• @Allero@lemmy.today
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    98 months ago

    The question to me is - do we even have to fluoridate water and is this really the best approach?

    For example, most European countries do not commonly use fluoride in their water supply, and everyone’s just fine! No extra cavities, no special health risks. People commonly drink tap water and do not care about potential for any adverse effects, because it’s just that - clean water. And for any teeth-related issues, you already have your toothpaste providing more than enough fluorine.

    • Robust Mirror
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      358 months ago

      https://static.spokanecity.org/documents/citycouncil/interest-items/2020/09/city-council-information-on-fluoride-2020-09-08.pdf

      • Water fluoridation reaches over 13 million Europeans through programs in England, Ireland, Poland, Serbia and Spain

      • Children in deprived areas benefit most from water fluoridation according to 2018 English health agency report

      • Over 70 million Europeans receive fluoridated salt through programs in Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland and other countries. Salt fluoridation is recommended when water fluoridation is not feasible

      • European Academy of Pediatric Dentistry endorses water fluoridation as “core component of oral health policy”

      • Fluoridated milk programs have operated in Bulgaria, England, Hungary, Russia and Scotland

      • Several European countries provide free or subsidized fluoride treatments through national healthcare:

        • Sweden: free dental care through age 23
        • Denmark: free dental care until age 18
        • Finland: public dental clinic access for all legal residents
      • Scandinavian schools offer fluoride varnish, tablets and rinse programs

      • Some regions in Europe have naturally fluoridated water, such as parts of Italy. Italian health officials support water fluoridation but don’t implement additional programs due to naturally optimal fluoride levels in some areas

      https://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/about/statement-on-the-evidence-supporting-the-safety-and-effectiveness-of-community-water-fluoridation.html

      • Evidence shows that water fluoridation prevents tooth decay by providing frequent and consistent contact with low levels of fluoride, ultimately reducing tooth decay by about 25% in children and adults.

      • evidence shows that schoolchildren living in communities where water is fluoridated have, on average, 2.25 fewer decayed teeth compared to similar children not living in fluoridated communities.

      • A study to compare costs associated with community water fluoridation with treatment savings achieved through reduced tooth decay, which included 172 public water systems, each serving populations of 1,000 individuals or more, found that 1 year of exposure to fluoridated water yielded an average savings of $60 per person when the lifetime costs of maintaining a restoration were included.

      • Analyses of Medicaid claims data in 3 other states (Louisiana, New York, and Texas), have also found that children living in fluoridated communities have lower caries related treatment costs than do similar children living in non-fluoridated communities; the difference in annual per child treatment costs ranged from $28 to $67.

      https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9544072/

      • community water fluoridation continues to decrease cavities by 25% at the population level.

      • Even with fluoridated products such as toothpaste and mouth rinses, this public health practice can reduce an additional 25% of tooth decay in children and adults

      • In 1945, Grand Rapids, Michigan became the first U.S. city to fluoridate its public water supply. Five years later, Grand Rapids schoolchildren were found to have significantly fewer cavities than children from the control community of Muskegon, and additional water districts, including Muskegon began fluoridating and seeing similar results

      • Studies have shown that populations from lower socioeconomic groups within fluoridated communities have less tooth decay when compared to peers in nonfluoridated communities

      • The cost of a lifetime of water fluoridation for one person is less than the cost of one filling

      More info: https://www.ada.org/resources/community-initiatives/fluoride-in-water

    • @interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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      38 months ago

      It depends if you believe in the apocryphal story behind fluoridation. This is a story that justifies the state and it’s right of medical intervention into your life with the need of your informed consent.

      These types of stories are designed to justify the right to act of an entity/egregor using the least objectionnable scenario possible. Once this precedent is established it can built upon to justify other actions in other scenarios. All the other unobjectionnable things done to you or in your name

  • @CCMan1701A@startrek.website
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    68 months ago

    If they remove it from the water, then change the availability to be OTC for multivitamins with fluoride. I want to be able to get it with our having a copay and whatever else the Dr wants to charge .

