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%.
We should not be encouraging the least among us.
And yet the least among us is now the Republican candidate for president.
I’m running for president?
There’s at least one person worse than you and he’s running for president.
Tom Hanks?
Again.
… Again.
I’m pretty sure the dentists love this.
I’m pretty sure if dentists are advocating for something that would make them less money in the long run, that whatever they’re advocating for is a good idea.
I tried fluoride-free toothpaste for one year during college. Came home for the summer with 12 cavities.
Fluoride works people.
General Ripper has entered the chat.
What is the big freakout about fluoride water lately? Haven’t we been doing that for decades?
It’s the newest fad in medical conspiracy theory panic.
it’s old as fuck as well. they hate the idea of recycling but love to recycle bullshit.
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
idk probably maybe tell him to never put anything into his mouth that isn’t IMMEDIATELY sterilized, before, during and after the process of entering your mouth for fear of possible contaminants getting into your body.
I know you’re being sarcastic but I at least appreciate that you actually answered my question unlike the other replies.
im not being sarcastic tbh. If you’re that concerned about something like fluoride in the water, you best be sure you never accidentally touch the ground outside, and then put your hand near your mouth.
There are so many more significant things to worry about, even being near someone who is sick is probably going to be more detrimental to your health.
but yes i am definitely being dramatic, it’s fun :)
Ok, replace sarcastic with hyperbolic and I still appreciate it. Everyone else is just shitting on my coworker like he’s MAGA flat earther. What I should have really said is that he consumes more flouride by brushing his teeth than he would drinking tap water
Mercury is naturally occurring in water as well. That’s not really a guide to go by.
I’m having thyroid problems, and in trying to research iodine, I have found that fluoride can have a negative impact on thyroid function. This link is the best I can do on the subject, given that I’m not sure how to find much trustworthy information. It says that as long as iodine intake is sufficient, the fluoride shouldn’t be a problem. But I’m finding conflicting info on what constitutes sufficient iodine intake.
Interesting, thanks for the link! I figured there had to be something to it because he’s a really smart guy and not in any way conspiratorial. His teeth are also in great shape so his way of living doesn’t appear to be hurting anyone.
For the record, he was not preaching. I was just filling up from the kitchen sink while he used the filtered water thingy so it came up. He was talking only about himself when he expressed his concern
ah sick, as someone with vitiligo, this is yet another thing i should put on the extremely metaphorical back burner here.
(the partial joke here is that people with vitiligo have increased chances of having thyroidal issues due to the immune system or whatever the fuck, health is fun.)
If you consume any iodized salt you should be good on that, unless you have a medical condition that prevents your body from absorbing it properly. In fact people don’t really get goiters anymore since the introduction of iodized salt which was done to prevent said goiters(a goiter is a swollen thyroid from lack of iodine intake iirc).
I was not using iodized salt at all. I think since “elevated” cooking has become so popular, I can’t be the only one who was eschewing it (Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat straight up recommends avoiding it). I also don’t eat much seafood. When I was diagnosed hypothyroid 25 years ago, I was told I had a goiter. And not told much else.
I’m just an internet rando, but I’d definitely recommend talking to your doctor about iodized salt intake or alternatives. Iodine was added to salt when they figured out people living in middle America away from the shorelines had severe iodine deficiencies and goiters were very common. That’s all I know about it. I just like weird history tidbits like that
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.
Consider he might use unfluoridated toothpaste?
Toxicity does exist and is studied: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5805681/
You would kill yourself drinking too much water long before you’d have to worry about fluoride toxicity in the US. Part of our water treatment protocols also include reducing fluoride levels when they’re naturally too high.
Dude, that’s for the odds someone might have hypothyroidism, not at all related to toxicity.
And as noted by the authors:
“Hence, the application of standard household water purification (such as reversed osmosis, electro dialysis, activated carbon filter, and other adsorption/ion-exchange methods) is recommended for patients with hypothyroidism since they have a higher consumption of drinking water. The purification systems can help remove fluoride that interferes with thyroid functions.”
So, if you have a family history of hypothyroidism, and you care at all about trying to avoid this incredibly common and easily treatable issue; use a water filter. It probably won’t help since family history and regular exercise are much more highly correlated with the incidence of hypothyroidism, but sure, why not.
Also, and this is fun, they conveniently ignore the fact that the people drinking the most water (5+ cups group) have a lower adjusted-odds-ratio (OR) of hypothyroidism.
How about the part where the level of fluoride in the water being in the higher end of the spectrum (0.3-0.5 mg/L) gives you a *checks notes* oh yeah, 3.4% higher incidence rate of hypothyroidism. Right.
