AI Summary:
- Utah is poised to ban fluoride in public water systems, pending the governor’s signature.
- The bill prohibits adding fluoride to public water and repeals previous related laws.
- Federal health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has criticized fluoride, influencing the bill.
- Studies on fluoride’s impact on children’s IQ have mixed results, with some showing negative effects and others showing no harm.
- Major public health groups support fluoridation for dental health benefits.
- The anti-fluoridation movement has gained popularity post-Covid-19.
- Similar legislation is proposed in Florida, emphasizing the importance of consent in public health measures.
Children’s ice cream, Mandrake!
They’re just protecting their precious bodily fluids
Dentists’ wet dream.
Dentists in Florida: yesssss thanks for the increased business!
The Utah dental association was strongly against it. Dentists already make good money and most of them actually care about their patients health.
Dental health is also strongly correlated with cardiovascular disease and other diseases.
Yeah I’m in dental myself (another country), and when anti-fluoride patients come in, we generally sassily remark that we thank them for keeping us in business. Bit of dark humour to see the silver lining in things, I guess?
There have certainly been dental clinics going out of business in the last few years, something quite unheard of - unlike other ‘new businesses’, the success rate of opening a new dental clinic was normally guaranteed (unlike say a new cafe).
If the general population want to remove one of the best public health initiatives, then so be it. We’ll make hay while the sun shines.
Bit of dark humour to see the silver lining in things, I guess?
Silver linings? Is that a dental filling turn of phrase? The joke doesn’t work with composites though. :(
Haha no: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_lining_(idiom)
But still funny in context 🤭
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I’m familiar with the saying, I thought you might be going for the double entendre. :)
why florida? i feel i’ve missed something
I 100% misread the title and thought it was Florida.
I mean, it’s a pretty safe bet for something like this.
I thought they just misspelled “Florida” myself.
Last bullet point in OPs post:
- Similar legislation is proposed in Florida, emphasizing the importance of consent in public health measures.
thanks. i’m apparently still high from my saturday night
Utah poised to overtake UK as butt of bad teeth jokes.
EU countries don’t add fluoride to the water supply. At least half of the US seems to have cognitive impairment, by the way they vote.
Maybe they’re on to something?
/s
important to note about the “not adding Fluoride” bit: many countries have to remove fluoride from drinking water because there’s too much of it…
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.
From your link:
This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government
And if that doesn’t tell you all you need to know, then let me continue: UK is not part of the EU. Aside from some provinces in Spain and Ireland, no other EU country adds fluoride to the water supply.
Dental issues increased in Calgary and they voted to put it back.
This is the way. The idiots have been coddled for generations. They need to have the experience of their teeth rotting out for themselves.
I bet the idiots have shares in the dental industry though.
And what about the other 49% they dragged down with them? You’ve also just made everyone’s dental insurance 10x more expensive. Thanks!
If you needed one last excuse to get out of Utah, then let this be it.
For anyone in a state without fluoridated water, you can get fluoride drops to put in your/your children’s water.
I grew up with well water and we didn’t have naturally occurring water.
Our doctor prescribed us a chewable tablet we took every night after dinner.
Didn’t get my first, and only, cavity until I was 35.
My ex-wife who grew up with me had a dad who was “they’re putting gay vaccines in our fluoride to turn our cavities to queers” type and they didn’t …. Cavity city.
Why not just brush their teeth? I’m pretty sure fluoridated toothpaste is much easier to come by than fluoride drops.
Because adding fluoride to tap water provides measurable benifits regardless of socioeconomic status.
In addition, other countries where municpal water is not as developed, they will add fluoride to salts and other consumer products.
We’re comparing toothpaste to fluoride drops, not fluoridated tap water.
Because your logic is flawed coming that question. It insinuates that one is needed over the other. This is not a fair comparison because toothpaste and fluoride suppliments are purchased and flouridated tap water costs almost nothing to consumers of municipal water. All sources must be taken into account for public health programs like this.
next up (unless it happened first): no more data collection or research about statewide dental health
Insurance companies will still collect it since they need to pay out for a lot of this shit. We’ll also be able to quantify this impact by looking at dental premiums and copays. They’ll eventually go up in states without fluoridated water.
