived at the entire platform of the republican party: fuck everyone who’s not a rich cunt.
You don’t even know where the fluoride comes from that is added to our water supply. Open your fucking eyes and realize it is okay to be wrong
Pharmeucutical grade fluoride works great topically. Dumping a toxic chemical in our water supply is borderline insane.
Atoms are atoms…
I don’t care if the fluoride source is toxic waste. It’s not injected in any quantity to do anything but provide positive effects.
Are you going to criticize chemo therapy for being gasp RAdiOaCtiVE??? This is the same thing.
if the population has adequate dental care.
you said it yourself.
So you don’t know, but all the data scientists and dentists, who DO know and are subject matter experts, who say it’s a good idea are to be ignored, because of your sheer ignorance?
Nobody refutes anything I am saying. I think you are confused.
We’ve refuted it, scientific testing has refuted it, you’re just plugging your ears and refusing to listen because you don’t like the answers.
And because random social media people spout conspiracies about it and clearly they’re more educated on the topic than actual trained professionals.
/S
I said fluoride works topically. Do you deny this? Please provide evidence to the contrary.
I said there is no way for the body to return fluoride where it is needed. Swallowing fluoride is pointless and unnecessary at best. At worst it is probably not a good idea to have fluoride in your water if you have kidney disease.
Don’t bother actually, we already no you know literally nothing about this topic.
You are spouting assertions about what sounds right while ignoring bodies of scientific evidence contradicting your viewpoint. Just because Lemmy users are unwilling to spend 20-30 minutes digging through arixv to refute you doesn’t make you right.
You don’t want to go and look up and analyze evidence that floride in the water supply is beneficial, you want to just assert the hypothesis you’ve formed as likely truth without evidence and research into related work, and I can confidently say this because experts who spend their lives reading papers and writing them on this very topic are qualified to make these assertions.
…This “sounds right” line of thinking has been the bane of civilization for eons. You aren’t breaking up some scientific fallacy like the church believing the Earth is the center of the universe, you are perpetuating one.
<.< And before it’s swallowed?
If it is so good to swallow them why not swallow after brushing. Why are you so obsessed with swallowing something that does not help.
Plenty of things we ingest are toxic in high doses, but valuable in smaller amounts.
Like everything, including water?
Mm like beer
Different concentrations. If water is so good for you, why don’t you drink 10 gallons a day?
So then you admit there is no point in drinking fluoride then? Miniscule amount does not make a difference and the normal topical amount you use while brushing is not safe to swallow.
This isn’t rocket science.
Yeah but I read an article on a bullshit website. I think some no name website knows more than a toxicologist
Why is some dumb scientist expert trying to tell me, a person who pays for an internet connection, what the truth is?
Because something something shill money.
Back when I was in college, people didn’t like fluoride because it calcifies the pinneal gland. I assume that rhetoric has only been further exaggerated over the years
Another point that conspiracy bros will bring up is that fluoride is a toxic byproduct of aluminum manufacture and dumping it into the water supply is a cheap way for Alcoa to dispose of it benevolently.
The majority of fluoride that is released into our water supply is a by-product of fertilizer production.
Even better!
Honestly it really is sad, we have so many more uses for it
Every atom of fluoride going into our water is another atom that can’t go into chlorine trifluoride production. Putting it into the water is a huge sacrifice we make for the health of society.
Real men make chlorine pentafluoride anyway. We have no use for pathetic hypergolic oxidisers with only three fluorine atoms.
Weird. The only argument I heard, and successfully made it to policy in my area is that it costs tax money and takes away choice. All thus smart stuff is for those damn yankees.
They have a choice, they can drink bottled water or well water.
It does do this. However so does ageing, low sunlight exposure, low altitude, ethnicity, sex, nutrition, neuro-divergence, cell phone use, EM fields… you get the idea.
Don’t forget the gravitational pull of Betelgeuse. In a very, very small way, that also effects calcification of the pineal gland.