There is non fluoridated toothpaste. Not that I would use it but it does exist.
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
As someone who works directly with water treatment systems, at best he’s an ignorant motherfucker. But good news: ignorance can be fixed.
Ignorant, sure, but he’s not stupid. Flouride in water is not for people like him who already take great care of their teeth - it’s for people who don’t.
It’s not stupid to avoid consuming something that doesn’t benefit you. Like I know lithium is used safely to treat bipolar but I don’t have bipolar so I wouldn’t be stupid for wanting it filtered out. Like I said, he doesn’t advocate for its removal - he just doesn’t want to drink it himself
You ever hear the joke about an American tourist only drinking alcohol on a trip to Mexico, because you can’t trust the water, and then someone asking them where they got their ice cubes?
On the other hand, at least back when I was there as an American teenager in the 90s, avoiding the water in Mexico was a good plan.
Parents: It’s okay to drink the water in this town, we drove past a water treatment plant.
Me: Absolutely no way.
Guess who didn’t regret saying “absolutely no way?”
No but that’s pretty good
Well, the thing about your friend is that even if he were only drinking boiled well water or whatever, he’s still consuming plenty of the metaphorical ice cubes.
I’d say that’s the only real point the anti-flouridation crowd has, really. Even if they want to opt out, they can’t. Even if their local water utility stops flouridation, anything shipped in will still have it, be it bottled water, frozen meals, anything that uses tap water in production, really.
Yes he is. If you’re unironically wary of fluoride you’re a stupid motherfucker
I would’ve agreed with this a few years ago, but when you realize things can have subtle effects on our body that aren’t easy to measure or readily apparent, you shouldn’t fully trust something just because studies say it’s safe. A study can’t really show that “50 years of repeated exposure caused slightly more exhaustion,” for example.
However, we DO know tooth decay is a major health risk for our whole bodies. Avoiding a maybe possibly slightly harmful chemical isn’t stupid, but avoiding something that prevents known and documented dental harm and the effects that has on your entire body, that’s just letting fear override rational thinking.
Ok buddy
And apparently even flourosis is only a cosmetic …illness? Honestly if Americans weren’t so obsessed with the cosmetics of teeth they might not even really notice. Like to the extent that people will strip their enamel in an attempt to whiten them. Even I had to look up what it was.
It has cosmetic effects but can also have some more serious effect, like weaker bones, neurological disorder, rupture of the stomach lining or ossified ligaments.
Flouride helps prevent tooth decay. Tooth decay is painful and can lead to much more serious condition…it’s not just fluorosis it protects against.
…the flourosis is caused by too much flouride. I’m saying people are worried about the side effects of too much flouride when they’re pretty much entirely cosmetic anyway. If you’re gonna “um akshully” on the internet at least Google it first.
Ya know, sometimes people misread or misinrerpret comments and you don’t need to be a dick about it
yes but we should do more studies on non-dental effects of water fluoridation.
There’s been studies about the negative effects it has on thyroid function for people with hypothyroidism : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5805681/
Thanks, I’ve only read about mostly bone disorders but it makes sense that fluoride might interfere with other halogens in the body.
I’d like to see people make decisions on cost benefit analysis based on medical research. Dental caries can lead to tooth infections which have a number of severe health consequences but it doesn’t mean there aren’t smaller concerns about fluoridation that should also be taken into account.
For what it’s worth I live in a country where the drinking water isn’t flouridated. It’s not a problem and it’s certainly never made the news. I think easy availability of dental care, especially in schools since children tend to not be great at taking care of their teeth, is a bigger concern.
Well, we have both location gated and time gated populations, so observational study should be fairly trivial.
Yes. The answer is yes.
i’m still just curious whether that “science” saying that “fluoride bad” is real or not.
Or if fluoride is actually just bad.
Until then i’m not doing anything because politics is probably going to kill me first anyway. No point in making a decision if you aren’t familiar with it i suppose.
A little bit will help your teeth, but too much fluoride will kill you. That is true.
But, the levels of fluoride they are talking about are so low that you’d probably die from drinking too much water before the fluoride got you.
My understanding is that there’s no evidence to support the idea that it’s bad for you in this application at these concentrations.
There is evidence to support it being effective at reducing the risk of cavities.
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.
No, but not for any health reasons, it just tastes like shit lol
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That doesn’t sound right. Is everyone in Sweden drinking untreated water? That sounds incredibly unsanitary.
What do you mean by untreated? Unchlorinated? In Europe, many countries also chlorinate their water, like the US. But not all do, because some have naturally clean water. Like the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Iceland.
