I initially dismissed it as the same category of stupid as anti-vax beliefs, but it turns out that there are a decent amount of good studies showing a link between fluoride in water and (slightly) lower IQ when pregnant mothers ingest the fluoride. Note that there is no significant effect after birth.
The idea is to remove fluoride from water and advise pregnant women to use fluoride-free toothpaste.
Everyone else can get enough fluoride from modern toothpastes, or regular dentist treatments.
The logic is that fluoride in tap water made sense in the era before toothpaste had it, but now it is “overmedicating” a vulnerable fraction of the population.
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 calculus.
A not insignificant number of researchers are advocating for the view that flouridating water just isn't worth it anymore and the (slight) risk of flourosis is more significant than the (slight) benefit of decreased dental caries.
Children are the main group that benefits from fluoride in water because the fluoride helps strengthen teeth as they form. Lack of fluoride increases childhood cavities, leading to decreased academic performance.
This was a real problem in the San Jose school district until recently. They started fluoridation of water in the last ten years, and were the biggest US city that didn’t fluoridate. The evidence of the above is clear according to SJ dentists I have talked to.
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.
Fluorosis is very common afaik. My dentist told me I have it: slightly whiter patches on my teeth. Then he showed me his own fluorosis. It actually is stronger than the old enamel.
> 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.
Sadly, an alarming percentage of Americans don't drink water. I’ve spoken to way too many people who think water tastes wrong because it’s not sweet enough.
I'm pretty sure that no amount of fluoridated water is going to save you if you do not brush your teeth.
Even if the fluoride somehow manages to overcome all that and prevent you from getting cavities, the gum disease will eventually cause all your teeth to fall out.
The levels of fluoridation in order to cause difference in IQ as I understand it, from the Chinese studies, suggest that basically the effect if true occurs at around 2x+ the concentration found in supplemented water supplies.
My understanding also is that if you’re a dentist wanting to get rich, move somewhere that has unfluoridated water.
2x is basically no safe margin for something like water. Of course you can question the quality of the study, but if it's actually 2x, fluoride in tap water should be treated like lead pipes.
So if your training and double your water intake your basically lowering you IQ? (according to the Chinese studies) I wonder the method this uses.. has anyone looked at dementia rates in high fluoride areas.. Particularly in people with high water intake?
There is also a host of things we use water for from cooking to preserving, distilling and cooling.. i wonder if any of these things could concentrate the fluoride.
Also since fluoride has a lower boiling point any studies tracked what breathing in fluoride gas over long periods cause?
2x is honestly pretty small. I would expect the amount required to drop IQ to be larger by an order of magnitude or more to conclude that fluoridating water is totally safe.
> I initially dismissed it as the same category of stupid as anti-vax beliefs
Dismissing things out of hand like this is a category of stupid in itself.
Look at the current research, listen to people who devoted their careers to studying this, make up your own mind. If you're on HN, then you're qualified enough to at least figure out who the genuine experts are and read what they recommend.
Putting any science-based debate into a "category" to dismiss is turning yourself into one of the stupid people.
This is bad advice that no one could possibly follow.
> Look at the current research, listen to people who devoted their careers to studying this, make up your own mind.
Do you honestly do this with every single belief you have? Even every single controversial belief? Have you looked, yourself, into whether the world is flat? Whether the 9/11 conspiracy theories are true? Whether crop circles were created by aliens? These are all absurd conspiracy theories, but I assume most people don't know the "up to date" research on any of them, or what people who have "devote their careers" to research them say.
And those are incredibly common and well known to be false theories.
You have to take some things on faith to at least some degree - though to be clear, by "on faith" I mean "on faith of people you trust", which should really start with professional scientists etc. Also, it's totally fine to just say "I have no actual idea" about most things, and just go with what your current understanding of the status-quo position is.
> Everyone else can get enough fluoride from modern toothpastes, or regular dentist treatments.
The advantage of putting it in water is that it ensures all children get it, not just the children whose parents can and do make sure they brush their teeth and go to the dentist.
Agree, my biggest issue is often where they source the fluoride and whether they test it. We found out in my (liberal) hometown that they were actually sourcing some derivative which has no human studies.
Given that everyone gets enough in toothpaste I just don’t see the reason to keep doing it, too much can go wrong. It’s kind of a strange mass medication that I’m not sure the government needs to be involved in.
> The idea is to remove fluoride from water and advise pregnant women to use fluoride-free toothpaste.
What most people don't understand here are the levels of fluoride being ingested. You can very easily remove all fluoride from your water with a relatively cheap RO system. But the recommendation to use "fluoride-free toothpaste" is just plain misinformation.
The reason is that you don't eat toothpaste. And even when adults ingest small amounts of toothpaste, again, the amount of fluoride is basically beyond negligible. Fluoride can both be applied to teeth as a varnish and/or consumed in drinking water. Using a flouride-free toothpaste can oftentimes do more damage than good because of SLS in those alternatives and because those alternatives often have abrasives that do far more harm than good. It's amazing people will recommend a product that may likely be worse because they have no domain expertise. So, yes, people should talk to their Dentist about these things and ask questions of them vs the Internet.
Really the downside to removing fluoride from city water is that low income families will be worse off with respect to dental related issues compared to more well off families that spend time instilling dental hygiene and preventative care for their kids. As you mentioned most people who have decent oral hygiene get enough flouride.
Where we live we have well water. Fluoride in the water isn't a concern, and if it was in our drinking water it generally wouldn't be consumed because of the water filtration anyway.
My anecdotal experience says that using fluride-free biomine toothpaste makes my tooth highly sensitive than using a good ol' Colgate. Now, I use it only twice or thrice per month randomly.
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 whether fluoridation is effective or safe, there doesn’t seem to be any compelling need to fluoridate public water, and there’s no economic down side for the public if governments choose not to do so.
Given this, why not just leave people alone to make their own choices? If the citizens in a city or state want to fluoridate the public water supply, then do so; if they choose not to, then leave them alone. It’s a free country and voters are grownups; let them choose for themselves.
If you live in a place that chooses the choice you dislike but for some reason fluoridated public water supply is a critical issue for you, either campaign to change it or vote with your feet.
This issue just doesn’t seem important enough to me to spend any effort arguing either way.
> 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.
This rings true for my gut reaction. The family and acquaintances in my life who have been up in arms against fluoride for years now are actual neo nzs (like “deport all non whites”, “you-know-who controls america”, “superiority of the white race” level).
So my instinct is to really be afraid of this anti-fluoride wave, even tho practically I don’t care one way or another.
I think one thing you're not considering (especially when you say we should vote with our feet) is poverty. It’s true that fluoride toothpaste is widely available, but for people in poverty, of which there are millions in our country, basic hygiene items like toothpaste and a toothbrush aren’t guaranteed. Neither is it guaranteed that everyone has a perfect daily brushing habit like the dentist tells us; there are people who don't brush every day, or even every week.
You talked about dental care not being covered by public insurance — is it not worth considering that some basic level of dental care is already being applied to the country via fluoridation? It's a minimal, cost-effective way to prevent tooth decay at scale. Fluoridated water is one of the few dental protections available to everyone regardless of their income.
If you're not brushing your teeth, periodontitis will get you; the resulting bone decay will cause your teeth will fall out. But sure, great, the water was fluoridated, so I guess it's nice that those now-missing teeth are free of caries?
I don't believe there's a single person in the USA that's so poor they can't pay $3 for toothpaste every 3 months. I also believe that having such a low personal hygiene where you don't brush your teeth altogether, even if you drink water with fluoride, will have terrible results anyway for your teeth anyway.
I'm completely sure that any people that don't brush their teeth is just because they are too lazy to even bother.
This trope of justifying everything with "but there are millions of poor people in the USA" is really tiresome.
Trivial is what we have now. Taking fluoride from the water means people will have to spend extra time and money on fluoride and dental treatments. When I viewed it, your comment appeared directly after this one (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43524171), which talks about a town in Canada that voted to abandon fluoride , saw worse health outcomes, and then voted to reinstate it. This tells us that fluoride is not trivially available to people, and taking it away from them enriches corporations while making people less healthy.
Your indifference is based on some core assumptions that are false. In reality,
1) Fluoride in water works in addition to fluoride in toothpaste to protect our teeth - rather than two highly concentrated events of reminieralization, fluoriated water reminieralizes the teeth throughout the day.
2) There is a strong economic downside to ceasing fluoridation: Fluoridation saves millions of dollars that otherwise would be spent on dental bills by the public - https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/abs/10.1377/hlthaff.2016.0... - shows cost savings ratio of twenty dollars for every.
dollar invested in reduced treament costs. This remains apt: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7164347/
3) The best way to preserve choice is to maintain fluoridation. People cannot choose to fluoridated their own water system - they can choose to live in unfluoridated areas, use filters that remove fluoride, or otherwise avoid the tap water.
4) Removing fluoridation means acces to fluoride becomes much more difficult and expensive. The reason fluoridation is so cost effective is that it is delivered through the public water system - a community resource. Bottled fluoridated water is more expensive than gasoline. It is also less regulated and less available in the U.S.A.
In general it's some weird relic of medieval view on dentists not being medical professionals but someone akin to barbers. It shouldn't exits but it persists.
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].
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.
In the 2nd study that shows correlation between fluoride and lower IQ in children, the water had twice as much fluoride as the recommended amount in the US (1.5 mg/L vs 0.7 mg/L).
The most ridiculous part is that we have an alternative way to apply fluoride without intaking it. It's called toothpaste. But for some reason people act like Utah is banning vaccine.
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 western Europe has fluorinated so let's not pretend like this is unprecedented
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.
Is one due the right to potable water at a tap at their home? Or is purified water a service offered by the government as one source of many available to the us population?
Are you not allowed to pay for bottled water instead of paying your local utility for drinking water?
The bodily autonomy argument seems bad to me because you are buying water from the government when you could buy water from any other source instead.
Is the argument that the government water is too convenient and so it should be unfiltered? Who is to say that filtering out poop is not infringing on my right to consume unfiltered water?
Fluoride was introduced late enough in Zimbabwe that many of my childhood adults easily remembered life before it. There were many horror stories about the general state of teeth prior.
That being said, your dentist can apply fluoride to your teeth (boggles the mind why insurance won't pay the $50), and flouride toothpaste is still much more common than not. It's probably not needed in the water supply for dental purposes.
That being said, what are the other fringe benefits: such as microbe control?
The city of Houston has stopped adding fluoride to water but allows natural fluoride levels to exist[0]. We are going on year 6 and the only thing we have noticed is harder water.
There is probably more nuance to both stories tho.
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.
Hawaii does not add fluoride to their water. Utah may be the first to out-right ban it, but there are quite a few local communities and cities that opt-out of adding it to their drinking water.
The US is, according to Wikipedia, among a small minority of countries in which a majority of people drink fluoridated water. Various European countries have discontinued doing so. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation>
Yeah, this is one of those places where because RFK Jr took the anti- stand there's an understandable assumption that it's more nutty anti-science stuff, but it's much less clear cut when it comes to fluoridation. Europe has much lower rates than the US, which is an outlier on these stats only approached by Australia, and before Utah the major high profile anti-fluoride stance was made by Portland:
I was surprised to learn this. "Worldwide, the Irish Republic, Singapore and New Zealand are the only countries which implement mandatory water fluoridation."
I live in New Zealand and my town doesn't put fluoride in the water but it seems like they'll be made to do so fairly soon. I don't really care one way or the other from the point of view of ingesting the stuff, but I do consider it a bit of a waste of money. People who brush with toothpaste don't need this and people who don't are probably drinking too much soda. A more useful thing to do might be to subsidize toothpaste for people who can't / won't buy it for their kids.
Many other places fluoridate salt. There’s many ways to get flourish (toothpaste being the best if you can get people to use it correctly) but the evidence that mass fluoridation of some kind is good for dental health is enormous.
It seems like they could compare states/countries/cities while controlling for other factors (age, income level, etc) to see how well fluoridation works. I'm pretty sure you'll find that fluoridation helps lower the number of cavities, but it's not going to be a slam dunk.
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 delivering flakes of gold with the mail and people complained — that's not what mailboxes are for!
You're misattributing: the U.S. has a perfect white teeth culture that doesn't exist elsewhere. Many people outside of the U.S. have healthier but uglier teeth. Fluoride isn't the reason for good/bad teeth inside/outside of the U.S, it's cultural. Many places outside of the U.S. do put fluoride in their water (nationally or regionally) and have "bad" teeth (e.g: England).
People in the U.S. don't have perfect white teeth, they have are cosmetic procedures on their teeth equivalent to liposuction, silicone, botox, hair plugs and/or laminated face.
While tooth whiteness in the US is often divorced from tooth health, fluoride does add a yellowish tint to your teeth, so the healthiest teeth — those imbued with fluoride — are slightly yellow. (In fact when they first decided to add fluoride to water, one of the questions was just how much they could add before your teeth would turn completely yellow. Health-wise the yellowing was fine, but it was obviously visually unappealing.) Ugly teeth may be due to poor/lack of orthodontia, but it's probably not due to better dental care.
But flakes of gold are not associated with a lower IQ in children.
"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."
So it is also not clear, if the lower concentration typically found also has this effect.
"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."
But the solution of just using (cheap) Fluor in toothpaste to apply the Flour where it should go - to the teeth and not the stomach, sounds smarter to me.
So in other words, 0.7mg/L fluoridated water is also not associated with lower IQ in children. That study did not prove it safe, but it did prove it unsafe, either.
Where I live, dental health is good and we don’t have fluorides in the water (we have free, mandatory dental care for children). We recently banned the use of fluorides to make our skis go fast because of the environmental impact.
Utah has naturally occurring fluoride in their water and some water systems its more than double(2.0mg/l) what they add to prevent dental issues. Why were they fluorinating their water?
I am saying it’s weird to fluoridate water in areas with high levels of naturally occurring fluoride. Also to point out that there is naturally occurring fluoride. If Utah believed fluoride was a health risk, why aren’t they spending tens of millions to filter it out. Or is it just virtue signaling.
> This is the US health system being lead by a bunch of woo-woo people who don’t understand how research works.
The majority of the developed world does not fluoridate their water supply. The US has one of the highest rates of fluoridation in the developed world. Within America, fluoridation rates are highest on the East Coast and in the South, and lowest on the Left Coast.
The people leading the health system are highly credentialed. Moreover, highly credentialed people, in medicine as in all fields, frequently disagree on what studies show, how valid a study is, what it's flaws and limits are, how conclusive it is, and so forth. And the consensus has a long, time honored tradition of being wrong from time to time.
Ultimately, the woo woo people are the ones who rely on someone in a labcoat to tell them whether ingesting government approved (there's your first red flag) synthetic fluoride from industrial byproducts is "necessary".
If it's useful, brushing it onto your teeth and into your gums 56,000 times in your life is probably sufficient, particularly given that we don't know with absolute certainty beyond any shadow of a doubt that the industrial waste options are totally without health consequences. I'll literally just take care of my teeth and cross my fingers over listening to modern medical consensus on a range of topics where I simply trust intuition and common sense more.
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.
I was thinking exactly the same thing, down to the circumcision thing. This whole discourse gives me the vibe of something the American society has randomly walked on and now is an "it has always been like this".
They also keep passing laws to specifically support burning coal, which is (slightly more credibly) shown to reduce IQ in children exposed to its pollution.
Note that while this may be first state to ban fluoride, it's not the first state to not have fluoride in the water. That would be Hawaii (effectively).
Strangely, I never see the people demanding we ban fluoride also demand we ban cars, considering the amount of particulates and rubber wheels we inhale as a result of policy, road design and car design. And I can almost guarantee you that's resulting in an actual meaningful drop in IQ and health outcomes as opposed to fluoridating water.
But I guess freedom to pollute matters more than bodily autonomy in terms of mental priority.
>I never see the people demanding we ban fluoride also demand we ban cars,
Perhaps you could take a dive into the youtubes, and find "crash detectives" (Welsh-based, so you may have to put captions on), but none of those professionals check for mouthwash.
Preventing cavities is far more effective with topical application of fluoride on the teeth, rather than ingestion.
I personally don’t buy the passive health benefit. Even if it’s true, there’s no proof that fluoridated water is superior to topical application.
Not to mention that if we’re going to just roll over and accept stuff in the water for public health reasons, what really should be added are more vitamins, not fluoride. In particular vitamin D
For children developing their “adult teeth” fluoride ingestion strengthens those teeth before they pop out. Topical has no effect obviously since they haven’t surfaced yet.
These American experts who are “disheartened” — do they not pay attention to Europe? Or do they only get upset when Republicans do something?
Europe (and many parts of Asia,) is objectively healthier than most of the residents of the USA; so maybe rather than knee-jerking against anything RFK Jr., perhaps the so-called experts should start doing their jobs and looking at what healthier places in the rest of the world are doing. The status quo in the USA is default fat and unhealthy. Why aren’t the fluoride cheerleaders not using their “expert” status to shout against high fructose corn syrup, artificial coloring, or the fact that most American food tastes like sugar?
Do you seriously think that dental and health experts don’t rail against those things? They do, and they consider those things far more important than fluoridated water. Their opinions on fluoride are being shared because there is notable news about fluoridated water.
Americans do not want to hear about how they should eat healthier.
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 among societies poorest. Therefore, due to fluoridation in water some people are less sick and have more money and therefore are more free.
The contrasting view is that putting fluoride in water is literally medicating people without their affirmative consent. It is the government forcing you to take a medication. It is coercive and therefore an attack on your freedom to not take medication. It is the government interfering in your life.
The contrast between positive freedom, the freedom to do something, and negative freedom, the freedom from interference in your life, is the core political argument in America right now. Negative freedom, freedom from government interference, is being promoted by those seeking to weaken the government enough to supplant it. People who are poor and sick are likely unable to stand up for themselves or participate in solidarity against authority. This individual issue is relatively small, but you take 100's of issues like this, and the effect is to create a class of people who aren't able to do anything but be obedient workers.
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 effectiveness or side effects. It could well be that fluoride in water is great for teeth but bad for brains. The objections to fluoride in water I’ve seen are more along those lines. Im not clear the validity of those claims but for example anti fluoride advocates don’t typically object to chlorine in water to kill germs. That seems the core issue- without bias from stakeholders, is the benefit of fluoride proven and the risks disproven? It’s hard to answer because a study needs to span many years and exclude many variables.
And in general I think that is what needs to happen with these type debates. Take them _out_ of the sphere of charged political opinion and focus on getting to the objective truth of risks and benefits, then be transparent. People can handle “here are the known pros and cons and what we think that means” over “there are only pros and no cons and if you disagree you hate poor people”
> 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 stakeholders, is the benefit of fluoride proven and the risks disproven? It’s hard to answer because a study needs to span many years and exclude many variables.
No, it's not hard to answer, because all those studies have been done and the results were that fluoride is safe.
> And in general I think that is what needs to happen with these type debates.
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.
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 scientific institutions to submit to political authority rather than the authority of reason.
So I agree with you, it is policy that should not be handled by politicians but by experts, which none of us are. Unfortunately science is being politicized.
The problem is science challenges those who derive power from means other than reason.
Defending scientific consensus is seen as an equally political act as denying it.
I think equating poor people to homeless people is non sequitur.
What about the vast population of “barely making it” people?
But have it your way. I’ve given up on American people (I exist as a 54 year old one amongst them). Decades of wealth have created a society so “me” centric it makes me nauseous sick. Never have I respected those older than me so little. It makes me so sad what we’ve done for those younger.
> 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 fluoridated toothpaste and toothbrushes, and can brush.
Fluoridated water makes the most impact on poor and undeserved communities: Why?
Is it because poor people are less capable of brushing or have less access to fluoridated toothpaste?
Is it because poor people are poor because they have poor self control, which prevents them from regular brushing?
Does it matter? Nothing hinges on them being incapable at all - your conjecture can be as uncharitable - poor people are dirty and incapable - or charitable - poor people have less money and time to seek dental care, have higher rates of untreated mental and physical illness i.e. ADHD, disabilities that interrupt daily tooth-brushing routine - as you want.
But the result is still that if we want children from poor families to have less cavities by the time they reach adulthood - we should fluoridate the water! If you trust the western medical establishment, it's broadly safe. If you don't, then none of the evidence above matters to you anyways.
See this is the problem today. Just because some one doesn’t know doesn’t make it non existent. We have decades of studies and evidence that fluoride is good and has no side effects, but the detractors ignore all of it and keep nullifying all that knowledge. Now they are successful too. In a society where everyone wants the whole boat to rise up, we need a certain amount of honesty and integrity and sadly these arguments don’t have it
> 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.
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 parts of the world.
Not true. Every time I see a dentist here in Queensland (non-fluoridated water) he asks me where else I lived as my teeth are so much better than what he usually sees, and if drilling my teeth are much harder than most Queenslanders.
My early years were spent in Melbourne, where fluoridation was introduced around 1970. That's the only time I lived with fluoridated water, for about 3 years. yet dentists can see the effects 50+ years later.
I don't use a toothbrush or toothpaste, and haven't ever really, as my ASD makes it unbearable.
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 so much better.
Fluoride is not "in fact toxic". A substance becomes toxic in high amounts. Vitamin D becomes toxic in high amounts. The level of fluoride in drinking water is well below the toxic level.
Somewhat related, as a teen in the 90s I worked at McDonald’s in The Netherlands. Because of the diet in the US, the bread used for hamburgers contained extra calcium to be more ‘healthy’, because many people did not get enough calcium intake. In The Netherlands, where people drink much more dairy products, especially back in the 90s, people would get plenty of calcium so there was no need to put extra in the bread. But because a hamburger should be a hamburger no matter where you buy it worldwide, the Dutch McDonald’s hamburger bread still had the added calcium
In the UK at least some areas have fluoridated water, despite almost all toothpaste being fluoridated. I suppose it most benefits the minority of people who do not brush their teeth. That benefit has to be balanced[1] against some evidence of risk.
