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Putting fluoride in water promotes freedom. That sounds crazy, but let me justify it. If you are poor you can't go anywhere or buy anything. You're not free if

Putting fluoride in water promotes freedom. That sounds crazy, but let me justify it. If you are poor you can't go anywhere or buy anything. You're not free if you're poor. If you are sick, you may be confined to a hospital bed or not feel good enough to do anything. If you are sick you're not free. Putting fluoride in water reduces dental costs and incidence of cavities and therefore tooth infections, particularly among societies poorest. Therefore, due to fluoridation in water some people are less sick and have more money and therefore are more free. The contrasting view is that putting fluoride in water is literally medicating people without their affirmative consent. It is the government forcing you to take a medication. It is coercive and therefore an attack on your freedom to not take medication. It is the government interfering in your life. The contrast between positive freedom, the freedom to do something, and negative freedom, the freedom from interference in your life, is the core political argument in America right now. Negative freedom, freedom from government interference, is being promoted by those seeking to weaken the government enough to supplant it. People who are poor and sick are likely unable to stand up for themselves or participate in solidarity against authority. This individual issue is relatively small, but you take 100's of issues like this, and the effect is to create a class of people who aren't able to do anything but be obedient workers.

guerrilla 2y ago
> The contrast between positive freedom, the freedom to do something, and negative freedom, the freedom from interference in your life, is the core political argument in America right now. Interesing take but I don't buy this part at all. The core political argument in the US is epistemological. What's real and what counts as true? There are some axiological differences but I think they are minor in comparison to not being able to agree on how the world is in the first place.
- rocqua 2y ago
  It seems to be that the battleground is epistemological, but not so much the argument. The difference being that Trump uses 'claims of truth' without any care of how true they are. I feel the majority of epistemological disagreement is the result of propaganda (not exclusively from MAGA). With only a small bit that is actually a disagreement on core values. Suchs true disagreement does exist, but it is no longer what the political discourse is about.
  - guerrilla 2y ago
    That sounds like what I meant.
verisimi 2y ago
Perhaps, vitamins, micro doses of aspirin, and other low level medical treatments should also be added to water, for the benefit of the silent poor and sick.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- hayst4ck 2y ago
  Like the vitamins and minerals added to cereals/milk or the iodine added to salt?
  - pipes 2y ago
    Or the iron that I wish they wouldn't add as it means I can't eat them due to my medical condition.
  - aikinai 2y ago
    Those don’t have a monopoly.
- hkt 2y ago
  Are they silent, or just not being represented by the American press?
- danparsonson 2y ago
  The trouble with slippery slopes is that they carry you away from productive discussion.
  - verisimi 2y ago
    One man's slippery slope, is another man's exploration of an idea. I don't think exploring widely is unproductive. I could also say, that discussing slippery slopes (a linguistic discussion) is itself what moves the discussion too far from the original topic. You protest too much.
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
thehappypm 2y ago
[flagged]
- chucky_z 2y ago
  The main study I can find referenced to this was based in China where levels of flouride in water appear to be much higher than in the US. Even the study itself calls out 'low-flouride' vs 'high-flouride.' Not 'no flouride.' Utah is going to have a dental crisis in a few years, as there already too few dentists.
  - attila-lendvai 2y ago
    reality check: europe never had fluoride in the water. still looking for the dental crisis.
    - genewitch 2y ago
      Tea has fluoride in it. Not saying that's the only reason, but perhaps one.
      - ekianjo 2y ago
        Then Americans who drink tea get a double dose of fluoride without knowing it. How does that work with the studies?
        genewitch 2y ago
        i started and then deleted several responses to this. I'm not sure how it affects studies, because i don't really read studies that often, it's very taxing on my brain. However, one thing i think is important is it's generally a good idea to give children as little caffeine as possible. I'm sure this is a controversial claim. But if we take that as true, then children aren't getting fluoride from tea, ideally. Adults can make the decision to drink tea that has less or more fluoride, if they care. I personally don't care that much, so i get whatever tea. I have a well, and i brew my tea with distilled water, so whatever is in the bag is whatever i am drinking, and nothing else. for those that might care, i RO my well water (screen-pre-RO-post filters) into 6 gallon containers, and then distill a gallon at a time. Each gallon of RO water takes ~5 hours total, including the time for the RO to process the water. My RO is very slow, but i am unwilling to pay for a jet pump for it, currently, to speed it up. It takes about 7-8 hours to fill 6 gallons, and it should be able to fill 6 gallons in 3 hours or so - it is a 50GPD filter system, so ~2GPH.
pipes 2y ago
"freedom from government interference, is being promoted by those seeking to weaken the government enough to supplant it" That is a very big generalisation. There are many legitimate reasons for reducing government interference and reducing the size of government.
- danparsonson 2y ago
  No it isn't - OP didn't say everyone who promotes that idea wants to weaken the government, but rather those who wish to weaken the government are promoting that idea.
- rocqua 2y ago
  Currently, there is a very effective push by people who want to weaken the government enough to supplant it. They are giving themselves ideological coverage by claiming they protecting people from interference. Is that a rephrasing you could live with?
artvandelai 2y ago
Adding fluoride to water was revolutionary in the 1940s, but its benefits have significantly declined since fluoride toothpaste became common in the 1970s. While fluoridation made sense when products containing fluoride weren't widely available, it is much less effective and necessary now. Sure, some countries and communities may still see benefits from it, but widespread fluoridation doesn't seem necessary in many parts of the world.
- estebank 2y ago
  There's a huge difference between "no longer as necessary" and "let's ban it".
  - theteapot 2y ago
    There is difference between banning and just deciding putting fluoride in public drinking water too. Who are they banning? Themselves?
    - nerdponx 2y ago
      Water treatment is usually done at the municipal or regional level. The state government is declaring that towns and cities may not do this. The alternative would be each and every municipal water authority deciding on its own.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - idiotsecant 2y ago
        The horror.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - emmelaich 2y ago
    Yeah but anyone can buy fluoride toothpaste so not really banned.
vasco 2y ago
The government can give out toothpaste in school, it doesn't need to add things to water. The inviolability or integrity of one's own body to me is more important than any of this. You have the right to decide what medication to be given to you with informed consent always, or you have no freedom. Otherwise the freedom argument collapses and you stop having reasons to allow abortions, or a bunch of other informed consent situations. And "knowing better" than poor people "for their own good" usually doesn't go well (for the people).
- mcny 2y ago
  Would you also ban iron in wheat flour?
  - vasco 2y ago
    I support the language here: https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/3-right-integrity-person https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/3-right-integrit... Article 3 - Right to integrity of the person 1. Everyone has the right to respect for his or her physical and mental integrity. 2. In the fields of medicine and biology, the following must be respected in particular: (a) the free and informed consent of the person concerned, according to the procedures laid down by law; (b) the prohibition of eugenic practices, in particular those aiming at the selection of persons; (c) the prohibition on making the human body and its parts as such a source of financial gain; (d) the prohibition of the reproductive cloning of human beings.
  - wqaatwt 2y ago
    You can presumably buy a different brand of flour or find a different source quite easily? Same applies to most other “fortified” products. With water your’e basically forced to waste money on bottled water or very expensive filtration systems. But yes, adding additional vitamins or minerals to food products is generally unnecessary when supplements are generally cheap and highly available these days.
    - mcny 2y ago
      The knowledge about the supplements we need also cheap and highly available and yet lots of people don't have it. I myself don't know all the supplements I need. I feel like for better or worse we are being forced into an era of individual responsibilities where the safeguards that we used to rely on without having to think are being actively dismantled.
jvm___ 2y ago
Freedom from is the American way. Freedom to is the Canadian way. That's why Canada becoming an American anything is ridiculous and pisses off Canada so much that, for example, we've reduced our flights to America by +70% over the coming months.
- refurb 2y ago
  Canada does the opposite of America even if it hurts Canada - it’s a part of its identity. Redefining freedom as “forcing something on people for their own good” is not how anyone actually defines freedom. It’s like saying children have the most freedom because their parents force them to do things that will benefit them.
  - jclulow 2y ago
    > Canada does the opposite of America even if it hurts Canada - it’s a part of its identity. As a duel citizen of the US and another Commonwealth nation, I have to say that this is exactly the ridiculous self-caricature perspective that gives foreign nationals a sort of combination of pity and contempt for the average US citizen. While it's true that your cartoonish portrayal of freedom is one possible interpretation, there are most certainly others, many of which present citizens with actual measurable freedoms that they would not enjoy in the US. For instance, Australians have, since the late 1990s, been relatively free of mass shootings, especially in schools or other public areas. Because the police are allowed to force you to take a random breathalyser test without probable cause, we are generally substantially freer of drunk driving. Because we have a social safety net, people are free from the need to opt out of life saving surgery because they fear the abject economic violence that the US visits upon the "uninsured". On the other hand, the US has substantially more sensible libel laws than most Commonwealth countries. These things can cut both ways, but it would be a mistake to interpret other countries as attempting a childish breath holding exercise just to differentiate themselves from the hip and cool nation.
