"Medical freedom", the rallying cry for all kinds of grifters spreading disinformation and wanting to roll back the progress made in public health.
this post was submitted on 08 May 2024
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For once, the answer to a question posed in the headline is obviously yes.
yeah. Im happily surprised the article itself was not about the conspiracy nonsense.
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They have their freedom, they are free to do whatever they want to filter their own drinking water. They're free to buy or produce distilled water for all their consumption. They're free to only ever drink beer. But the drinking water provided as a public good should be maintained for the good of the public, and when the studies are pretty clear that fluoridated water fights tooth decay, then fluoridated water it is.
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Hey, a article that bucks Betteridge's Law.
Of course there's no question, yes, and Republicans and communities should be ashamed at being this stupid to cater to such a dumb, ridiculous, and small group of idiots and are going to cost everyone more in dental insurance to socialize the cost of their stupidity.
I'm very much on the pro-flouride but it came up in a conversation with my coworker who won't drink tap water.
I said that in a country without universal healthcare, fluoride is free dental care. He said he agreed about the benefit to teeth but his concern was with what it might do to your body. He's a health nut but not a conspiracy theories and I was really thrown off and didn't have a counterpoint.
I just assumed it was fine because I knew fluoride is often found in water naturally...but...can someone with more knowledge tell me how they would have replied? I don't like speaking on things I can't back up with data so I just let it go
If the stupid motherfucker brushes his teeth twice daily, he's already introducing loads more fluoride to his body than any of the trace amounts they add into the public water system, which is still standards of deviation less than anything that would introduce fluorosis of childrens' teeth (since that's not possible for adults with developed teeth), let alone get to a level of toxicity for an adult.
Now, if he regularly consumes full tubes of toothpaste as a health supplement, then maybe that's a reason to be concerned about fluoride.
All right settle down, he's not a stupid motherfucker. He isn't advocating to remove it from tap water, he was just saying why HE doesn't drink tap. He didn't try to pursuade me.
Perhaps he's misguided on that but he is not the person you're probably picturing.
My friend is a doctor and he also doesn't drink tap but for him it's the other contaminates, not flouride
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I'm having thyroid problems, and in trying to research iodine, I have found that fluoride can have a negative impact on thyroid function. This link is the best I can do on the subject, given that I'm not sure how to find much trustworthy information. It says that as long as iodine intake is sufficient, the fluoride shouldn't be a problem. But I'm finding conflicting info on what constitutes sufficient iodine intake.
If you consume any iodized salt you should be good on that, unless you have a medical condition that prevents your body from absorbing it properly. In fact people don't really get goiters anymore since the introduction of iodized salt which was done to prevent said goiters(a goiter is a swollen thyroid from lack of iodine intake iirc).
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So we've circled back to to water/fluoride water conspiracies again?
History, doomed to repeat, before our very eyes once more..
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All cite studies that show it reduces tooth decay by 25%
But because of my sugar intake, my teeth are shit anyway
/s
I absolutely can't stand minty or cinnamon toothpaste, and have really struggled with brushing my teeth because of it. It drives me absolutely insane that so many of the flavors I can tolerate are only available in fluoride free formulations and/or get discontinued.
Crest two in one shield is strawberry flavor with fluoride. Source: I have a teen with the same aversion. It doesn’t have animals or anything on it, but it is a “kids” toothpaste. You’d never know without reading it though, so I thought I’d mention it. Sorry if you’ve already heard of that one.
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We should not be encouraging the least among us.
Here in Germany, drinking water isn't fluoridated but fluoridated salt is sold at every grocery store. I assume that fluoridated salt isn't as easily available to those in the US who could now end up without fluoridated water, is it?
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Ask the experts. You'll find their names have "D.D.S" after them.
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Do what they say.
Dentists are not scientists though. They suffer from a limited data set and all the other cognitive problems that we invented science to counteract.
Having said that, scientists should not make policy, but inform public health experts, who understand that science does not tell you what to do, but just the best current view of reality. These experts have to take into account cost/benefit ratios as well as science from a wide set of fields.
Luckily for fluoride in the water, they all agree!
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Yes. The answer is yes.
The only thing "bad" about flouride I know that is true is that it can lower DHT levels in your blood. I put bad in quotes because I don't know what DHT actually does, but the conspiracy I've heard is that DHT is needed to dream and imagine, so by drinking fluoridated water you're destroying your own creativity or whatever.
I always thought it was funny.
A friend of mine who believed a lot of conspiracy theories told me it was bad because it calcifies your pineal gland. I called bullshit and googled it.
Turns out, it actually does. There was no proof at the time that this causes any sort of issues, but there it was. I was unhappy that they were actually right about something; I didn’t want to give them the idea that any of their other crazy ideas had any validity.
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Man, are these conspiracy nuts gonna be mad when they accidently ban us removing fluoride from water with dangerous concentrations. The amount of fluoride we shoot for would require a 155 lb person to drink around 5000 gallons.
It's not freedom if it contradicts science and goes against healthcare for the public.
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yes but we should do more studies on non-dental effects of water fluoridation.
Well, we have both location gated and time gated populations, so observational study should be fairly trivial.
There's been studies about the negative effects it has on thyroid function for people with hypothyroidism : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5805681/
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Apparently the Netherlands stopped adding fluoride to the drinking water decades ago (due to idiots). It is in toothpaste. Which then gets into the sewer which then gets into the drinking water.
Dutch article: https://www.drinkwaterplatform.nl/fluoride-in-drinkwater-alle-vragen-en-antwoorden/
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