IMO the right fix is better dental hygiene, and a better (less sugary) diet. These are in turn are in part symptomatic of other problems (poverty, long working hours with regards to lack of supervision of children).
"Here in Sweden we decided against fluoride for this reason and the fact that it is in fact toxic."
All water collected from natural sources contains some level of fluoride and other salts (which varies greatly from place to place). Does then your local water authority remove these naturally-acquired chemicals?
> Here in Sweden we decided against fluoride for this reason and the fact that it is in fact toxic.
How?
Please don't express that it damages development. That's trivially refutable by statistics. We can compare Canada's and UK's IQs for example, or some other proxy to the G factor, said countries were chosen for their similar cultural demographics, we find then that the metrics are mostly identical, while the difference in consumption of fluoride is staggering.
That's why Canada becoming an American anything is ridiculous and pisses off Canada so much that, for example, we've reduced our flights to America by +70% over the coming months.
Not when it comes to religion though: the European way (and I feel very much like considering Canadians something like honorary Europeans these days) was forged in painful wars stemming from and fueled by influence of religion on politics, and abuse of religion by politics. Both on the collective level, not so much on the individual level. The European way is all about having a strong firewall between religion and politics, to keep the former out of the later. Freedom from.
The American way is completely devoid of that concept. It's all built on that Pilgrim Fathers founding myth and only ever cares about keeping the state from getting in the way of individual beliefs. It's so focused on that part and only that part that even an almost-all-out theocracy would be fine as long as it did not mess with individual beliefs. "Freedom to" without the tiniest trace of "freedom from".
Personal freedom ≠ "freedom of communities"—there is no such thing. Freedom applies to individuals, not collectives. When a community makes a decision that affects all its members, that’s democracy, but democracy is not unlimited authority. A majority vote does not grant the right to infringe on individual autonomy, which is why safeguards exist against the tyranny of the majority.
Banning fluoride does not restrict freedom—it prevents government overreach. In contrast, forcing fluoride on everyone would violate personal autonomy. Protecting individual choice is a fundamental principle, backed by real-world safeguards like constitutional rights, judicial review, and bodily autonomy laws. The burden of proof is always on those seeking to impose a policy, not on those defending individual freedom.
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."
>This ban is anti-freedom. (Just like forcing them could be argued to be, even though that's what you argued against.)
By that logic is the first amendment "anti-freedom", because it prevents communities from instituting censorship laws, even if they actually want them?
So then, you'd also be against adding folate/folic acid to bread for the same reason?
For those who don't know many countries including the US mandate the inclusion of folic acid in bread and certain other foods to ensure pregnant women get enough. A deficiency of folic acid during pregnancy causes birth defects in infants.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folate
I never heard of that supplement (not a father) and was very surprised to find 80 countries mandate it. I checked the list (below) and it turns out the 80 countries are a bunch of poor nations plus USA, UAE, Qatar, Canada and Australia. I guess our medicare system supports the EU mothers fine enough so we don’t need to put that in the staple of food.
We've been trying for the history of mankind to figure out how to "not keep people trapped in poverty". No one has solved that problem yet, despite the best of intentions with monumental effort. I'll agree with Milton Friedman on this, Capitalism, as bad as it is, has been the most successful system to alleviate poverty.
Rather than taking choice away, we should be educating people on what the best choice is and letting them make it themselves.
Brush your teeth in the morning and in the evening. Standard dental hygiene - If a person can be an obedient worker they can probably brush their teeth twice a day. If they cant, they have bigger problems to sort out.
Is that not just a passive form of putting fluoride in the water though? Government is still spending money but without the desired outcome of having a healthier fitter population.
While they don't add fluoride, the natural levels in German tap water can reach 0.3 mg/L. Compared to the US recommended level of 0.7 mg/L in fluoridated water, that's not an insignificant amount.
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.
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.
Or even crazier, hear me out, maybe we can just let people have healthcare without cost-gating it? Like oh idk, every other even semi-wealthy nation in the world except the one where measles is making a comeback?
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.
I can't help but come away from this conversation with the impression that you people are talking about livestock and not human individuals with rights to their own body and bodily autonomy. This to me is straight out of the nazi/communist/fascist type of mindset.
> The contrast between positive freedom, the freedom to do something, and negative freedom, the freedom from interference in your life, is the core political argument in America right now.
True.
> Negative freedom, freedom from government interference, is being promoted by those seeking to weaken the government enough to supplant it.
Tenuous. Then again, like you, all of my political opponents are either stupid or evil or both.
> People who are poor and sick are likely unable to stand up for themselves or participate in solidarity against authority.
Contentious. Sometimes this is true, sometimes it is not - giving negative liberty rights (e.g. first amendment speech protections) to individuals has proven an incredibly effective tool to protect the individual against the state. Not perfect, but incredibly effective all the same.
> This individual issue is relatively small, but you take 100's of issues like this, and the effect is to create a class of people who aren't able to do anything but be obedient workers.
Any supporter of negative liberty (i.e. someone who is for small government) would tell you, that is what government does, which is a big reason why they want small government.
What in the Berkeley kind of logic is this? You have a pretty solid core logical structure. But, the conclusion is weak. The argument’s weakness lies in its simplifications and the final political assertion, which, although plausible within certain ideological frameworks, isn't logically proven by the earlier premise.
The American view of "freedom" is all messed up. You're "free" if the government doesn't tell you to do stuff. Even if corporations make you do stuff, even if they make you do more stuff the government did, that's somehow "free". And "stuff" somehow only includes trivial things like water fluoridation. No freedom-loving American patriot ever said America isn't free because cops can just murder you if they don't like you.
> The contrasting view is that putting fluoride in water is literally medicating people without their affirmative consent.
Is that the contrasting view, or the contrasting view that is preferred, because it is more easily demolished?
The stronger contrasting view isn't that the government is medicating people without their affirmative consent. It's that it's poisoning people, and no amount of consent by laymen to be poisoned would be acceptable.
I think his view is much stronger, since the intent is obviously to medicate even if it may indeed be inadvertently poisoning people in practice. So it doesn't assume one truth (poison or not) one way or the other, but still argues that it should be unlawful. While your view is much more narrow and suggests it should only be unlawful because it's poisoning people, which then begs the question of whether it is or not.
Fluoride occurs naturally in water, that’s literally how we discovered the effects of fluoride. People in areas where water naturally contained more fluoride had less cavities.
Anything, including water itself, is toxic (not poisonous, but I’m guessing you meant toxic, since fluoride is definitely not poisonous) in high enough doses. So you could say that about ANY mineral we may add to water to adjust its taste or health effects.
I happen to think adding fluoride isn’t worth the effort. But the hysteria against it is also really dumb.
> If you are poor you can't go anywhere or buy anything. You're not free if you're poor.
The solution is lifting people out of poverty not papering over the cracks with fluoride.
There is no fluoride in the water here in Norway yet dental health is good because of good education, free dental care for children, students pregnant women, and little absolute poverty.
I think it's a reductionist word game to reduce everything to a single dimension ("freedom") and then say "I think my policy is better, and since everything can reduce to a single variable it means there is more freedom".
If a right-wing voter thinks banning gay marriage is good for society, it is also positive freedom? If your counter-argument is "no, because while it would be positive freedom if it was good for society, it's not" then maybe I'm just disareeing on your terminology, but I suspect you would say "heck no, telling people what they can't do is not freedom, that's an abuse of the English language as well as being bad for society".
Governments exist to take away some freedoms, it's the whole point of them. People vote for governmets to take away freedoms (with laws and taxes) and get things like public services, justice systems and infrastructure in return. Ideally, they lean towards things that give you a lot of bang for your buck (like flourine), because taking away freedom is not good for creating a dynamic society, and they should be accountable to voters.
Just say that anyone who objects is an anarchist if you want to take the moral high ground from the right in terms they understand.
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).
Always question whenever a highly educated and thoughtful (and likely wealthy) person like this commenter is telling you poor people are too stupid for their own good and can’t make decisions for themselves.
This is the definition of the principal-agent problem.
Also, “positive freedom” is a hilarious rebranding of dictatorial decision making.
Why not grant more “positive freedom” to the people by deciding exactly what these poor people should do for a living, how they should live, and how they should spend their money. The experts know best, after all.
I’m not even particularly against fluoride in water, but this kind of reasoning is insidious. If the people have voted for representatives that are against it, we should follow the will of the people. This is the definition of democracy.
Fluoridated water, enriched flour, iodized salt, vaccines, etc. are why we don't see diseases and conditions that plagued us in the past and continue to plague people in places without these measures.
Fluoridated water is the reason I've never had a cavity despite growing up poor with a terrible diet, dental hygiene and care.
Enriched flour is another good example that I was hoping someone would mention*.
It’s worth noting that it’s also slightly different in that processed flour is deficient in thiamin and calcium, so the fortification adds back these nutrients.
On the other hand, processing water to make it potable doesn’t remove fluoride and so fluoridation is not the process of adding back something that was there beforehand.
*I searched this page and found flouride and flouridation four times before your comment.
I've seen the enriched flour brought up a few times in this thread, and not with the important caveat: This is a poor substitute for the micronutrients that occur naturally in the bran and endosperm; parts of the grain that we've been stripping out for dubious reasons or 50-100 years. (In ~100% of restaurant and bakery food; ~90% of grocery food)
There's no such thing as "free" when something is "given" by a public entity. It always costs the people that actually work and are forcibly taxed, something.
> The contrast between positive freedom, the freedom to do something, and negative freedom, the freedom from interference in your life, is the core political argument in America right now.
Interesing take but I don't buy this part at all. The core political argument in the US is epistemological. What's real and what counts as true? There are some axiological differences but I think they are minor in comparison to not being able to agree on how the world is in the first place.
It seems to be that the battleground is epistemological, but not so much the argument. The difference being that Trump uses 'claims of truth' without any care of how true they are.
I feel the majority of epistemological disagreement is the result of propaganda (not exclusively from MAGA). With only a small bit that is actually a disagreement on core values. Suchs true disagreement does exist, but it is no longer what the political discourse is about.
74.6% of Americans get fluoridated tap water; https://jada.ada.org/article/S0002-8177(24)00204-6/fulltext shows that even with instructions to brush and floss and instructions to use it, water flouridation reduces cavities in a community by at least 20%.
Currently, there is a very effective push by people who want to weaken the government enough to supplant it. They are giving themselves ideological coverage by claiming they protecting people from interference.
No it isn't - OP didn't say everyone who promotes that idea wants to weaken the government, but rather those who wish to weaken the government are promoting that idea.
Fluoride has to be applied to the surface at a high concentration for brief contact time to be effective. What is the freedom to sell industrial waste to the government to pointlessly add to the water supply for profit called?
> 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.
or, you know, you could avoid the problem in the first place and allow "even poors" to go somewhere or buy something... at least base items, and medicines...
this way they could afford dental costs, and you could spare the need to add fluoride in the water
This is the same reasonning with vaccine (only worse because you can die faster from not being vaccinated than from cavities -- although in some cases they can be lethal too).
People who want to be free from government interference should be prevented from using public roads, or public infrastructure of any kind. Want to mail something? Hire a courrier to deliver it for you. Etc.
That’s a very American perspective (which is fine, given that we are talking about America). Most countries would view this as a non-partisan public health policy issue which has nothing to do with the abstract philosophical debates about freedom beloved of 90s internet libertarians.
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.
> I rather define freedom by the government not deciding what's good for me
Does that mean you are against this bill?
Before the bill, your community could either use your own water system, without fluoride, or use the wider system, which has fluoride.
After this bill, your community no longer can use your own water system with fluoride, and the wider system also does not have fluoride.
On a first read, this bill makes the government remove a choice for you, deciding what is good for you.
(I don’t have a horse in this race honestly. Assuming everyone can get toothpaste and toothbrushes, the effect is the same. But the wording of the bill is strange: “may not add fluoride” rather than just “is allowed not to add”.)
The UK government is really big on doing things for our own good, but they don't seem to do much water flouridation. Which I think is some evidence that it's not a clearcut health benefit.
> We believe that water fluoridation is the single most effective public health measure there is for reducing oral health inequalities and tooth decay rates, especially amongst children. We welcome these proposals and believe they represent an opportunity to take a big step forward in not only improving this generation’s oral health, but those for decades to come.
Excessive fluoride exposure is associated with reduced childhood IQ: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/... . Giving poor people (the ones who can't afford to drink bottles water or buy a fancy filter) means to moderate their fluoride intake this risk is creating lower-iq, more obedient workers.
This started out as an interesting and fair take until “…enough to supplant it”. Freedom from the government is the original vision and one of the core principles of America assuming that anybody that wants smaller government just wants to supplant it is a massive misunderstanding of most Americans today and certainly the founding principles.
We can read this country's founding philosophy directly:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
It's not freedom from government but freedom from tyranny. They believed that governments existed to promote the protection of rights.
The government can give out toothpaste in school, it doesn't need to add things to water.
The inviolability or integrity of one's own body to me is more important than any of this. You have the right to decide what medication to be given to you with informed consent always, or you have no freedom. Otherwise the freedom argument collapses and you stop having reasons to allow abortions, or a bunch of other informed consent situations.
And "knowing better" than poor people "for their own good" usually doesn't go well (for the people).
Except schools handing out toothpaste will get brought up at thousands of board meetings across the country with sensitive or bored parents claiming government overreach and misuse of budgets.
Fluorinating all of the water just to deliver some milligrams to the teeth is incredibly inefficient. Especially when less and less of the stuff people people drink comes out of the tap.
We have toothpastes and fluorinated mouthwash that both get the job done.
Probably there are some people that are unable to afford those and unaware how to use them, but probably are tiny percentage of the state population, especially with the cult of teeth care that the US has.
I also see the fortified flours as example (or iodine in salt) - but the US is different now than in the 30s. The US diet is more varied. Very few people get 80% of their calories from a single starchy staple so developing a severe deficiency of something requires some serious effort from the persons affected.
So who is this policy of fluorination for - the people that are too poor to afford toothpaste, but still have access to municipality treated water and don't drink copious amounts of soda or bottled drinks.
the debate in this thread is a reflection of the politico-scientific standing of the united states. it seems as though fluoridated water has come to be treated as a synechdoche for the role of science (and public health) in society. both sides are trying in earnest to defend their meta-position (“freedom” vs “society”) but slip into logic errors (usually cherry picking and straw man). i think this is because of the context switching between the part (fluoridation) and the whole (freedom/society).
Fluoride in toothpaste already covers most people today. So, if there are legitimate concerns about adding it to the water supply due to fluorosis, even if those concerns are small, removing it seems reasonable to me. Are the number of people who don't brush their teeth really high enough to justify it?
Decades of science show it’s beneficial, and we keep seeing the outcomes validated in practice. Calgary removed fluoride from drinking water, saw a significant increase in dental carries in children, and is adding it back. [1]
Hawaii does not fluoridate and has high rates of children’s tooth decay [2]
So, Finland gave fluoride a shot in a few cities back in the '60s through the '90s, but they didn’t see much point to it and dropped it. Now, some spots there are even filtering it out of the water. You can still get it in toothpaste and mouthwash, though.
There’s this study I read that says the top five countries for dental health are Denmark, Germany, Finland, Sweden, and the UK. The US? It’s lagging at ninth. Funny thing is, out of those top five, only the UK messes with fluoride in their water, and even then, it’s just for like 5% of folks.
Honestly, it kinda feels like skipping the fluoride in water might be the smarter move.
All i know is my parents generation grew up without it and saw they dentists for fillings, every year, for years. Seemed like their childhoods played a part here because half their life they had toothpaste at the same rates as me.
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).
The solution to ALL of this is a very simple randomised controlled trial. Identify 1000 pregnant women in a fluorinated area, give half of them free unfluorinated bottled water for their pregnancy and first 2 years of babies life, and let the other half drink tap water, then measure all of the kids’ iqs at 5 years.
Sadly noone has done this because the topic is too radioactive for most researchers or science funders to touch.
Does filtering your water with a whole house filter take the fluoride out?
Because I live in a small township that delivers well water to you tap. It tastes horrible, shortens the life of pipes and appliances, and smells like sulfur.
Every year they mail a flyer that explains how the lead levels are dangerously above the national standard and you should run the tap before you drink from it.
Like, sorry there's nothing we can do about it. =(
> Because I live in a small township that delivers well water to you tap. It tastes horrible, shortens the life of pipes and appliances, and smells like sulfur.
Oh man, I used to live in a place like this. You could smell if a restaurant served filtered water (lots filter for the soda machine, to keep mineralization in it down I assume, and use the same water to serve) or straight from the tap, without taking a drink. Like with your nose six inches above the cup, you could smell it. Luckily, almost all served filtered.
Turns out that carbon filters do filter fluoride, but only on the first few X litres of water, where X is in the first 0.01% or so of their expected lifespan. So, they do, but not really usefully in any sense.
My filter that I wanted to know about (so that my kid is getting fluoride) is a 2-stage filter, with the other stage being a particle filter, but fluoride is very small and unaffected.
Your filter might be different of course.
FWIW, in my city, the water has essentially zero fluoride if it isn't added, and it has been a great intervention.
If it's reverse osmosis based, yes. If it's some other kind of filter, likely no, and you should buy a TDS meter and use it, because in all likelihood it's not really filtering anything. I did exactly this. It turned out that my carbon based filter had more TDS than completely unfiltered water from a tap in the garden. RO water, even re-mineralized, had 1/15th the TDS IIRC.
TDS is just Total Dissolved Solids. What solids though you don't know and you could be adding carbon while removing others which is likely the case.
Also those dinky little TDS meters don't even measure TDS. They measure electrical conductivity and with a little math they use the EC as a proxy for TDS. It's typically only calibrated to one specific ion, others will be off by some factor. Also keep in mind TDS is expressed in PPM as CaCO3.
I feel like we are so privileged in the US that there’s little to no personal consequences for being so wrong about a topic. Eventually there’s needs to be a correction, whether it’s because we regain our senses or we stray so far that the majority of people start to be majorly affected. I’m fearing it’s the latter.
There’s a tendency to backwards rationalize anything that is established in the US, that comes from a place of identity.
The current shape of the US is already the best and people consider it a part of who they are, so suggesting a course correction may be seen as both wrong think and a personal attack and wanting radical change would be outright treason.
There’s an array of standard stencils for defense against change: this is the only thing that can work here, this is the only thing that guarantees freedom, this is actually not that bad, I actually prefer it like this, anything else would be expensive/impossible/unamerican.
It’s not even unique to the US, but who cares about other places.
That's because drinking non-fluoridated water is very cheap (a minimal disadvantage). Vs. opposing fluoridated water can be very valuable (give the current culture wars).
Notice that nobody is arguing about keeping water-born pathogens out of the drinking water.
Taking compounds of the most electronegative element, and treating people with them systemically—drink it, bathe in it, cook with it—when local administration directly to the teeth is cheap, easy, & effective makes no sense at all.
Meanwhile, mining industries produce—and must dispose of—a steady stream of fluoride compounds that would otherwise have to be dealt with as toxic waste (i.e. very expensive) if they ever lost the green light to dump them into the water supply.
Three chemicals are used to fluoridate drinking water in the U.S: sodium fluoride (NaF); sodium fluorosilicate (Na2SiF6); and fluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6). Fluorosilicic acid is a byproduct of the manufacture of phosphate fertilizer.
Actual reseachers don't really talk about links to IQ. The main concern is actually around dental fluorosis. Too much flouride can replace minerals in your teeth causing them to become brittle over time
There's a subset of researchers that argue that now that fluoride toothpaste is widespread, the benefit of fluoridating water is much much smaller than it first was and the (small) risk of fluorosis is now comparatively more significant
“ Actual reseachers don't really talk about links to IQ.”
Sorry but this reddit consensus is out of step with actual researchers. The #1 paediatric journal has published quite a bit on this recently. Basically the evidence isn’t of high quality but what we have doesn’t look great.
Where "main concern" means not a practical concern at all. You are adopting the talking points of cranks when what is of actual concern is things like drinking sugar, negligent parents or basic access to dental healthcare or even just dental education.
The CDC tracks some key indicators like mean decayed, missing or filled teeth (DMFT) and in critical age groups like 12-15 there has been no progress made in the past 20 years and the US continue lagging behind European countries: https://www.cdc.gov/oral-health/media/pdfs/Oral-Health-Surve...
And none of that has anything to do with fluoride in the water or not.
How did you compile this list? Asking some LLM service?
From the first link:
> 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
Another question is whether there's still evidence for continuing to fluoridate water with how common toothpaste use is now. If nothing else, if it isn't providing benefits over toothpaste use, then fluoridating water could just be a waste of public funds.
There isn’t any. The very little research showing any effects on cognitive abilities are experiments using very high fluoride levels - nowhere near the levels in water. Like most conservative “stances”, it’s a farce.
> However, in 1973, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that there was no legal basis for fluoridation…. The debate hasn’t been meaningfully revived since then, Hofman told Euronews Health. "People started to say, ‘Well, the government should not give us some medicine [when] we cannot choose where to buy our drinking water from," she said.
That’s the “little c” conservative viewpoint. You don’t need to prove it’s harmful. The default should be not putting chemicals in everyone’s drinking water.
How do you prove no effect on any bodily system long term? People don’t like to talk about it, or they pretend otherwise, but this is basically impossible.
If the benefit is great enough then the risk makes sense. That is the case in a lot of areas. Is it worth taking a risk of an unknown effect somewhere in the body in exchange for… a marked but not even drastic reduction in cavities…? Not sure…
When it comes to things like radioactivity we assume a linear no threshhold model (e.g. that lower concentrations still have effects, just our measuring tools aren't good enough to detect it) and spend billions as a result. Why wouldn't we do the same for flouride?
I'd like to point out that fluoride was previously very much a liberal stance until the rise in MAGA/Qanon conservatives.
I grew up in the PNW of the USA and lots of small hippie towns have been removing fluoride for decades. It comes up on city ballots every year in Oregon.