    - refurb 2y ago
      > As a duel citizen of the US and another Commonwealth nation, I have to say that this is exactly the ridiculous self-caricature perspective that gives foreign nationals a sort of combination of pity and contempt for the average US citizen. Ahh, you see there you made a mistake. I'm not American. And your examples of "this is better" don't address the point I made - how Canadians identify themselves.
ekianjo 2y ago
> Putting fluoride in water promotes freedom. I rather define freedom by the government not deciding what's good for me
- aetimmes 2y ago
  You're free to get your water straight from the ground, then.
  - karparov 2y ago
    Or just not consume any water.
  - zo1 2y ago
    Are we also "free" to not pay "voluntary" taxes then? We have to understand that we're N-levels deep into this spaghetti mess, and as a consequence of that it's very hard to argue anything from first-principles or absolutes.
- espadrine 2y ago
  > I rather define freedom by the government not deciding what's good for me Does that mean you are against this bill? Before the bill, your community could either use your own water system, without fluoride, or use the wider system, which has fluoride. After this bill, your community no longer can use your own water system with fluoride, and the wider system also does not have fluoride. On a first read, this bill makes the government remove a choice for you, deciding what is good for you. (I don’t have a horse in this race honestly. Assuming everyone can get toothpaste and toothbrushes, the effect is the same. But the wording of the bill is strange: “may not add fluoride” rather than just “is allowed not to add”.) Source: https://archive.is/Nustz https://archive.is/Nustz
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    "Your community could decide" is not freedom in the American political sense. In US political theory, the unit of freedom is the individual, full stop.
nerdponx 2y ago
How is fluoridating water better than giving out free toothpaste and toothbrushes? Has the latter been tried? "Not keeping people trapped in poverty" would be nice too but for some reason that one seems off the table.
- thordenmark 2y ago
  We've been trying for the history of mankind to figure out how to "not keep people trapped in poverty". No one has solved that problem yet, despite the best of intentions with monumental effort. I'll agree with Milton Friedman on this, Capitalism, as bad as it is, has been the most successful system to alleviate poverty.
  - m2024 2y ago
    [dead]
  - nerdponx 2y ago
    This is getting wildly off topic, but I firmly believe that "we tried everything and free market capitalism is the best we have" is a myth. It's incontrovertible that, under certain conditions, an unrestricted price system (a "market") is the most efficient allocation mechanism possible. There's a lot of research on that kind of thing. The myth is that we have ever tried anything resembling that on a nationwide scale, or maybe even that it is achievable at all. There is a fundamental "paradox of tolerance" in economics, where market participants have strong and persistent incentives to distort or damage the market. This is why business interests so often align with free-market liberalism or conservatism. Most of the so-called deregulation under the current Trump administration for example as little to do with improving the efficiency of market allocation. It's much more about making sure very large and powerful corporations can get even larger and more powerful, and removing the regulatory apparatus to prevent them from distorting and damaging markets to suppress competition, or to suppress labor costs.
aikinai 2y ago
This started out as an interesting and fair take until “…enough to supplant it”. Freedom from the government is the original vision and one of the core principles of America assuming that anybody that wants smaller government just wants to supplant it is a massive misunderstanding of most Americans today and certainly the founding principles.
- hayst4ck 2y ago
  We can read this country's founding philosophy directly: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. It's not freedom from government but freedom from tyranny. They believed that governments existed to promote the protection of rights.
  - aikinai 2y ago
    Yeah, that’s just the start. “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This demonstrates an intentional effort by the founders to strictly limit federal authority by explicitly enumerating government powers and leaving everything else beyond federal reach. It underscores that their conception of freedom involved a government that was deliberately restrained, designed primarily to safeguard individual liberties by minimizing governmental interference, rather than merely protecting from outright tyranny.
concordDance 2y ago
The UK government is really big on doing things for our own good, but they don't seem to do much water flouridation. Which I think is some evidence that it's not a clearcut health benefit.
- chrz 2y ago
  Uk is one of the unhealthiest countries
  - wfme 2y ago
    UK: 34th USA: 69th https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/healthiest-countries https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/healthies...
- throwaway519 2y ago
  Exactly the opposite. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-and-care-bill-factsheets/health-and-care-bill-water-fluoridation https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-and-care-b... > We believe that water fluoridation is the single most effective public health measure there is for reducing oral health inequalities and tooth decay rates, especially amongst children. We welcome these proposals and believe they represent an opportunity to take a big step forward in not only improving this generation’s oral health, but those for decades to come.
  - concordDance 2y ago
    Do they do much floridation though?
fuckyah 2y ago
[dead]
karparov 2y ago
It's also restricting the freedom of communities if you ban them from adding fluoride to their water if they like to. This ban is anti-freedom. (Just like forcing them could be argued to be, even though that's what you argued against.) So, this ban is arguably reducing freedoms on multiple levels.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  In the political philosophy of the US, the unit whose freedoms matter is the individual, not the community. Freedoms for individuals necessarily come from reducing the freedom of "the community."
  - regularjack 2y ago
    AKA as the spoiled brat kind of freedom.
  - thelastgallon 2y ago
    In reality though, the freedom of the companies, which is just the freedom of the super rich ~100 - 1000 people (proxied via companies without taking direct responsibility: The sacred duty of company is to maximize shareholder returns!) 10,000 food additives that are banned in Europe are perfectly fine in US. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-food-additives-banned-europe-making-americans-sick-expert-says/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-food-additives-banned-europe... https://isitclean.org/the-ingredients-banned-in-the-eu-but-legal-in-the-us/ https://isitclean.org/the-ingredients-banned-in-the-eu-but-l...
  - Mordisquitos 2y ago
    But, taking the individual freedom argument to its ultimate implications, the Free individual is also Free to not drink tap water in a community that decided to add fluoride to their water supply, and is also Free to move to a community that decided against it.
    - kebman 2y ago
      It's not a "freedom" to be forced to move away from a community just because you want pure water. Moral philosophy: A democracy should not act as the tyranny of the majority, and governments (local or otherwise) should not overreach their mandate with monopolistic policies that negatively affect individual freedoms. Use the same argument on air and it falls apart. "The Free individual is also Free to not breathe air in a community that decided to add lead to their air supply." This was a big debate in the 70's btw due to car emissions.
kleiba 2y ago
I lived in Germany for a while. There, the water that comes out of your tab doesn't get fluorized. Instead, they add fluoride to tooth paste. So, is Germany less free or more free?
- Xelynega 2y ago
  I think you missed the point of "positive" versus "negative" freedoms. They have more of one, less of the other.
  - kleiba 2y ago
    Sorry if you read my post as snarky - I don't think I missed that point, I meant the question at the end more as food for thought. The OP contrasts adding fluroide to water vs. not adding fluoride to water and brings up the freedom question. I find that very interesting. But he omits that there's also the variant I sketched, namely that fluoride could still be made available to the population, but not through water. Now, how does this factoid relate to the freedom (positive or negative) question? So, please don't read my post as negative, my intent was to bring an additional perspective to the table.
    - lazyasciiart 2y ago
      America has that too so it’s irrelevant to the question?
- hanspeter 2y ago
  While they don't add fluoride, the natural levels in German tap water can reach 0.3 mg/L. Compared to the US recommended level of 0.7 mg/L in fluoridated water, that's not an insignificant amount.
- heavyset_go 2y ago
  > So, is Germany less free or more free? Can communities choose to fluoridate their water at the utility level or are they banned from doing so by legislation like they are in Utah?
jahnu 2y ago
Well said. Being poor charges interest.
bambax 2y ago
This is the same reasonning with vaccine (only worse because you can die faster from not being vaccinated than from cavities -- although in some cases they can be lethal too). People who want to be free from government interference should be prevented from using public roads, or public infrastructure of any kind. Want to mail something? Hire a courrier to deliver it for you. Etc.
- tonis2 2y ago
  I should pay 0 taxes then too
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Sure, go ahead, no taxes! But along with OP's rules against using public roads, or public infrastructure: You also can't use the public's air, because regulation keeps it clean. You can't eat at any restaurants, because the government regulates them and make sure they are serving safe food. No access to medicine, either, for the same reason. No airline travel, which is heavily regulated and safe, No working for any company subject to OSHA and other workplace safety regulations. No calling the police or fire department if you need help. Just you in your homestead in the woods--oh, and if someone robs your homestead, you don't have access to the courts to get your money back, either, money that you can't use anyway because it's issued by the government. No taxes in exchange for you not benefiting from anything taxpayer-funded. How does that libertarian paradise sound?
lionkor 2y ago