Or decline renewing your insurance.
Good Guy Insurance.
Up next in Utah, higher dental insurance premiums, copays, and deductibles.
There’s Swig all over the place in Utah… it’s literally liquified sugar. The dentists in that state are going to have an absolutely stellar future as their customers increase.
I’d agree, but Utah has an excessive glut of dentists. Folk who could be earning half a million annually working three days a week go to Utah and earn 75k.
this is just sad
Obviously fluorinated water is fine but having never grown up with it, it seems kind of unecessary. Maybe stop shoving sugary food and drinks in everyone’s faces would have a better impact?
Define “unnecessary “. Seriously.
This is more targeted towards the poorest and least educated of the community. Eating healthy and having a stable home with healthy habits is expensive.
This is anecdotal.
Public health management isn’t really the same as making health related decisions for yourself and your family.
As a public health measure fluoridation of water is an undeniable success. It has reduced the incidence of dental cavities by about a third, with better results in rural and poorer demographics.
While I understand that it’s a useful, effective measure, I’m amazed that it’s needed at all. Most of Europe, despite having a comparable or on paper lower wealth status, has never heard of this as far as I can tell, and the introduction of the practice isn’t being discussed. What gives the US needs it?
Interesting. I didn’t know that.
I’m in Australia BTW, about 90% of our water is fluoridated.
There’s lots of information about various countries here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_country
I think a summary to answer your question is that it varies by region, in some areas there’s enough fluoride present in the water naturally, in others fluoride is added to table salt, in some there’s just no support for this measure.
In Europe, it varies by geology and country. Some places add fluoride to water, some to salt, some rely on fluoride toothpaste or mouthwash. https://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_layman/fluoridation/en/l-2/1.htm
So rural and poor communities dont have access to healthier options or proper dental care and the solution your country picked was to put fluoride in the water instead of trying to actually support the poor.
What a country.
RFK Jr. has criticized fluoride
Yeah see, that right there is the only thing you really need to see that the ban is a bad idea.
Shit; the serial killer sympathizers, racist, cousin fuckers, are about to add this to the list
Sorry to all my brits, I know this hits home.
To be fair, you can have more cavities and still not eat rocks
you underestimate how fragile teeth can be
DōTerra probably also behind this to an extent. Gotta find new ways to sell “essential” oils.
fucking DoTerra…and Young Living…and Juvva…and LulaRoe…and MonaVie. and Xooma. and- yeah, i think Utah has a bit of a problem. what the fuck?
I’ve seen this parks and rec episode
Curious if anyone can weigh in on this - is there much benefit to having fluorinated drinking water if you brush twice a day with fluorinated toothpaste and rinse with flourinated mouthwash?
I distill all my drinking water, but it’s to remove PFAS and all the other garbage we’ve polluted the earth with. Not because of flouride.
My understanding is the most benefit is to children whose teeth are still growing, then secondarily to adults who have substandard dental hygiene. An otherwise healthy adult with good dental care routines is the least impactful case.
Going off on the tangent of distilled water: distilled water can reduce overall minerals in the diet. From WebMD https://www.webmd.com/diet/distilled-water-overview
Distilled water lacks even electrolytes like potassium and other minerals your body needs. So you may miss out on a bit of these micronutrients if you drink only the distilled stuff. Some studies have found a link between drinking water low in calcium and magnesium and tiredness, muscle cramps, weakness, and heart disease
People are going to be whining about cavities, in fact people who went flouride free toothpaste and complained they got cavities and blamed in on the effectiveness of the toothpaste
It’s because critical thinking is a dead skill in this country.
We have essentially trained an entire generation to not rely on critical thinking skills anymore. And apparently in the process of graduating a second generation of the same.
It is the plot of Idiocracy. Where the people don’t even understand the things that affect them on a day-to-day basis they just know that “it’s what plants crave”