Highly recommend visiting the link for details about each point an references (it is not that long), here is a summary, don't comment if you haven't visited the link:
1) Fluoride is the only chemical added to water for the purpose of medical treatment.
2) Fluoridation is unethical.
3) The dose cannot be controlled.
4) The fluoride goes to everyone regardless of age, health or vulnerability.
5) People now receive fluoride from many other sources besides water.
6) Fluoride is not an essential nutrient.
7) The level in mothers’ milk is very low.
9) No health agency in fluoridated countries is monitoring fluoride exposure or side effects.
10) There has never been a single randomized controlled trial to demonstrate fluoridation’s effectiveness or safety.
11) Benefit is topical not systemic.
12) Fluoridation is not necessary.
13) Fluoridation’s role in the decline of tooth decay is in serious doubt.
14) NIH-funded study on individual fluoride ingestion and tooth decay found no significant correlation.
15) Tooth decay is high in low-income communities that have been fluoridated for years.
16) Tooth decay does not go up when fluoridation is stopped.
17) Tooth decay was coming down before fluoridation started.
18) The studies that launched fluoridation were methodologically flawed.
19) Children are being over-exposed to fluoride.
20) The highest doses of fluoride are going to bottle-fed babies.
21) Dental fluorosis may be an indicator of wider systemic damage.
22) Fluoride may damage the brain.
23) Fluoride may lower IQ.
24) Fluoride may cause non-IQ neurotoxic effects.
25) Fluoride affects the pineal gland.
26) Fluoride affects thyroid function.
27) Fluoride causes arthritic symptoms.
28) Fluoride damages bone.
29) Fluoride may increase hip fractures in the elderly.
30) People with impaired kidney function are particularly vulnerable to bone damage.
31) Fluoride may cause bone cancer (osteosarcoma).
32) Proponents have failed to refute the Bassin-Osteosarcoma study.
33) Fluoride may cause reproductive problems.
34) Some individuals are highly sensitive to low levels of fluoride as shown by case studies and double blind studies.
35) Other subsets of population are more vulnerable to fluoride’s toxicity.
36) There is no margin of safety for several health effects.
37) Low-income families penalized by fluoridation.
38) Black and Hispanic children are more vulnerable to fluoride’s toxicity.
39) Minorities are not being warned about their vulnerabilities to fluoride.
40) Tooth decay reflects low-income not low-fluoride intake.
41) The chemicals used to fluoridate water are not pharmaceutical grade.
42) The silicon fluorides have not been tested comprehensively.
43) The silicon fluorides may increase lead uptake into children’s blood.
44) Fluoride may leach lead from pipes, brass fittings and soldered joints.
45) Key health studies have not been done.
46) Endorsements do not represent scientific evidence.
47) Review panels hand-picked to deliver a pro-fluoridation result.
48) Many scientists oppose fluoridation.
49) Proponents usually refuse to defend fluoridation in open debate.
50) Proponents use very dubious tactics to promote fluoridation.
(I'm having some fun, but it is in fact the first thing that comes to mind when I hear objections to fluoridated water. Since we're talking about RFK and Utah, I kind of assume it more or less stems from the same fears.)
Question: is there something I can do in the office to improve tooth health? E.g. after drinking a cup of coffee, maybe neutralize the pH with some antacid? Or, I don't know, chew some gum? Are there products that are relatively convenient and don't require a brush and water?
I think I'm more interested to know if the fluoride also helps keeps bacteria down in the water. That is, if it's doing anything useful other than dealing with teeth.
A quick search didn't seem to turn up anything related, so maybe not (the concentrations might be too low to be relevant)?
Water fluoridation conspiracy theories were a thing old enough to be a plot point in 1964 Dr. Strangelove. When there's an entire grift or political career to be a "Fluoride truther", it's really hard to take seriously any of these claims. Given it's naturally occurring and often in higher doses and there'd been so much time to control for any side effects, I'd need extraordinary evidence to be swayed on this.
GENERAL JACK D. RIPPER: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.
GROUP CAPT. LIONEL MANDRAKE: Lord, Jack.
GENERAL JACK D. RIPPER: You know when fluoridation first began?
GROUP CAPT. LIONEL MANDRAKE: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.
GENERAL JACK D. RIPPER: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.
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.
> Water fluoridation is considered very common in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Chile and Australia where over 50% of the population drinks fluoridated water.
> Most European countries including Italy, France, Finland, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Hungary and Switzerland do not fluoridate water.
Generally speaking I see fluoridation as a ridiciulous idea, on the grounds that the vast majority of tap water ends up being used for things other than brushing your teeth. It is wasteful and damaging to the environment, that excess flouride that has no business being there ends up in the drain, or the water you use for your plants.
Flouride should be put in the toothpaste. Then people can make a choice on whether they want it, but most importantly, its in the only product that is actually used for brushing teeth
While I acknowledge it is not a "solved" issue, I find it bizarre nonetheless, simply because it is so disproportionately low-stakes compared to the amount of controversy around it. Increased risk of cavities versus tentative evidence of losing 1-2 IQ points at 1.5 mg/L? Sounds like a Monty Python sketch to me that people would get so worked up over this.
Once you start trying to cross-reference a public health campaign with something related to peoples' diets, it becomes difficult to make super broad and conclusive statements.
Here's some interesting data (2003 I believe, so pretty old) [1]: It reports that most of Europe, Canada, Australia, and South America experiences cavities at rates higher than the United States. However: Many of these countries have public health care; the US does not. Is the US under-reporting? (I didn't dig much deeper into the underlying data; may not be a relevant concern).
Three things I think are likely to be true: (1) Fluoridated toothpaste is widely available and cheap. (2) Cavity rates are significant even in countries with high rates of fluoridation. (3) Fluoridating the water supply carries with it a non-zero monetary cost. I tend to believe that these three realities, at the very least, justify the conversation as being one we should have. It could be the case that water fluoridation made a ton of sense in a world where people didn't have as much access to fluoridated toothpaste, but nowadays the typical person has hit the limit on what it can do for them, and ingesting more is, at best, doing nothing.
Here's another way I like to think about it: Put the science aside for a second (I know, hard, not ideal, but bear with me). You've got two people who are low income. Person A believes, for their own health and in the expression of their own personal liberties, they want access to fluoride; but the Government is not fluoridating their water. They can spend $5 a month to buy fluoridated toothpaste; possibly not even more expensive than the toothpaste they were already buying. Person B is living in the opposite world: They believe that they do not want to ingest fluoride, but the government is fluoridating their water. They would have to spend many dozens to hundreds of dollars a month buying water bottled somewhere more natural. From a personal liberty and economics perspective: Its pretty clear-cut.
IIRC _some_ of the European countries that “do not fluoridate their water” have naturally occurring fluoride levels in their water, obviating the need for them to do it.
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.
The world map is hilarious. Germany sure does not look like this anymore (and this is not the GDR split but goes further back). Maybe they should update this. Draws into the question, the whole data.
The point is basically no one else has politicised this to the extent the US did. Pointing to how different countries solve it differently is missing the point completely.
The issue, to my eyes at least, is much less of water, and much more of fluoride itself. That is what seems mostly a settled and non controversial topic elsewhere such that it is not perennially raised anew with tone of fans quoting Dr. Strangelove except meaning it.
I thought the comment was about resolving the issue one way or the other without it becoming yet another polarization topic . It probably matters less in either resolution than the cost due schisms and distrust the "debate" causes.
Regardless of whether the water is fluoridated or not, the main guideline is "brush your teeth with fluoridated toothpaste". No policy maker elsewhere is pushing narratives against fluoride at large like in the US. These narratives there are even dangerous. One can easily look at dental associations reviews, or official state guidelines and see that more or less they say very similar things. It is very easy to find these policy-informing reviews online.
And regardless of whether the water is fluoridated or not, there is no big debate elsewhere about it, nobody cares that much about it, because all the evidence is that in smaller amounts prob it is does not matter much either way, in the presence of people brushing their teeth. A lot of countries stopped it due to logistic purposes. In netherlands they tried fluoride in the water, a court said they should actually pass a law in order to be able to do it, and they did not even bother with that and dropped it. The fact that some countries may not use fluoride in the water is not due to some deeply-held conviction about how destructive fluoride is for the iq of the kids. In terms of risks of fluoride, fluorosis is what is mostly discussed anyway, and to a degree, unless it is too serious, this may just be an aesthetic issue.
From the perspective of one that watches this craziness from outside, the whole debate is non-sense, and whether some european countries use water fluoridation or not is not very important, it does not cause any heated debate in the EU. The debate in the US is not because the US considers some things that others do not consider. There is no actual truthseeking mentality from the current administration or anybody on this to actually find for sure if fluoride decreases iq, or if fluoride in the water is absolutely essential for dental health even if people are brushing their teeth.
What does the UK do? This will tell you what people should do because I’ve seen English teeth.
> In England, approximately 10% of the population, or around 6 million people, receive fluoridated water, either naturally or through water fluoridation schemes, mainly in the West Midlands and the North East.
Uh oh. I know it is better now but in 1978 a third of people in the UK didn’t have their natural teeth.
The US rarely looks into how other countries solve problems. (i.e. Universal Healthcare, High Speed Trains and so), this is the sad part of "American Exceptionalism"
Those are two odd examples. The Affordable Care Act is similar to the Netherlands health insurance system: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2011/lessons-abroad-du... (“These similarities are not entirely coincidental. American public officials, health industry leaders, and scholars made frequent visits to the Netherlands in the run-up to the debate over U.S. health care reform, borrowing ideas and, on occasion, citing the Dutch system as a model for what the U.S. might achieve.”).
As to rail, both the first-gen and second-gen Acela is based on the French TGV.
A less cynical framing is that the US is a much different culture from European countries, and is massively larger in scale. Depending on the problem, some of their solutions simply can't or don't apply.
When I was a kid the schools taught us the metric system, telling us it was the world standard, and would become the standard is the US by the time I was an adult. That was over 40 years ago. And that pretty much sums it all up.
How has the debate been solved by the rest of the world? My understanding is that many countries in Europe don't fluoridate the water supply.
I'm skeptical of results showing IQ loss but I also think fluoridation should be phased out as fluoride toothpaste and mouthwash are now widely available. Banning it seems like the wrong move to me...states should simply decide to continue adding it or not.
> How has the debate been solved by the rest of the world?
By having official country-level guidelines by the health ministries or similar for people to brush their teeth with toothpaste containing fluoride, and specific guidelines around it for kids, as trivial as it may sound. Along with experts' reviews providing more details on these decisions, and explaining tradeoffs properly.
Fluoride containing toothpaste is the main recommendation, even in places that fluoridate the water (which are the minority). There is not much to add to this apart from refining these guidelines. Eg in the EU where some countries fluoridate water, most don't, there is no huge debate about it overall. Most eu countries that fluoridated the water stopped doing it some point mostly because it was no longer needed in preventing cavities, and prob largely due to logistics/costs than possible risks.
Your second paragraph reflects my personal views on it, too. The "banning" is weird, esp since, according to the article, it comes from people that seem to advocate against use of fluoride in general in toothpastes etc. The discussion should be around best policies to prevent cavities etc, but it does not seem to be around that. I see nothing wrong with local communities deciding if they want to put fluoride or not in their water, based on their own opinions but also general situation. Maybe in some much poorer areas fluoridation of water could be beneficial until some other measures take place, for example.
Banning its addition is a step beyond — but in Queensland, Australia for example, the state government no longer mandates its inclusion, and thus the local councils are able to set their own policy.
> While more than 90 per cent of Australians have access to fluoridated water, that figure is significantly lagging in the sunshine state, where local councils have ultimate authority over whether it is adopted.
> A decade after the Newman government handed responsibility for fluoridated drinking water to local governments, 51 out of 77 have opted out. That means about 28 per cent of Queenslanders do not have fluoridated drinking water
The same discussion happened in Netherlands in the 70s, and water in NL is no longer fluoridated since the 70s for that reason. So it's not that "US-specific". I don't know about other countries from the top of my head.
Funny thing you mention that. Since it is now monitored and maintained by natural source. There is fluoride, just not added anymore. (It is at lower levels than when added obviously)
There’s evidence that despite widespread availability of fluoride toothpaste and mouthwash, fluoridated drinking water improves dental outcomes at the population level.
There’s also evidence that at high levels (not the normal levels it is added at, but at higher levels which can happen on accident) fluoride may reduce IQ.
I’m ok with either trade off but the “solved” phrasing makes it sound like there is an obviously superior choice.
No no, in the US we figure out the worst way to do something, and then do that, and invent reasons why the US is unique such that the reasonable solutions that other countries employ just couldn't possibly work here.
(To be fair, though, many [most?] Western countries do not fluoridate their water. The US is actually not doing the common thing here.)
It's honestly not clear if water fluoridation in the US is necessary or all that useful here anymore, as we started doing it when fluoride toothpaste wasn't really a thing. Now pretty much all(?) toothpaste in the US has fluoride in it. If someone can't afford toothpaste, then they probably can't afford regular dental care either, and fluoridated water isn't going to make much of an impact anyway.
By not adding fluoride into the tap water and let people choose whether to buy toothpaste with fluoride themselves. a.k.a. the European way.
Adding fluoride into tap water always sounds borderline insane to me. The only benefit is to protect your teeth, which, to me, strongly suggests that the correct approach is to put it into toothpaste or other oral hygiene products instead of water.
I remember the first time I went to a German dentist and he told me how amazing my teeth looked and that he could tell I must be American. Fluoride may have some downsides but it definitely has upsides.
Here in England, there's some areas that put fluoride into the water and other areas already have sufficient fluoride levels. People complaining about the side effects of fluoridation often forget that water can naturally contain high levels of fluoride - it's really not an issue.
> 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?
I mean Utah is trying, sorry it took a while. I know Germany and Sweden don't fluoridate its water, I assume you mean Western Europe by the "world" (sorry if I am interpreting too much here, but that's usually what's popular to compare US to and bash US on how bad it is), so US is getting "with the program", finally I suppose. States having individual laws here is a benefit, one state doesn't have to wait for the Federal Government to act.
> This is one of these US-specific polarised debates I find really bizarre,
I don't think it's that polarizing? Unless 1) you're listening to US media more and 2) you're not getting many non-polarizing issues in the news, because those are well are just boring and don't sell ads.
If you look at the US as a simulation that branched of the mother tree of Europe in the 15th century, you won't find it odd that it is rediscovering what Europe has already figured out. Just in it's own way and time. (No chemicals/colors in foods and adequate drinking water) Wait till they figure out mass transit, that will be a shocker.
Has Europe figured out mass transit? In Barcelona, a trip that takes me 1.5 hours of total time using “transit” takes me 28 minutes on my motor scooter. I think there is still some figuring out that needs to happen before I’ll add 2 hours to my daily commute.
There are a few studies out which say fluoride is bad. But as is often the case with these health idiots, the studies actually refer to places where fluoride is naturally way too high in the water. The entire debate is dumb.
This was my perspective for awhile — recommend you look into more recent studies if you haven’t in the past 2y or so. I don’t think it’s the worst thing in our water but do think it’s objectively a bad idea.
completely bizarre witnessing both sides getting so polarised around a basically non-issue
This isn't a sensible way to think about it. Every contentious conversation I've ever had has gone this way:
Me: why do people want to ban fluoride
Them: [anti government paranoia]
Me: um...but how about tooth decay
Them: pineal gland calcification
Me: idk sounds pretty far-fetched
Them: THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK
It's irrational to complain about 'both sides' when only one side is insisting on making it into an issue. I generally just try to disegnage from people as soon as they start freaking out about fluoride/ chemtrails/ vaccinations etc, but people like this frequently treat skepticism as a personal attack. Increasingly they occupy positions of political power (see eg RFK) having acquired them by public displays of conviction rather than any objective criteria.
What they're referring to is the fact that very few countries in the rest of the world even consider the possibility of adding fluoride to the water supply. It's basically just the US, Australia, and to a much lesser extent Canada.
It's not a debate everywhere else because adding fluoride to the water is objectively an unusual thing to do that they just... don't. Presumably they get fluoride other ways.
Toxicity of fluoride: critical evaluation of evidence for human developmental neurotoxicity in epidemiological studies, animal experiments and in vitro analyses https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7261729/
I’m disappointed in the news media fails to mention the cascading effects of dental health. Yes, the primary and direct benefit of fluoride is to have a healthier mouth.
But having a healthy mouth is far from the end goal, imo. If your mouth is full of cavities you’re more likely to build up bacteria that cause downstream effects as serious as heart disease. Also if your mouth is routinely uncomfortable you may gravitate towards soft processed foods and away from healthy whole foods like fresh fruits and vegetables.
I know water is not the only way to get fluoride into people. But these politicians who are trying to take it out of the water are just saying basically “it’s fine, let’s do nothing”. They’re not going to fluoridate the salt. They’re not going to run public health campaigns stressing the importance of regular brushing. They’re just willing to let people’s teeth rot to score points.
It’s disgusting, and no matter how you feel about the water you should be able to see that these people are not on your side.
If I went to the store to grab a bottle of water, and they were selling fluoridated water and fluoridated water, I would choose the non-fluoridated water.
I drink tap water now with fluoride so its not like I care strongly, but its a bit weird that many people buy only non-fluoridated water themselves and are confused when other people show a preference for non-fluoridated water in their own taps.
> They’re not going to run public health campaigns stressing the importance of regular brushing. They’re just willing to let people’s teeth rot to score points.
Do you really think there are sizable native born populations that are not aware of tooth brushing?
There’s plenty of people that don’t bother with it, but I don’t see a PR campaign being particularly effective at changing that.
I think there are lots of kids who don’t know how bad their teeth can get and how that can impact their life in the future (and I mean kids like teens, not like four year olds).
I think there are lots of adults who don’t realize that poor dental health can cause heart failure and worsen basically every chronic condition.
I think there are lots of goobers who don’t realize that there’s no reason that United and Elevance and the rest couldn’t be forced to cover dental care via regulation.
I get your point, but big picture there are a lot of impactful education campaigns that should be possible.
The Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP) was introduced to provide dental services to uninsured Canadians meeting specific criteria. Its rollout began in December 2023, starting with individuals aged 87 and above, and is set to expand to all eligible adults earning less than $90,000 annually by May 1, 2025.
> I'd actually just like to see more money put into public dental assistance. And education.
I would want to see that in anti fluoride campaigns and laws as well, but have not see that happen in the laws and campaigns I have followed. Or in the HN comments I have responded to on the subject, most focus on banning and provide no follow, or no structured follow up like - free toothpaste, required educations, and follow up studies, reassess in X years.
You can provide lots of stuff yourself if the state abandons the whole idea of public health. Of course, be prepared for your taxes and/or insurance going up to cover your neighbors who don't pay for the same preventative care.
Pretty much-was told by an insurance broker one of the biggest factors past history of weather and the obvious things (flooding possibility, dry trees) is my neighbors. Didn't get into specifics but I suspect drugs and gangs.
Fluoride in water wouldn't be necessary is sugary drinks were taxed heavily (or just banned altogether) and dental care was affordable. But obviously that's considered communism if you're a typical american.
Cynical take: Now that studies have shown that bottled water is loaded with nanoplastics, upper class people want to start drinking tap water again. Now suddenly states don't want fluoride in the tap water...
Fluoridation is literally one of the most successful efforts at improving public health in history. Dental health is keystone to general health.
The idea that the conspiracy theorists are winning the public policy debate enrages me. There's rock solid proof of the benefits of fluoridation extending decades, and there is little to no proof of any adverse side effects.
Oh well, good luck Utah. I'm glad I don't live there, but if I were a young dentist, I know where I'd set up my new practice.
Highly recommend visiting the link for details about each point and references (it is not that long), here is a summary, don't comment if you haven't visited the link:
1) Fluoride is the only chemical added to water for the purpose of medical treatment.
2) Fluoridation is unethical.
3) The dose cannot be controlled.
4) The fluoride goes to everyone regardless of age, health or vulnerability.
5) People now receive fluoride from many other sources besides water.
6) Fluoride is not an essential nutrient.
7) The level in mothers’ milk is very low.
9) No health agency in fluoridated countries is monitoring fluoride exposure or side effects.
10) There has never been a single randomized controlled trial to demonstrate fluoridation’s effectiveness or safety.
11) Benefit is topical not systemic.
12) Fluoridation is not necessary.
13) Fluoridation’s role in the decline of tooth decay is in serious doubt.
14) NIH-funded study on individual fluoride ingestion and tooth decay found no significant correlation.
15) Tooth decay is high in low-income communities that have been fluoridated for years.
16) Tooth decay does not go up when fluoridation is stopped.
17) Tooth decay was coming down before fluoridation started.
18) The studies that launched fluoridation were methodologically flawed.
19) Children are being over-exposed to fluoride.
20) The highest doses of fluoride are going to bottle-fed babies.
21) Dental fluorosis may be an indicator of wider systemic damage.
22) Fluoride may damage the brain.
23) Fluoride may lower IQ.
24) Fluoride may cause non-IQ neurotoxic effects.
25) Fluoride affects the pineal gland.
26) Fluoride affects thyroid function.
27) Fluoride causes arthritic symptoms.
28) Fluoride damages bone.
29) Fluoride may increase hip fractures in the elderly.
30) People with impaired kidney function are particularly vulnerable to bone damage.
31) Fluoride may cause bone cancer (osteosarcoma).
32) Proponents have failed to refute the Bassin-Osteosarcoma study.
33) Fluoride may cause reproductive problems.
34) Some individuals are highly sensitive to low levels of fluoride as shown by case studies and double blind studies.
35) Other subsets of population are more vulnerable to fluoride’s toxicity.
36) There is no margin of safety for several health effects.
37) Low-income families penalized by fluoridation.
38) Black and Hispanic children are more vulnerable to fluoride’s toxicity.
39) Minorities are not being warned about their vulnerabilities to fluoride.