How many Americans consume enough tap water for this to be beneficial?
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  About 60% of bottled water in the US is sourced from municipal tap water systems: https://www.nyruralwater.org/news/study-shows-nearly-64-bottled-water-america-just-tap-water-here%E2%80%99s-brands https://www.nyruralwater.org/news/study-shows-nearly-64-bott...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- freeone3000 2y ago
  74.6% of Americans get fluoridated tap water; https://jada.ada.org/article/S0002-8177(24)00204-6/fulltext https://jada.ada.org/article/S0002-8177(24)00204-6/fulltext shows that even with instructions to brush and floss and instructions to use it, water flouridation reduces cavities in a community by at least 20%.
foldr 2y ago
That’s a very American perspective (which is fine, given that we are talking about America). Most countries would view this as a non-partisan public health policy issue which has nothing to do with the abstract philosophical debates about freedom beloved of 90s internet libertarians.
- brigandish 2y ago
  Isaiah Berlin wrote about the two concepts of liberty[0] in 1958 and the constitution of the US is based on negative liberty, so it goes back a bit further than the 90s. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Concepts_of_Liberty https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Concepts_of_Liberty
  - foldr 2y ago
    I'm aware of the history (I said "beloved of", not "invented by"). My point is that it's idiosyncratically American to think of decisions about municipal water treatment as being fundamentally questions of political liberty.
    - brigandish 2y ago
      I think it's nice that they consider liberty at all, it's rare where I come from.
basisword 2y ago
>> fluoridation in water some people are less sick and have more money and therefore are more free This is the real problem. That dental care, or any medical care, is costly.
impossiblefork 2y ago
But you will brush your teeth anyway, and then you apply fluoride topically. It works. Here in Sweden we decided against fluoride for this reason and the fact that it is in fact toxic. It isn't sensible to use systemic exposure when we can use topical exposure and can improve mouth health by education, so that people do what they're supposed to. The fluoride approach achieves a basic level of health, but you can do so much better.
- zouhair 2y ago
  Just an FYI, water is also toxic.
  - belter 2y ago
    Indeed: "Water Intoxication" - https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/water-intoxication https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/water-intoxic...
    - abrookewood 2y ago
      There was an infamous death in Australia when a young girl drank too much water after taking MDMA. It's blamed on the drug, but the thing that actually killed her was water intoxication: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Wood_(born_1980) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Wood_(born_1980)
      - mongol 2y ago
        It happened to a Swedish girl too. Not sure if it was after taking MDMA but it was after drug use.
  - abrookewood 2y ago
    Yes, I was going to mention this. Had a friend who went down the coast for a day trip with a bunch of mates. On the way back on the train (1.5 hour ride) they had a competition to see who could drink the most water and most of them had several litres, a few of them managed a bit more. My mate also had a bunch of chips/snacks, but not everyone did. Later that night, he got a desperate phone from his friends mum, screaming at him "What did you take! What drugs did you take!!!", he replied that they hadn't taken anything, but wasn't really believed. His friend was rushed to hospital with severe seizures and convulsions. The doctors eventually put him on a saline drip and he recovered. Basically his friend lowered the salt content in his body so much that his body could not pass electrical signals. My friend was fine because he had consumed a bit of salt in his snacks. Kinda crazy.
heavyset_go 2y ago
Fluoridated water, enriched flour, iodized salt, vaccines, etc. are why we don't see diseases and conditions that plagued us in the past and continue to plague people in places without these measures. Fluoridated water is the reason I've never had a cavity despite growing up poor with a terrible diet, dental hygiene and care.
- manmal 2y ago
  > Fluoridated water is the reason I've never had a cavity despite growing up poor with a terrible diet, dental hygiene and care. I don’t follow the leap here. You could just be blessed with a good oral microbiome, proper calcium, D3 (sunlight exposure?), K2 etc. Going by your logic, there should be no dentists in the US.
  - heavyset_go 2y ago
    There is no leap, when I finally got good access to dental care, I've had dentists tell me water fluoridation is what kept me from tooth decay in the chronic absence of dental care and basic hygiene.
- gorgoiler 2y ago
  Enriched flour is another good example that I was hoping someone would mention*. It’s worth noting that it’s also slightly different in that processed flour is deficient in thiamin and calcium, so the fortification adds back these nutrients. On the other hand, processing water to make it potable doesn’t remove fluoride and so fluoridation is not the process of adding back something that was there beforehand. *I searched this page and found flouride and flouridation four times before your comment.
- the__alchemist 2y ago
  I've seen the enriched flour brought up a few times in this thread, and not with the important caveat: This is a poor substitute for the micronutrients that occur naturally in the bran and endosperm; parts of the grain that we've been stripping out for dubious reasons or 50-100 years. (In ~100% of restaurant and bakery food; ~90% of grocery food)
ost-ing 2y ago
Rather than taking choice away, we should be educating people on what the best choice is and letting them make it themselves. Brush your teeth in the morning and in the evening. Standard dental hygiene - If a person can be an obedient worker they can probably brush their teeth twice a day. If they cant, they have bigger problems to sort out.
- rusk 2y ago
  This is a fair point, and in modern times, where we have good public health education it makes more sense to take this approach. However this comes with the weighty caveat that there are public groups that actively agitate against public health campaigns. On balance I think defluoridation makes sense where you have good public health communication.
- NomDePlum 2y ago
  Is that not just a passive form of putting fluoride in the water though? Government is still spending money but without the desired outcome of having a healthier fitter population.
- ericb 2y ago
  > educating people on what the best choice is and letting them make it themselves. If we go that way, we should have some sort of Department, to make sure Of the Education being consistent.
baxuz 2y ago
That is not a very good reason. An absurd version of that would be putting antibiotics into the water because a lot of people don't have health insurance and can get infections.
- rusk 2y ago
  Comparing Fluoride and Antibiotics is absurd. At least one of these things is supported by public health officials and isn’t unequivocally stupid.
  - gruez 2y ago
    So if the Science™ said it was good to add antibiotics (reduces illness!) and anti-psychotics (reduces violence!) to the water supply, you'd be for it?
    - rusk 2y ago
      That’s an even stupider comparison than the antibiotics one. Let’s dismantle what you did here that you think is so clever. You took an absurd comparison of a tried and tested naturally occurring substance with a substance that public health professionals are trying to get us to use less of. You took that, and replaced it with an even more far-fetched and even more generalised hypothetical. At least, given your ignorance around antibiotics you might be forgiven for thinking it would be a good thing to give antibiotics for all. I mean if it’s good enough for your food supply it should be good enough for humans right? Ignore egg prices going through the roof cause your flock has no innate immune system. So then you replace that reasonable sounding but stupid supposition and you replace it with “a word” that you pulled out of the air that sounds like it might be a thing and then wowed us with your abuse of glyphs™ You are nothing but a depressing waste of time and whoever is putting you up to this I’d suggest you go back to them with your cap in hand and admit you’re not up to it. I enjoyed that. Thanks for the run-out.
      - beeflet 2y ago
        [flagged]
pembrook 2y ago
Always question whenever a highly educated and thoughtful (and likely wealthy) person like this commenter is telling you poor people are too stupid for their own good and can’t make decisions for themselves. This is the definition of the principal-agent problem. Also, “positive freedom” is a hilarious rebranding of dictatorial decision making. Why not grant more “positive freedom” to the people by deciding exactly what these poor people should do for a living, how they should live, and how they should spend their money. The experts know best, after all. I’m not even particularly against fluoride in water, but this kind of reasoning is insidious. If the people have voted for representatives that are against it, we should follow the will of the people. This is the definition of democracy.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
logicchains 2y ago
Excessive fluoride exposure is associated with reduced childhood IQ: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2828425?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/... . Giving poor people (the ones who can't afford to drink bottles water or buy a fancy filter) means to moderate their fluoride intake this risk is creating lower-iq, more obedient workers.
immibis 2y ago
The American view of "freedom" is all messed up. You're "free" if the government doesn't tell you to do stuff. Even if corporations make you do stuff, even if they make you do more stuff the government did, that's somehow "free". And "stuff" somehow only includes trivial things like water fluoridation. No freedom-loving American patriot ever said America isn't free because cops can just murder you if they don't like you.
unsupp0rted 2y ago
> The contrasting view is that putting fluoride in water is literally medicating people without their affirmative consent. Is that the contrasting view, or the contrasting view that is preferred, because it is more easily demolished? The stronger contrasting view isn't that the government is medicating people without their affirmative consent. It's that it's poisoning people, and no amount of consent by laymen to be poisoned would be acceptable.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  I think his view is much stronger, since the intent is obviously to medicate even if it may indeed be inadvertently poisoning people in practice. So it doesn't assume one truth (poison or not) one way or the other, but still argues that it should be unlawful. While your view is much more narrow and suggests it should only be unlawful because it's poisoning people, which then begs the question of whether it is or not.
- audunw 2y ago