  • @TCB13@lemmy.world
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    38 months ago

    fluoridation has nothing to with any teeth-related issues, it was all about the US industry having a way to dispose of fluoride, a byproduct of many industrial activities. You can’t just dump fluoride on a river as it has several adverse side-effects, but it you can convince everyone it is good for their health then it’s okay to dump it on the water supply.

    • @auzy@lemmy.world
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      38 months ago

      No… just no

      If that was true there are a lot of other things they could dump in the water

    • @isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de
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      88 months ago

      lmao. rofl even. Fluoride is incredibly expensive AND useful, if you run an industry you wanna make sure you absolutely recover it from byproducts and reuse it, not to mention that with how low the levels in tap water are, it wouldn’t be even a good way of disposing a lot of it

  • madjo
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    128 months ago

    For what’s it worth, in my country (Netherlands), we don’t add fluoride to our tap water anymore since the early 70s. We just have it in our toothpaste (though you can also get fluoride free toothpaste for those who don’t want it).

    Sure there’s still traces of fluoride in our water, as it appears in nature. But it’s not artificially added by our water companies.

    • @scholar@lemmy.world
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      38 months ago

      Most places that do add it to the water supply match the levels of places where flouride occurs naturally

  • @solarvector@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    688 months ago

    It’s not about toxicity, it’s about mind control! Fluoride makes you passive. But you know this since you’re a tool of the government pushing poison.

    Just bleach your teeth like normal people! You know, with the bleach under the kitchen sink.

    (Don’t actually do this)

    • Raymond Shannon
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      278 months ago

      Like the ol’ General said / s

      We can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

      Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face.

    • @mkwt@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      And that’s why you should only drink grain alcohol and pure, natural rain water. To preserve the essence of your precious bodily fluids.

      </s>

    • @BreadOven@lemmy.world
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      18 months ago

      I’ve heard it works much better and actually reverses the mind control if you first mix the bleach with ammonia.

      (Also, please, don’t actually do this, some people still die every year from this)

    • Lemminary
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      18 months ago

      The real Chads use raw organic free-range non-GMO pesticide-free lemon juice with baking soda. It’ll leave your teeth as white as they’ll be sensitive! Keep it crunchy. You’re welcome.

  • @Icecreamface@lemmy.ml
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    78 months ago

    If democrats proposed this idea everyone would love it. Fuck trump but removing fluoride from the water is a good idea .

  • @insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe
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    28 months ago

    It could likely be replaced with hydroxyapatite instead (it also can be used to remove lead and other things from water, which makes searching about being added to municipal water difficult). Good for not only teeth, also bones.

    I also wonder if adding other vitamins would make more sense (just enough to stop deficiencies) if we’re talking about health outcomes, though the first idea I had with vitamin C came up with results of that messing with the chlorine in the water.

    • @finderscult@lemmy.ml
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      38 months ago

      Let’s just not add things to water except to ensure it stays as close to safe from infectious disease as possible. Water is water, it shouldn’t be more than that. Even if what you add is safe for humans, what about the ten billion other uses tap water has that affects the environment.

      People shouldn’t have to buy filters if they just want water instead of whatever some random group thinks the population needs instead of just water

  • @bluewing@lemm.ee
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    28 months ago

    Depending on where you live, there is already enough naturally occurring fluoride in the well water that adding more doesn’t mean much. How else do you think they discovered fluoride helps your teeth?

    Since I live in a rural area and need to have my own well, I know my water contains enough fluoride that it would be silly to add more. But some areas do not have enough naturally present. So it would be interesting to see the water test results for Florida cities to check the amount of naturally occurring fluoride present. YMMV

    • @BreadOven@lemmy.world
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      18 months ago

      Fun fact. Literally everyone who has died, ever, has had DHMO in some form. You’re even exposed in the womb!

    • @bradinutah@thelemmy.club
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      298 months ago

      The stuff also known as hydric acid. People just don’t talk enough about how corrosive it is. Plus, it gets in the air and gets in your lungs!

