You can’t win. Freedom, IQ, precious bodily fluids. There’s no end to the nonsense.
My city started fluoridating a few years ago. The crazy was off the chart, they’re still active. NYC has fluoridated for 60 years, you’d think someone would have figured out that the entire city is dumber.
But being serious if it’s relatively low and the negative effects only occur during pregnancy it’s not that easy to measure it.
Obviously there is no conclusive evidence (even if the studies from China seem somewhat credible) but IMHO even if the likelihood of this being true is e.g. only 5-10%, risk of a population wide loss of 1-2 IQ points seems like a massively too high price to pay just to slightly reduce cavity rates.
Also dismissing all credible (albeit weak) scientific evidence out of hand just because crazy people hold similar beliefs is a about as stupid as what they are doing..
Well one issue with your snark here is that IQs within the country are going down, and nobody really knows why. [1]
The Flynn Effect was the observation that real IQ scores were increasing over time. But sometime around 1990 this seems to have stopped in pretty much the entire developed world, including the US. I'm not implying that this is solely due to fluoridation, though it's certainly a plausible contributing factor. But as for your snark about 'someone would have figured out people are getting dumber' - well, they have, and we don't know why.
That's just not true. Most of the studies simply compared areas with different amounts of natural fluoride in their local water supply, and applied some basic statistics comparing dental health. There have also been some A/B studies possible in areas that stopped or started using fluoride in their water.
Multiple such studies have been done, globally, over many decades.
Fluoridated toothpaste says not to swallow because it contains much higher concentrations of fluoride than drinking water. If you ingest too much toothpaste, it can cause your teeth to get blotchy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_fluorosis
7mg/L? Where the heck did you get that figure?
The correct value is a tenth of that: 0.7 milligrams per Liter (mg/L)
The limit is 2mg/L, and that's only found in places with naturally occurring high levels of flouride.
The people of Flint, MI were (and some still are!) forced to drink bottled water for years when their water was contaminated with lead.
When you drink from publicly supplied water, you accept risks that can be much worse than fluoride in your water. If you want to avoid that, you need to procure your own drinking water.
There isn’t any! GP doesn’t have that authority! Well done!
On the other hand, the society you live in probably has some sort of document establishing who does have the authority, and how it devolves to the actual policy-makers. Google “$YOUR_LOCATION government” and you’ll have some good starting points. If you’re lucky, you might even get to participate in the process; “$YOUR_LOCATION elections” will give you good pointers in that case.
What do you mean? There's literally tons of evidence. Do you think fluoride doesn't actually reduce cavities?
You can’t win. Freedom, IQ, precious bodily fluids. There’s no end to the nonsense.
My city started fluoridating a few years ago. The crazy was off the chart, they’re still active. NYC has fluoridated for 60 years, you’d think someone would have figured out that the entire city is dumber.
> you’d think someone would have figured out that
Maybe that’s why they haven’t?
But being serious if it’s relatively low and the negative effects only occur during pregnancy it’s not that easy to measure it.
Obviously there is no conclusive evidence (even if the studies from China seem somewhat credible) but IMHO even if the likelihood of this being true is e.g. only 5-10%, risk of a population wide loss of 1-2 IQ points seems like a massively too high price to pay just to slightly reduce cavity rates.
Also dismissing all credible (albeit weak) scientific evidence out of hand just because crazy people hold similar beliefs is a about as stupid as what they are doing..
Well one issue with your snark here is that IQs within the country are going down, and nobody really knows why. [1]
The Flynn Effect was the observation that real IQ scores were increasing over time. But sometime around 1990 this seems to have stopped in pretty much the entire developed world, including the US. I'm not implying that this is solely due to fluoridation, though it's certainly a plausible contributing factor. But as for your snark about 'someone would have figured out people are getting dumber' - well, they have, and we don't know why.
[1] (pop media coverage of study) - https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a43469569/american-...
[1] (study - no paywall!) - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028962...
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Bodily autonomy is "nonsense"?
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Fluorinated water minimally reduces cavities: https://www.cochrane.org/news/water-fluoridation-less-effect...
It was probably much more effective 50 years ago when fluoride was not in everyone's toothpaste.
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If your water was sourced """naturally""" from a spring with a high fluoride levels, I wonder if you'd call that an additive.
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you're just lying
https://www.cdc.gov/oral-health/data-research/facts-stats/fa...
That's just not true. Most of the studies simply compared areas with different amounts of natural fluoride in their local water supply, and applied some basic statistics comparing dental health. There have also been some A/B studies possible in areas that stopped or started using fluoride in their water.
Multiple such studies have been done, globally, over many decades.
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[flagged]
Fluoridated toothpaste says not to swallow because it contains much higher concentrations of fluoride than drinking water. If you ingest too much toothpaste, it can cause your teeth to get blotchy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_fluorosis
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You can’t be serious right now. Your teeth aren’t in your digestive tract.
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It increases fluoride content in the saliva
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7mg/L? Where the heck did you get that figure? The correct value is a tenth of that: 0.7 milligrams per Liter (mg/L) The limit is 2mg/L, and that's only found in places with naturally occurring high levels of flouride.
The people of Flint, MI were (and some still are!) forced to drink bottled water for years when their water was contaminated with lead.
When you drink from publicly supplied water, you accept risks that can be much worse than fluoride in your water. If you want to avoid that, you need to procure your own drinking water.
You can solve your “problem” for a very small price: it costs under $0.50 per day to distill your own drinking water per person.
So for $15/mo, “problem” solved.
Are you doing that?
How does one go about doing that? For that price?
I'd love to give it a go for my family
It's not your water, it's municipal water you purchase with the fluoride in it.
There isn’t any! GP doesn’t have that authority! Well done!
On the other hand, the society you live in probably has some sort of document establishing who does have the authority, and how it devolves to the actual policy-makers. Google “$YOUR_LOCATION government” and you’ll have some good starting points. If you’re lucky, you might even get to participate in the process; “$YOUR_LOCATION elections” will give you good pointers in that case.