(Don’t give them ideas…)
Does fluoride-enhanced water actually do this, though? Or just pure fluoride? Yes, pure fluoride has an effect, but I always thought the miniscule amount in our water is not enough to actually make a difference to the natural calcification of our pineal gland, anyways.
From what I have read studies do not show it, however it is believed it does happen because, when the data in those studies is extrapolated for 60+ years, it shows that it should contribute to it, at least
So, yeah, seems too, but it really isn’t a factor worth worrying about
I never met the fellow. I never did the science either.
You all are easily impressed.
Same. I haven’t met any of the authors of books I read either.
Have you done any science?
Agreed but can we turn down the chloramine valve? It tastes awful.
Why not just get a water filter?
The people who need to hear this sadly would not believe that too much water can kill you even if you showed them someone die from it, I fear. I’d also be shocked if they read “water poisoning” and didn’t think of poisoned water.
I didn’t know this was a thing when I was younger, but not young enough to not be classified as a moron.
Drank about 7-8 litres of water in 3 hours without going to the bathroom as a contest against a work colleague. Suffice to say I started feeling a little off on the way home, even after going to the bathroom. Years later I finally learned you can drown yourself from drinking too much and the symptoms were eerily close to what I experienced that night.
Oh don’t get me wrong! I also only learned about water toxicity when I was very much an adult.
But the difference between us and the type of person I’m talking about, is that we (I’m presuming on your part) don’t think fluoride in water is a bad thing.
The kind of person who hears “the government adds CHEMICAL_NAME to water” and assumes that’s a bad thing is the kind of person who will not believe drinking too much water can kill you, even (or especially) if they are told by an expert.
Toxicologist here. I think that take is dishonest or dumb.
Taking a lethal dose is almost never the concern with any substance in our drinking water.
Hormones, heavy metals, persistent organic chemicals, ammonia are all in our drinking water. But for all of them we can’t drink enough water to die from a high dose.
Some of them still have a large effect on our bodies.
It’s about the longterm effects. Which we need longterm studies to learn about. That makes them harder to study.
Still doesn’t mean flouride does anything bad longerm. But the argument is bad.
This. How can we be completely certain that something isn’t damaging over the long term. I’m not anti fluoride, but healthy debate and scepticism is a good thing, especially when we’re all forced to consume a substance with the only alternative being dehydration and death. People need to be free to make their own choices.
We probably have enough A/B data now to make some inferences yeah? Compare countries with fluoridated water to countries without.
Yeah, by this argument lead in the water isn’t a concern.
lead poisoning becomes evident pretty early though doesn’t it? (With respect to kids)
I would think that the ratio of persistent exposure to unsafe level has got to be easily higher in cases like Flint than any fluoride-in-the-water usage. Just speculation on my part.
What measures are taken to avoid screwing up the dosage, anyone know? Maybe predilute so that an oops requires multiple buckets instead of vials?
You just made me mad by helping me realize that the Trump bros are going to break water by removing fluoride long before they fix water by removing lead.
They like the lead, though!
(Probably. I mean, they did in Flint, MI…)
Yeah but lead bioaccumulates where as fluoride/ine doesn’t
Are you sure fluoride doesn’t? It does accumulate in the soil, building up in crops. Considering fluoride exposure from all sources, many people are above upper safe limits, even from tea drinking alone
I don’t think fluoride should be added to water as it just pollutes the environment, where 99.99% of water isn’t coming in contact with teeth
It doesn’t. This is high-school chemistry.
Fluoride only “accumulates” up to the peak concentration of the environment (no further) on places where it is removed from contact with that environment.
You can only accumulate fluoride in the soil if you keep adding it and there is almost no rain to wash it away.
Like how crops are irrigated with town water, and in many areas with lowering rainfall? Accumulates in fruit, vegetables, leaves too
Yes, irrigation with the minimum possible amount of water is known to destroy land for millennia at this point. But sodium will be a problem way before you notice any change in fluoride.
