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Regarding the success story provided as precedent: I don't know the quantities involved, but if it is known that swallowing a toothpaste tube's worth of fluorid

Regarding the success story provided as precedent: I don't know the quantities involved, but if it is known that swallowing a toothpaste tube's worth of fluoride can kill a child, I'm not comfortable with the idea of tainting the drinking water with even "safe" amounts of this poison just so it will briefly pass by your teeth in its way to your digestive tract. Sounds reckless and extremely disrespectful to me. http://www.fluoridealert.org/toothpaste.html http://www.fluoridealert.org/toothpaste.html

maxjg 16y ago
So I think what you're trying to say is that it's an international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids?
- narrator 16y ago
  Anytime anybody brings up fluoride somebody else brings up Dr. StrangeLove, it might as well be a knock knock joke. I wish people would actually look into the science. People thought DDT was unquestionably great too.
  - billswift 16y ago
    Banning DDT was one of the stupider things the government has done. The EPA studies showed no reason for it; the first EPA administrator just up and did it - against the professional scientists' recommendations. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which was the original "justification" for it was pure BS.
  - arethuza 16y ago
    I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there.
- euccastro 16y ago
  No, I'm saying it's a national capitalist trick to save a few bucks by risking your health.
palish 16y ago
... swallowing a toothpaste tube's worth of fluoride can kill a child ... Er. That's a pretty big logical fallacy. Almost every substance ingested in huge quantities is lethal, including salt and caffeine.
- euccastro 16y ago
  They don't put salt or caffeine in your tap water. If they're going to make you drink something daily for a lifetime without your informed consent, I expect some reason better than cutting down a few bucks of dental care expenses. The fluoride is in enough concentration to be effective in the brief time it passes through your mouth (that's the idea, isn't it? Or is it supposed to somehow work systemically after ingested?). A tube of toothpaste will last a few weeks. There is, in principle, reason for concern. To claim it's scientifically proven to be safe you need lifetime double-blind studies controlling for any pernicious effects, which they obviously didn't run before starting this. A shame, considering there's apparently plenty of people who would be happy as uncompensated guinea pigs.
  - caf 16y ago
    Dental caries can kill - that's how the guy that played Lorne on Angel died - so we're talking about more than "cutting down on a few bucks of dental care expenses".
    - euccastro 16y ago
      Dental caries can be prevented by flossing your teeth, then spitting (most of) the fluoride out. Or even better, by avoiding sugar and eating calcium rich vegetables.
      - caf 16y ago
        Certainly, but that doesn't change the point that saying it's about "cutting down on a few bucks" is overly downplaying the potential benefit.

maxjg 16y ago

So I think what you're trying to say is that it's an international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids?

narrator 16y ago
Anytime anybody brings up fluoride somebody else brings up Dr. StrangeLove, it might as well be a knock knock joke. I wish people would actually look into the science. People thought DDT was unquestionably great too.
- billswift 16y ago
  Banning DDT was one of the stupider things the government has done. The EPA studies showed no reason for it; the first EPA administrator just up and did it - against the professional scientists' recommendations. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which was the original "justification" for it was pure BS.
- arethuza 16y ago
  I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there.
euccastro 16y ago
No, I'm saying it's a national capitalist trick to save a few bucks by risking your health.

palish 16y ago

... swallowing a toothpaste tube's worth of fluoride can kill a child ... Er. That's a pretty big logical fallacy. Almost every substance ingested in huge quantities is lethal, including salt and caffeine.

euccastro 16y ago
They don't put salt or caffeine in your tap water. If they're going to make you drink something daily for a lifetime without your informed consent, I expect some reason better than cutting down a few bucks of dental care expenses. The fluoride is in enough concentration to be effective in the brief time it passes through your mouth (that's the idea, isn't it? Or is it supposed to somehow work systemically after ingested?). A tube of toothpaste will last a few weeks. There is, in principle, reason for concern. To claim it's scientifically proven to be safe you need lifetime double-blind studies controlling for any pernicious effects, which they obviously didn't run before starting this. A shame, considering there's apparently plenty of people who would be happy as uncompensated guinea pigs.
- caf 16y ago
  Dental caries can kill - that's how the guy that played Lorne on Angel died - so we're talking about more than "cutting down on a few bucks of dental care expenses".
  - euccastro 16y ago
    Dental caries can be prevented by flossing your teeth, then spitting (most of) the fluoride out. Or even better, by avoiding sugar and eating calcium rich vegetables.
    - caf 16y ago
      Certainly, but that doesn't change the point that saying it's about "cutting down on a few bucks" is overly downplaying the potential benefit.