  Fluoride occurs naturally in water, that’s literally how we discovered the effects of fluoride. People in areas where water naturally contained more fluoride had less cavities. Anything, including water itself, is toxic (not poisonous, but I’m guessing you meant toxic, since fluoride is definitely not poisonous) in high enough doses. So you could say that about ANY mineral we may add to water to adjust its taste or health effects. I happen to think adding fluoride isn’t worth the effort. But the hysteria against it is also really dumb.
hilbert42 2y ago
So then, you'd also be against adding folate/folic acid to bread for the same reason? For those who don't know many countries including the US mandate the inclusion of folic acid in bread and certain other foods to ensure pregnant women get enough. A deficiency of folic acid during pregnancy causes birth defects in infants. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folate
- aziaziazi 2y ago
  I never heard of that supplement (not a father) and was very surprised to find 80 countries mandate it. I checked the list (below) and it turns out the 80 countries are a bunch of poor nations plus USA, UAE, Qatar, Canada and Australia. I guess our medicare system supports the EU mothers fine enough so we don’t need to put that in the staple of food. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5809909/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5809909/ (Table 1)
  - hilbert42 2y ago
    It would be interesting to know why EU countries chose not to mandate it. Also, I wonder if EU flour millers/producers add it voluntarily, and whether flour produced in Canada destined for EU markets leaves out the folate that's mandated for inclusion in the Canadian market.
  - WrongAssumption 2y ago
    Or you have just been sweeping preventable birth defects under the rug. The UK determined that had been happening and are going to start doing it. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c206d60xe7no https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c206d60xe7no
  - mandevil 2y ago
    https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8264257/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8264257/ 2023 Study: "Despite Public Health Initiatives across Europe recommending that women take 0.4 mg folic acid before becoming pregnant and during the first trimester, the prevalence of NTD pregnancies has not materially decreased in the EU since 1998, in contrast to the dramatic fall observed in the USA. This study aimed to estimate the number of NTD pregnancies that would have been prevented if flour had been fortified with folic acid in Europe from 1998 as it had been in the USA." "Conclusions: This study suggests that failure to implement mandatory folic acid fortification in the 28 European countries has caused, and continues to cause, neural tube defects to occur in almost 1,000 pregnancies every year." The most famous NTD is Spina Bifida, and most of them aren't really fixable by modern health care. So this is 1000 babies a year who are either born with severe birth defects, or, in what I'm guessing is many cases, terminated when they could have been born healthy with a flour enrichment mandate.
shireboy 2y ago
This take has a few problems: Poor people in the US are capable of using fluoride toothpaste and flossing. At least at homeless shelters at outreach things I’ve been to, toothpaste and toothbrushes are freely available. Your argument hinges on them being incapable on the whole and needing a Benevolent But Superior Intelligence to provide an alternative for them. Second, it completely ignores any debate over effectiveness or side effects. It could well be that fluoride in water is great for teeth but bad for brains. The objections to fluoride in water I’ve seen are more along those lines. Im not clear the validity of those claims but for example anti fluoride advocates don’t typically object to chlorine in water to kill germs. That seems the core issue- without bias from stakeholders, is the benefit of fluoride proven and the risks disproven? It’s hard to answer because a study needs to span many years and exclude many variables. And in general I think that is what needs to happen with these type debates. Take them _out_ of the sphere of charged political opinion and focus on getting to the objective truth of risks and benefits, then be transparent. People can handle “here are the known pros and cons and what we think that means” over “there are only pros and no cons and if you disagree you hate poor people”
- lee_ars 2y ago
  > Second, it completely ignores any debate over effectiveness or side effects. It could well be that fluoride in water is great for teeth but bad for brains. Except it's not—fluoride in the drinking water concentrations is proven safe and it doesn't affect brains. > Im not clear the validity of those claims Thoroughly scientifically debunked. Repeatedly, over decades. > That seems the core issue- without bias from stakeholders, is the benefit of fluoride proven and the risks disproven? It’s hard to answer because a study needs to span many years and exclude many variables. No, it's not hard to answer, because all those studies have been done and the results were that fluoride is safe. > And in general I think that is what needs to happen with these type debates. What needs to stop happening is people ignoring objective reality just because the results happen to align with the other "team's" position on something.
  - themgt 2y ago
    What needs to stop happening is people ignoring objective reality just because the results happen to align with the other "team's" position on something. "Out of a population of about three-quarters of a billion, under 14 million people (approximately 2%) in Europe receive artificially-fluoridated water." The problem I continually see in the USA is the ascription of differences of opinion on [any topic] to America's Great Divide between enlightenment and barbarism. I find it often helpful to just check, what do these policies look like outside of America? It doesn't mean Europe got it right on fluoride, it just suggests against adopting the framing that your POV is 100% objective reality proven beyond doubt by Science™ and no rational person not in the throes of "own the [other team]" bad faith might disagree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_country#Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_country#...
johntitorjr 2y ago
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thatcat 2y ago
Fluoride has to be applied to the surface at a high concentration for brief contact time to be effective. What is the freedom to sell industrial waste to the government to pointlessly add to the water supply for profit called?
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bobjordan 2y ago
What in the Berkeley kind of logic is this? You have a pretty solid core logical structure. But, the conclusion is weak. The argument’s weakness lies in its simplifications and the final political assertion, which, although plausible within certain ideological frameworks, isn't logically proven by the earlier premise.
_ZeD_ 2y ago
> Putting fluoride in water promotes freedom. That sounds crazy, but let me justify it. > If you are poor you can't go anywhere or buy anything. You're not free if you're poor. If you are sick, you may be confined to a hospital bed or not feel good enough to do anything. If you are sick you're not free. or, you know, you could avoid the problem in the first place and allow "even poors" to go somewhere or buy something... at least base items, and medicines... this way they could afford dental costs, and you could spare the need to add fluoride in the water
cpursley 2y ago
The issue is not the fluoride in the water, it's all the sugar that poor people eat and drink (especially sodas). And we actively fund the corn syrup industry at both ends via the farm bill (production and consumption via SNAP).
- bdzr 2y ago
  Also tariffs on cane sugar.
  - cpursley 2y ago
    Forgot about that one, yup.
wisty 2y ago
I think it's a reductionist word game to reduce everything to a single dimension ("freedom") and then say "I think my policy is better, and since everything can reduce to a single variable it means there is more freedom". If a right-wing voter thinks banning gay marriage is good for society, it is also positive freedom? If your counter-argument is "no, because while it would be positive freedom if it was good for society, it's not" then maybe I'm just disareeing on your terminology, but I suspect you would say "heck no, telling people what they can't do is not freedom, that's an abuse of the English language as well as being bad for society". Governments exist to take away some freedoms, it's the whole point of them. People vote for governmets to take away freedoms (with laws and taxes) and get things like public services, justice systems and infrastructure in return. Ideally, they lean towards things that give you a lot of bang for your buck (like flourine), because taking away freedom is not good for creating a dynamic society, and they should be accountable to voters. Just say that anyone who objects is an anarchist if you want to take the moral high ground from the right in terms they understand.
brigandish 2y ago
> The contrast between positive freedom, the freedom to do something, and negative freedom, the freedom from interference in your life, is the core political argument in America right now. True. > Negative freedom, freedom from government interference, is being promoted by those seeking to weaken the government enough to supplant it. Tenuous. Then again, like you, all of my political opponents are either stupid or evil or both. > People who are poor and sick are likely unable to stand up for themselves or participate in solidarity against authority. Contentious. Sometimes this is true, sometimes it is not - giving negative liberty rights (e.g. first amendment speech protections) to individuals has proven an incredibly effective tool to protect the individual against the state. Not perfect, but incredibly effective all the same. > This individual issue is relatively small, but you take 100's of issues like this, and the effect is to create a class of people who aren't able to do anything but be obedient workers. Any supporter of negative liberty (i.e. someone who is for small government) would tell you, that is what government does, which is a big reason why they want small government.
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marhee 2y ago
According to that logic, why not distribute fluoride water freely for those who want it? That would serve boths camps, not?
- wtcactus 2y ago
  There's no such thing as "free" when something is "given" by a public entity. It always costs the people that actually work and are forcibly taxed, something.
rcpt 2y ago
> the government forcing you to take a medication. You're free to drink water that's not from the tap. Companies sell this legally. The government doesn't force anything
- deleted 2y ago
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ninalanyon 2y ago
> If you are poor you can't go anywhere or buy anything. You're not free if you're poor. The solution is lifting people out of poverty not papering over the cracks with fluoride. There is no fluoride in the water here in Norway yet dental health is good because of good education, free dental care for children, students pregnant women, and little absolute poverty.

