this post was submitted on 08 May 2024
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Misinformation campaigns increasingly target the cavity-fighting mineral, prompting communities to reverse mandates. Dentists are enraged. Parents are caught in the middle.

The culture wars have a new target: your teeth. 

Communities across the U.S. are ending public water fluoridation programs, often spurred by groups that insist that people should decide whether they want the mineral — long proven to fight cavities — added to their water supplies. 

The push to flush it from water systems seems to be increasingly fueled by pandemic-related mistrust of government oversteps and misleading claims, experts say, that fluoride is harmful.

The anti-fluoridation movement gained steam with Covid,” said Dr. Meg Lochary, a pediatric dentist in Union County, North Carolina. “We’ve seen an increase of people who either don’t want fluoride or are skeptical about it.”

There should be no question about the dental benefits of fluoride, Lochary and other experts say. Major public health groups, including the American Dental Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, support the use of fluoridated water. All cite studies that show it reduces tooth decay by 25%.

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[–] QuentinCallaghan@sopuli.xyz 191 points 6 months ago (22 children)

"Medical freedom", the rallying cry for all kinds of grifters spreading disinformation and wanting to roll back the progress made in public health.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 67 points 6 months ago (58 children)

And they don't seem to like the fact that they have the freedom to filter the fluoride back out of the water.

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 126 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

The thing that seriously hurts those anti-fluoridation nuts is that fluoride can naturally be in water supplies and there are water supplies with higher PPM fluoride amounts than municipalities that add them in the U.S., but there don't appear to be any increased health issues.

Not that such people generally care.

[–] Dkarma@lemmy.world 67 points 6 months ago (7 children)

As I said to a friend years ago: show me one case of fluoride poisoning....just one and I'll believe you that it's dangerous.

He couldn't. End of discussion.

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 25 points 6 months ago

Children can theoretically get fluorosis in their teeth if they chug mouthwash, but it’s a pretty uncommon thing to do.

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[–] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 23 points 6 months ago (2 children)

We evolved to get our nutrients from natural sources, some of those sources water … and we are filtering a lot of it out arbitrarily then being afraid to put it back.

There was an argument made a while back that filtering the lithium out of our water is messing with folks too.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 25 points 6 months ago (1 children)

So we took the lead out of the air and that made people less crazy, but we also took the lithium out of the water and that made people more crazy.

Hooray us.

[–] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 22 points 6 months ago

To be fair we were putting the lead into the air in the first place.

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[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 59 points 6 months ago (1 children)

For once, the answer to a question posed in the headline is obviously yes.

[–] HubertManne@kbin.social 18 points 6 months ago (4 children)

yeah. Im happily surprised the article itself was not about the conspiracy nonsense.

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[–] Red_October@lemmy.world 50 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They have their freedom, they are free to do whatever they want to filter their own drinking water. They're free to buy or produce distilled water for all their consumption. They're free to only ever drink beer. But the drinking water provided as a public good should be maintained for the good of the public, and when the studies are pretty clear that fluoridated water fights tooth decay, then fluoridated water it is.

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[–] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 48 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Hey, a article that bucks Betteridge's Law.

Of course there's no question, yes, and Republicans and communities should be ashamed at being this stupid to cater to such a dumb, ridiculous, and small group of idiots and are going to cost everyone more in dental insurance to socialize the cost of their stupidity.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 44 points 6 months ago (13 children)

I'm very much on the pro-flouride but it came up in a conversation with my coworker who won't drink tap water.

I said that in a country without universal healthcare, fluoride is free dental care. He said he agreed about the benefit to teeth but his concern was with what it might do to your body. He's a health nut but not a conspiracy theories and I was really thrown off and didn't have a counterpoint.

I just assumed it was fine because I knew fluoride is often found in water naturally...but...can someone with more knowledge tell me how they would have replied? I don't like speaking on things I can't back up with data so I just let it go

[–] undercrust@lemmy.ca 36 points 6 months ago (10 children)

If the stupid motherfucker brushes his teeth twice daily, he's already introducing loads more fluoride to his body than any of the trace amounts they add into the public water system, which is still standards of deviation less than anything that would introduce fluorosis of childrens' teeth (since that's not possible for adults with developed teeth), let alone get to a level of toxicity for an adult.

Now, if he regularly consumes full tubes of toothpaste as a health supplement, then maybe that's a reason to be concerned about fluoride.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 18 points 6 months ago (10 children)

All right settle down, he's not a stupid motherfucker. He isn't advocating to remove it from tap water, he was just saying why HE doesn't drink tap. He didn't try to pursuade me.

Perhaps he's misguided on that but he is not the person you're probably picturing.

My friend is a doctor and he also doesn't drink tap but for him it's the other contaminates, not flouride

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[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 44 points 6 months ago (1 children)

So we've circled back to to water/fluoride water conspiracies again?

History, doomed to repeat, before our very eyes once more..

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[–] thesohoriots@lemmy.world 30 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Put the lithium in already.

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[–] Altofaltception@lemmy.world 30 points 6 months ago

All cite studies that show it reduces tooth decay by 25%

But because of my sugar intake, my teeth are shit anyway

/s

[–] QualifiedKitten@lemmy.world 24 points 6 months ago (31 children)

I absolutely can't stand minty or cinnamon toothpaste, and have really struggled with brushing my teeth because of it. It drives me absolutely insane that so many of the flavors I can tolerate are only available in fluoride free formulations and/or get discontinued.

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[–] shani66@ani.social 19 points 6 months ago (1 children)

We should not be encouraging the least among us.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 25 points 6 months ago (5 children)

And yet the least among us is now the Republican candidate for president.

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[–] manucode@infosec.pub 19 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Here in Germany, drinking water isn't fluoridated but fluoridated salt is sold at every grocery store. I assume that fluoridated salt isn't as easily available to those in the US who could now end up without fluoridated water, is it?

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 43 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I have never seen fluoridated salt in the U.S. Our salt usually has iodine in it to make up for the iodine deficiency that was in American diets before that happened.

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[–] MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world 18 points 6 months ago

Yes. The answer is yes.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 17 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)
  1. Ask the experts. You'll find their names have "D.D.S" after them.

  2. Do what they say.

[–] iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Dentists are not scientists though. They suffer from a limited data set and all the other cognitive problems that we invented science to counteract.

Having said that, scientists should not make policy, but inform public health experts, who understand that science does not tell you what to do, but just the best current view of reality. These experts have to take into account cost/benefit ratios as well as science from a wide set of fields.

Luckily for fluoride in the water, they all agree!

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