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Sure, but I take issue with "ignore ideas championed solely by idiots" as if this issue is just the fringe lunatics as opposed to 90% of the world. Multiple peo

Sure, but I take issue with "ignore ideas championed solely by idiots" as if this issue is just the fringe lunatics as opposed to 90% of the world. Multiple people are bringing up the economics / cost when countries like Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Czechia, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, and Portugal don't fluoridate. You'd think if there was such a clear benefit / risk profile it would be unanimous. I can't take seriously arguments that it's such a big win with no risk when these very developed countries have decided against it. Sure, that's not scientific (I haven't deep dived into the science), but it is a useful heuristic against bad science. For 50 years, the science in the US was no evidence many industrial chemicals added to food were harmful, even though they were banned in most of the EU and Japan. Lo and behold, CA finally bans them: https://www.reedsmith.com/en/perspectives/2023/10/new-california-law-bans-four-common-chemicals-in-food https://www.reedsmith.com/en/perspectives/2023/10/new-califo... Oh wow, FDA just banned Brominated Vegetable Oil 2 months ago... (banned in UK / EU since 1970)

stouset 2y ago
It is just fringe lunatics. There are plenty of reasonable arguments against fluoridation of water that countries can fall on various sides of: lack of proper water infrastructure in the first place, moral/ethical/political arguments around mass-medication of citizens, overall net economic value for their specific populations, etc. Individuals and nations can reasonably come to different conclusions based on both data and philosophy. Those aren't the arguments being opposed here.
- reducesuffering 2y ago
  Did you read the article? 'The activist groups had a growing, but highly controversial, body of scientific evidence to draw from. Scientists had long known that very high doses of fluoride can damage bones and teeth. Since the early 1990s, a modest body of scientific research has also suggested that fluoride can harm brain development, leading to measurable drops in children’s IQ. Many of those early studies, experts say, were poorly done. And some took place in communities where fluoride naturally occurs in the water at levels much higher than the 0.7 milligrams per liter that U.S. communities currently add to their tap water. Still, the signs of negative IQ effects were consistent enough for some experts to raise questions. “More research is needed to clarify the effect of fluoride on brain chemistry and function,” a panel of experts convened on behalf of the EPA wrote in 2006. Starting in 2015, the National Toxicology Program, an office housed within the National Institutes of Health, began preparing a major review of fluoride research — at least partly in response to a nomination from the Fluoride Action Network. Around the same time, the government institute that houses the NTP helped fund new studies in Canada and Mexico that looked at levels of fluoride in pregnant women’s urine, and then investigated whether those levels were correlated with a drop in IQ in their offspring. The researchers found some signs of an effect. The results concerned some environmental health researchers. “As the literature continued to accumulate, we were more and more convinced that there were no single flaws that could explain the consistency in the findings,” John Bucher, a retired NTP toxicologist and a lead author of the report, told Undark in an interview conducted late last year. In August, after years of delays, the NTP released its final report, finding, with moderate confidence, that fluoride exposures at levels above 1.5 mg/L “are consistently associated with lower IQ in children.”' There are serious researchers finding mixed results based on the levels, not just crunchy social media accounts.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Retric 2y ago
    “0.7 milligrams per liter that U.S. communities currently add to their tap water.” “Fluoride exposure at levels above 1.5mg/L” 0.7 is less than 1.5, which really says everything here. Vitamin D toxicity is also a thing, but we supplement milk with Vitamin D because that’s a net benefit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D_toxicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D_toxicity If research actually showed 0.7mg/L was unsafe advocates would bring that up. Instead they try and imply that studies suggest something they don’t, which should be all the justification necessary for the general public to ignore them.

stouset 2y ago

It is just fringe lunatics. There are plenty of reasonable arguments against fluoridation of water that countries can fall on various sides of: lack of proper water infrastructure in the first place, moral/ethical/political arguments around mass-medication of citizens, overall net economic value for their specific populations, etc. Individuals and nations can reasonably come to different conclusions based on both data and philosophy. Those aren't the arguments being opposed here.

reducesuffering 2y ago
Did you read the article? 'The activist groups had a growing, but highly controversial, body of scientific evidence to draw from. Scientists had long known that very high doses of fluoride can damage bones and teeth. Since the early 1990s, a modest body of scientific research has also suggested that fluoride can harm brain development, leading to measurable drops in children’s IQ. Many of those early studies, experts say, were poorly done. And some took place in communities where fluoride naturally occurs in the water at levels much higher than the 0.7 milligrams per liter that U.S. communities currently add to their tap water. Still, the signs of negative IQ effects were consistent enough for some experts to raise questions. “More research is needed to clarify the effect of fluoride on brain chemistry and function,” a panel of experts convened on behalf of the EPA wrote in 2006. Starting in 2015, the National Toxicology Program, an office housed within the National Institutes of Health, began preparing a major review of fluoride research — at least partly in response to a nomination from the Fluoride Action Network. Around the same time, the government institute that houses the NTP helped fund new studies in Canada and Mexico that looked at levels of fluoride in pregnant women’s urine, and then investigated whether those levels were correlated with a drop in IQ in their offspring. The researchers found some signs of an effect. The results concerned some environmental health researchers. “As the literature continued to accumulate, we were more and more convinced that there were no single flaws that could explain the consistency in the findings,” John Bucher, a retired NTP toxicologist and a lead author of the report, told Undark in an interview conducted late last year. In August, after years of delays, the NTP released its final report, finding, with moderate confidence, that fluoride exposures at levels above 1.5 mg/L “are consistently associated with lower IQ in children.”' There are serious researchers finding mixed results based on the levels, not just crunchy social media accounts.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Retric 2y ago
  “0.7 milligrams per liter that U.S. communities currently add to their tap water.” “Fluoride exposure at levels above 1.5mg/L” 0.7 is less than 1.5, which really says everything here. Vitamin D toxicity is also a thing, but we supplement milk with Vitamin D because that’s a net benefit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D_toxicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D_toxicity If research actually showed 0.7mg/L was unsafe advocates would bring that up. Instead they try and imply that studies suggest something they don’t, which should be all the justification necessary for the general public to ignore them.