40) Tooth decay reflects low-income not low-fluoride intake.
41) The chemicals used to fluoridate water are not pharmaceutical grade.
42) The silicon fluorides have not been tested comprehensively.
43) The silicon fluorides may increase lead uptake into children’s blood.
44) Fluoride may leach lead from pipes, brass fittings and soldered joints.
45) Key health studies have not been done.
46) Endorsements do not represent scientific evidence.
47) Review panels hand-picked to deliver a pro-fluoridation result.
48) Many scientists oppose fluoridation.
49) Proponents usually refuse to defend fluoridation in open debate.
50) Proponents use very dubious tactics to promote fluoridation.
Fluoridation may be useful in the U.S. because unlike most European countries, the U.S. does not have school-based dental care, many children do not visit a dentist regularly, and for many U.S. children water fluoridation is the prime source of exposure to fluoride.
“Do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk, ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake? Children’s ice cream!...You know when fluoridation began?...1946. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard-core Commie works. I first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love...Yes, a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I-I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence. I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women, er, women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake...but I do deny them my essence.”
* Evidence: fluoride displaces iodine and other halogens, which disrupts thyroid function and possibly negatively impacts other organs and bones.
* Policy: wealth inequality in the US has created a situation where the poor struggle to such an extent that they don't have access to basic health services like fluoride treatments at the dentist every 6 months, while the rich have grown so greedy that they don't want to pay a fraction of a percent of their taxes for preventative care for children and the impoverished so they instead tolerate slightly more expensive fluoridated tap water at the expense of everyone's health.
This comment is about my subjective experience with a sample size of 1, meaning that it doesn't apply to you or the public:
* My father is a dentist and gave me fluoride treatments every 6 months while I was growing up in Idaho. I was raised mostly on well water which isn't fluoridated. I have never had a cavity, despite not going to the dentist for the decade of my 20s while he lived away from me. My thyroid function is not as high as I would like after a lifetime of acute stress from struggle, multiple insults to the body, drinking fluoridated water after the age of 18, and being exposed to radioactive iodine at 80 times the US drinking water standard for perhaps 1 year after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (which potentially either gave me a lifetime dose or was insignificant).
This solution is as evidence-based and equitable as I can come up with:
* We should remove fluoride from drinking water and reimburse all dentists for free 6 month fluoride treatments of the general public, which represents some nominal fee of perhaps $15-$20 per person annually (probably less) which is not materially significant to the federal budget of roughly $15-20,000 per person annually.
This take is my personal subjective opinion followed by objective evidence supporting my claims:
* I don't think highly of Robert Kennedy Jr's health initiatives, because they don't ethically weigh evidence and policy, and we don't have enough epidemiological studies to predict outcomes. So they will certainly cause unintended consequences. That said, I believe there is merit to his concerns. So a way forward is not to be anti-vax for example, but to recognize that there are dozens of types of vaccines and to prioritize vaccines for illnesses like polio that have a high risk of negatively impacting quality of life. Health experts should continue advising elected officials on policy decisions. Public health is not a domain that can be left in the trust of individuals acting unilaterally. So removing fluoride from water without providing state or federal funding for fluoride treatments every 6 months will most likely negatively impact public health.
I love the cognitive dissonance in people who say both: "Don't medicate me without permission.", "Masks are oppression.", and "We have to stop those people from dressing and calling themselves what they want."
Please don't be snarky in HN comments, and please don't take threads on generic flamewar tangents. Those are two of the worst things for the curious conversation we're trying to have here.
Generally kids don't use toothpaste with fluoride because of the risk of swollowing it. Yes, we know it's bad in high doses, which is why kids toothpaste often doesn't have it. You have to wait until they are old enough to spit when brushing.
In reality what will happen is that rich kids will be just fine because they will get their fluoride treatments at the dentist every six months.
It's the poor kids who will suffer because they don't see the dentist regularly because it's expensive, so they won't get their treatments.
Fluoride is known to be problematic at high concentrations (hell, everything is). The problems of fluoride really start to come into play at concentrations of around 10-20mg/L, and some of the areas being studied are running well in excess of 100mg/L of fluoride.
The EPA limit for fluoride is 4mg/L. There's an argument to be made that it should be lowered to 2mg/L. When fluoride is added to drinking water, the target is around 0.9mg/L--no one's coming close to the EPA limit, and that exists because groundwater sources can end up being naturally high in fluoride. (I'm not sure what the typical natural occurrence of fluoride is in Utah, but I strongly suspect that they're not making any moves to actually remove fluoride from existing systems.)
Those are based on countries with much higher levels of fluoride than the USA adds.
Follow up studies have found the levels in the USA to be perfectly safe and in fact beneficial since poor people don't get dental care like they do in other countries.
I didnt look too closely, but the concentration recommended by the FDA is much lower than many of the sample sets in that linked study. Some 10 times as much. One is a hundred times as much.
> Republican state lawmaker Stephanie Gricius - who introduced the bill in the state legislature - has argued that there is research suggesting fluoride could have possible cognitive effects in children.
It's kind of amazing to say something like that then be so inconsistent on things that will have real outcomes that make life better for kids. They're all for cutting school support and social services.
Utah and Massachusetts are basically the steel-man versions of their respective ideologies. But Utah doesn’t have the benefit of Harvard and MIT, major Pharma companies, etc. It’s surrounded by desert and has no natural resources to speak of.
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 bunch of other things the government doesn't provide.
They've essentially traded one government for another, but theirs requires belief in their religion and only applies to their believers (who happen to concentrate in Utah).
Fluoridation of water isn't the best grounds for arguing the US is backwards, given that it has hitherto been an outlier in how much fluoridation is happening [0]. Most of the developed world doesn't come close to the reach that the US has.
Pretty much everyone I personally know, this in part to coming from a family of relative affluence in highly liberal areas, has religiously filtered their water to keep additives (such as fluoride) from going into their bodies. This same crowd has savvy towards dental hygiene, they're all into oil pulling, and brushing with Fennel oil and all that. Eliminating yeast (which is fungus, not bacteria) from the mouth prevents the biofilm that creates the necessary conditions for dental cavities.
Even the poorest Americans can afford coconut oil and Fennel oil.
There's no reason to drink that shit (fluoride), there's no reason to brush with it either.
I truly don't care one way or the other on the dental advantage that fluoride offers in drinking water, or the alleged risks it poses to the IQ of unborn children. I simply hate the fact that public policy is now being driven by what are essentially New World Order conspiracy theorists
Before someone tries to pin this as a decisively left-right political issue, Portland, Oregon has been virulently anti-fluoride for over 70 years (which is probably the last time Portland and Utah agreed on anything):
Portland is a bit odd when it comes to water; they drained an entire (uncovered, open to the elements) city reservoir because a guy peed in it. True story. I assume they have signs for the birds flying aloft to not defecate over the reservoir.
Edit: It appears many posts all over this thread are being brigaded with downvotes. Why? Is Big Fluoride in trouble? Grow up. You people are brain damaged (possibly from fluoride).
What I find fascinating about this debate is that only municipalities/cities add fluoride to water. If you are on well water, no fluoride. So any studies comparing the incidence of tooth decay between populations that are on well water and those that are on fluoridated city water?
I get that this was a great public health benefit before fluoride in toothpaste became widely available but is this still the case? Couldn't it be argued that most of the benefit comes from brushing your teeth?
Flouride incorporates into the tooth structure in developing teeth before they emerge, I'm not sure how effective that is but it is different than the more topical protection.
Tea has enormous amounts of flouride depending on where it is grown and they aren't banning that yet.
For what it's worth, very few locations and processing styles result in significant doses of fluoride in tea. Within the United States, these types of tea are not typically consumed. For example, Tibetan brick tea is consistently high in fluoride, to the extent that fluorosis is actually somewhat common in certain regions. But it's a bit tricky to even buy a brick (meant for consumption) within the US. Bagged tea, more commonly available, has to be drunk regularly in very significant volumes to have a deleterious effect.
Put another way, for issues to rise to the level of public policy, they have to affect a meaningful number of people in a region. In the US, tea-induced fluorisis is extremely rare.
Way past time. The link between fluoride ingestion by children and pregnant women to lower IQ in children has been known for years. It's incredible how the scientific community in the US is so ignorant of this fact.
Also, dentists have no neuroscience background! So let's take recommendations by dentists to ingest a neurotoxin with deep deep skepticism, shall we?
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).
The relationship appears to be linear down to zero, but it’s very hard to study near those levels. From what I’ve seen, the best current science is that the fluoridation levels in typical western countries are reducing average IQ by about 0.5-1.5 points.
For reference, adding lead to fuel was far, far worse.
I think it's worth reminding people of Occam's Razor, and the point of it is: a simple explanation is often better than a complicated one.
The US has had water fluoridation for 65 years, affecting 346 million people. That's a pretty big god damn sample size and long amount of time in which to observe effects. If we still have no proof of significant negative health effects, it's probably not bad for you.
That said: you can always lower the amount of fluoride if it turns out the local area already gets a lot of fluoride from other sources. You don't need to ban it, you can just lower the levels.
So please don't defend this decision by Utah. They're being children.
Using a prospective Canadian birth cohort, we found that estimated maternal exposure to higher fluoride levels during pregnancy was associated with lower IQ scores in children. This association was supported by converging findings from 2 measures of fluoride exposure during pregnancy. A difference in MUFSG spanning the interquartile range for the entire sample (ie, 0.33 mg/L), which is roughly the difference in MUFSG concentration for pregnant women living in a fluoridated vs a nonfluoridated community, was associated with a 1.5-point IQ decrement among boys. An increment of 0.70 mg/L in MUFSG concentration was associated with a 3-point IQ decrement in boys; about half of the women living in a fluoridated community have a MUFSG equal to or greater than 0.70 mg/L. These results did not change appreciably after controlling for other key exposures such as lead, arsenic, and mercury.
To our knowledge, this study is the first to estimate fluoride exposure in a large birth cohort receiving optimally fluoridated water. These findings are consistent with that of a Mexican birth cohort study that reported a 6.3 decrement in IQ in preschool-aged children compared with a 4.5 decrement for boys in our study for every 1 mg/L of MUF.10 The findings of the current study are also concordant with ecologic studies that have shown an association between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower intellectual abilities in children.7,8,26 Collectively, these findings support that fluoride exposure during pregnancy may be associated with neurocognitive deficits.
1. IQ is not an objective measurement, it is inherently flawed
2. A 1.5-3 IQ level difference is not noticeable in any practical way. Things like birth order have a more significant impact on IQ.
3. Comparing Canadian children to Mexican is pretty dramatic, like comparing rich kids to poor kids; you will always see a marked difference between the two, in intelligence, in health, in crime, in all sorts of things. Mexican communities often over-fluoridate their water (I know because I grew up in Mexico and my teeth are stained because of it). Again, this is no reason to ban it, just lower it.
This finding is a suggestion of a link, it's not empirical proof. The methods and findings have many questionable aspects. You can always find some paper that suggests something random like vegetables are bad for you or something. One paper does not a water-tight case make.
> The US has had water fluoridation for 65 years, affecting 346 million people. That's a pretty big god damn sample size and long amount of time in which to observe effects. If we still have no proof of significant negative health effects, it's probably not bad for you.
The problem is there will have been a lot of confounders.
E.g. despite huge sample sizes, isolating the cause of the obesity crisis is too hard because so many different things changed at once.
Sure, it's not easy to find a smoking gun. That doesn't mean we go all in on whatever we think might be the issue (if there even is an issue).
The answer to the obesity crisis wasn't to ban Pizza. We don't we ban sodas and junk food at schools, which we know would have a positive impact on health. But we do ban fluoride, without proof that it will help? With actually the only scientific proof being that it would be detrimental to remove?
If people's concern is really that it might slightly lower IQ, consider that 1) IQ has been steadily increasing since the 40's, and 2) you can get better IQ by investing in education, something that we do an embarrassing job of already and need to improve on.
The other concern touted is that it might cause cancer. As we well know by now, nearly everything causes cancer.
Banning fluoride is just a move by politicians to take advantage of ignorant scared people to drum up more votes/support. It's like every other action they take to vilify something scary or unknown and then claim victory over the evil thing they purged. This isn't new, either - this clearly partisan stance was being pointed out in the 1950's when it was first being considered for nationwide use.
"After more than 70 years of investigation, there are still questions about how effective water fluoridation is at preventing dental decay and whether the possible risks are worth the benefits. Although water fluoridation undoubtedly did improve the dental health of many children in the 1960s and 1970s, fluoride proponents were perhaps too hasty in declaring that community water fluoridation was the best (or only) solution for dental decay. A less fractious debate might have encouraged a more open discussion in which the possible harms could have been more fully discussed and other options, such as providing fluoridated toothpaste, more fully considered." - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4504307/
I initially dismissed it as the same category of stupid as anti-vax beliefs, but it turns out that there are a decent amount of good studies showing a link between fluoride in water and (slightly) lower IQ when pregnant mothers ingest the fluoride. Note that there is no significant effect after birth.
The idea is to remove fluoride from water and advise pregnant women to use fluoride-free toothpaste.
Everyone else can get enough fluoride from modern toothpastes, or regular dentist treatments.
The logic is that fluoride in tap water made sense in the era before toothpaste had it, but now it is “overmedicating” a vulnerable fraction of the population.
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 calculus.
A not insignificant number of researchers are advocating for the view that flouridating water just isn't worth it anymore and the (slight) risk of flourosis is more significant than the (slight) benefit of decreased dental caries.
Children are the main group that benefits from fluoride in water because the fluoride helps strengthen teeth as they form. Lack of fluoride increases childhood cavities, leading to decreased academic performance.
This was a real problem in the San Jose school district until recently. They started fluoridation of water in the last ten years, and were the biggest US city that didn’t fluoridate. The evidence of the above is clear according to SJ dentists I have talked to.
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/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/...
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Which changes the calculus
Was that intentional? (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dental_calculus for those who didn't get the reference.)
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Fluorosis is very common afaik. My dentist told me I have it: slightly whiter patches on my teeth. Then he showed me his own fluorosis. It actually is stronger than the old enamel.
> The IQ link is very heavily lacking in evidence.
Not really: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
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> 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.
Sadly, an alarming percentage of Americans don't drink water. I’ve spoken to way too many people who think water tastes wrong because it’s not sweet enough.
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I'm pretty sure that no amount of fluoridated water is going to save you if you do not brush your teeth.
Even if the fluoride somehow manages to overcome all that and prevent you from getting cavities, the gum disease will eventually cause all your teeth to fall out.
> 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
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The levels of fluoridation in order to cause difference in IQ as I understand it, from the Chinese studies, suggest that basically the effect if true occurs at around 2x+ the concentration found in supplemented water supplies.
My understanding also is that if you’re a dentist wanting to get rich, move somewhere that has unfluoridated water.
2x is basically no safe margin for something like water. Of course you can question the quality of the study, but if it's actually 2x, fluoride in tap water should be treated like lead pipes.
So if your training and double your water intake your basically lowering you IQ? (according to the Chinese studies) I wonder the method this uses.. has anyone looked at dementia rates in high fluoride areas.. Particularly in people with high water intake?
There is also a host of things we use water for from cooking to preserving, distilling and cooling.. i wonder if any of these things could concentrate the fluoride.
Also since fluoride has a lower boiling point any studies tracked what breathing in fluoride gas over long periods cause?
2x is honestly pretty small. I would expect the amount required to drop IQ to be larger by an order of magnitude or more to conclude that fluoridating water is totally safe.
> I initially dismissed it as the same category of stupid as anti-vax beliefs
Dismissing things out of hand like this is a category of stupid in itself.
Look at the current research, listen to people who devoted their careers to studying this, make up your own mind. If you're on HN, then you're qualified enough to at least figure out who the genuine experts are and read what they recommend.
Putting any science-based debate into a "category" to dismiss is turning yourself into one of the stupid people.
This is bad advice that no one could possibly follow.
> Look at the current research, listen to people who devoted their careers to studying this, make up your own mind.
Do you honestly do this with every single belief you have? Even every single controversial belief? Have you looked, yourself, into whether the world is flat? Whether the 9/11 conspiracy theories are true? Whether crop circles were created by aliens? These are all absurd conspiracy theories, but I assume most people don't know the "up to date" research on any of them, or what people who have "devote their careers" to research them say.
And those are incredibly common and well known to be false theories.
You have to take some things on faith to at least some degree - though to be clear, by "on faith" I mean "on faith of people you trust", which should really start with professional scientists etc. Also, it's totally fine to just say "I have no actual idea" about most things, and just go with what your current understanding of the status-quo position is.
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I think that link is only there when the fluoride levels are extremely high. See https://parentdata.org/fluoride-drinking-water/ for a good overview of the data
> Everyone else can get enough fluoride from modern toothpastes, or regular dentist treatments.
The advantage of putting it in water is that it ensures all children get it, not just the children whose parents can and do make sure they brush their teeth and go to the dentist.
So everyone else's kids have to have a lower IQ because of that?
Bad parents are gonna be bad parents.
Agree, my biggest issue is often where they source the fluoride and whether they test it. We found out in my (liberal) hometown that they were actually sourcing some derivative which has no human studies.
Given that everyone gets enough in toothpaste I just don’t see the reason to keep doing it, too much can go wrong. It’s kind of a strange mass medication that I’m not sure the government needs to be involved in.
What was the derivative?
> The idea is to remove fluoride from water and advise pregnant women to use fluoride-free toothpaste.
What most people don't understand here are the levels of fluoride being ingested. You can very easily remove all fluoride from your water with a relatively cheap RO system. But the recommendation to use "fluoride-free toothpaste" is just plain misinformation.
The reason is that you don't eat toothpaste. And even when adults ingest small amounts of toothpaste, again, the amount of fluoride is basically beyond negligible. Fluoride can both be applied to teeth as a varnish and/or consumed in drinking water. Using a flouride-free toothpaste can oftentimes do more damage than good because of SLS in those alternatives and because those alternatives often have abrasives that do far more harm than good. It's amazing people will recommend a product that may likely be worse because they have no domain expertise. So, yes, people should talk to their Dentist about these things and ask questions of them vs the Internet.
Really the downside to removing fluoride from city water is that low income families will be worse off with respect to dental related issues compared to more well off families that spend time instilling dental hygiene and preventative care for their kids. As you mentioned most people who have decent oral hygiene get enough flouride.
Where we live we have well water. Fluoride in the water isn't a concern, and if it was in our drinking water it generally wouldn't be consumed because of the water filtration anyway.
Source: spouse is a DDS.
My anecdotal experience says that using fluride-free biomine toothpaste makes my tooth highly sensitive than using a good ol' Colgate. Now, I use it only twice or thrice per month randomly.
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Whether this is true or not, it's absolutely not why they banned it.
They banned it as part of the culture war. That's 100% of the reason. "The libs" want it, so it must be banned.
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 whether fluoridation is effective or safe, there doesn’t seem to be any compelling need to fluoridate public water, and there’s no economic down side for the public if governments choose not to do so.
Given this, why not just leave people alone to make their own choices? If the citizens in a city or state want to fluoridate the public water supply, then do so; if they choose not to, then leave them alone. It’s a free country and voters are grownups; let them choose for themselves.
If you live in a place that chooses the choice you dislike but for some reason fluoridated public water supply is a critical issue for you, either campaign to change it or vote with your feet.
This issue just doesn’t seem important enough to me to spend any effort arguing either way.
> 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.
This rings true for my gut reaction. The family and acquaintances in my life who have been up in arms against fluoride for years now are actual neo nzs (like “deport all non whites”, “you-know-who controls america”, “superiority of the white race” level).
So my instinct is to really be afraid of this anti-fluoride wave, even tho practically I don’t care one way or another.
I think one thing you're not considering (especially when you say we should vote with our feet) is poverty. It’s true that fluoride toothpaste is widely available, but for people in poverty, of which there are millions in our country, basic hygiene items like toothpaste and a toothbrush aren’t guaranteed. Neither is it guaranteed that everyone has a perfect daily brushing habit like the dentist tells us; there are people who don't brush every day, or even every week.
You talked about dental care not being covered by public insurance — is it not worth considering that some basic level of dental care is already being applied to the country via fluoridation? It's a minimal, cost-effective way to prevent tooth decay at scale. Fluoridated water is one of the few dental protections available to everyone regardless of their income.
If you're not brushing your teeth, periodontitis will get you; the resulting bone decay will cause your teeth will fall out. But sure, great, the water was fluoridated, so I guess it's nice that those now-missing teeth are free of caries?
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I don't believe there's a single person in the USA that's so poor they can't pay $3 for toothpaste every 3 months. I also believe that having such a low personal hygiene where you don't brush your teeth altogether, even if you drink water with fluoride, will have terrible results anyway for your teeth anyway.
I'm completely sure that any people that don't brush their teeth is just because they are too lazy to even bother.
This trope of justifying everything with "but there are millions of poor people in the USA" is really tiresome.
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Trivial is what we have now. Taking fluoride from the water means people will have to spend extra time and money on fluoride and dental treatments. When I viewed it, your comment appeared directly after this one (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43524171), which talks about a town in Canada that voted to abandon fluoride , saw worse health outcomes, and then voted to reinstate it. This tells us that fluoride is not trivially available to people, and taking it away from them enriches corporations while making people less healthy.
So you’re saying that forcing a treatment on people that don’t want it, is a fair price to pay to reduce inconvenience for others?
I’m not sure what your anecdote proves because I’m wholly in support of a polity being able to make that decision.
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> via toothpaste.
I wonder how many people really brush their teeth on a regular basis.
> either campaign to change it or vote with your feet.
I imagine that campaigning to change it requires notifying people there is a problem, and getting it into the news and spreading that news.
> I wonder how many people really brush their teeth on a regular basis.
Whatever the number is it's not appropriate for the state to medically intervene on their behalf.
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Sadly people that don’t brush are probably not drinking plain water either.