guerrilla 2y ago

> The contrast between positive freedom, the freedom to do something, and negative freedom, the freedom from interference in your life, is the core political argument in America right now. Interesing take but I don't buy this part at all. The core political argument in the US is epistemological. What's real and what counts as true? There are some axiological differences but I think they are minor in comparison to not being able to agree on how the world is in the first place.

rocqua 2y ago
It seems to be that the battleground is epistemological, but not so much the argument. The difference being that Trump uses 'claims of truth' without any care of how true they are. I feel the majority of epistemological disagreement is the result of propaganda (not exclusively from MAGA). With only a small bit that is actually a disagreement on core values. Suchs true disagreement does exist, but it is no longer what the political discourse is about.
- guerrilla 2y ago
  That sounds like what I meant.

verisimi 2y ago

Perhaps, vitamins, micro doses of aspirin, and other low level medical treatments should also be added to water, for the benefit of the silent poor and sick.

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hayst4ck 2y ago
Like the vitamins and minerals added to cereals/milk or the iodine added to salt?
- pipes 2y ago
  Or the iron that I wish they wouldn't add as it means I can't eat them due to my medical condition.
- aikinai 2y ago
  Those don’t have a monopoly.
hkt 2y ago
Are they silent, or just not being represented by the American press?
danparsonson 2y ago
The trouble with slippery slopes is that they carry you away from productive discussion.
- verisimi 2y ago
  One man's slippery slope, is another man's exploration of an idea. I don't think exploring widely is unproductive. I could also say, that discussing slippery slopes (a linguistic discussion) is itself what moves the discussion too far from the original topic. You protest too much.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago

thehappypm 2y ago

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chucky_z 2y ago
The main study I can find referenced to this was based in China where levels of flouride in water appear to be much higher than in the US. Even the study itself calls out 'low-flouride' vs 'high-flouride.' Not 'no flouride.' Utah is going to have a dental crisis in a few years, as there already too few dentists.
- attila-lendvai 2y ago
  reality check: europe never had fluoride in the water. still looking for the dental crisis.
  - genewitch 2y ago
    Tea has fluoride in it. Not saying that's the only reason, but perhaps one.
    - ekianjo 2y ago
      Then Americans who drink tea get a double dose of fluoride without knowing it. How does that work with the studies?
      - genewitch 2y ago
        i started and then deleted several responses to this. I'm not sure how it affects studies, because i don't really read studies that often, it's very taxing on my brain. However, one thing i think is important is it's generally a good idea to give children as little caffeine as possible. I'm sure this is a controversial claim. But if we take that as true, then children aren't getting fluoride from tea, ideally. Adults can make the decision to drink tea that has less or more fluoride, if they care. I personally don't care that much, so i get whatever tea. I have a well, and i brew my tea with distilled water, so whatever is in the bag is whatever i am drinking, and nothing else. for those that might care, i RO my well water (screen-pre-RO-post filters) into 6 gallon containers, and then distill a gallon at a time. Each gallon of RO water takes ~5 hours total, including the time for the RO to process the water. My RO is very slow, but i am unwilling to pay for a jet pump for it, currently, to speed it up. It takes about 7-8 hours to fill 6 gallons, and it should be able to fill 6 gallons in 3 hours or so - it is a 50GPD filter system, so ~2GPH.

pipes 2y ago

"freedom from government interference, is being promoted by those seeking to weaken the government enough to supplant it" That is a very big generalisation. There are many legitimate reasons for reducing government interference and reducing the size of government.

danparsonson 2y ago
No it isn't - OP didn't say everyone who promotes that idea wants to weaken the government, but rather those who wish to weaken the government are promoting that idea.
rocqua 2y ago
Currently, there is a very effective push by people who want to weaken the government enough to supplant it. They are giving themselves ideological coverage by claiming they protecting people from interference. Is that a rephrasing you could live with?

artvandelai 2y ago

Adding fluoride to water was revolutionary in the 1940s, but its benefits have significantly declined since fluoride toothpaste became common in the 1970s. While fluoridation made sense when products containing fluoride weren't widely available, it is much less effective and necessary now. Sure, some countries and communities may still see benefits from it, but widespread fluoridation doesn't seem necessary in many parts of the world.

estebank 2y ago
There's a huge difference between "no longer as necessary" and "let's ban it".
- theteapot 2y ago
  There is difference between banning and just deciding putting fluoride in public drinking water too. Who are they banning? Themselves?
  - nerdponx 2y ago
    Water treatment is usually done at the municipal or regional level. The state government is declaring that towns and cities may not do this. The alternative would be each and every municipal water authority deciding on its own.
    - deleted 2y ago
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    - idiotsecant 2y ago
      The horror.
- deleted 2y ago
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- emmelaich 2y ago
  Yeah but anyone can buy fluoride toothpaste so not really banned.

vasco 2y ago

The government can give out toothpaste in school, it doesn't need to add things to water. The inviolability or integrity of one's own body to me is more important than any of this. You have the right to decide what medication to be given to you with informed consent always, or you have no freedom. Otherwise the freedom argument collapses and you stop having reasons to allow abortions, or a bunch of other informed consent situations. And "knowing better" than poor people "for their own good" usually doesn't go well (for the people).

mcny 2y ago
Would you also ban iron in wheat flour?
- vasco 2y ago
  I support the language here: https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/3-right-integrity-person https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/3-right-integrit... Article 3 - Right to integrity of the person 1. Everyone has the right to respect for his or her physical and mental integrity. 2. In the fields of medicine and biology, the following must be respected in particular: (a) the free and informed consent of the person concerned, according to the procedures laid down by law; (b) the prohibition of eugenic practices, in particular those aiming at the selection of persons; (c) the prohibition on making the human body and its parts as such a source of financial gain; (d) the prohibition of the reproductive cloning of human beings.
- wqaatwt 2y ago
  You can presumably buy a different brand of flour or find a different source quite easily? Same applies to most other “fortified” products. With water your’e basically forced to waste money on bottled water or very expensive filtration systems. But yes, adding additional vitamins or minerals to food products is generally unnecessary when supplements are generally cheap and highly available these days.
  - mcny 2y ago
    The knowledge about the supplements we need also cheap and highly available and yet lots of people don't have it. I myself don't know all the supplements I need. I feel like for better or worse we are being forced into an era of individual responsibilities where the safeguards that we used to rely on without having to think are being actively dismantled.

jvm___ 2y ago

Freedom from is the American way. Freedom to is the Canadian way. That's why Canada becoming an American anything is ridiculous and pisses off Canada so much that, for example, we've reduced our flights to America by +70% over the coming months.

refurb 2y ago
Canada does the opposite of America even if it hurts Canada - it’s a part of its identity. Redefining freedom as “forcing something on people for their own good” is not how anyone actually defines freedom. It’s like saying children have the most freedom because their parents force them to do things that will benefit them.
- jclulow 2y ago
  > Canada does the opposite of America even if it hurts Canada - it’s a part of its identity. As a duel citizen of the US and another Commonwealth nation, I have to say that this is exactly the ridiculous self-caricature perspective that gives foreign nationals a sort of combination of pity and contempt for the average US citizen. While it's true that your cartoonish portrayal of freedom is one possible interpretation, there are most certainly others, many of which present citizens with actual measurable freedoms that they would not enjoy in the US. For instance, Australians have, since the late 1990s, been relatively free of mass shootings, especially in schools or other public areas. Because the police are allowed to force you to take a random breathalyser test without probable cause, we are generally substantially freer of drunk driving. Because we have a social safety net, people are free from the need to opt out of life saving surgery because they fear the abject economic violence that the US visits upon the "uninsured". On the other hand, the US has substantially more sensible libel laws than most Commonwealth countries. These things can cut both ways, but it would be a mistake to interpret other countries as attempting a childish breath holding exercise just to differentiate themselves from the hip and cool nation.
  - refurb 2y ago
    > As a duel citizen of the US and another Commonwealth nation, I have to say that this is exactly the ridiculous self-caricature perspective that gives foreign nationals a sort of combination of pity and contempt for the average US citizen. Ahh, you see there you made a mistake. I'm not American. And your examples of "this is better" don't address the point I made - how Canadians identify themselves.

