this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 minutes ago

I believe the objection to fluoride is that it is a tranquilizer that keeps us from achieving glory through violent uprising... or sweet sweet dentist profits.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

This is a conspiracy by fluoridians.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Thats what the fluoridiots say.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

fluorida man strikes again

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah but I read an article on a bullshit website. I think some no name website knows more than a toxicologist

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Why is some dumb scientist expert trying to tell me, a person who pays for an internet connection, what the truth is?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 52 minutes ago

Because something something shill money.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Back when I was in college, people didn't like fluoride because it calcifies the pinneal gland. I assume that rhetoric has only been further exaggerated over the years

[–] [email protected] 1 points 24 minutes ago

Another point that conspiracy bros will bring up is that fluoride is a toxic byproduct of aluminum manufacture and dumping it into the water supply is a cheap way for Alcoa to dispose of it benevolently.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

It does do this. However so does ageing, low sunlight exposure, low altitude, ethnicity, sex, nutrition, neuro-divergence, cell phone use, EM fields... you get the idea.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 minutes ago

Does fluoride-enhanced water actually do this, though? Or just pure fluoride? Yes, pure fluoride has an effect, but I always thought the miniscule amount in our water is not enough to actually make a difference to the natural calcification of our pineal gland, anyways.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 hours ago

Agreed but can we turn down the chloramine valve? It tastes awful.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Great post... but where is the meme?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

The meme is now this is not US policy.

Its like stating the world is not flat... when in fact NASA's official stance is that the world is, indeed, flat.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Without Fluoride all the humour in the world dies.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

The people who need to hear this sadly would not believe that too much water can kill you even if you showed them someone die from it, I fear. I'd also be shocked if they read "water poisoning" and didn't think of poisoned water.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I didn’t know this was a thing when I was younger, but not young enough to not be classified as a moron.

Drank about 7-8 litres of water in 3 hours without going to the bathroom as a contest against a work colleague. Suffice to say I started feeling a little off on the way home, even after going to the bathroom. Years later I finally learned you can drown yourself from drinking too much and the symptoms were eerily close to what I experienced that night.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago

Oh don't get me wrong! I also only learned about water toxicity when I was very much an adult.

But the difference between us and the type of person I'm talking about, is that we (I'm presuming on your part) don't think fluoride in water is a bad thing.

The kind of person who hears "the government adds CHEMICAL_NAME to water" and assumes that's a bad thing is the kind of person who will not believe drinking too much water can kill you, even (or especially) if they are told by an expert.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

How much oatmeal would I have to eat to die of fluoride poisoning?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

0.08mg per half cup serving, but may vary depending on water used. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Fluoride-HealthProfessional/

10mg is the accepted daily upper limit for an adult. So 62.5 cups of oatmeal to reach that max safe limit. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Fluoride-Consumer/

Acute poisoning symptoms may appear as low as 10-15 mg/kg, lethal dose might be 32-64 mg/kg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoride_toxicity

So 200 to 400 cups of oatmeal per kg you weigh for a lethal dose. (32/0.08/2=200, 64/0.08/2=400)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 40 minutes ago

That's a lot of oatmeal.

[–] [email protected] 82 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Oh yeah? And what if someone ignores that, simply lies and says it's toxic? I'm convinced!

[–] [email protected] 31 points 15 hours ago

And both of these people telling me about fluoride in water are both experts in their field. One an expert toxicologist, and the other an expert liar. Now I don't know what to believe.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I feel like I woke up in the movie Dr. Strangelove

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 hours ago

I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

Second time I got to post this today, unfortunately because it's almost ceased being satire.

[–] [email protected] 217 points 20 hours ago (9 children)

Toxicologist here. I think that take is dishonest or dumb.

Taking a lethal dose is almost never the concern with any substance in our drinking water.

Hormones, heavy metals, persistent organic chemicals, ammonia are all in our drinking water. But for all of them we can't drink enough water to die from a high dose.

