← Back to context

Comment by __s

21 days ago

Fluorinated table salt. Naturally fluorinated water sources. Public healthcare that covers dental

European policy isn't based on modern fluoridation being dangerous, it's based on having alternative systems in place (which vary by country)

In Windsor Ontario, across from Detroit, they took fluoride out of water for nearly a decade before reversing that decision based on results: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/fluoride-water-system...

Maybe Utah will be a place with alternative systems, based on another thread it sounds like they have an interesting Mormon safety net. But I would hope states do pilot tests first at least. If studies show that the historic gap in dental health between fluorinated & unfluorinated communities no longer apply, then that would be data driven policy

But it seems like this policy is based on someone's common sense that you shouldn't put minerals in water

20 comments

__s

Reply
bryanrasmussen  21 days ago

> based on another thread it sounds like they have an interesting Mormon safety net

as long as you're Mormon. Approximately 60% of the state.

m-s-y  21 days ago

It’s iodine in table salt not fluoride. In the US.

Never knew that France fluoridated their salt.

  • mandevil  21 days ago

    "In Switzerland 85% of domestic salt consumed is fluoridated and 67% in Germany. Salt fluoridation schemes are reaching more than one hundred million in Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Cuba. The cost of salt fluoridation is very low, within 0.02 and 0.05 € per year and capita. Children and adults of the low socio-economic strata tend to have substantially more untreated caries than higher strata. Salt fluoridation is by far the cheapest method for improving oral health. "

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24308394/

    (Sea salt and Kosher salt are the salts that aren't fluoridated and iodated in those countries, fancy, more expensive salts, regular table salt- and the salt added in commercial/restaurants has both.)

    So sure, you don't need to fluoridate the water, if you fluoridate the salt instead. But you have to do it some way or another. And the US and Canada doesn't, at present fluoridate the salt because we have it in the water. Remove it from some people's water but don't add it to the salt because everyone else has it in the water? Bad combination.

Muromec  21 days ago

>Public healthcare that covers dental

laughts nerviously in Dutch

rayiner  21 days ago

In many US states, Medicaid covers dental. CHIPs, for kids, covers dental in every state.

madeofpalk  21 days ago

Look - all for whatever science says is best, but wouldn’t countries with public healthcare also be incentivised to have fluoride in the water to reduce costs/public efficiency of public dental healthcare?