Yup, same with PFAS and forever chemicals. Maybe I’m ignorant because I’m not a doctor, but I don’t know if this line of thinking holds water - pun not intended.
Yeah, it seems to me like he got the right idea and wanted to convince people by making an extreme statement…
That might well be the case. I’m not sure if it is helpful to use those half truths which are simpler to convince certain people. Or if it weakens the point because it is in the end not really correct.
It’s so funny I was just having a similar conversation about neurotoxic venomous animals in another thread. Lethality is an obviously concerning threshold, but there are substances out there that can easily destroy your quality of life and livelihood that never reach the concern of being lethal.
I think for mostly rational people concerned about fluoride in their water is that it was a public health decision made with little to no actual science proving it’s safety or efficacy when it was first decided that they were going to add it to the public water supply. The proposed benefits of it weren’t even supported by scientific evidence, it was just supposed that exposure to sodium fluoride could potentially reduce tooth decay for some.
Personally, I’ve suffered from the cosmetic damage of dental fluorosis, and I’m not necessarily thrilled about fluoride. But I have way more issues with public mandates founded on pseudoscience than I am with sodium fluoride. Especially now that we can see evidence that for some people fluoride can be especially beneficial.
So what was wrong with giving people the option of using fluoride toothpaste or mouthwashes… Why did it have to go into the public water supply?
Mate, your entire second paragraph is completely false. Like, you need to just read this: https://www.nidcr.nih.gov/health-info/fluoride/the-story-of-fluoridation
It’s considered by the CDC as one of the greatest Public Health Achievements of the last Century. There have been dozens, if not hundreds of studies about fluoride affects in the water supply.
Yeah that proves my point entirely.
In 1945 they fluoridated the first public water supply.
In 1979 the first published research began to appear to show how fluoride might be able to remineralize dental enamel.
In 1945, Grand Rapids became the first city in the world to fluoridate its drinking water.The Grand Rapids water fluoridation study was originally sponsored by the U.S. Surgeon General, but was taken over by the NIDR shortly after the Institute’s inception in 1948. During the 15-year project, researchers monitored the rate of tooth decay among Grand Rapids’ almost 30,000 schoolchildren. After just 11 years, Dean- who was now director of the NIDR-announced an amazing finding. The caries rate among Grand Rapids children born after fluoride was added to the water supply dropped more than 60 percent. This finding, considering the thousands of participants in the study, amounted to a giant scientific breakthrough that promised to revolutionize dental care, making tooth decay for the first time in history a preventable disease for most people.
Yeah, I guess that somehow totes proves his point. Super easy to see the world wrong when they have the reading comprehension of a 6th grader.
So the person above may think they’re so clever, or whoever fed them that factoid may think that. Notice the claim is remineralization. Maybe that’s true, it may be that a study first showed that in 1975 and that’s not contradicted by your link but that is a non sequitur. It’s not what we’re talking about, it’s not a good faith argument.
Also, isn’t it recommended to not give infants fluorided water, hence why you can buy it in virtually every grocery store?
Pretty much anything you can think of is recommended by someone, because different people have conflicting views. The key is to choose whose recommendations are based on the best reasoning & evidence aligning with your goals.
Also “because I’m an expert and I say so” is a good way to convince someone to let you poison them.
Fluoride does have long term effects though once you consider fluoride exposure through all sources like diet, which is mostly due to fluoride from water ending up in farmland. Tradesmen alone regularly exceed the upper limits due to high water consumption in hotter seasons
Citation needed
To which? These are all pulled from research, just need to know which so I don’t waste my time pulling up something you’re not questioning
Ideally both.