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Your indifference is based on some core assumptions that are false. In reality, 1) Fluoride in water works in addition to fluoride in toothpaste to protect our teeth - rather than two highly concentrated events of reminieralization, fluoriated water reminieralizes the teeth throughout the day. 2) There is a strong economic downside to ceasing fluoridation: Fluoridation saves millions of dollars that otherwise would be spent on dental bills by the public - https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/abs/10.1377/hlthaff.2016.0... - shows cost savings ratio of twenty dollars for every. dollar invested in reduced treament costs. This remains apt: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7164347/ 3) The best way to preserve choice is to maintain fluoridation. People cannot choose to fluoridated their own water system - they can choose to live in unfluoridated areas, use filters that remove fluoride, or otherwise avoid the tap water. 4) Removing fluoridation means acces to fluoride becomes much more difficult and expensive. The reason fluoridation is so cost effective is that it is delivered through the public water system - a community resource. Bottled fluoridated water is more expensive than gasoline. It is also less regulated and less available in the U.S.A.
In general it's some weird relic of medieval view on dentists not being medical professionals but someone akin to barbers. It shouldn't exits but it persists.
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/...
In the 2nd study that shows correlation between fluoride and lower IQ in children, the water had twice as much fluoride as the recommended amount in the US (1.5 mg/L vs 0.7 mg/L).
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The most ridiculous part is that we have an alternative way to apply fluoride without intaking it. It's called toothpaste. But for some reason people act like Utah is banning vaccine.
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Unfortunately, hard data is not acceptable. This is how it works for the current administration:
All previous data is ignored because of political reasons.
Teeth to slowly rot in heads.
Sometime in the 2030s, local voters will notice they have very bad teeth.
Locals will debate if adding fluoride is going to make teeth great again.
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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 western Europe has fluorinated so let's not pretend like this is unprecedented
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.
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Is one due the right to potable water at a tap at their home? Or is purified water a service offered by the government as one source of many available to the us population?
Are you not allowed to pay for bottled water instead of paying your local utility for drinking water?
The bodily autonomy argument seems bad to me because you are buying water from the government when you could buy water from any other source instead.
Is the argument that the government water is too convenient and so it should be unfiltered? Who is to say that filtering out poop is not infringing on my right to consume unfiltered water?
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Fluoride was introduced late enough in Zimbabwe that many of my childhood adults easily remembered life before it. There were many horror stories about the general state of teeth prior.
That being said, your dentist can apply fluoride to your teeth (boggles the mind why insurance won't pay the $50), and flouride toothpaste is still much more common than not. It's probably not needed in the water supply for dental purposes.
That being said, what are the other fringe benefits: such as microbe control?
The city of Houston has stopped adding fluoride to water but allows natural fluoride levels to exist[0]. We are going on year 6 and the only thing we have noticed is harder water.
There is probably more nuance to both stories tho.
[0] https://houstonherald.com/2018/11/lindsey-and-long-win-count...
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.
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Hawaii does not add fluoride to their water. Utah may be the first to out-right ban it, but there are quite a few local communities and cities that opt-out of adding it to their drinking water.
https://chatgpt.com/share/67e8572d-c5f4-8000-9393-c2e894c922...
The US is, according to Wikipedia, among a small minority of countries in which a majority of people drink fluoridated water. Various European countries have discontinued doing so. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation>
Fluoridation, imperial measurement, 20% tips, taxes added at the register, and circumcision are the weirdest things Americans think everyone does.
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Yeah, this is one of those places where because RFK Jr took the anti- stand there's an understandable assumption that it's more nutty anti-science stuff, but it's much less clear cut when it comes to fluoridation. Europe has much lower rates than the US, which is an outlier on these stats only approached by Australia, and before Utah the major high profile anti-fluoride stance was made by Portland:
https://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-30229-portland-voters-so...
To the extent this is a polarized left-right issue, it's only recently and only because everything is polarized right now.
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I was surprised to learn this. "Worldwide, the Irish Republic, Singapore and New Zealand are the only countries which implement mandatory water fluoridation."
I live in New Zealand and my town doesn't put fluoride in the water but it seems like they'll be made to do so fairly soon. I don't really care one way or the other from the point of view of ingesting the stuff, but I do consider it a bit of a waste of money. People who brush with toothpaste don't need this and people who don't are probably drinking too much soda. A more useful thing to do might be to subsidize toothpaste for people who can't / won't buy it for their kids.
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Many other places fluoridate salt. There’s many ways to get flourish (toothpaste being the best if you can get people to use it correctly) but the evidence that mass fluoridation of some kind is good for dental health is enormous.
It seems like they could compare states/countries/cities while controlling for other factors (age, income level, etc) to see how well fluoridation works. I'm pretty sure you'll find that fluoridation helps lower the number of cavities, but it's not going to be a slam dunk.
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 delivering flakes of gold with the mail and people complained — that's not what mailboxes are for!
You're misattributing: the U.S. has a perfect white teeth culture that doesn't exist elsewhere. Many people outside of the U.S. have healthier but uglier teeth. Fluoride isn't the reason for good/bad teeth inside/outside of the U.S, it's cultural. Many places outside of the U.S. do put fluoride in their water (nationally or regionally) and have "bad" teeth (e.g: England).
People in the U.S. don't have perfect white teeth, they have are cosmetic procedures on their teeth equivalent to liposuction, silicone, botox, hair plugs and/or laminated face.
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What does a white-tooth culture look like specifically? People brush their teeth in France, they have modern dentristy etc.
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While tooth whiteness in the US is often divorced from tooth health, fluoride does add a yellowish tint to your teeth, so the healthiest teeth — those imbued with fluoride — are slightly yellow. (In fact when they first decided to add fluoride to water, one of the questions was just how much they could add before your teeth would turn completely yellow. Health-wise the yellowing was fine, but it was obviously visually unappealing.) Ugly teeth may be due to poor/lack of orthodontia, but it's probably not due to better dental care.
But flakes of gold are not associated with a lower IQ in children.
"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."
https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/...
So it is also not clear, if the lower concentration typically found also has this effect.
"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."
But the solution of just using (cheap) Fluor in toothpaste to apply the Flour where it should go - to the teeth and not the stomach, sounds smarter to me.
So in other words, 0.7mg/L fluoridated water is also not associated with lower IQ in children. That study did not prove it safe, but it did prove it unsafe, either.
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Where I live, dental health is good and we don’t have fluorides in the water (we have free, mandatory dental care for children). We recently banned the use of fluorides to make our skis go fast because of the environmental impact.
> even celebrities try to talk without showing their teeth
So fluoride would somehow magically replace braces or teeth whiteners?
Interesting how France does add fluoride to the water (according to Wikipedia) while many other countries aren't.
US is an outlier there, so there is that.
> I live in France and it's just so obvious that people grew up without fluoride
And yet France does not have a dental health crisis so it's just for cosmetic reasons we don't need fluoride
Good thing we have fluoride toothpaste then
Utah has naturally occurring fluoride in their water and some water systems its more than double(2.0mg/l) what they add to prevent dental issues. Why were they fluorinating their water?
https://cascadefamily.com/images/WaterFluoridationLevelsUtah...
Most places in Utah already don't add flouride to water. So why pass a law to ban it?
Virtue signaling.
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Ok, but then you just say, we have enough naturally occurring fluoride. Adding more is just a waste of money.
Or, toothpaste has enough extra fluoride, adding it to water is just a waste of money.
This is not that. This is the US health system being lead by a bunch of woo-woo people who don’t understand how research works.
I am saying it’s weird to fluoridate water in areas with high levels of naturally occurring fluoride. Also to point out that there is naturally occurring fluoride. If Utah believed fluoride was a health risk, why aren’t they spending tens of millions to filter it out. Or is it just virtue signaling.
> This is the US health system being lead by a bunch of woo-woo people who don’t understand how research works.
The majority of the developed world does not fluoridate their water supply. The US has one of the highest rates of fluoridation in the developed world. Within America, fluoridation rates are highest on the East Coast and in the South, and lowest on the Left Coast.
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The people leading the health system are highly credentialed. Moreover, highly credentialed people, in medicine as in all fields, frequently disagree on what studies show, how valid a study is, what it's flaws and limits are, how conclusive it is, and so forth. And the consensus has a long, time honored tradition of being wrong from time to time.
Ultimately, the woo woo people are the ones who rely on someone in a labcoat to tell them whether ingesting government approved (there's your first red flag) synthetic fluoride from industrial byproducts is "necessary".
If it's useful, brushing it onto your teeth and into your gums 56,000 times in your life is probably sufficient, particularly given that we don't know with absolute certainty beyond any shadow of a doubt that the industrial waste options are totally without health consequences. I'll literally just take care of my teeth and cross my fingers over listening to modern medical consensus on a range of topics where I simply trust intuition and common sense more.
That's not how it works. There is an ideal amount of fluoride. If the natural amount is lower more is added. If it's higher the extra is removed.
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...
I was thinking exactly the same thing, down to the circumcision thing. This whole discourse gives me the vibe of something the American society has randomly walked on and now is an "it has always been like this".
They also keep passing laws to specifically support burning coal, which is (slightly more credibly) shown to reduce IQ in children exposed to its pollution.
Note that while this may be first state to ban fluoride, it's not the first state to not have fluoride in the water. That would be Hawaii (effectively).
all states were "the first to not have flouride". In 1945 Grand Rapids, MI became the first city in the world to flouridate its water
Tremendous boon for the dental industry. Congratulations for everyone involved in getting this through.
The fluoride toothpaste they recommend is far more effective in fighting cavities, but ok
Strangely, I never see the people demanding we ban fluoride also demand we ban cars, considering the amount of particulates and rubber wheels we inhale as a result of policy, road design and car design. And I can almost guarantee you that's resulting in an actual meaningful drop in IQ and health outcomes as opposed to fluoridating water.
But I guess freedom to pollute matters more than bodily autonomy in terms of mental priority.
>I never see the people demanding we ban fluoride also demand we ban cars,
Perhaps you could take a dive into the youtubes, and find "crash detectives" (Welsh-based, so you may have to put captions on), but none of those professionals check for mouthwash.
Haha, some [police forces] do.
Preventing cavities is far more effective with topical application of fluoride on the teeth, rather than ingestion.
I personally don’t buy the passive health benefit. Even if it’s true, there’s no proof that fluoridated water is superior to topical application.
Not to mention that if we’re going to just roll over and accept stuff in the water for public health reasons, what really should be added are more vitamins, not fluoride. In particular vitamin D
For children developing their “adult teeth” fluoride ingestion strengthens those teeth before they pop out. Topical has no effect obviously since they haven’t surfaced yet.
And for that there is fluoride mouthwash, which again isn’t ingested and would be more effective.
> Regular use of fluoride mouthrinse under supervision results in a large reduction in tooth decay in children's permanent teeth.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6457869/#:~:text=Be...
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These American experts who are “disheartened” — do they not pay attention to Europe? Or do they only get upset when Republicans do something?
Europe (and many parts of Asia,) is objectively healthier than most of the residents of the USA; so maybe rather than knee-jerking against anything RFK Jr., perhaps the so-called experts should start doing their jobs and looking at what healthier places in the rest of the world are doing. The status quo in the USA is default fat and unhealthy. Why aren’t the fluoride cheerleaders not using their “expert” status to shout against high fructose corn syrup, artificial coloring, or the fact that most American food tastes like sugar?
Do you seriously think that dental and health experts don’t rail against those things? They do, and they consider those things far more important than fluoridated water. Their opinions on fluoride are being shared because there is notable news about fluoridated water.
Americans do not want to hear about how they should eat healthier.
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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 among societies poorest. Therefore, due to fluoridation in water some people are less sick and have more money and therefore are more free.
The contrasting view is that putting fluoride in water is literally medicating people without their affirmative consent. It is the government forcing you to take a medication. It is coercive and therefore an attack on your freedom to not take medication. It is the government interfering in your life.
The contrast between positive freedom, the freedom to do something, and negative freedom, the freedom from interference in your life, is the core political argument in America right now. Negative freedom, freedom from government interference, is being promoted by those seeking to weaken the government enough to supplant it. People who are poor and sick are likely unable to stand up for themselves or participate in solidarity against authority. This individual issue is relatively small, but you take 100's of issues like this, and the effect is to create a class of people who aren't able to do anything but be obedient workers.
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 effectiveness or side effects. It could well be that fluoride in water is great for teeth but bad for brains. The objections to fluoride in water I’ve seen are more along those lines. Im not clear the validity of those claims but for example anti fluoride advocates don’t typically object to chlorine in water to kill germs. That seems the core issue- without bias from stakeholders, is the benefit of fluoride proven and the risks disproven? It’s hard to answer because a study needs to span many years and exclude many variables.
And in general I think that is what needs to happen with these type debates. Take them _out_ of the sphere of charged political opinion and focus on getting to the objective truth of risks and benefits, then be transparent. People can handle “here are the known pros and cons and what we think that means” over “there are only pros and no cons and if you disagree you hate poor people”
> 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 stakeholders, is the benefit of fluoride proven and the risks disproven? It’s hard to answer because a study needs to span many years and exclude many variables.
No, it's not hard to answer, because all those studies have been done and the results were that fluoride is safe.
> And in general I think that is what needs to happen with these type debates.
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.
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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 scientific institutions to submit to political authority rather than the authority of reason.
So I agree with you, it is policy that should not be handled by politicians but by experts, which none of us are. Unfortunately science is being politicized.
The problem is science challenges those who derive power from means other than reason.
Defending scientific consensus is seen as an equally political act as denying it.
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I think equating poor people to homeless people is non sequitur.
What about the vast population of “barely making it” people?
But have it your way. I’ve given up on American people (I exist as a 54 year old one amongst them). Decades of wealth have created a society so “me” centric it makes me nauseous sick. Never have I respected those older than me so little. It makes me so sad what we’ve done for those younger.
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> 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 fluoridated toothpaste and toothbrushes, and can brush.
Yet OP cites data (not explicitly, but you can start here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6974062/, there are many like it).
Fluoridated water makes the most impact on poor and undeserved communities: Why?
Is it because poor people are less capable of brushing or have less access to fluoridated toothpaste?
Is it because poor people are poor because they have poor self control, which prevents them from regular brushing?
Does it matter? Nothing hinges on them being incapable at all - your conjecture can be as uncharitable - poor people are dirty and incapable - or charitable - poor people have less money and time to seek dental care, have higher rates of untreated mental and physical illness i.e. ADHD, disabilities that interrupt daily tooth-brushing routine - as you want.
But the result is still that if we want children from poor families to have less cavities by the time they reach adulthood - we should fluoridate the water! If you trust the western medical establishment, it's broadly safe. If you don't, then none of the evidence above matters to you anyways.
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See this is the problem today. Just because some one doesn’t know doesn’t make it non existent. We have decades of studies and evidence that fluoride is good and has no side effects, but the detractors ignore all of it and keep nullifying all that knowledge. Now they are successful too. In a society where everyone wants the whole boat to rise up, we need a certain amount of honesty and integrity and sadly these arguments don’t have it
> 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.
“Objective truth” - I’d love to know how one goes about this, feels like a Nietzsche reading here would be helpful
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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 parts of the world.
Not true. Every time I see a dentist here in Queensland (non-fluoridated water) he asks me where else I lived as my teeth are so much better than what he usually sees, and if drilling my teeth are much harder than most Queenslanders.
My early years were spent in Melbourne, where fluoridation was introduced around 1970. That's the only time I lived with fluoridated water, for about 3 years. yet dentists can see the effects 50+ years later.
I don't use a toothbrush or toothpaste, and haven't ever really, as my ASD makes it unbearable.
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There's a huge difference between "no longer as necessary" and "let's ban it".
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https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdoe.12685
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.
Kids really suck at brushing their teeth
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 so much better.
Fluoride is not "in fact toxic". A substance becomes toxic in high amounts. Vitamin D becomes toxic in high amounts. The level of fluoride in drinking water is well below the toxic level.
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Somewhat related, as a teen in the 90s I worked at McDonald’s in The Netherlands. Because of the diet in the US, the bread used for hamburgers contained extra calcium to be more ‘healthy’, because many people did not get enough calcium intake. In The Netherlands, where people drink much more dairy products, especially back in the 90s, people would get plenty of calcium so there was no need to put extra in the bread. But because a hamburger should be a hamburger no matter where you buy it worldwide, the Dutch McDonald’s hamburger bread still had the added calcium
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In the UK at least some areas have fluoridated water, despite almost all toothpaste being fluoridated. I suppose it most benefits the minority of people who do not brush their teeth. That benefit has to be balanced[1] against some evidence of risk.
IMO the right fix is better dental hygiene, and a better (less sugary) diet. These are in turn are in part symptomatic of other problems (poverty, long working hours with regards to lack of supervision of children).
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/water-fluoridatio...
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"Here in Sweden we decided against fluoride for this reason and the fact that it is in fact toxic."
All water collected from natural sources contains some level of fluoride and other salts (which varies greatly from place to place). Does then your local water authority remove these naturally-acquired chemicals?
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Just an FYI, water is also toxic.
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> But you will brush your teeth anyway, and then you apply fluoride topically. It works.
Relatively few of the poor have the disposable income, time, education, and long-term worldview needed to reliably do that.
EDIT: This comment is about America's poor. Though the same applies in much of the world.
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Water is also toxic.
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> Here in Sweden we decided against fluoride for this reason and the fact that it is in fact toxic.
How?
Please don't express that it damages development. That's trivially refutable by statistics. We can compare Canada's and UK's IQs for example, or some other proxy to the G factor, said countries were chosen for their similar cultural demographics, we find then that the metrics are mostly identical, while the difference in consumption of fluoride is staggering.
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Freedom from is the American way.
Freedom to is the Canadian way.
That's why Canada becoming an American anything is ridiculous and pisses off Canada so much that, for example, we've reduced our flights to America by +70% over the coming months.
Not when it comes to religion though: the European way (and I feel very much like considering Canadians something like honorary Europeans these days) was forged in painful wars stemming from and fueled by influence of religion on politics, and abuse of religion by politics. Both on the collective level, not so much on the individual level. The European way is all about having a strong firewall between religion and politics, to keep the former out of the later. Freedom from.
The American way is completely devoid of that concept. It's all built on that Pilgrim Fathers founding myth and only ever cares about keeping the state from getting in the way of individual beliefs. It's so focused on that part and only that part that even an almost-all-out theocracy would be fine as long as it did not mess with individual beliefs. "Freedom to" without the tiniest trace of "freedom from".
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Canada does the opposite of America even if it hurts Canada - it’s a part of its identity.
Redefining freedom as “forcing something on people for their own good” is not how anyone actually defines freedom.
It’s like saying children have the most freedom because their parents force them to do things that will benefit them.
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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.
Personal freedom ≠ "freedom of communities"—there is no such thing. Freedom applies to individuals, not collectives. When a community makes a decision that affects all its members, that’s democracy, but democracy is not unlimited authority. A majority vote does not grant the right to infringe on individual autonomy, which is why safeguards exist against the tyranny of the majority.
Banning fluoride does not restrict freedom—it prevents government overreach. In contrast, forcing fluoride on everyone would violate personal autonomy. Protecting individual choice is a fundamental principle, backed by real-world safeguards like constitutional rights, judicial review, and bodily autonomy laws. The burden of proof is always on those seeking to impose a policy, not on those defending individual freedom.
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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."
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>This ban is anti-freedom. (Just like forcing them could be argued to be, even though that's what you argued against.)
By that logic is the first amendment "anti-freedom", because it prevents communities from instituting censorship laws, even if they actually want them?
I heard they were going to mandate seatbelts next! Where are our freedoms?!?!?
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So then, you'd also be against adding folate/folic acid to bread for the same reason?
For those who don't know many countries including the US mandate the inclusion of folic acid in bread and certain other foods to ensure pregnant women get enough. A deficiency of folic acid during pregnancy causes birth defects in infants. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folate
I never heard of that supplement (not a father) and was very surprised to find 80 countries mandate it. I checked the list (below) and it turns out the 80 countries are a bunch of poor nations plus USA, UAE, Qatar, Canada and Australia. I guess our medicare system supports the EU mothers fine enough so we don’t need to put that in the staple of food.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5809909/ (Table 1)
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I am against adding anything to a whole population to treat a few, folate included. Here is why. Folate is a known stimulant of some cancers.
https://aacrjournals.org/cebp/article/17/9/2220/169762/Folic...
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13668-018-0237-y
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1463-1318....
(And you know that the first line cancer treatments, like methotrexate, are anti-folates.)
So while we are lowering birth defects, are we increasing cancers at the same time? Has this ever been studied?
We are not a homogeneous population.
The same is true for fluoride. Some people have a fluoride allergy:
https://www.aaaai.org/allergist-resources/ask-the-expert/ans...
And while fluoride is known to prevent cavities, it also makes tooth enamel brittle:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43246-024-00709-8
https://www.medindia.net/news/healthwatch/fluoride-strengthe...
So I prefer to medicate myself, according to my own needs and my own genetics, thank you.
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How is fluoridating water better than giving out free toothpaste and toothbrushes? Has the latter been tried?
"Not keeping people trapped in poverty" would be nice too but for some reason that one seems off the table.
We've been trying for the history of mankind to figure out how to "not keep people trapped in poverty". No one has solved that problem yet, despite the best of intentions with monumental effort. I'll agree with Milton Friedman on this, Capitalism, as bad as it is, has been the most successful system to alleviate poverty.
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Rather than taking choice away, we should be educating people on what the best choice is and letting them make it themselves.
Brush your teeth in the morning and in the evening. Standard dental hygiene - If a person can be an obedient worker they can probably brush their teeth twice a day. If they cant, they have bigger problems to sort out.
> educating people on what the best choice is and letting them make it themselves.
If we go that way, we should have some sort of Department, to make sure Of the Education being consistent.
This is a fair point, and in modern times, where we have good public health education it makes more sense to take this approach.
