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I don't care for the current admin nor RFK Jr, but this is a bit disingenuous. Floride toothpaste and floridated drinking water are different things, and RFK h

I don't care for the current admin nor RFK Jr, but this is a bit disingenuous. Floride toothpaste and floridated drinking water are different things, and RFK hasn't said anything about attacking the former. This jab doesn't have anything to do with the discussion at hand.

ceejayoz 1y ago
Fearmongering about fluoride is unlikely to stop at the water supply. RFK has already made moves in this direction: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/fda-and-rfk-jr-aim-to-remove-fluoride-supplements-used-to-protect-kids-teeth https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/fda-and-rfk-jr-aim-to-re... > The products targeted by the FDA are sometimes recommended for children and teens who are at increased risk of tooth decay or cavities because of low fluoride in their local drinking water. They usually require a prescription from a pediatrician or dentist. Fluoride-based tablets and lozenges are designed to be chewed or swallowed. Companies also sell drops for babies and infants. And other politicians: > Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced an investigation into the marketing of fluoride toothpastes by Colgate-Palmolive and Proctor and Gamble. A press release from his office described the companies’ promotions as “misleading, deceptive and dangerous.”
- elcritch 1y ago
  It’s not fear mongering if fluoride actually does have negative effects. Well AMA just published a meta-analysis this year linking high fluoride level in drinking water to neurotoxicity in children and lower IQ. While there’s insufficient data to say it’s neurotoxic at the recommended levels it doesn’t seem unlikely. Rather it should be required to be proven safe first. https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/research/assessments/noncancer/completed/fluoride https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/research/assessments/noncancer/com... > The NTP monograph concluded, with moderate confidence, that higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, are associated with lower IQ in children. The NTP review was designed to evaluate total fluoride exposure from all sources and was not designed to evaluate the health effects of fluoridated drinking water alone. It is important to note that there were insufficient data to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies has a negative effect on children’s IQ.
  - Retric 1y ago
    > doesn’t seem unlikely. It seems unlikely we’d have such issues at concentrations so commonly found in natural springs. Much of the world doesn’t add it because it’s already at those levels naturally and has been throughout billions of years. The question is at what point you should spend money removing it as many communities are forced to, not just how much to add.
    - Auracle 1y ago
      That’s just the naturalistic fallacy. I’m sure there are some places in the world with lead or cadmium or whatever in their water - does that mean we should be adding it to our water supplies if we found out it was good for our teeth at the detriment of our brains?
      - Retric 1y ago
        No, there’s a difference between something being rare and it being common. Fish species living in the ocean don’t have issues drinking salt water, because if they did their ancestors wouldn’t have reproduced. If half of the world’s water supplies had lead levels of X you’d expect evolution to make that specific level a non issue. Obviously lead levels above that can and are still problematic.
        elcritch 1y ago
        > If half of the world’s water supplies had lead levels of X you’d expect evolution to make that specific level a non issue. Obviously lead levels above that can and are still problematic. Not necessarily true if the effect is relatively small compared to other evolutionary pressures. A few points drop in IQ might not be bad for ancient hunter-gatherer tribes but does have a much larger impact in our modern age. Every point increase of average IQ at the population level generally leads to better societal outcomes overall. To your earlier question, filtering flouride might be beneficial then. We can do flouride teeth treatments at dentists or switch more to nano-hydroxyapatite [1]. Though it'd seem nano-hydroxyapatite needs more safety studies as well. 1: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6747619/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6747619/
throwaway290 1y ago
I heard there was some area in USA where all water is naturally fluoridated and people had abnormally strong teeth and so they started using it in toothpaste after that, maybe it's a myth

ceejayoz 1y ago

Fearmongering about fluoride is unlikely to stop at the water supply. RFK has already made moves in this direction: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/fda-and-rfk-jr-aim-to-remove-fluoride-supplements-used-to-protect-kids-teeth https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/fda-and-rfk-jr-aim-to-re... > The products targeted by the FDA are sometimes recommended for children and teens who are at increased risk of tooth decay or cavities because of low fluoride in their local drinking water. They usually require a prescription from a pediatrician or dentist. Fluoride-based tablets and lozenges are designed to be chewed or swallowed. Companies also sell drops for babies and infants. And other politicians: > Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced an investigation into the marketing of fluoride toothpastes by Colgate-Palmolive and Proctor and Gamble. A press release from his office described the companies’ promotions as “misleading, deceptive and dangerous.”

elcritch 1y ago
It’s not fear mongering if fluoride actually does have negative effects. Well AMA just published a meta-analysis this year linking high fluoride level in drinking water to neurotoxicity in children and lower IQ. While there’s insufficient data to say it’s neurotoxic at the recommended levels it doesn’t seem unlikely. Rather it should be required to be proven safe first. https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/research/assessments/noncancer/completed/fluoride https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/research/assessments/noncancer/com... > The NTP monograph concluded, with moderate confidence, that higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, are associated with lower IQ in children. The NTP review was designed to evaluate total fluoride exposure from all sources and was not designed to evaluate the health effects of fluoridated drinking water alone. It is important to note that there were insufficient data to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies has a negative effect on children’s IQ.
- Retric 1y ago
  > doesn’t seem unlikely. It seems unlikely we’d have such issues at concentrations so commonly found in natural springs. Much of the world doesn’t add it because it’s already at those levels naturally and has been throughout billions of years. The question is at what point you should spend money removing it as many communities are forced to, not just how much to add.
  - Auracle 1y ago
    That’s just the naturalistic fallacy. I’m sure there are some places in the world with lead or cadmium or whatever in their water - does that mean we should be adding it to our water supplies if we found out it was good for our teeth at the detriment of our brains?
    - Retric 1y ago
      No, there’s a difference between something being rare and it being common. Fish species living in the ocean don’t have issues drinking salt water, because if they did their ancestors wouldn’t have reproduced. If half of the world’s water supplies had lead levels of X you’d expect evolution to make that specific level a non issue. Obviously lead levels above that can and are still problematic.
      - elcritch 1y ago
        > If half of the world’s water supplies had lead levels of X you’d expect evolution to make that specific level a non issue. Obviously lead levels above that can and are still problematic. Not necessarily true if the effect is relatively small compared to other evolutionary pressures. A few points drop in IQ might not be bad for ancient hunter-gatherer tribes but does have a much larger impact in our modern age. Every point increase of average IQ at the population level generally leads to better societal outcomes overall. To your earlier question, filtering flouride might be beneficial then. We can do flouride teeth treatments at dentists or switch more to nano-hydroxyapatite [1]. Though it'd seem nano-hydroxyapatite needs more safety studies as well. 1: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6747619/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6747619/

throwaway290 1y ago

I heard there was some area in USA where all water is naturally fluoridated and people had abnormally strong teeth and so they started using it in toothpaste after that, maybe it's a myth