WHO guidelines for 1.5mg/L fluoride
Upper limit of 10mg/day (considered to be high by some bodies)
https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/nutrient-reference-values/nutrients/fluoride-updated-2017
Basic bath: only considering water intake, consuming 6-7 liters in a day (regular occurance working in Australia) puts you over the upper limit without considering major sources like diet, tea and dental products and treatments.
Plants are vulnerable to fluoride accumulation in soil, and their growth and development can be negatively affected, even with low fluoride content in the soil.
Oh yeah? And what if someone ignores that, simply lies and says it’s toxic? I’m convinced!
And both of these people telling me about fluoride in water are both experts in their field. One an expert toxicologist, and the other an expert liar. Now I don’t know what to believe.
Great post… but where is the meme?
Welcome to Science Memes, where the science isn’t memes and the memes aren’t about science.
The meme is now this is not US policy.
Its like stating the world is not flat… when in fact NASA’s official stance is that the world is, indeed, flat.
Without Fluoride all the humour in the world dies.
So, once again, DHMO is the chemical we need to fear.
Fun fact. Literally everyone who has died, ever, has had DHMO in some form. You’re even exposed in the womb!
The stuff also known as hydric acid. People just don’t talk enough about how corrosive it is. Plus, it gets in the air and gets in your lungs!
It’s 10 million times more acidic than drain cleaner!!! And the government is trying to force you to drink it by forcing it to be used in municipal drinking fountains
There was an incident involving it on April 14th 1912 that took over 1500 lives.
I heard that anyone who’s ever come into contact with it has later died
Its a common component of all cancer cells, and trace amounts have been found in the blood of dead lab rats.
terrorists will drink vast amounts of it every day before an attack
It’s so pervasive that they have found it in the bodies of every single child worldwide.
Any chemical that can exist as a solid, a liquid and a gas at the same time isn’t safe to put into our bodies!
The fluoride added to water gets it up to 0.7mg/liter.
That ends up to be 2 or 3 drops in a 55 gallon drums worth of water. Not much.
Fluoride is a natural substance and is found in many areas drinking water already. Many areas in much higher concentrations than 0.7mg/liter, so realistically people all over the world have drank fluoridated water for thousands of years.
You have to well over double the 0.7 before any health issues may appear and the first to appear is at about triple the concentration in kids under 8 years old who drink it for years getting spots on their teeth. The spots are only superficial.
Going into concentrations even higher than that CAN cause health issues when drank for longer periods of time. All of those cases being from naturally occurring fluoride, which actually effects somewhere north of 20% of the world’s population.
Which makes the argument that fluoride in our water keeps us passive as being extra stupid, since water sourced around Columbia (the country) is far higher than .07mg/liter and Columbia seems to be caught in violence and turmoil and instability quite a bit over the decades.
*edit: Colombia
Just because a concentration is low doesn’t mean it’s safe. Water with 0.7 mg/L of Po-210 is lethal.
You can put an amount of it in a 55 gallon drum that is not visible
It’s a natural substance
Fluoride is in fact safe at the amounts that the FDA regulates but saying it’s a small concentration or that it’s natural are not the reasons it’s safe. It’s the hundreds of peer reviewed research articles that show that it’s safe
Its presence in groundwater is how we discovered it’s good for teeth.
In fact, there used to be so much in some areas,it actually stained the teeth. In Colorado Springs a dentist noticed that the children were developing brown stains on their teeth. In researching it, it was discovered that the “Colorado Brown Stain” was caused by excessive fluoride in the drinking water. But it also lead to the discovery that regions with natural fluoride present but in lower levels than Colorado Springs didn’t have stained teeth, but did have lower levels of tooth decay.
Yep. In fact, 21% of the world’s natural drinking water used falls within the recommended range for fluoride, while over another 20% is higher and in some countries actually does cause some non-superficial side effects and problems. Those don’t pop up until in concentrations at least 3 times higher than recommended.
Small note: the country name is spelled “Colombia,” and spelling it correctly means you don’t need to specify which one!
Fair enough!