Some of them still have a large effect on our bodies.

It's about the longterm effects. Which longterm studies to learn about. That makes them harder to study.

Still doesn't mit flouride does anything bad longerm. But the argument is bad.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

Yeah, it seems to me like he got the right idea and wanted to convince people by making an extreme statement..

[–] [email protected] 96 points 20 hours ago (7 children)

Yeah, by this argument lead in the water isn't a concern.

[–] [email protected] 90 points 19 hours ago

You just made me mad by helping me realize that the Trump bros are going to break water by removing fluoride long before they fix water by removing lead.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

So, once again, DHMO is the chemical we need to fear.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago

Any chemical that can exist as a solid, a liquid and a gas at the same time isn't safe to put into our bodies!

[–] [email protected] 28 points 16 hours ago (6 children)

The stuff also known as hydric acid. People just don't talk enough about how corrosive it is. Plus, it gets in the air and gets in your lungs!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 hours ago

It’s 10 million times more acidic than drain cleaner!!! And the government is trying to force you to drink it by forcing it to be used in municipal drinking fountains

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago

It’s so pervasive that they have found it in the bodies of every single child worldwide.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 14 hours ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

This is a better argument than the one in the post. No one is worried about acute toxicity of fluoride but rather long term. But it's not long term toxic, doesn't accumulate in the body, and is only present in very low amounts in water. However it should be enough to use fluoridated toothpaste to get the positive effects.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

I don't understand your point.

Nobody drinks the ocean. Fluoride is barely active topically. Most humans rarely if at all swim in the ocean.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago

Talking about the ocean is odd, but there are towns in the UK (and most countries I'd assume?) where the natural level of fluoride is higher than the concentration they aim for when adding fluoride. I think that's a pretty good argument for it being safe - the people of Hartlepool have been drinking fluoride rich water for 13 centuries and don't have any noticeable issues compared to the rest OF County Durham.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

Yeah. It's not an entirely salient point. It does, however, underline the ubiquitous nature of fluorine.

The biggest source of Flourine in the environment is just the normal weathering of rocks that contain it. The biggest of the anthropogenic sources include brick production, phosphate fertiliser application and coal burning.

The minor amount added to drinking water really wouldn't be the biggest issue if it was as toxic as it's made out to be.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 15 hours ago

i know this guy has a fancy degree and everything, but is he really as reliable a source as rfk junior? you don’t need fluoride when you have an army of worms ready to eat any kinds of bacteria that may enter your system.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (5 children)

The fluoride added to water gets it up to 0.7mg/liter.

That ends up to be 2 or 3 drops in a 55 gallon drums worth of water. Not much.

Fluoride is a natural substance and is found in many areas drinking water already. Many areas in much higher concentrations than 0.7mg/liter, so realistically people all over the world have drank fluoridated water for thousands of years.

You have to well over double the 0.7 before any health issues may appear and the first to appear is at about triple the concentration in kids under 8 years old who drink it for years getting spots on their teeth. The spots are only superficial.

Going into concentrations even higher than that CAN cause health issues when drank for longer periods of time. All of those cases being from naturally occurring fluoride, which actually effects somewhere north of 20% of the world's population.

Which makes the argument that fluoride in our water keeps us passive as being extra stupid, since water sourced around Columbia (the country) is far higher than .07mg/liter and Columbia seems to be caught in violence and turmoil and instability quite a bit over the decades.

*edit: Colombia

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 hours ago

Just because a concentration is low doesn’t mean it’s safe. Water with 0.7 mg/L of Po-210 is lethal.

You can put an amount of it in a 55 gallon drum that is not visible

It’s a natural substance

Fluoride is in fact safe at the amounts that the FDA regulates but saying it’s a small concentration or that it’s natural are not the reasons it’s safe. It’s the hundreds of peer reviewed research articles that show that it’s safe

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