      • @BussyCat@lemmy.world
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        78 months ago

        It’s 10 million times more acidic than drain cleaner!!! And the government is trying to force you to drink it by forcing it to be used in municipal drinking fountains

    • @Hamartia@lemmy.world
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      28 months ago

      Any chemical that can exist as a solid, a liquid and a gas at the same time isn’t safe to put into our bodies!

  • That Weird Vegan
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    438 months ago

    Yeah but I read an article on a bullshit website. I think some no name website knows more than a toxicologist

  • @humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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    158 months ago

    I believe the objection to fluoride is that it is a tranquilizer that keeps us from achieving glory through violent uprising… or sweet sweet dentist profits.

  • MidnightPocket [comrade/them]
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    78 months ago

    I had the misfortune of eavesdropping on a conversation recently where some guy who was working in a bourgeoisie brewing facility recently switched jobs to work at a waste water treatment center and he was advocating for removing fluoride from water with a level of rationale that I have to assume he picked up from co-workers parroting information they heard on the Joe Rogan podcast.

  • @wolfshadowheart@leminal.space
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    238 months ago

    Back when I was in college, people didn’t like fluoride because it calcifies the pinneal gland. I assume that rhetoric has only been further exaggerated over the years

    • @Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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      198 months ago

      It does do this. However so does ageing, low sunlight exposure, low altitude, ethnicity, sex, nutrition, neuro-divergence, cell phone use, EM fields… you get the idea.

      • @JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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        138 months ago

        Don’t forget the gravitational pull of Betelgeuse. In a very, very small way, that also effects calcification of the pineal gland.

      • @TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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        88 months ago

        Does fluoride-enhanced water actually do this, though? Or just pure fluoride? Yes, pure fluoride has an effect, but I always thought the miniscule amount in our water is not enough to actually make a difference to the natural calcification of our pineal gland, anyways.

        • @Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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          48 months ago

          From what I have read studies do not show it, however it is believed it does happen because, when the data in those studies is extrapolated for 60+ years, it shows that it should contribute to it, at least

          So, yeah, seems too, but it really isn’t a factor worth worrying about

          • @ZMoney@lemmy.world
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            18 months ago

            Does it though? Did they really do XCT on enough brains in areas with different F in their water to show this over time? And correct for the fact that it calcifies with age anyway? And probably does so variably across individuals and populations (2023 meta-analysis says old white men are the most likely to have calcified pineal glands).

            • @Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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              18 months ago

              Well, I have to defer to the conclusions of neuroscientists in the papers I have read, and what my neurologist has told me. You can go and peer review research, if you would like, though.

    • @ZeffSyde@lemmy.world
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      148 months ago

      Another point that conspiracy bros will bring up is that fluoride is a toxic byproduct of aluminum manufacture and dumping it into the water supply is a cheap way for Alcoa to dispose of it benevolently.

      • @Doomsider@lemmy.world
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        48 months ago

        The majority of fluoride that is released into our water supply is a by-product of fertilizer production.

      • @nBodyProblem@lemmy.world
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        98 months ago

        Honestly it really is sad, we have so many more uses for it

        Every atom of fluoride going into our water is another atom that can’t go into chlorine trifluoride production. Putting it into the water is a huge sacrifice we make for the health of society.

        • @multifariace@lemmy.world
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          28 months ago

          Weird. The only argument I heard, and successfully made it to policy in my area is that it costs tax money and takes away choice. All thus smart stuff is for those damn yankees.

          • @bane_killgrind@slrpnk.net
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            18 months ago

            His joke is that fluoride can be used to make extremely dangerous substances

            From the wiki on the one he mentioned:

            This oxidizing power, surpassing that of oxygen, causes ClF3 to react vigorously with many other materials often thought of as incombustible and refractory. It ignites sand, asbestos, glass, and even ashes of substances that have already burned in oxygen.

        • AnyOldName3
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          48 months ago

          Real men make chlorine pentafluoride anyway. We have no use for pathetic hypergolic oxidisers with only three fluorine atoms.