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As bans spread, fluoride in drinking water divides communities across the US (kffhealthnews.org)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

371 comments fedilink hide all child comments

…

It is a scenario playing out nationwide. From Oregon to Pennsylvania, hundreds of communities have in recent years either stopped adding fluoride to their water supplies or voted to prevent its addition. Supporters of such bans argue that people should be given the freedom of choice. The broad availability of over-the-counter dental products containing the mineral makes it no longer necessary to add to public water supplies, they say. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that while store-bought products reduce tooth decay, the greatest protection comes when they are used in combination with water fluoridation.

The outcome of an ongoing federal case in California could force the Environmental Protection Agency to create a rule regulating or banning the use of fluoride in drinking water nationwide. In the meantime, the trend is raising alarm bells for public health researchers who worry that, much like vaccines, fluoride may have become a victim of its own success.

The CDC maintains that community water fluoridation is not only safe and effective but also yields significant cost savings in dental treatment. Public health officials say removing fluoride could be particularly harmful to low-income families — for whom drinking water may be the only source of preventive dental care.

“If you have to go out and get care on your own, it’s a whole different ballgame,” said Myron Allukian Jr., a dentist and past president of the American Public Health Association. Millions of people have lived with fluoridated water for years, “and we’ve had no major health problems,” he said. “It’s much easier to prevent a disease than to treat it.”

According to the anti-fluoride group Fluoride Action Network, since 2010, over 240 communities around the world have removed fluoride from their drinking water or decided not to add it.

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[+] [email protected] -27 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Where does "no, people don't have the right to choose if [chemical] is added to their bloodstream, because they are stupid" stop? Who determines when it's "stupid" not to add a chemical to the water supply, and to whom do they answer? If the voting public decides to override public officials on a matter like this, you're basically saying they shouldn't have the "right" to vote the officials out on those grounds. You're basically saying this is some kind of extraordinary policy matter that obviously needs to be insulated from the kind of democratic review pretty much all other municipal policies are subject to. And we're talking about dumping a chemical in the water supply as a substitute for having good public health infrastructure in our country.

If you're a Republican, well, they're inconsistent, evil psychos, I don't expect much from them to make sense. But if you're a Democrat.... if you're a democrat.........

EDIT no really, explain it to me, don't just downvote me. Why should a highly technocratic public health policy that achieves only one public health goal, and isn't even the only way to do it, be beyond democratic review? This literally makes less than no fucking sense. Also, the rules on raw milk and lead in gasoline are also subject to democratic review. They don't get challenged because there are basically no downsides to those policies and literally the only people who are negatively impacted are people invested in the industries in question. People get iffy about fluoridation because there are corner cases that cause problems for individuals, so it's actually a public health tradeoff and you can avoid those tradeoffs with different policies (like universal public health care + fluoridation regimes) -- ie, you can achieve the benefits of fluoridation without negatively impacting anyone. The cost-benefit ratio of water fluoridation is literally different to those other policies, which is why nobody complains about unleaded gasoline but they do complain about fluoridation in water.

If nothing else, does anything strike you as half-cocked about comparing clean, potable, treated drinking water without fluoride to leaded gasoline? Do you refuse to drink un-fluoridated drinking water because of the permanent and irreversible health effects of being exposed to literally any quantity of unfluoridated potable water?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Unfortunately your point is a false agreement. The chemical in question has been studied for decades and has little to no negative impact on general public. A few people don't warrant a total ban. Everything will effect someone at some point. It's science not magic. A better education system and removing pointless arguments ( religion, anti sponsored studies ) would help inform people. I sure most people don't know fluoride is poisonous but so is vitamin D, C, and E. The dose is so high that you would have to eat it like cady straight.

I'm not antidemocratic, though the "let states decide" movement is making me reevaluate that. I'm more of a "let educated and qualified" people have a high stance then "it's turn the frogs gay" crowd. It is a difficult conversation but we have to advance as a society. This is not advancing. Also I agree universal healthcare would be a wonderful, but that shouldn't excuse something that is universal beneficial.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

To add to your reply,

If universal health care is the answer to not putting fluoride in the water, you make the universal health care a reality before you get rid of the thing that it replaces. You didn't get rid of something until you have it covered elsewhere, and even then you need to make sure by giving the new thing time to prove it is as effective as you believe it is going to be before you pull the plug on the thing that is proven to have been effective

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Not sure why someone down voted that but I agree. You never remove something until you have a more effective solution in place. That was one of the issues I had with Republicans when it can to the ACA. They destroyed it with nothing to fill the holes. Fucking hate that but I don't expect anything from them.