A U.S. government report expected to stir debate concluded that fluoride in drinking water at twice the recommended limit is linked with lower IQ in children.
The report, based on an analysis of previously published research, marks the first time a federal agency has determined — “with moderate confidence” — that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. While the report was not designed to evaluate the health effects of fluoride in drinking water alone, it is a striking acknowledgment of a potential neurological risk from high levels of fluoride.
Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.
“I think this (report) is crucial in our understanding” of this risk, said Ashley Malin, a University of Florida researcher who has studied the affect of higher fluoride levels in pregnant women on their children. She called it the most rigorously conducted report of its kind.
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You must have had a lot of fluoride as a kid.
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The same assholes made us take lead out of gasoline. Which also is a possible explanation for you.
I remember when gas was sweet.
Now it just makes me shit myself :(
You’re being an asshole
Oh Christ, there’s two of them now
Fluoride does strengthen teeth. However, this study shows that maybe dentists should be administering it (A dentist handed me a mouthwash with it, and literally I had a choice of a daily one or a weekly one, and since it’s mouth wash, you’re supposed to spit it out. So clearly it can be applied to the teeth without needed to be ingested at all)
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Because not everyone is like you. Not everyone has the eeucation you do. Not everyone has the same means to buy beneficial stuff. Not everyone takes the kind of care they should of their children.
Flouridated water, by most accounts, has had a really positivie impact on public health.
We should do our best to make sure our water supply is well funded and monitored. Unfortunately, more and more water systems are privatized and clean drinking water and corporate profits don’t seem compatible to me.
But we should be pragmatic and clear eyed. I worry to see phrases like “I don’t care what anyone says” in a scientific context.
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How do you feel about iodized salt?
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Like how you could choose to go buy distilled water or other fluoride free water if you really cared enough? So we agree it’s not actually a problem? Cool.
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The amount of fluoride in water is significantly below the safe limits. To get fluoride poisoning like the article describes you’d have to drink so much water that you’ll die of drinking too much water first.
An accident can happen with everything. It’s very, very rare in most developed countries for something to go wrong with the water fluoridisation.
Again, what is your threshold for acceptable levels of accidents in overfluoridation?
One happening every X years is not too terrible. Prolonged exposure is the issue. And the severity of the accident is also important.
If an accident means accidentally doubling the amount of fluoride, that’s not too bad. Bit wasteful perhaps but not really harmful either. So it’s not really possible to attach a number to it. In my country at least the number has been zero for years now.
That, and as long as it’s made publicly and widely known that there is an issue, it’s not that big of a deal.
We have water boiling alerts for a reason, this is no different. Water distribution will always be a risk no matter what. Public health will always be a risk no matter what. But the benefits outweigh the risk.
So your threshold is … X
How to say “I’ve never heard of public health” without saying “I’ve never heard of public health”
Also a case of “the accusation is the confession.” The literal next sentence is “but what about my FREEEEEEDOM!?!?”
The science behind this is literally highschool chemistry and highschool statistics.
Iodized salt was basically that. Soldiers turning up for WWI had lots of problems due to missing things in the diet.
Having a method of distribution that requires no effort and, perhaps more importantly, virtually no cost helps those who are often otherwise missed and forgotten by the systems in place. “Just have a dentist apply it” doesn’t work when you’re too poor for the dentist and/or have no way to get to one.
You can do a whole house RO system if you really care, but you need to be mindful that it can have serious downsides if the RO water sits in the pipes for too long while you are away from your house (Bad bacteria).
RO removes everything- the minerals that help your mouth healthy, the chlorine or chloramine inhibiting bacterial growth in your pipes, heavy metals and microplastics and PFAS that could be in the water (though this is null and void if your housepipes are plastic or lead or treated with PFAS)
…generally, unless you are living with extremely dangerous water, or you have massive aquariums that need more than a kiddie pool of water a week, you don’t need RO systems.
I mean, the best public health alternative to water fluoridation would be to impose limits to how much sugar is allowed in foods and force changes in marketing, since sugar consumption is one of the biggest causes of dental problems
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Like this?
Downvoted for the truth
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I learned all of that myself decades ago at Uni. I had a high level water class and we were supposed to do a one-hour presentation on a topic of our choice.
During my research to come up with a topic for the lecture I read an article about a small town in Canada that ran out of fluoride for their water supply. The article cited a downturn in fertilizer production as the culprit.
I was very confused at first. Going to the EPA website revealed that fluoride was a naturally occuring compound in water supplies. No mention of how you could run out of something naturally occuring in water.
I went on a trip with the class to a water plant. I asked the operator there about fluoride. He explained they added it to the water and it was not naturally occuring.
This lead me to discover that fertilizer plants sold their toxic waste product to municipalities instead of disposing of it properly. Mind blown. Furthermore the research proving fluoride in the water supplies prevented cavities was flawed at best.
My research indicated that fluoride causes a developmental delay which results in teeth eruption about two years later than normal. So fluoride poisoning makes it look like your teenage teeth have fewer cavities but they are just not as old.
Once you looked at these same teeth later on there was no real difference. So the benefit of having your teeth erupt later disappeared as you got older. Which makes a lot of sense.
There is no clinical reason to ingest pharmaceutical grade fluoride let alone the toxic shit that comes from the scrubbers of fertilizer plants. There is no mechanism to return fluoride to your teeth except maybe throwing up before it has been absorbed.
My presentation went great. Everyone was fascinated and I got a near perfect score. I am not a fluoride hater because fluoride works great topically.
The truth is astounding and the amount of pushback I have gotten explaining all this on the Internet has been ridiculous to say the least.
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