However this comes with the weighty caveat that there are public groups that actively agitate against public health campaigns.
On balance I think defluoridation makes sense where you have good public health communication.
Is that not just a passive form of putting fluoride in the water though? Government is still spending money but without the desired outcome of having a healthier fitter population.
I lived in Germany for a while. There, the water that comes out of your tab doesn't get fluorized. Instead, they add fluoride to tooth paste.
So, is Germany less free or more free?
> So, is Germany less free or more free?
Can communities choose to fluoridate their water at the utility level or are they banned from doing so by legislation like they are in Utah?
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While they don't add fluoride, the natural levels in German tap water can reach 0.3 mg/L. Compared to the US recommended level of 0.7 mg/L in fluoridated water, that's not an insignificant amount.
I think you missed the point of "positive" versus "negative" freedoms.
They have more of one, less of the other.
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Isn't it also added to salt?
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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.
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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.
Or even crazier, hear me out, maybe we can just let people have healthcare without cost-gating it? Like oh idk, every other even semi-wealthy nation in the world except the one where measles is making a comeback?
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Here in the U.K. at least, vitamins are added to many of the basic foods: like breakfast cereal and bread.
Putting aspirin in the water would be incredibly dangerous: brain bleeds and stomach ulcers would quickly knock out any other health benefits.
Like the vitamins and minerals added to cereals/milk or the iodine added to salt?
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The trouble with slippery slopes is that they carry you away from productive discussion.
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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.
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Are they silent, or just not being represented by the American press?
Same question but for giardia. Natural water from the river doesn't pass through filters that Science built.
Should we not treat water at all? Should we instead all like off ground water or rivers and lakes?
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I can't help but come away from this conversation with the impression that you people are talking about livestock and not human individuals with rights to their own body and bodily autonomy. This to me is straight out of the nazi/communist/fascist type of mindset.
> The contrast between positive freedom, the freedom to do something, and negative freedom, the freedom from interference in your life, is the core political argument in America right now.
True.
> Negative freedom, freedom from government interference, is being promoted by those seeking to weaken the government enough to supplant it.
Tenuous. Then again, like you, all of my political opponents are either stupid or evil or both.
> People who are poor and sick are likely unable to stand up for themselves or participate in solidarity against authority.
Contentious. Sometimes this is true, sometimes it is not - giving negative liberty rights (e.g. first amendment speech protections) to individuals has proven an incredibly effective tool to protect the individual against the state. Not perfect, but incredibly effective all the same.
> This individual issue is relatively small, but you take 100's of issues like this, and the effect is to create a class of people who aren't able to do anything but be obedient workers.
Any supporter of negative liberty (i.e. someone who is for small government) would tell you, that is what government does, which is a big reason why they want small government.
What in the Berkeley kind of logic is this? You have a pretty solid core logical structure. But, the conclusion is weak. The argument’s weakness lies in its simplifications and the final political assertion, which, although plausible within certain ideological frameworks, isn't logically proven by the earlier premise.
The American view of "freedom" is all messed up. You're "free" if the government doesn't tell you to do stuff. Even if corporations make you do stuff, even if they make you do more stuff the government did, that's somehow "free". And "stuff" somehow only includes trivial things like water fluoridation. No freedom-loving American patriot ever said America isn't free because cops can just murder you if they don't like you.
> the government forcing you to take a medication.
You're free to drink water that's not from the tap. Companies sell this legally. The government doesn't force anything
>> fluoridation in water some people are less sick and have more money and therefore are more free
This is the real problem. That dental care, or any medical care, is costly.
> The contrasting view is that putting fluoride in water is literally medicating people without their affirmative consent.
Is that the contrasting view, or the contrasting view that is preferred, because it is more easily demolished?
The stronger contrasting view isn't that the government is medicating people without their affirmative consent. It's that it's poisoning people, and no amount of consent by laymen to be poisoned would be acceptable.
I think his view is much stronger, since the intent is obviously to medicate even if it may indeed be inadvertently poisoning people in practice. So it doesn't assume one truth (poison or not) one way or the other, but still argues that it should be unlawful. While your view is much more narrow and suggests it should only be unlawful because it's poisoning people, which then begs the question of whether it is or not.
Fluoride occurs naturally in water, that’s literally how we discovered the effects of fluoride. People in areas where water naturally contained more fluoride had less cavities.
Anything, including water itself, is toxic (not poisonous, but I’m guessing you meant toxic, since fluoride is definitely not poisonous) in high enough doses. So you could say that about ANY mineral we may add to water to adjust its taste or health effects.
I happen to think adding fluoride isn’t worth the effort. But the hysteria against it is also really dumb.
> If you are poor you can't go anywhere or buy anything. You're not free if you're poor.
The solution is lifting people out of poverty not papering over the cracks with fluoride.
There is no fluoride in the water here in Norway yet dental health is good because of good education, free dental care for children, students pregnant women, and little absolute poverty.
Well said. Being poor charges interest.
I think it's a reductionist word game to reduce everything to a single dimension ("freedom") and then say "I think my policy is better, and since everything can reduce to a single variable it means there is more freedom".
If a right-wing voter thinks banning gay marriage is good for society, it is also positive freedom? If your counter-argument is "no, because while it would be positive freedom if it was good for society, it's not" then maybe I'm just disareeing on your terminology, but I suspect you would say "heck no, telling people what they can't do is not freedom, that's an abuse of the English language as well as being bad for society".
Governments exist to take away some freedoms, it's the whole point of them. People vote for governmets to take away freedoms (with laws and taxes) and get things like public services, justice systems and infrastructure in return. Ideally, they lean towards things that give you a lot of bang for your buck (like flourine), because taking away freedom is not good for creating a dynamic society, and they should be accountable to voters.
Just say that anyone who objects is an anarchist if you want to take the moral high ground from the right in terms they understand.
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.
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Always question whenever a highly educated and thoughtful (and likely wealthy) person like this commenter is telling you poor people are too stupid for their own good and can’t make decisions for themselves.
This is the definition of the principal-agent problem.
Also, “positive freedom” is a hilarious rebranding of dictatorial decision making.
Why not grant more “positive freedom” to the people by deciding exactly what these poor people should do for a living, how they should live, and how they should spend their money. The experts know best, after all.
I’m not even particularly against fluoride in water, but this kind of reasoning is insidious. If the people have voted for representatives that are against it, we should follow the will of the people. This is the definition of democracy.
Fluoridated water, enriched flour, iodized salt, vaccines, etc. are why we don't see diseases and conditions that plagued us in the past and continue to plague people in places without these measures.
Fluoridated water is the reason I've never had a cavity despite growing up poor with a terrible diet, dental hygiene and care.
> Fluoridated water is the reason I've never had a cavity despite growing up poor with a terrible diet, dental hygiene and care.
I don’t follow the leap here. You could just be blessed with a good oral microbiome, proper calcium, D3 (sunlight exposure?), K2 etc.
Going by your logic, there should be no dentists in the US.
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Enriched flour is another good example that I was hoping someone would mention*.
It’s worth noting that it’s also slightly different in that processed flour is deficient in thiamin and calcium, so the fortification adds back these nutrients.
On the other hand, processing water to make it potable doesn’t remove fluoride and so fluoridation is not the process of adding back something that was there beforehand.
*I searched this page and found flouride and flouridation four times before your comment.
I've seen the enriched flour brought up a few times in this thread, and not with the important caveat: This is a poor substitute for the micronutrients that occur naturally in the bran and endosperm; parts of the grain that we've been stripping out for dubious reasons or 50-100 years. (In ~100% of restaurant and bakery food; ~90% of grocery food)
According to that logic, why not distribute fluoride water freely for those who want it? That would serve boths camps, not?
There's no such thing as "free" when something is "given" by a public entity. It always costs the people that actually work and are forcibly taxed, something.
> The contrast between positive freedom, the freedom to do something, and negative freedom, the freedom from interference in your life, is the core political argument in America right now.
Interesing take but I don't buy this part at all. The core political argument in the US is epistemological. What's real and what counts as true? There are some axiological differences but I think they are minor in comparison to not being able to agree on how the world is in the first place.
It seems to be that the battleground is epistemological, but not so much the argument. The difference being that Trump uses 'claims of truth' without any care of how true they are.
I feel the majority of epistemological disagreement is the result of propaganda (not exclusively from MAGA). With only a small bit that is actually a disagreement on core values. Suchs true disagreement does exist, but it is no longer what the political discourse is about.
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How many Americans consume enough tap water for this to be beneficial?
About 60% of bottled water in the US is sourced from municipal tap water systems:
https://www.nyruralwater.org/news/study-shows-nearly-64-bott...
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74.6% of Americans get fluoridated tap water; https://jada.ada.org/article/S0002-8177(24)00204-6/fulltext shows that even with instructions to brush and floss and instructions to use it, water flouridation reduces cavities in a community by at least 20%.
"freedom from government interference, is being promoted by those seeking to weaken the government enough to supplant it"
That is a very big generalisation. There are many legitimate reasons for reducing government interference and reducing the size of government.
Currently, there is a very effective push by people who want to weaken the government enough to supplant it. They are giving themselves ideological coverage by claiming they protecting people from interference.
Is that a rephrasing you could live with?
No it isn't - OP didn't say everyone who promotes that idea wants to weaken the government, but rather those who wish to weaken the government are promoting that idea.
Fluoride has to be applied to the surface at a high concentration for brief contact time to be effective. What is the freedom to sell industrial waste to the government to pointlessly add to the water supply for profit called?
> 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.
or, you know, you could avoid the problem in the first place and allow "even poors" to go somewhere or buy something... at least base items, and medicines...
this way they could afford dental costs, and you could spare the need to add fluoride in the water
This is the same reasonning with vaccine (only worse because you can die faster from not being vaccinated than from cavities -- although in some cases they can be lethal too).
People who want to be free from government interference should be prevented from using public roads, or public infrastructure of any kind. Want to mail something? Hire a courrier to deliver it for you. Etc.
I should pay 0 taxes then too
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The main study I can find referenced to this was based in China where levels of flouride in water appear to be much higher than in the US.
Even the study itself calls out 'low-flouride' vs 'high-flouride.' Not 'no flouride.'
Utah is going to have a dental crisis in a few years, as there already too few dentists.
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That's not clear.
That’s a very American perspective (which is fine, given that we are talking about America). Most countries would view this as a non-partisan public health policy issue which has nothing to do with the abstract philosophical debates about freedom beloved of 90s internet libertarians.
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
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> Putting fluoride in water promotes freedom.
I rather define freedom by the government not deciding what's good for me
> I rather define freedom by the government not deciding what's good for me
Does that mean you are against this bill?
Before the bill, your community could either use your own water system, without fluoride, or use the wider system, which has fluoride.
After this bill, your community no longer can use your own water system with fluoride, and the wider system also does not have fluoride.
On a first read, this bill makes the government remove a choice for you, deciding what is good for you.
(I don’t have a horse in this race honestly. Assuming everyone can get toothpaste and toothbrushes, the effect is the same. But the wording of the bill is strange: “may not add fluoride” rather than just “is allowed not to add”.)
Source: https://archive.is/Nustz
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You're free to get your water straight from the ground, then.
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The UK government is really big on doing things for our own good, but they don't seem to do much water flouridation. Which I think is some evidence that it's not a clearcut health benefit.
Exactly the opposite.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-and-care-b...
> We believe that water fluoridation is the single most effective public health measure there is for reducing oral health inequalities and tooth decay rates, especially amongst children. We welcome these proposals and believe they represent an opportunity to take a big step forward in not only improving this generation’s oral health, but those for decades to come.
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Uk is one of the unhealthiest countries
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Excessive fluoride exposure is associated with reduced childhood IQ: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/... . Giving poor people (the ones who can't afford to drink bottles water or buy a fancy filter) means to moderate their fluoride intake this risk is creating lower-iq, more obedient workers.
This started out as an interesting and fair take until “…enough to supplant it”. Freedom from the government is the original vision and one of the core principles of America assuming that anybody that wants smaller government just wants to supplant it is a massive misunderstanding of most Americans today and certainly the founding principles.
We can read this country's founding philosophy directly:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
It's not freedom from government but freedom from tyranny. They believed that governments existed to promote the protection of rights.
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No, it’s very accurate about republicans today. “Supplant” might be the wrong word: traditionally the saying is “drown it in a bathtub”.
The government can give out toothpaste in school, it doesn't need to add things to water.
The inviolability or integrity of one's own body to me is more important than any of this. You have the right to decide what medication to be given to you with informed consent always, or you have no freedom. Otherwise the freedom argument collapses and you stop having reasons to allow abortions, or a bunch of other informed consent situations.
And "knowing better" than poor people "for their own good" usually doesn't go well (for the people).
Except schools handing out toothpaste will get brought up at thousands of board meetings across the country with sensitive or bored parents claiming government overreach and misuse of budgets.
Would you also ban iron in wheat flour?
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Fluorinating all of the water just to deliver some milligrams to the teeth is incredibly inefficient. Especially when less and less of the stuff people people drink comes out of the tap.
We have toothpastes and fluorinated mouthwash that both get the job done.
Probably there are some people that are unable to afford those and unaware how to use them, but probably are tiny percentage of the state population, especially with the cult of teeth care that the US has.
I also see the fortified flours as example (or iodine in salt) - but the US is different now than in the 30s. The US diet is more varied. Very few people get 80% of their calories from a single starchy staple so developing a severe deficiency of something requires some serious effort from the persons affected.
So who is this policy of fluorination for - the people that are too poor to afford toothpaste, but still have access to municipality treated water and don't drink copious amounts of soda or bottled drinks.
the debate in this thread is a reflection of the politico-scientific standing of the united states. it seems as though fluoridated water has come to be treated as a synechdoche for the role of science (and public health) in society. both sides are trying in earnest to defend their meta-position (“freedom” vs “society”) but slip into logic errors (usually cherry picking and straw man). i think this is because of the context switching between the part (fluoridation) and the whole (freedom/society).
Fluoride in toothpaste already covers most people today. So, if there are legitimate concerns about adding it to the water supply due to fluorosis, even if those concerns are small, removing it seems reasonable to me. Are the number of people who don't brush their teeth really high enough to justify it?
Decades of science show it’s beneficial, and we keep seeing the outcomes validated in practice. Calgary removed fluoride from drinking water, saw a significant increase in dental carries in children, and is adding it back. [1]
Hawaii does not fluoridate and has high rates of children’s tooth decay [2]
[1] https://www.npr.org/2024/12/13/nx-s1-5224138/calgary-removed...
[2] https://www.civilbeat.org/2016/10/hawaii-children-have-highe...
Thanks, that changes my view on this :)
So, Finland gave fluoride a shot in a few cities back in the '60s through the '90s, but they didn’t see much point to it and dropped it. Now, some spots there are even filtering it out of the water. You can still get it in toothpaste and mouthwash, though.
There’s this study I read that says the top five countries for dental health are Denmark, Germany, Finland, Sweden, and the UK. The US? It’s lagging at ninth. Funny thing is, out of those top five, only the UK messes with fluoride in their water, and even then, it’s just for like 5% of folks.
Honestly, it kinda feels like skipping the fluoride in water might be the smarter move.
Anyone else gets reminded of General Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove?
First thing I thought too.
All i know is my parents generation grew up without it and saw they dentists for fillings, every year, for years. Seemed like their childhoods played a part here because half their life they had toothpaste at the same rates as me.
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).
The solution to ALL of this is a very simple randomised controlled trial. Identify 1000 pregnant women in a fluorinated area, give half of them free unfluorinated bottled water for their pregnancy and first 2 years of babies life, and let the other half drink tap water, then measure all of the kids’ iqs at 5 years.
Sadly noone has done this because the topic is too radioactive for most researchers or science funders to touch.
Does filtering your water with a whole house filter take the fluoride out?
Because I live in a small township that delivers well water to you tap. It tastes horrible, shortens the life of pipes and appliances, and smells like sulfur.
Every year they mail a flyer that explains how the lead levels are dangerously above the national standard and you should run the tap before you drink from it.
Like, sorry there's nothing we can do about it. =(
> Because I live in a small township that delivers well water to you tap. It tastes horrible, shortens the life of pipes and appliances, and smells like sulfur.
Oh man, I used to live in a place like this. You could smell if a restaurant served filtered water (lots filter for the soda machine, to keep mineralization in it down I assume, and use the same water to serve) or straight from the tap, without taking a drink. Like with your nose six inches above the cup, you could smell it. Luckily, almost all served filtered.
I looked in to this recently.
Turns out that carbon filters do filter fluoride, but only on the first few X litres of water, where X is in the first 0.01% or so of their expected lifespan. So, they do, but not really usefully in any sense.
My filter that I wanted to know about (so that my kid is getting fluoride) is a 2-stage filter, with the other stage being a particle filter, but fluoride is very small and unaffected.
Your filter might be different of course.
FWIW, in my city, the water has essentially zero fluoride if it isn't added, and it has been a great intervention.
If it's reverse osmosis based, yes. If it's some other kind of filter, likely no, and you should buy a TDS meter and use it, because in all likelihood it's not really filtering anything. I did exactly this. It turned out that my carbon based filter had more TDS than completely unfiltered water from a tap in the garden. RO water, even re-mineralized, had 1/15th the TDS IIRC.
TDS is just Total Dissolved Solids. What solids though you don't know and you could be adding carbon while removing others which is likely the case.
Also those dinky little TDS meters don't even measure TDS. They measure electrical conductivity and with a little math they use the EC as a proxy for TDS. It's typically only calibrated to one specific ion, others will be off by some factor. Also keep in mind TDS is expressed in PPM as CaCO3.
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If thats your water quality, worrying about flouride seems misplaced.
I feel like we are so privileged in the US that there’s little to no personal consequences for being so wrong about a topic. Eventually there’s needs to be a correction, whether it’s because we regain our senses or we stray so far that the majority of people start to be majorly affected. I’m fearing it’s the latter.
There’s a tendency to backwards rationalize anything that is established in the US, that comes from a place of identity.
The current shape of the US is already the best and people consider it a part of who they are, so suggesting a course correction may be seen as both wrong think and a personal attack and wanting radical change would be outright treason.
There’s an array of standard stencils for defense against change: this is the only thing that can work here, this is the only thing that guarantees freedom, this is actually not that bad, I actually prefer it like this, anything else would be expensive/impossible/unamerican.
It’s not even unique to the US, but who cares about other places.
That's because drinking non-fluoridated water is very cheap (a minimal disadvantage). Vs. opposing fluoridated water can be very valuable (give the current culture wars).
Notice that nobody is arguing about keeping water-born pathogens out of the drinking water.
Taking compounds of the most electronegative element, and treating people with them systemically—drink it, bathe in it, cook with it—when local administration directly to the teeth is cheap, easy, & effective makes no sense at all.
Meanwhile, mining industries produce—and must dispose of—a steady stream of fluoride compounds that would otherwise have to be dealt with as toxic waste (i.e. very expensive) if they ever lost the green light to dump them into the water supply.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Hodge
or per Google:
Three chemicals are used to fluoridate drinking water in the U.S: sodium fluoride (NaF); sodium fluorosilicate (Na2SiF6); and fluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6). Fluorosilicic acid is a byproduct of the manufacture of phosphate fertilizer.
What is the best evidence in favor of this?
Actual reseachers don't really talk about links to IQ. The main concern is actually around dental fluorosis. Too much flouride can replace minerals in your teeth causing them to become brittle over time
There's a subset of researchers that argue that now that fluoride toothpaste is widespread, the benefit of fluoridating water is much much smaller than it first was and the (small) risk of fluorosis is now comparatively more significant
“ Actual reseachers don't really talk about links to IQ.”
Sorry but this reddit consensus is out of step with actual researchers. The #1 paediatric journal has published quite a bit on this recently. Basically the evidence isn’t of high quality but what we have doesn’t look great.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
Where "main concern" means not a practical concern at all. You are adopting the talking points of cranks when what is of actual concern is things like drinking sugar, negligent parents or basic access to dental healthcare or even just dental education.
The CDC tracks some key indicators like mean decayed, missing or filled teeth (DMFT) and in critical age groups like 12-15 there has been no progress made in the past 20 years and the US continue lagging behind European countries: https://www.cdc.gov/oral-health/media/pdfs/Oral-Health-Surve...
And none of that has anything to do with fluoride in the water or not.
Here’s a list of the most convincing studies or meta analyses.
2023 – NTP Monograph on Fluoride Neurotoxicity – National Toxicology Program (USA)
2020 – Till et al. – Infant Formula Fluoride Exposure & IQ – Till C, Green R, Lanphear B, Hornung R, Martinez-Mier EA (Canada)
2019 – Green et al. – Maternal Fluoride Exposure & IQ – Green R, Lanphear B, Hornung R, Flora D, Martinez-Mier EA, et al. (Canada)
2017 – Bashash et al. – Prenatal Fluoride Exposure & Offspring IQ – Bashash M, Thomas D, Hu H, et al. (Mexico/USA)
2012 – Choi et al. – Meta-analysis on Fluoride & Neurodevelopment – Choi AL, Sun G, Zhang Y, Grandjean P (Harvard/China)
2006 – NRC Report – Fluoride in Drinking Water – National Research Council (USA)
[1] https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/...
[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31743803/
[3] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
[4] https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP655
[5] https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1104912
[6] https://www.nap.edu/catalog/11571/fluoride-in-drinking-water...
How did you compile this list? Asking some LLM service?
From the first link:
> 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
It doesn't seem in favor of this?
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Another question is whether there's still evidence for continuing to fluoridate water with how common toothpaste use is now. If nothing else, if it isn't providing benefits over toothpaste use, then fluoridating water could just be a waste of public funds.
There isn’t any. The very little research showing any effects on cognitive abilities are experiments using very high fluoride levels - nowhere near the levels in water. Like most conservative “stances”, it’s a farce.
Why did many European countries discontinue fluoridation? https://www.euronews.com/health/2024/11/23/trump-could-push-...