ekianjo 2y ago

> Putting fluoride in water promotes freedom. I rather define freedom by the government not deciding what's good for me

aetimmes 2y ago
You're free to get your water straight from the ground, then.
- karparov 2y ago
  Or just not consume any water.
- zo1 2y ago
  Are we also "free" to not pay "voluntary" taxes then? We have to understand that we're N-levels deep into this spaghetti mess, and as a consequence of that it's very hard to argue anything from first-principles or absolutes.
espadrine 2y ago
> I rather define freedom by the government not deciding what's good for me Does that mean you are against this bill? Before the bill, your community could either use your own water system, without fluoride, or use the wider system, which has fluoride. After this bill, your community no longer can use your own water system with fluoride, and the wider system also does not have fluoride. On a first read, this bill makes the government remove a choice for you, deciding what is good for you. (I don’t have a horse in this race honestly. Assuming everyone can get toothpaste and toothbrushes, the effect is the same. But the wording of the bill is strange: “may not add fluoride” rather than just “is allowed not to add”.) Source: https://archive.is/Nustz https://archive.is/Nustz
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  "Your community could decide" is not freedom in the American political sense. In US political theory, the unit of freedom is the individual, full stop.

nerdponx 2y ago

How is fluoridating water better than giving out free toothpaste and toothbrushes? Has the latter been tried? "Not keeping people trapped in poverty" would be nice too but for some reason that one seems off the table.

thordenmark 2y ago
We've been trying for the history of mankind to figure out how to "not keep people trapped in poverty". No one has solved that problem yet, despite the best of intentions with monumental effort. I'll agree with Milton Friedman on this, Capitalism, as bad as it is, has been the most successful system to alleviate poverty.
- m2024 2y ago
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- nerdponx 2y ago
  This is getting wildly off topic, but I firmly believe that "we tried everything and free market capitalism is the best we have" is a myth. It's incontrovertible that, under certain conditions, an unrestricted price system (a "market") is the most efficient allocation mechanism possible. There's a lot of research on that kind of thing. The myth is that we have ever tried anything resembling that on a nationwide scale, or maybe even that it is achievable at all. There is a fundamental "paradox of tolerance" in economics, where market participants have strong and persistent incentives to distort or damage the market. This is why business interests so often align with free-market liberalism or conservatism. Most of the so-called deregulation under the current Trump administration for example as little to do with improving the efficiency of market allocation. It's much more about making sure very large and powerful corporations can get even larger and more powerful, and removing the regulatory apparatus to prevent them from distorting and damaging markets to suppress competition, or to suppress labor costs.

aikinai 2y ago

This started out as an interesting and fair take until “…enough to supplant it”. Freedom from the government is the original vision and one of the core principles of America assuming that anybody that wants smaller government just wants to supplant it is a massive misunderstanding of most Americans today and certainly the founding principles.

hayst4ck 2y ago
We can read this country's founding philosophy directly: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. It's not freedom from government but freedom from tyranny. They believed that governments existed to promote the protection of rights.
- aikinai 2y ago
  Yeah, that’s just the start. “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This demonstrates an intentional effort by the founders to strictly limit federal authority by explicitly enumerating government powers and leaving everything else beyond federal reach. It underscores that their conception of freedom involved a government that was deliberately restrained, designed primarily to safeguard individual liberties by minimizing governmental interference, rather than merely protecting from outright tyranny.

concordDance 2y ago

The UK government is really big on doing things for our own good, but they don't seem to do much water flouridation. Which I think is some evidence that it's not a clearcut health benefit.

chrz 2y ago
Uk is one of the unhealthiest countries
- wfme 2y ago
  UK: 34th USA: 69th https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/healthiest-countries https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/healthies...
throwaway519 2y ago
Exactly the opposite. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-and-care-bill-factsheets/health-and-care-bill-water-fluoridation https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-and-care-b... > We believe that water fluoridation is the single most effective public health measure there is for reducing oral health inequalities and tooth decay rates, especially amongst children. We welcome these proposals and believe they represent an opportunity to take a big step forward in not only improving this generation’s oral health, but those for decades to come.
- concordDance 2y ago
  Do they do much floridation though?

fuckyah 2y ago

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karparov 2y ago

It's also restricting the freedom of communities if you ban them from adding fluoride to their water if they like to. This ban is anti-freedom. (Just like forcing them could be argued to be, even though that's what you argued against.) So, this ban is arguably reducing freedoms on multiple levels.

pclmulqdq 2y ago
In the political philosophy of the US, the unit whose freedoms matter is the individual, not the community. Freedoms for individuals necessarily come from reducing the freedom of "the community."
- regularjack 2y ago
  AKA as the spoiled brat kind of freedom.
- thelastgallon 2y ago
  In reality though, the freedom of the companies, which is just the freedom of the super rich ~100 - 1000 people (proxied via companies without taking direct responsibility: The sacred duty of company is to maximize shareholder returns!) 10,000 food additives that are banned in Europe are perfectly fine in US. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-food-additives-banned-europe-making-americans-sick-expert-says/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-food-additives-banned-europe... https://isitclean.org/the-ingredients-banned-in-the-eu-but-legal-in-the-us/ https://isitclean.org/the-ingredients-banned-in-the-eu-but-l...
- Mordisquitos 2y ago
  But, taking the individual freedom argument to its ultimate implications, the Free individual is also Free to not drink tap water in a community that decided to add fluoride to their water supply, and is also Free to move to a community that decided against it.
  - kebman 2y ago
    It's not a "freedom" to be forced to move away from a community just because you want pure water. Moral philosophy: A democracy should not act as the tyranny of the majority, and governments (local or otherwise) should not overreach their mandate with monopolistic policies that negatively affect individual freedoms. Use the same argument on air and it falls apart. "The Free individual is also Free to not breathe air in a community that decided to add lead to their air supply." This was a big debate in the 70's btw due to car emissions.

kleiba 2y ago

I lived in Germany for a while. There, the water that comes out of your tab doesn't get fluorized. Instead, they add fluoride to tooth paste. So, is Germany less free or more free?

Xelynega 2y ago
I think you missed the point of "positive" versus "negative" freedoms. They have more of one, less of the other.
- kleiba 2y ago
  Sorry if you read my post as snarky - I don't think I missed that point, I meant the question at the end more as food for thought. The OP contrasts adding fluroide to water vs. not adding fluoride to water and brings up the freedom question. I find that very interesting. But he omits that there's also the variant I sketched, namely that fluoride could still be made available to the population, but not through water. Now, how does this factoid relate to the freedom (positive or negative) question? So, please don't read my post as negative, my intent was to bring an additional perspective to the table.
  - lazyasciiart 2y ago
    America has that too so it’s irrelevant to the question?
hanspeter 2y ago
While they don't add fluoride, the natural levels in German tap water can reach 0.3 mg/L. Compared to the US recommended level of 0.7 mg/L in fluoridated water, that's not an insignificant amount.
heavyset_go 2y ago
> So, is Germany less free or more free? Can communities choose to fluoridate their water at the utility level or are they banned from doing so by legislation like they are in Utah?

jahnu 2y ago

Well said. Being poor charges interest.

bambax 2y ago

This is the same reasonning with vaccine (only worse because you can die faster from not being vaccinated than from cavities -- although in some cases they can be lethal too). People who want to be free from government interference should be prevented from using public roads, or public infrastructure of any kind. Want to mail something? Hire a courrier to deliver it for you. Etc.

tonis2 2y ago
I should pay 0 taxes then too
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Sure, go ahead, no taxes! But along with OP's rules against using public roads, or public infrastructure: You also can't use the public's air, because regulation keeps it clean. You can't eat at any restaurants, because the government regulates them and make sure they are serving safe food. No access to medicine, either, for the same reason. No airline travel, which is heavily regulated and safe, No working for any company subject to OSHA and other workplace safety regulations. No calling the police or fire department if you need help. Just you in your homestead in the woods--oh, and if someone robs your homestead, you don't have access to the courts to get your money back, either, money that you can't use anyway because it's issued by the government. No taxes in exchange for you not benefiting from anything taxpayer-funded. How does that libertarian paradise sound?

lionkor 2y ago

How many Americans consume enough tap water for this to be beneficial?