I just mean the usual water treatment practices to ensure safe drinking water. At minimum I would expect filtration to be happening since you don’t want particulates floating around in it.
All I can say is, drinking fluoridated water isn’t going to make a significant impact on your dental health if you don’t brush and use mouthwash.
You’ll never go to the dentist and have him say “you need to drink more fluoridated water.”
Except the article, that you are currently commenting on, indicates the exact opposite. Flouridated water decreases the chances of cavities as noted by communities studied, some without flouridated water and others with it.
No offense but if that’s all you can say, why say it at all? It’s very Tucker-esque to bring up something that sounds relevant but isn’t
🥱
Right back atchya.
Dentists generally don’t tell me to avoid sugar anymore. Because they know I know.
The only thing “bad” about flouride I know that is true is that it can lower DHT levels in your blood. I put bad in quotes because I don’t know what DHT actually does, but the conspiracy I’ve heard is that DHT is needed to dream and imagine, so by drinking fluoridated water you’re destroying your own creativity or whatever.
I always thought it was funny.
Yeah that’s #1 bullshit. DHT is a sex steroid and hormone that defines the male genitalia during the embryonic development. It builds out the entire male reproductive system right down to pubic hair.
Steroids always affect testosterone and that mostly affects men because they carry substantially more. So that’s sort of a clue in what area they target.
Creativity and “intelligence” are entirely abstract, human concepts. There is no one mechanism that governs them let alone a single hormone for that matter.
Also, just want to point out that our ancestors had literally perfect teeth. Perfect. Crooked and fucked up teeth is a modern infliction (no one really knows why). So just sayin.
Also, just want to point out that our ancestors had literally perfect teeth. Perfect. Crooked and fucked up teeth is a modern infliction
I would adore to see your sources on this
This isn’t some occult knowledge, a simple search will show many results concuring but here is one source:
In his book The Story of the Human Body, evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman writes: “The museum I work in has thousands of ancient skulls from all over the world. Most of the skulls from the last few hundred years are a dentist’s nightmare: they are filled with cavities and infections, the teeth are crowded into the jaw, and about one-quarter of them have impacted teeth. The skulls of preindustrial farmers are also riddled with cavities and painful-looking abscesses, but less than 5 percent of them have impacted wisdom teeth.”
“In contrast, most of the hunter-gatherers had nearly perfect dental health. Apparently, orthodontists and dentists were rarely necessary in the Stone Age,” he added.
…In 2015, researchers studied 292 human skeletons found in the Levant, Anatolia, and Europe that dated between 28,000 to 6,000 years ago. Their findings showed that people from more recent agricultural communities had smaller (and differently shaped) lower jaws compared to earlier hunter-gatherer people.
Aye I suppose a lot would be explained by the fact that the skulls they find are likely to be people who died in their 20s and 30s, as was the fashion back then
So your argument is to return to pre-agricultural life in order to not have fluoride in our water supply?
I didn’t make any argument whatsoever, just provided a source.
Cheers. It’s wild people still prefer to believe that fluoride makes them dumber and less creative lol.
What an absolute dumpster fire 🤪
Happy adoring I guess
Well, DHT can cause hair loss in people that are sensitive to it. But it’s also an essential androgen for men. Overall, you probably don’t want to decrease the natural levels in men, but lots of different, entirely normal things can cause fluctuations in hormonal levels, so it’s likely not a large concern.
A friend of mine who believed a lot of conspiracy theories told me it was bad because it calcifies your pineal gland. I called bullshit and googled it.
Turns out, it actually does. There was no proof at the time that this causes any sort of issues, but there it was. I was unhappy that they were actually right about something; I didn’t want to give them the idea that any of their other crazy ideas had any validity.
Pretty sure the pineal gland can just calcify with age, it’s not something to be worried about.
lol
Like telling chemtrail believers about crop dusters.
For once, the answer to a question posed in the headline is obviously yes.
yeah. Im happily surprised the article itself was not about the conspiracy nonsense.
It’s still platforming the conspiracy though and bringing it to more people’s attention.
I don’t think bringing attention to conspiracy theories as conspiracy theories is bad. If anything its a good thing. I mean if it was the about the lizard aliens or flat earthers it would be the same.
I’m not so sure about that after the last 8-9 years of political discourse in the US. You assume bringing light to them means people will see how ridiculous they are, but in reality they just bring the conspiracy into the forefront, where people then take sides and dig their heels in.
Trump getting a ton of coverage as the laughing stock candidate leading up to the 2016 election gave him the edge he needed to win while the rest of us thought the coverage would lead to a landslide victory for his opponent.