> However, in 1973, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that there was no legal basis for fluoridation…. The debate hasn’t been meaningfully revived since then, Hofman told Euronews Health. "People started to say, ‘Well, the government should not give us some medicine [when] we cannot choose where to buy our drinking water from," she said.
That’s the “little c” conservative viewpoint. You don’t need to prove it’s harmful. The default should be not putting chemicals in everyone’s drinking water.
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How do you prove no effect on any bodily system long term? People don’t like to talk about it, or they pretend otherwise, but this is basically impossible.
If the benefit is great enough then the risk makes sense. That is the case in a lot of areas. Is it worth taking a risk of an unknown effect somewhere in the body in exchange for… a marked but not even drastic reduction in cavities…? Not sure…
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This stance is a bit confusing...
When it comes to things like radioactivity we assume a linear no threshhold model (e.g. that lower concentrations still have effects, just our measuring tools aren't good enough to detect it) and spend billions as a result. Why wouldn't we do the same for flouride?
Thanks. I guess then my next question is, why are they doing this? Whom is it benefiting? Big Water?
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I'd like to point out that fluoride was previously very much a liberal stance until the rise in MAGA/Qanon conservatives.
I grew up in the PNW of the USA and lots of small hippie towns have been removing fluoride for decades. It comes up on city ballots every year in Oregon.
2012: https://fluoridealert.org/content/50-reasons/
Highly recommend visiting the link for details about each point an references (it is not that long), here is a summary, don't comment if you haven't visited the link:
1) Fluoride is the only chemical added to water for the purpose of medical treatment. 2) Fluoridation is unethical. 3) The dose cannot be controlled. 4) The fluoride goes to everyone regardless of age, health or vulnerability. 5) People now receive fluoride from many other sources besides water. 6) Fluoride is not an essential nutrient. 7) The level in mothers’ milk is very low. 9) No health agency in fluoridated countries is monitoring fluoride exposure or side effects. 10) There has never been a single randomized controlled trial to demonstrate fluoridation’s effectiveness or safety. 11) Benefit is topical not systemic. 12) Fluoridation is not necessary. 13) Fluoridation’s role in the decline of tooth decay is in serious doubt. 14) NIH-funded study on individual fluoride ingestion and tooth decay found no significant correlation. 15) Tooth decay is high in low-income communities that have been fluoridated for years. 16) Tooth decay does not go up when fluoridation is stopped. 17) Tooth decay was coming down before fluoridation started. 18) The studies that launched fluoridation were methodologically flawed. 19) Children are being over-exposed to fluoride. 20) The highest doses of fluoride are going to bottle-fed babies. 21) Dental fluorosis may be an indicator of wider systemic damage. 22) Fluoride may damage the brain. 23) Fluoride may lower IQ. 24) Fluoride may cause non-IQ neurotoxic effects. 25) Fluoride affects the pineal gland. 26) Fluoride affects thyroid function. 27) Fluoride causes arthritic symptoms. 28) Fluoride damages bone. 29) Fluoride may increase hip fractures in the elderly. 30) People with impaired kidney function are particularly vulnerable to bone damage. 31) Fluoride may cause bone cancer (osteosarcoma). 32) Proponents have failed to refute the Bassin-Osteosarcoma study. 33) Fluoride may cause reproductive problems. 34) Some individuals are highly sensitive to low levels of fluoride as shown by case studies and double blind studies. 35) Other subsets of population are more vulnerable to fluoride’s toxicity. 36) There is no margin of safety for several health effects. 37) Low-income families penalized by fluoridation. 38) Black and Hispanic children are more vulnerable to fluoride’s toxicity. 39) Minorities are not being warned about their vulnerabilities to fluoride. 40) Tooth decay reflects low-income not low-fluoride intake. 41) The chemicals used to fluoridate water are not pharmaceutical grade. 42) The silicon fluorides have not been tested comprehensively. 43) The silicon fluorides may increase lead uptake into children’s blood. 44) Fluoride may leach lead from pipes, brass fittings and soldered joints. 45) Key health studies have not been done. 46) Endorsements do not represent scientific evidence. 47) Review panels hand-picked to deliver a pro-fluoridation result. 48) Many scientists oppose fluoridation. 49) Proponents usually refuse to defend fluoridation in open debate. 50) Proponents use very dubious tactics to promote fluoridation.
Pretty sure I read that fluoridation is a communist plot to undermine American public health [1].
Sorry, that was the John Birch Society from the 1960's.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_water_fluoridati...
(I'm having some fun, but it is in fact the first thing that comes to mind when I hear objections to fluoridated water. Since we're talking about RFK and Utah, I kind of assume it more or less stems from the same fears.)
> Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face.
Ice cream, Mandrake. Children's ice cream.
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Question: is there something I can do in the office to improve tooth health? E.g. after drinking a cup of coffee, maybe neutralize the pH with some antacid? Or, I don't know, chew some gum? Are there products that are relatively convenient and don't require a brush and water?
You can buy a bottle of it, swish it around your mouth and spit it out.
https://www.actoralcare.com/en-us/products/mouthwash/anticav...
Yes, I considered that, and I appreciate the suggestion, but I think it's not very office-friendly to spit out liquids.
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A dentist once recommended Xylitol gum to me for this purpose. It's been too long to remember the details, but you can do some research on it.
I think I'm more interested to know if the fluoride also helps keeps bacteria down in the water. That is, if it's doing anything useful other than dealing with teeth.
A quick search didn't seem to turn up anything related, so maybe not (the concentrations might be too low to be relevant)?
Water fluoridation conspiracy theories were a thing old enough to be a plot point in 1964 Dr. Strangelove. When there's an entire grift or political career to be a "Fluoride truther", it's really hard to take seriously any of these claims. Given it's naturally occurring and often in higher doses and there'd been so much time to control for any side effects, I'd need extraordinary evidence to be swayed on this.
Fluoride in Toothpaste: Do not ingest.
Flouride in Water: Ingest away.
I do not understand how these two can co-exist.
Radioactive isotopes in nuclear fuel: do not ingest.
Radioactive isotopes in banana: consume away.
Understand now? I'm not even defending anything other than how two things that vaguely appear contradictory, are in fact, not.
I don’t.
Because your banana example doesn’t have additives meant to be reactive — so is unlike adding fluoride to water at levels which impact dental health.
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Fluorine is a dietary mineral.
At higher dosages, every dietary mineral becomes harmful, then (generally) lethal.
Without iron, humans die. Yet accidental (over-)ingestion of iron supplements is a leading cause of poisoning in small children.
Concentrations.
The studies in 20-30 years of the consequences of this will be fun.
I hope they will ban it everywhere. If my pineal gland gets any more calcified, I'll probably end up getting a full-chest tattoo and dye my hair pink.
maybe if we consumed less processed sugars and had normal diets, putting fluoride in the water would serve no purpose.
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 countries all over the world have "by and large solved" the issue by doing completely different things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_country
> Water fluoridation is considered very common in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Chile and Australia where over 50% of the population drinks fluoridated water.
> Most European countries including Italy, France, Finland, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Hungary and Switzerland do not fluoridate water.
The missing context here is that the science and established benefits of fluoride aren’t a culture war political football in those countries.
These countries largely publicly recognise the benefits of fluoride, but don’t add it because:
- Some countries opt for intake via supplementation.
- Some have a naturally sufficient supply in drinking water via natural processes.
- Some even need to reduce the abundance of fluoride in their water due to over supply.
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Generally speaking I see fluoridation as a ridiciulous idea, on the grounds that the vast majority of tap water ends up being used for things other than brushing your teeth. It is wasteful and damaging to the environment, that excess flouride that has no business being there ends up in the drain, or the water you use for your plants.
Flouride should be put in the toothpaste. Then people can make a choice on whether they want it, but most importantly, its in the only product that is actually used for brushing teeth
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While I acknowledge it is not a "solved" issue, I find it bizarre nonetheless, simply because it is so disproportionately low-stakes compared to the amount of controversy around it. Increased risk of cavities versus tentative evidence of losing 1-2 IQ points at 1.5 mg/L? Sounds like a Monty Python sketch to me that people would get so worked up over this.
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Once you start trying to cross-reference a public health campaign with something related to peoples' diets, it becomes difficult to make super broad and conclusive statements.
Here's some interesting data (2003 I believe, so pretty old) [1]: It reports that most of Europe, Canada, Australia, and South America experiences cavities at rates higher than the United States. However: Many of these countries have public health care; the US does not. Is the US under-reporting? (I didn't dig much deeper into the underlying data; may not be a relevant concern).
Three things I think are likely to be true: (1) Fluoridated toothpaste is widely available and cheap. (2) Cavity rates are significant even in countries with high rates of fluoridation. (3) Fluoridating the water supply carries with it a non-zero monetary cost. I tend to believe that these three realities, at the very least, justify the conversation as being one we should have. It could be the case that water fluoridation made a ton of sense in a world where people didn't have as much access to fluoridated toothpaste, but nowadays the typical person has hit the limit on what it can do for them, and ingesting more is, at best, doing nothing.
Here's another way I like to think about it: Put the science aside for a second (I know, hard, not ideal, but bear with me). You've got two people who are low income. Person A believes, for their own health and in the expression of their own personal liberties, they want access to fluoride; but the Government is not fluoridating their water. They can spend $5 a month to buy fluoridated toothpaste; possibly not even more expensive than the toothpaste they were already buying. Person B is living in the opposite world: They believe that they do not want to ingest fluoride, but the government is fluoridating their water. They would have to spend many dozens to hundreds of dollars a month buying water bottled somewhere more natural. From a personal liberty and economics perspective: Its pretty clear-cut.
[1] https://smile-365.com/what-countries-have-the-lowest-prevale...
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IIRC _some_ of the European countries that “do not fluoridate their water” have naturally occurring fluoride levels in their water, obviating the need for them to do it.
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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.
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The world map is hilarious. Germany sure does not look like this anymore (and this is not the GDR split but goes further back). Maybe they should update this. Draws into the question, the whole data.
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The point is basically no one else has politicised this to the extent the US did. Pointing to how different countries solve it differently is missing the point completely.
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The issue, to my eyes at least, is much less of water, and much more of fluoride itself. That is what seems mostly a settled and non controversial topic elsewhere such that it is not perennially raised anew with tone of fans quoting Dr. Strangelove except meaning it.
I thought the comment was about resolving the issue one way or the other without it becoming yet another polarization topic . It probably matters less in either resolution than the cost due schisms and distrust the "debate" causes.
Regardless of whether the water is fluoridated or not, the main guideline is "brush your teeth with fluoridated toothpaste". No policy maker elsewhere is pushing narratives against fluoride at large like in the US. These narratives there are even dangerous. One can easily look at dental associations reviews, or official state guidelines and see that more or less they say very similar things. It is very easy to find these policy-informing reviews online.
And regardless of whether the water is fluoridated or not, there is no big debate elsewhere about it, nobody cares that much about it, because all the evidence is that in smaller amounts prob it is does not matter much either way, in the presence of people brushing their teeth. A lot of countries stopped it due to logistic purposes. In netherlands they tried fluoride in the water, a court said they should actually pass a law in order to be able to do it, and they did not even bother with that and dropped it. The fact that some countries may not use fluoride in the water is not due to some deeply-held conviction about how destructive fluoride is for the iq of the kids. In terms of risks of fluoride, fluorosis is what is mostly discussed anyway, and to a degree, unless it is too serious, this may just be an aesthetic issue.
From the perspective of one that watches this craziness from outside, the whole debate is non-sense, and whether some european countries use water fluoridation or not is not very important, it does not cause any heated debate in the EU. The debate in the US is not because the US considers some things that others do not consider. There is no actual truthseeking mentality from the current administration or anybody on this to actually find for sure if fluoride decreases iq, or if fluoride in the water is absolutely essential for dental health even if people are brushing their teeth.
Sure, but they are also not fighting about it, this seems crucial.
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Incisive comment, thanks for questioning the assumptions here.
How much natural fluoride does Europe have in their water?
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What does the UK do? This will tell you what people should do because I’ve seen English teeth.
> In England, approximately 10% of the population, or around 6 million people, receive fluoridated water, either naturally or through water fluoridation schemes, mainly in the West Midlands and the North East.
Uh oh. I know it is better now but in 1978 a third of people in the UK didn’t have their natural teeth.
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Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. The whole "everyone else agrees on X" bit is such a reliable tell.
Most developed countries have stopped using fluoride. I think that’s the commenter’s point. The US and Australia are outliers here for sure.
The US rarely looks into how other countries solve problems. (i.e. Universal Healthcare, High Speed Trains and so), this is the sad part of "American Exceptionalism"
Those are two odd examples. The Affordable Care Act is similar to the Netherlands health insurance system: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2011/lessons-abroad-du... (“These similarities are not entirely coincidental. American public officials, health industry leaders, and scholars made frequent visits to the Netherlands in the run-up to the debate over U.S. health care reform, borrowing ideas and, on occasion, citing the Dutch system as a model for what the U.S. might achieve.”).
As to rail, both the first-gen and second-gen Acela is based on the French TGV.
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A less cynical framing is that the US is a much different culture from European countries, and is massively larger in scale. Depending on the problem, some of their solutions simply can't or don't apply.
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When I was a kid the schools taught us the metric system, telling us it was the world standard, and would become the standard is the US by the time I was an adult. That was over 40 years ago. And that pretty much sums it all up.
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How has the debate been solved by the rest of the world? My understanding is that many countries in Europe don't fluoridate the water supply.
I'm skeptical of results showing IQ loss but I also think fluoridation should be phased out as fluoride toothpaste and mouthwash are now widely available. Banning it seems like the wrong move to me...states should simply decide to continue adding it or not.
> How has the debate been solved by the rest of the world?
By having official country-level guidelines by the health ministries or similar for people to brush their teeth with toothpaste containing fluoride, and specific guidelines around it for kids, as trivial as it may sound. Along with experts' reviews providing more details on these decisions, and explaining tradeoffs properly.
Fluoride containing toothpaste is the main recommendation, even in places that fluoridate the water (which are the minority). There is not much to add to this apart from refining these guidelines. Eg in the EU where some countries fluoridate water, most don't, there is no huge debate about it overall. Most eu countries that fluoridated the water stopped doing it some point mostly because it was no longer needed in preventing cavities, and prob largely due to logistics/costs than possible risks.
Your second paragraph reflects my personal views on it, too. The "banning" is weird, esp since, according to the article, it comes from people that seem to advocate against use of fluoride in general in toothpastes etc. The discussion should be around best policies to prevent cavities etc, but it does not seem to be around that. I see nothing wrong with local communities deciding if they want to put fluoride or not in their water, based on their own opinions but also general situation. Maybe in some much poorer areas fluoridation of water could be beneficial until some other measures take place, for example.
> Banning it seems like the wrong move to me...states should simply decide to continue adding it or not.
Isn't that exactly what's happening here? A state deciding to not continue adding it?
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Banning its addition is a step beyond — but in Queensland, Australia for example, the state government no longer mandates its inclusion, and thus the local councils are able to set their own policy.
> While more than 90 per cent of Australians have access to fluoridated water, that figure is significantly lagging in the sunshine state, where local councils have ultimate authority over whether it is adopted.
> A decade after the Newman government handed responsibility for fluoridated drinking water to local governments, 51 out of 77 have opted out. That means about 28 per cent of Queenslanders do not have fluoridated drinking water
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-24/fluoride-dental-care-...
So how does their dental conditions and IQs compare? Sounds like a nice little AB test.
The same discussion happened in Netherlands in the 70s, and water in NL is no longer fluoridated since the 70s for that reason. So it's not that "US-specific". I don't know about other countries from the top of my head.
Funny thing you mention that. Since it is now monitored and maintained by natural source. There is fluoride, just not added anymore. (It is at lower levels than when added obviously)
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How has it been “solved?” There’s just tradeoffs.
There’s evidence that despite widespread availability of fluoride toothpaste and mouthwash, fluoridated drinking water improves dental outcomes at the population level.
There’s also evidence that at high levels (not the normal levels it is added at, but at higher levels which can happen on accident) fluoride may reduce IQ.
I’m ok with either trade off but the “solved” phrasing makes it sound like there is an obviously superior choice.
I’d agree that Europe has solved this issue by removing fluoride from drinking water.
But beyond Europe there’s still no global consensus.
I do agree that the US is an outlier with fluoride being nearly universal.
Which European countries _remove_ fluoride from water generally? UK adds it in naturally low fluoride areas.
Some countries no longer add it (but their water still has naturally occurring fluoride that they don't remove).
No no, in the US we figure out the worst way to do something, and then do that, and invent reasons why the US is unique such that the reasonable solutions that other countries employ just couldn't possibly work here.
(To be fair, though, many [most?] Western countries do not fluoridate their water. The US is actually not doing the common thing here.)
It's honestly not clear if water fluoridation in the US is necessary or all that useful here anymore, as we started doing it when fluoride toothpaste wasn't really a thing. Now pretty much all(?) toothpaste in the US has fluoride in it. If someone can't afford toothpaste, then they probably can't afford regular dental care either, and fluoridated water isn't going to make much of an impact anyway.
> Maybe the US should look into how other countries have solved it?
How have other countries solved it?
By not adding fluoride into the tap water and let people choose whether to buy toothpaste with fluoride themselves. a.k.a. the European way.
Adding fluoride into tap water always sounds borderline insane to me. The only benefit is to protect your teeth, which, to me, strongly suggests that the correct approach is to put it into toothpaste or other oral hygiene products instead of water.
I remember the first time I went to a German dentist and he told me how amazing my teeth looked and that he could tell I must be American. Fluoride may have some downsides but it definitely has upsides.
Is it good for teeth because it's "applied" when drinking it, or is it due to ingesting it? I think ingesting is the issue.
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Here in England, there's some areas that put fluoride into the water and other areas already have sufficient fluoride levels. People complaining about the side effects of fluoridation often forget that water can naturally contain high levels of fluoride - it's really not an issue.
https://www.uk-water-filters.co.uk/pages/areas-with-fluoride...
> 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?
I mean Utah is trying, sorry it took a while. I know Germany and Sweden don't fluoridate its water, I assume you mean Western Europe by the "world" (sorry if I am interpreting too much here, but that's usually what's popular to compare US to and bash US on how bad it is), so US is getting "with the program", finally I suppose. States having individual laws here is a benefit, one state doesn't have to wait for the Federal Government to act.
> This is one of these US-specific polarised debates I find really bizarre,
I don't think it's that polarizing? Unless 1) you're listening to US media more and 2) you're not getting many non-polarizing issues in the news, because those are well are just boring and don't sell ads.
If you look at the US as a simulation that branched of the mother tree of Europe in the 15th century, you won't find it odd that it is rediscovering what Europe has already figured out. Just in it's own way and time. (No chemicals/colors in foods and adequate drinking water) Wait till they figure out mass transit, that will be a shocker.
Has Europe figured out mass transit? In Barcelona, a trip that takes me 1.5 hours of total time using “transit” takes me 28 minutes on my motor scooter. I think there is still some figuring out that needs to happen before I’ll add 2 hours to my daily commute.
These people have been around forever but the pivotal point in my opinion is when the Lancet retracted the article on the link between MMR and autism.
Suddenly everything was up for debate.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_autism_fraud
1. Its a fringe issue in Australia 2. The US doesnt believe in other countries so why check.
Even in Europe Fluoridation is not uniform.
Some place do it. Others partially, many not at all.
Think slightly more broadly about the issue.
For context... some people think statins should be put in the water. Maybe they should. But were does mass medication of the people stop?
It stops when we run out of easy things that can be done to improve the lives of people. It's not that hard.
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There are a few studies out which say fluoride is bad. But as is often the case with these health idiots, the studies actually refer to places where fluoride is naturally way too high in the water. The entire debate is dumb.
It’s far more than a few, and the level does not need to be that high:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
This was my perspective for awhile — recommend you look into more recent studies if you haven’t in the past 2y or so. I don’t think it’s the worst thing in our water but do think it’s objectively a bad idea.
completely bizarre witnessing both sides getting so polarised around a basically non-issue
This isn't a sensible way to think about it. Every contentious conversation I've ever had has gone this way:
It's irrational to complain about 'both sides' when only one side is insisting on making it into an issue. I generally just try to disegnage from people as soon as they start freaking out about fluoride/ chemtrails/ vaccinations etc, but people like this frequently treat skepticism as a personal attack. Increasingly they occupy positions of political power (see eg RFK) having acquired them by public displays of conviction rather than any objective criteria.
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There is not real debate, just some people who don't understand how chemistry works.
What they're referring to is the fact that very few countries in the rest of the world even consider the possibility of adding fluoride to the water supply. It's basically just the US, Australia, and to a much lesser extent Canada.
It's not a debate everywhere else because adding fluoride to the water is objectively an unusual thing to do that they just... don't. Presumably they get fluoride other ways.
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I'd really like to hear your take
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"Chemicals, man. They'll fuck you up." -Heroin Bob
A list of references for both sides of arguments.
Calgary removed fluoride from its water supply. A decade later, it's adding it back https://www.npr.org/2024/12/13/nx-s1-5224138/calgary-removed...
Toxic Treatment: Fluoride's Transformation from Industrial Waste to Public Health Miracle https://origins.osu.edu/article/toxic-treatment-fluorides-tr...
Portland has a divisive relationship with water fluoridation https://www.opb.org/news/article/portland-oregon-water-fluor...
Fluoride Exposure: Neurodevelopment and Cognition https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/...
Effect of fluoridated water on intelligence in 10-12-year-old school children https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5285601/
A tale of two cities finds that community water fluoridation prevents caries https://adanews.ada.org/ada-news/2021/august/community-water...
Children exposed to higher fluoride levels have lower IQs, a government study finds https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/06/health/children-higher-fl...
DRAFT NTP Monograph on the State of the Science Concerning Fluoride Exposure and Neurodevelopmental and Cognitive Health Effects: A Systematic Review https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/sites/default/files/ntp/about_ntp/...