InsideOutSanta 2y ago
About 60% of bottled water in the US is sourced from municipal tap water systems: https://www.nyruralwater.org/news/study-shows-nearly-64-bottled-water-america-just-tap-water-here%E2%80%99s-brands https://www.nyruralwater.org/news/study-shows-nearly-64-bott...
- deleted 2y ago
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freeone3000 2y ago
74.6% of Americans get fluoridated tap water; https://jada.ada.org/article/S0002-8177(24)00204-6/fulltext https://jada.ada.org/article/S0002-8177(24)00204-6/fulltext shows that even with instructions to brush and floss and instructions to use it, water flouridation reduces cavities in a community by at least 20%.

foldr 2y ago

That’s a very American perspective (which is fine, given that we are talking about America). Most countries would view this as a non-partisan public health policy issue which has nothing to do with the abstract philosophical debates about freedom beloved of 90s internet libertarians.

brigandish 2y ago
Isaiah Berlin wrote about the two concepts of liberty[0] in 1958 and the constitution of the US is based on negative liberty, so it goes back a bit further than the 90s. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Concepts_of_Liberty https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Concepts_of_Liberty
- foldr 2y ago
  I'm aware of the history (I said "beloved of", not "invented by"). My point is that it's idiosyncratically American to think of decisions about municipal water treatment as being fundamentally questions of political liberty.
  - brigandish 2y ago
    I think it's nice that they consider liberty at all, it's rare where I come from.

basisword 2y ago

>> fluoridation in water some people are less sick and have more money and therefore are more free This is the real problem. That dental care, or any medical care, is costly.

impossiblefork 2y ago

But you will brush your teeth anyway, and then you apply fluoride topically. It works. Here in Sweden we decided against fluoride for this reason and the fact that it is in fact toxic. It isn't sensible to use systemic exposure when we can use topical exposure and can improve mouth health by education, so that people do what they're supposed to. The fluoride approach achieves a basic level of health, but you can do so much better.

zouhair 2y ago
Just an FYI, water is also toxic.
- belter 2y ago
  Indeed: "Water Intoxication" - https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/water-intoxication https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/water-intoxic...
  - abrookewood 2y ago
    There was an infamous death in Australia when a young girl drank too much water after taking MDMA. It's blamed on the drug, but the thing that actually killed her was water intoxication: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Wood_(born_1980) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Wood_(born_1980)
    - mongol 2y ago
      It happened to a Swedish girl too. Not sure if it was after taking MDMA but it was after drug use.
- abrookewood 2y ago
  Yes, I was going to mention this. Had a friend who went down the coast for a day trip with a bunch of mates. On the way back on the train (1.5 hour ride) they had a competition to see who could drink the most water and most of them had several litres, a few of them managed a bit more. My mate also had a bunch of chips/snacks, but not everyone did. Later that night, he got a desperate phone from his friends mum, screaming at him "What did you take! What drugs did you take!!!", he replied that they hadn't taken anything, but wasn't really believed. His friend was rushed to hospital with severe seizures and convulsions. The doctors eventually put him on a saline drip and he recovered. Basically his friend lowered the salt content in his body so much that his body could not pass electrical signals. My friend was fine because he had consumed a bit of salt in his snacks. Kinda crazy.

heavyset_go 2y ago

Fluoridated water, enriched flour, iodized salt, vaccines, etc. are why we don't see diseases and conditions that plagued us in the past and continue to plague people in places without these measures. Fluoridated water is the reason I've never had a cavity despite growing up poor with a terrible diet, dental hygiene and care.

manmal 2y ago
> Fluoridated water is the reason I've never had a cavity despite growing up poor with a terrible diet, dental hygiene and care. I don’t follow the leap here. You could just be blessed with a good oral microbiome, proper calcium, D3 (sunlight exposure?), K2 etc. Going by your logic, there should be no dentists in the US.
- heavyset_go 2y ago
  There is no leap, when I finally got good access to dental care, I've had dentists tell me water fluoridation is what kept me from tooth decay in the chronic absence of dental care and basic hygiene.
gorgoiler 2y ago
Enriched flour is another good example that I was hoping someone would mention*. It’s worth noting that it’s also slightly different in that processed flour is deficient in thiamin and calcium, so the fortification adds back these nutrients. On the other hand, processing water to make it potable doesn’t remove fluoride and so fluoridation is not the process of adding back something that was there beforehand. *I searched this page and found flouride and flouridation four times before your comment.
the__alchemist 2y ago
I've seen the enriched flour brought up a few times in this thread, and not with the important caveat: This is a poor substitute for the micronutrients that occur naturally in the bran and endosperm; parts of the grain that we've been stripping out for dubious reasons or 50-100 years. (In ~100% of restaurant and bakery food; ~90% of grocery food)

ost-ing 2y ago

Rather than taking choice away, we should be educating people on what the best choice is and letting them make it themselves. Brush your teeth in the morning and in the evening. Standard dental hygiene - If a person can be an obedient worker they can probably brush their teeth twice a day. If they cant, they have bigger problems to sort out.

rusk 2y ago
This is a fair point, and in modern times, where we have good public health education it makes more sense to take this approach. However this comes with the weighty caveat that there are public groups that actively agitate against public health campaigns. On balance I think defluoridation makes sense where you have good public health communication.
NomDePlum 2y ago
Is that not just a passive form of putting fluoride in the water though? Government is still spending money but without the desired outcome of having a healthier fitter population.
ericb 2y ago
> educating people on what the best choice is and letting them make it themselves. If we go that way, we should have some sort of Department, to make sure Of the Education being consistent.

baxuz 2y ago

That is not a very good reason. An absurd version of that would be putting antibiotics into the water because a lot of people don't have health insurance and can get infections.

rusk 2y ago
Comparing Fluoride and Antibiotics is absurd. At least one of these things is supported by public health officials and isn’t unequivocally stupid.
- gruez 2y ago
  So if the Science™ said it was good to add antibiotics (reduces illness!) and anti-psychotics (reduces violence!) to the water supply, you'd be for it?
  - rusk 2y ago
    That’s an even stupider comparison than the antibiotics one. Let’s dismantle what you did here that you think is so clever. You took an absurd comparison of a tried and tested naturally occurring substance with a substance that public health professionals are trying to get us to use less of. You took that, and replaced it with an even more far-fetched and even more generalised hypothetical. At least, given your ignorance around antibiotics you might be forgiven for thinking it would be a good thing to give antibiotics for all. I mean if it’s good enough for your food supply it should be good enough for humans right? Ignore egg prices going through the roof cause your flock has no innate immune system. So then you replace that reasonable sounding but stupid supposition and you replace it with “a word” that you pulled out of the air that sounds like it might be a thing and then wowed us with your abuse of glyphs™ You are nothing but a depressing waste of time and whoever is putting you up to this I’d suggest you go back to them with your cap in hand and admit you’re not up to it. I enjoyed that. Thanks for the run-out.
    - beeflet 2y ago
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pembrook 2y ago

Always question whenever a highly educated and thoughtful (and likely wealthy) person like this commenter is telling you poor people are too stupid for their own good and can’t make decisions for themselves. This is the definition of the principal-agent problem. Also, “positive freedom” is a hilarious rebranding of dictatorial decision making. Why not grant more “positive freedom” to the people by deciding exactly what these poor people should do for a living, how they should live, and how they should spend their money. The experts know best, after all. I’m not even particularly against fluoride in water, but this kind of reasoning is insidious. If the people have voted for representatives that are against it, we should follow the will of the people. This is the definition of democracy.

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logicchains 2y ago

Excessive fluoride exposure is associated with reduced childhood IQ: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2828425?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/... . Giving poor people (the ones who can't afford to drink bottles water or buy a fancy filter) means to moderate their fluoride intake this risk is creating lower-iq, more obedient workers.

immibis 2y ago

The American view of "freedom" is all messed up. You're "free" if the government doesn't tell you to do stuff. Even if corporations make you do stuff, even if they make you do more stuff the government did, that's somehow "free". And "stuff" somehow only includes trivial things like water fluoridation. No freedom-loving American patriot ever said America isn't free because cops can just murder you if they don't like you.

unsupp0rted 2y ago

> The contrasting view is that putting fluoride in water is literally medicating people without their affirmative consent. Is that the contrasting view, or the contrasting view that is preferred, because it is more easily demolished? The stronger contrasting view isn't that the government is medicating people without their affirmative consent. It's that it's poisoning people, and no amount of consent by laymen to be poisoned would be acceptable.

somenameforme 2y ago
I think his view is much stronger, since the intent is obviously to medicate even if it may indeed be inadvertently poisoning people in practice. So it doesn't assume one truth (poison or not) one way or the other, but still argues that it should be unlawful. While your view is much more narrow and suggests it should only be unlawful because it's poisoning people, which then begs the question of whether it is or not.
audunw 2y ago
Fluoride occurs naturally in water, that’s literally how we discovered the effects of fluoride. People in areas where water naturally contained more fluoride had less cavities. Anything, including water itself, is toxic (not poisonous, but I’m guessing you meant toxic, since fluoride is definitely not poisonous) in high enough doses. So you could say that about ANY mineral we may add to water to adjust its taste or health effects. I happen to think adding fluoride isn’t worth the effort. But the hysteria against it is also really dumb.

hilbert42 2y ago

So then, you'd also be against adding folate/folic acid to bread for the same reason? For those who don't know many countries including the US mandate the inclusion of folic acid in bread and certain other foods to ensure pregnant women get enough. A deficiency of folic acid during pregnancy causes birth defects in infants. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folate

aziaziazi 2y ago
I never heard of that supplement (not a father) and was very surprised to find 80 countries mandate it. I checked the list (below) and it turns out the 80 countries are a bunch of poor nations plus USA, UAE, Qatar, Canada and Australia. I guess our medicare system supports the EU mothers fine enough so we don’t need to put that in the staple of food. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5809909/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5809909/ (Table 1)
- hilbert42 2y ago
  It would be interesting to know why EU countries chose not to mandate it. Also, I wonder if EU flour millers/producers add it voluntarily, and whether flour produced in Canada destined for EU markets leaves out the folate that's mandated for inclusion in the Canadian market.
- WrongAssumption 2y ago
  Or you have just been sweeping preventable birth defects under the rug. The UK determined that had been happening and are going to start doing it. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c206d60xe7no https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c206d60xe7no
- mandevil 2y ago
  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8264257/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8264257/ 2023 Study: "Despite Public Health Initiatives across Europe recommending that women take 0.4 mg folic acid before becoming pregnant and during the first trimester, the prevalence of NTD pregnancies has not materially decreased in the EU since 1998, in contrast to the dramatic fall observed in the USA. This study aimed to estimate the number of NTD pregnancies that would have been prevented if flour had been fortified with folic acid in Europe from 1998 as it had been in the USA." "Conclusions: This study suggests that failure to implement mandatory folic acid fortification in the 28 European countries has caused, and continues to cause, neural tube defects to occur in almost 1,000 pregnancies every year." The most famous NTD is Spina Bifida, and most of them aren't really fixable by modern health care. So this is 1000 babies a year who are either born with severe birth defects, or, in what I'm guessing is many cases, terminated when they could have been born healthy with a flour enrichment mandate.

shireboy 2y ago

This take has a few problems: Poor people in the US are capable of using fluoride toothpaste and flossing. At least at homeless shelters at outreach things I’ve been to, toothpaste and toothbrushes are freely available. Your argument hinges on them being incapable on the whole and needing a Benevolent But Superior Intelligence to provide an alternative for them. Second, it completely ignores any debate over effectiveness or side effects. It could well be that fluoride in water is great for teeth but bad for brains. The objections to fluoride in water I’ve seen are more along those lines. Im not clear the validity of those claims but for example anti fluoride advocates don’t typically object to chlorine in water to kill germs. That seems the core issue- without bias from stakeholders, is the benefit of fluoride proven and the risks disproven? It’s hard to answer because a study needs to span many years and exclude many variables. And in general I think that is what needs to happen with these type debates. Take them _out_ of the sphere of charged political opinion and focus on getting to the objective truth of risks and benefits, then be transparent. People can handle “here are the known pros and cons and what we think that means” over “there are only pros and no cons and if you disagree you hate poor people”

lee_ars 2y ago
> Second, it completely ignores any debate over effectiveness or side effects. It could well be that fluoride in water is great for teeth but bad for brains. Except it's not—fluoride in the drinking water concentrations is proven safe and it doesn't affect brains. > Im not clear the validity of those claims Thoroughly scientifically debunked. Repeatedly, over decades. > That seems the core issue- without bias from stakeholders, is the benefit of fluoride proven and the risks disproven? It’s hard to answer because a study needs to span many years and exclude many variables. No, it's not hard to answer, because all those studies have been done and the results were that fluoride is safe. > And in general I think that is what needs to happen with these type debates. What needs to stop happening is people ignoring objective reality just because the results happen to align with the other "team's" position on something.
- themgt 2y ago
  What needs to stop happening is people ignoring objective reality just because the results happen to align with the other "team's" position on something. "Out of a population of about three-quarters of a billion, under 14 million people (approximately 2%) in Europe receive artificially-fluoridated water." The problem I continually see in the USA is the ascription of differences of opinion on [any topic] to America's Great Divide between enlightenment and barbarism. I find it often helpful to just check, what do these policies look like outside of America? It doesn't mean Europe got it right on fluoride, it just suggests against adopting the framing that your POV is 100% objective reality proven beyond doubt by Science™ and no rational person not in the throes of "own the [other team]" bad faith might disagree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_country#Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_country#...

johntitorjr 2y ago

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thatcat 2y ago

Fluoride has to be applied to the surface at a high concentration for brief contact time to be effective. What is the freedom to sell industrial waste to the government to pointlessly add to the water supply for profit called?

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bobjordan 2y ago

What in the Berkeley kind of logic is this? You have a pretty solid core logical structure. But, the conclusion is weak. The argument’s weakness lies in its simplifications and the final political assertion, which, although plausible within certain ideological frameworks, isn't logically proven by the earlier premise.

_ZeD_ 2y ago

> Putting fluoride in water promotes freedom. That sounds crazy, but let me justify it. > If you are poor you can't go anywhere or buy anything. You're not free if you're poor. If you are sick, you may be confined to a hospital bed or not feel good enough to do anything. If you are sick you're not free. or, you know, you could avoid the problem in the first place and allow "even poors" to go somewhere or buy something... at least base items, and medicines... this way they could afford dental costs, and you could spare the need to add fluoride in the water

cpursley 2y ago

The issue is not the fluoride in the water, it's all the sugar that poor people eat and drink (especially sodas). And we actively fund the corn syrup industry at both ends via the farm bill (production and consumption via SNAP).

bdzr 2y ago
Also tariffs on cane sugar.
- cpursley 2y ago
  Forgot about that one, yup.

wisty 2y ago

I think it's a reductionist word game to reduce everything to a single dimension ("freedom") and then say "I think my policy is better, and since everything can reduce to a single variable it means there is more freedom". If a right-wing voter thinks banning gay marriage is good for society, it is also positive freedom? If your counter-argument is "no, because while it would be positive freedom if it was good for society, it's not" then maybe I'm just disareeing on your terminology, but I suspect you would say "heck no, telling people what they can't do is not freedom, that's an abuse of the English language as well as being bad for society". Governments exist to take away some freedoms, it's the whole point of them. People vote for governmets to take away freedoms (with laws and taxes) and get things like public services, justice systems and infrastructure in return. Ideally, they lean towards things that give you a lot of bang for your buck (like flourine), because taking away freedom is not good for creating a dynamic society, and they should be accountable to voters. Just say that anyone who objects is an anarchist if you want to take the moral high ground from the right in terms they understand.

brigandish 2y ago

> The contrast between positive freedom, the freedom to do something, and negative freedom, the freedom from interference in your life, is the core political argument in America right now. True. > Negative freedom, freedom from government interference, is being promoted by those seeking to weaken the government enough to supplant it. Tenuous. Then again, like you, all of my political opponents are either stupid or evil or both. > People who are poor and sick are likely unable to stand up for themselves or participate in solidarity against authority. Contentious. Sometimes this is true, sometimes it is not - giving negative liberty rights (e.g. first amendment speech protections) to individuals has proven an incredibly effective tool to protect the individual against the state. Not perfect, but incredibly effective all the same. > This individual issue is relatively small, but you take 100's of issues like this, and the effect is to create a class of people who aren't able to do anything but be obedient workers. Any supporter of negative liberty (i.e. someone who is for small government) would tell you, that is what government does, which is a big reason why they want small government.

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the_gipsy 2y ago

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marhee 2y ago

According to that logic, why not distribute fluoride water freely for those who want it? That would serve boths camps, not?

wtcactus 2y ago
There's no such thing as "free" when something is "given" by a public entity. It always costs the people that actually work and are forcibly taxed, something.

rcpt 2y ago

> the government forcing you to take a medication. You're free to drink water that's not from the tap. Companies sell this legally. The government doesn't force anything

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ninalanyon 2y ago

> If you are poor you can't go anywhere or buy anything. You're not free if you're poor. The solution is lifting people out of poverty not papering over the cracks with fluoride. There is no fluoride in the water here in Norway yet dental health is good because of good education, free dental care for children, students pregnant women, and little absolute poverty.