The finding’s of the NTP’s 6-year fluoride neurotoxicity evaluation https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/sites/default/files/ntp/about_ntp/...
Fluoridation cessation and children's dental caries: A 7-year follow-up evaluation of Grade 2 schoolchildren in Calgary and Edmonton, Canada https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34309045/#:%7E:text=Results:....
Toxicity of fluoride: critical evaluation of evidence for human developmental neurotoxicity in epidemiological studies, animal experiments and in vitro analyses https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7261729/
Low-to-moderate fluoride exposure in relation to overweight and obesity among school-age children in China https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31509932/
What happens when you remove fluoride from tap water? https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324086
Buffalo poised to resume fluoridation of city’s water supply https://adanews.ada.org/ada-news/2024/january/buffalo-poised...
I’m disappointed in the news media fails to mention the cascading effects of dental health. Yes, the primary and direct benefit of fluoride is to have a healthier mouth.
But having a healthy mouth is far from the end goal, imo. If your mouth is full of cavities you’re more likely to build up bacteria that cause downstream effects as serious as heart disease. Also if your mouth is routinely uncomfortable you may gravitate towards soft processed foods and away from healthy whole foods like fresh fruits and vegetables.
I know water is not the only way to get fluoride into people. But these politicians who are trying to take it out of the water are just saying basically “it’s fine, let’s do nothing”. They’re not going to fluoridate the salt. They’re not going to run public health campaigns stressing the importance of regular brushing. They’re just willing to let people’s teeth rot to score points.
It’s disgusting, and no matter how you feel about the water you should be able to see that these people are not on your side.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in...
If I went to the store to grab a bottle of water, and they were selling fluoridated water and fluoridated water, I would choose the non-fluoridated water.
I drink tap water now with fluoride so its not like I care strongly, but its a bit weird that many people buy only non-fluoridated water themselves and are confused when other people show a preference for non-fluoridated water in their own taps.
> If your mouth is full of cavities you’re more likely to build up bacteria that cause downstream effects as serious as heart disease.
I don't know that you have the causality here correct.
https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/oral-health
> They’re not going to run public health campaigns stressing the importance of regular brushing. They’re just willing to let people’s teeth rot to score points.
Do you really think there are sizable native born populations that are not aware of tooth brushing?
There’s plenty of people that don’t bother with it, but I don’t see a PR campaign being particularly effective at changing that.
I think there are lots of kids who don’t know how bad their teeth can get and how that can impact their life in the future (and I mean kids like teens, not like four year olds).
I think there are lots of adults who don’t realize that poor dental health can cause heart failure and worsen basically every chronic condition.
I think there are lots of goobers who don’t realize that there’s no reason that United and Elevance and the rest couldn’t be forced to cover dental care via regulation.
I get your point, but big picture there are a lot of impactful education campaigns that should be possible.
So you're saying that dental health is essential for the rest of the body? Yet, Canada doesn't include it in its famous 'universal free healthcare'...
I'd actually just like to see more money put into public dental assistance. And education.
The Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP) was introduced to provide dental services to uninsured Canadians meeting specific criteria. Its rollout began in December 2023, starting with individuals aged 87 and above, and is set to expand to all eligible adults earning less than $90,000 annually by May 1, 2025.
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> I'd actually just like to see more money put into public dental assistance. And education.
I would want to see that in anti fluoride campaigns and laws as well, but have not see that happen in the laws and campaigns I have followed. Or in the HN comments I have responded to on the subject, most focus on banning and provide no follow, or no structured follow up like - free toothpaste, required educations, and follow up studies, reassess in X years.
They should ban crash barriers. I've never crashed into one.
You can provide your own flouride (live in a house with well water).
You can provide lots of stuff yourself if the state abandons the whole idea of public health. Of course, be prepared for your taxes and/or insurance going up to cover your neighbors who don't pay for the same preventative care.
Pretty much-was told by an insurance broker one of the biggest factors past history of weather and the obvious things (flooding possibility, dry trees) is my neighbors. Didn't get into specifics but I suspect drugs and gangs.
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Public health is a conspiracy to attempt to get our young men prepared for war!
Assuming you're wealthy enough and well informed enough to know that you should.
Children can't, and a lifetime of dental issues they didn't have the knowledge or good fortune to have prevented is a serious issue.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_countr...
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Fluoride in water wouldn't be necessary is sugary drinks were taxed heavily (or just banned altogether) and dental care was affordable. But obviously that's considered communism if you're a typical american.
Or you could just put fluoride in the sugary drinks.
Book by Christopher Bryson. Needed context
Cynical take: Now that studies have shown that bottled water is loaded with nanoplastics, upper class people want to start drinking tap water again. Now suddenly states don't want fluoride in the tap water...
According to these "it lowers kids IQ" people, is the average IQ of Hawaiian kids higher than other states?
There are latent variables there. You can't just compare the IQ of two areas and only isolate a single variable out of thousands.
Fluoridation is literally one of the most successful efforts at improving public health in history. Dental health is keystone to general health.
The idea that the conspiracy theorists are winning the public policy debate enrages me. There's rock solid proof of the benefits of fluoridation extending decades, and there is little to no proof of any adverse side effects.
Oh well, good luck Utah. I'm glad I don't live there, but if I were a young dentist, I know where I'd set up my new practice.
Well you can buy as much fluoride paste as you like and add it to your own water.
2012: https://fluoridealert.org/content/50-reasons/
Highly recommend visiting the link for details about each point and references (it is not that long), here is a summary, don't comment if you haven't visited the link:
1) Fluoride is the only chemical added to water for the purpose of medical treatment. 2) Fluoridation is unethical. 3) The dose cannot be controlled. 4) The fluoride goes to everyone regardless of age, health or vulnerability. 5) People now receive fluoride from many other sources besides water. 6) Fluoride is not an essential nutrient. 7) The level in mothers’ milk is very low. 9) No health agency in fluoridated countries is monitoring fluoride exposure or side effects. 10) There has never been a single randomized controlled trial to demonstrate fluoridation’s effectiveness or safety. 11) Benefit is topical not systemic. 12) Fluoridation is not necessary. 13) Fluoridation’s role in the decline of tooth decay is in serious doubt. 14) NIH-funded study on individual fluoride ingestion and tooth decay found no significant correlation. 15) Tooth decay is high in low-income communities that have been fluoridated for years. 16) Tooth decay does not go up when fluoridation is stopped. 17) Tooth decay was coming down before fluoridation started. 18) The studies that launched fluoridation were methodologically flawed. 19) Children are being over-exposed to fluoride. 20) The highest doses of fluoride are going to bottle-fed babies. 21) Dental fluorosis may be an indicator of wider systemic damage. 22) Fluoride may damage the brain. 23) Fluoride may lower IQ. 24) Fluoride may cause non-IQ neurotoxic effects. 25) Fluoride affects the pineal gland. 26) Fluoride affects thyroid function. 27) Fluoride causes arthritic symptoms. 28) Fluoride damages bone. 29) Fluoride may increase hip fractures in the elderly. 30) People with impaired kidney function are particularly vulnerable to bone damage. 31) Fluoride may cause bone cancer (osteosarcoma). 32) Proponents have failed to refute the Bassin-Osteosarcoma study. 33) Fluoride may cause reproductive problems. 34) Some individuals are highly sensitive to low levels of fluoride as shown by case studies and double blind studies. 35) Other subsets of population are more vulnerable to fluoride’s toxicity. 36) There is no margin of safety for several health effects. 37) Low-income families penalized by fluoridation. 38) Black and Hispanic children are more vulnerable to fluoride’s toxicity. 39) Minorities are not being warned about their vulnerabilities to fluoride. 40) Tooth decay reflects low-income not low-fluoride intake. 41) The chemicals used to fluoridate water are not pharmaceutical grade. 42) The silicon fluorides have not been tested comprehensively. 43) The silicon fluorides may increase lead uptake into children’s blood. 44) Fluoride may leach lead from pipes, brass fittings and soldered joints. 45) Key health studies have not been done. 46) Endorsements do not represent scientific evidence. 47) Review panels hand-picked to deliver a pro-fluoridation result. 48) Many scientists oppose fluoridation. 49) Proponents usually refuse to defend fluoridation in open debate. 50) Proponents use very dubious tactics to promote fluoridation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_water_fluoridati...
I draw your attention to the first sentence.
Also this is interesting:
Fluoridation may be useful in the U.S. because unlike most European countries, the U.S. does not have school-based dental care, many children do not visit a dentist regularly, and for many U.S. children water fluoridation is the prime source of exposure to fluoride.
“Do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk, ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake? Children’s ice cream!...You know when fluoridation began?...1946. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard-core Commie works. I first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love...Yes, a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I-I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence. I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women, er, women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake...but I do deny them my essence.”
Middle-aged human LLM here.
This debate is about evidence vs policy:
* Evidence: fluoride displaces iodine and other halogens, which disrupts thyroid function and possibly negatively impacts other organs and bones.
* Policy: wealth inequality in the US has created a situation where the poor struggle to such an extent that they don't have access to basic health services like fluoride treatments at the dentist every 6 months, while the rich have grown so greedy that they don't want to pay a fraction of a percent of their taxes for preventative care for children and the impoverished so they instead tolerate slightly more expensive fluoridated tap water at the expense of everyone's health.
This comment is about my subjective experience with a sample size of 1, meaning that it doesn't apply to you or the public:
* My father is a dentist and gave me fluoride treatments every 6 months while I was growing up in Idaho. I was raised mostly on well water which isn't fluoridated. I have never had a cavity, despite not going to the dentist for the decade of my 20s while he lived away from me. My thyroid function is not as high as I would like after a lifetime of acute stress from struggle, multiple insults to the body, drinking fluoridated water after the age of 18, and being exposed to radioactive iodine at 80 times the US drinking water standard for perhaps 1 year after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (which potentially either gave me a lifetime dose or was insignificant).
This solution is as evidence-based and equitable as I can come up with:
* We should remove fluoride from drinking water and reimburse all dentists for free 6 month fluoride treatments of the general public, which represents some nominal fee of perhaps $15-$20 per person annually (probably less) which is not materially significant to the federal budget of roughly $15-20,000 per person annually.
This take is my personal subjective opinion followed by objective evidence supporting my claims:
* I don't think highly of Robert Kennedy Jr's health initiatives, because they don't ethically weigh evidence and policy, and we don't have enough epidemiological studies to predict outcomes. So they will certainly cause unintended consequences. That said, I believe there is merit to his concerns. So a way forward is not to be anti-vax for example, but to recognize that there are dozens of types of vaccines and to prioritize vaccines for illnesses like polio that have a high risk of negatively impacting quality of life. Health experts should continue advising elected officials on policy decisions. Public health is not a domain that can be left in the trust of individuals acting unilaterally. So removing fluoride from water without providing state or federal funding for fluoride treatments every 6 months will most likely negatively impact public health.
https://www.thyroid.org/patient-thyroid-information/ct-for-p...
https://thyroidpharmacist.com/articles/fluoride-and-your-thy...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11003687/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30316182/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38029816/
https://theworld.org/stories/2016/08/02/fukushima-radiation-...
It's interesting how the MAGA crowd keep looking for reasons why they dumb.
One time it was the covid vaccine, now it's the drinking water.
You just dumb, guys.
Sigh, another libtard completely divorced from reality, suckered by the fake news. Those are reasons why everyone except MAGA is dumb, duh. /s
I love the cognitive dissonance in people who say both: "Don't medicate me without permission.", "Masks are oppression.", and "We have to stop those people from dressing and calling themselves what they want."
Please don't be snarky in HN comments, and please don't take threads on generic flamewar tangents. Those are two of the worst things for the curious conversation we're trying to have here.
Both of these points are in the site guidelines.
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And dentists rejoiced at their newfound source of income! /s
This is so dumb, and based on psudoscience at best, and straight up falsities at worst.
In 10 years we're going to hear about how cavities are so much higher in Utah than anywhere else.
Don't they sell toothpaste with flourid in Utah?
Generally kids don't use toothpaste with fluoride because of the risk of swollowing it. Yes, we know it's bad in high doses, which is why kids toothpaste often doesn't have it. You have to wait until they are old enough to spit when brushing.
In reality what will happen is that rich kids will be just fine because they will get their fluoride treatments at the dentist every six months.
It's the poor kids who will suffer because they don't see the dentist regularly because it's expensive, so they won't get their treatments.
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>This is so dumb, and based on psudoscience at best, and straight up falsities at worst.
I don't know whether water fluoridation is worthwhile. But I do know that various European countries have discontinued it. <https://web.archive.org/web/20160303202219/http://www.appgaf...> Are they also working off of pseudoscience and falsities?
I'm not following closely, but is this pseudoscience?
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/fluoride-childrens-health-gran...
https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/...
Fluoride is known to be problematic at high concentrations (hell, everything is). The problems of fluoride really start to come into play at concentrations of around 10-20mg/L, and some of the areas being studied are running well in excess of 100mg/L of fluoride.
The EPA limit for fluoride is 4mg/L. There's an argument to be made that it should be lowered to 2mg/L. When fluoride is added to drinking water, the target is around 0.9mg/L--no one's coming close to the EPA limit, and that exists because groundwater sources can end up being naturally high in fluoride. (I'm not sure what the typical natural occurrence of fluoride is in Utah, but I strongly suspect that they're not making any moves to actually remove fluoride from existing systems.)
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Those are based on countries with much higher levels of fluoride than the USA adds.
Follow up studies have found the levels in the USA to be perfectly safe and in fact beneficial since poor people don't get dental care like they do in other countries.
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I didnt look too closely, but the concentration recommended by the FDA is much lower than many of the sample sets in that linked study. Some 10 times as much. One is a hundred times as much.
Not sure if that first link was to the Harvard summary intentionally but heres the actual study: https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1104912
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> Republican state lawmaker Stephanie Gricius - who introduced the bill in the state legislature - has argued that there is research suggesting fluoride could have possible cognitive effects in children.
It's kind of amazing to say something like that then be so inconsistent on things that will have real outcomes that make life better for kids. They're all for cutting school support and social services.
Utah has among the best schools in the nation: https://www.reddit.com/r/Utah/comments/1idrt6j/utah_spends_t...
It also has among the happiest citizens: https://www.deseret.com/utah/2024/09/09/utah-mental-health-h...
It has the highest economic mobility in the country: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adammillsap/2023/12/22/utah-top...
Despite being filled with guns, it’s got a homicide rate only a little higher than Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
And it’s ranked in the top 10 states for life expectancy: https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2022/08/24/utah-t...
Utah and Massachusetts are basically the steel-man versions of their respective ideologies. But Utah doesn’t have the benefit of Harvard and MIT, major Pharma companies, etc. It’s surrounded by desert and has no natural resources to speak of.
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 bunch of other things the government doesn't provide.
They've essentially traded one government for another, but theirs requires belief in their religion and only applies to their believers (who happen to concentrate in Utah).
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Doesn’t that contradict the negative outcome of fluoride in the water?
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is Utah cutting school support and social services?
Is there a reason to expect this republican to hold views that differ significantly from the rest of the party?
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Fluoridation of water isn't the best grounds for arguing the US is backwards, given that it has hitherto been an outlier in how much fluoridation is happening [0]. Most of the developed world doesn't come close to the reach that the US has.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_countr...
It gets worse
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43484093
I don't know whether water fluoridation is worthwhile. But I do know that various European countries have discontinued it. <https://web.archive.org/web/20160303202219/http://www.appgaf...>
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Pretty much everyone I personally know, this in part to coming from a family of relative affluence in highly liberal areas, has religiously filtered their water to keep additives (such as fluoride) from going into their bodies. This same crowd has savvy towards dental hygiene, they're all into oil pulling, and brushing with Fennel oil and all that. Eliminating yeast (which is fungus, not bacteria) from the mouth prevents the biofilm that creates the necessary conditions for dental cavities.
Even the poorest Americans can afford coconut oil and Fennel oil.
There's no reason to drink that shit (fluoride), there's no reason to brush with it either.
I truly don't care one way or the other on the dental advantage that fluoride offers in drinking water, or the alleged risks it poses to the IQ of unborn children. I simply hate the fact that public policy is now being driven by what are essentially New World Order conspiracy theorists
Before someone tries to pin this as a decisively left-right political issue, Portland, Oregon has been virulently anti-fluoride for over 70 years (which is probably the last time Portland and Utah agreed on anything):
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2013/05/portland_fluorid...
Portland is a bit odd when it comes to water; they drained an entire (uncovered, open to the elements) city reservoir because a guy peed in it. True story. I assume they have signs for the birds flying aloft to not defecate over the reservoir.
Edit: It appears many posts all over this thread are being brigaded with downvotes. Why? Is Big Fluoride in trouble? Grow up. You people are brain damaged (possibly from fluoride).
Funny, I watched Dr. Strangelove two weeks ago. POE!
I hear they're going to start adding electrolytes to the plant water though.
Why wouldn't they, it's what plants crave.
What I find fascinating about this debate is that only municipalities/cities add fluoride to water. If you are on well water, no fluoride. So any studies comparing the incidence of tooth decay between populations that are on well water and those that are on fluoridated city water?
I get that this was a great public health benefit before fluoride in toothpaste became widely available but is this still the case? Couldn't it be argued that most of the benefit comes from brushing your teeth?
Flouride incorporates into the tooth structure in developing teeth before they emerge, I'm not sure how effective that is but it is different than the more topical protection.
Tea has enormous amounts of flouride depending on where it is grown and they aren't banning that yet.
For what it's worth, very few locations and processing styles result in significant doses of fluoride in tea. Within the United States, these types of tea are not typically consumed. For example, Tibetan brick tea is consistently high in fluoride, to the extent that fluorosis is actually somewhat common in certain regions. But it's a bit tricky to even buy a brick (meant for consumption) within the US. Bagged tea, more commonly available, has to be drunk regularly in very significant volumes to have a deleterious effect.
Put another way, for issues to rise to the level of public policy, they have to affect a meaningful number of people in a region. In the US, tea-induced fluorisis is extremely rare.
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Way past time. The link between fluoride ingestion by children and pregnant women to lower IQ in children has been known for years. It's incredible how the scientific community in the US is so ignorant of this fact.
Also, dentists have no neuroscience background! So let's take recommendations by dentists to ingest a neurotoxin with deep deep skepticism, shall we?
> The link between fluoride ingestion by children and pregnant women to lower IQ in children has been known for years
Not at the levels it is found in water in the USA. Those studies were done in countries with much higher levels of fluoride.
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).
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The relationship appears to be linear down to zero, but it’s very hard to study near those levels. From what I’ve seen, the best current science is that the fluoridation levels in typical western countries are reducing average IQ by about 0.5-1.5 points.
For reference, adding lead to fuel was far, far worse.
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Or where the people drink much more water
As the saying goes, it's the dose that makes the poison.
Vitamin D is also quite toxic, would you celebrate banning that as well?
Yes, there is no need to add vitamin D into the water supply.
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I think it's worth reminding people of Occam's Razor, and the point of it is: a simple explanation is often better than a complicated one.
The US has had water fluoridation for 65 years, affecting 346 million people. That's a pretty big god damn sample size and long amount of time in which to observe effects. If we still have no proof of significant negative health effects, it's probably not bad for you.
That said: you can always lower the amount of fluoride if it turns out the local area already gets a lot of fluoride from other sources. You don't need to ban it, you can just lower the levels.
So please don't defend this decision by Utah. They're being children.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
1. IQ is not an objective measurement, it is inherently flawed
2. A 1.5-3 IQ level difference is not noticeable in any practical way. Things like birth order have a more significant impact on IQ.
3. Comparing Canadian children to Mexican is pretty dramatic, like comparing rich kids to poor kids; you will always see a marked difference between the two, in intelligence, in health, in crime, in all sorts of things. Mexican communities often over-fluoridate their water (I know because I grew up in Mexico and my teeth are stained because of it). Again, this is no reason to ban it, just lower it.
This finding is a suggestion of a link, it's not empirical proof. The methods and findings have many questionable aspects. You can always find some paper that suggests something random like vegetables are bad for you or something. One paper does not a water-tight case make.
> The US has had water fluoridation for 65 years, affecting 346 million people. That's a pretty big god damn sample size and long amount of time in which to observe effects. If we still have no proof of significant negative health effects, it's probably not bad for you.
The problem is there will have been a lot of confounders.
E.g. despite huge sample sizes, isolating the cause of the obesity crisis is too hard because so many different things changed at once.
Sure, it's not easy to find a smoking gun. That doesn't mean we go all in on whatever we think might be the issue (if there even is an issue).
The answer to the obesity crisis wasn't to ban Pizza. We don't we ban sodas and junk food at schools, which we know would have a positive impact on health. But we do ban fluoride, without proof that it will help? With actually the only scientific proof being that it would be detrimental to remove?
If people's concern is really that it might slightly lower IQ, consider that 1) IQ has been steadily increasing since the 40's, and 2) you can get better IQ by investing in education, something that we do an embarrassing job of already and need to improve on.
The other concern touted is that it might cause cancer. As we well know by now, nearly everything causes cancer.
Banning fluoride is just a move by politicians to take advantage of ignorant scared people to drum up more votes/support. It's like every other action they take to vilify something scary or unknown and then claim victory over the evil thing they purged. This isn't new, either - this clearly partisan stance was being pointed out in the 1950's when it was first being considered for nationwide use.
"After more than 70 years of investigation, there are still questions about how effective water fluoridation is at preventing dental decay and whether the possible risks are worth the benefits. Although water fluoridation undoubtedly did improve the dental health of many children in the 1960s and 1970s, fluoride proponents were perhaps too hasty in declaring that community water fluoridation was the best (or only) solution for dental decay. A less fractious debate might have encouraged a more open discussion in which the possible harms could have been more fully discussed and other options, such as providing fluoridated toothpaste, more fully considered." - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4504307/
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https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...