Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

https://www.salon.com/2023/03/16/health-officials-delayed-report-linking-fluoride-to-brain-harm_partner/

by gjsman-1000 • 3 years ago

498 399 3 years ago

It's worth thinking about the fact that virtually the entire EU gets by with non fluoridated water.

esperent3• 3 years ago

It's in other products instead. I think it depends on the country, but usually salt and toothpaste. I don't think there are any developed countries that have stopped fluoridation entirely.

hosteur• 3 years ago

It’s in toothpaste but you don’t eat that. I have never heard of it being in salt. Maybe you think of iodine?

ricardobeat5• 3 years ago

Only two countries, Germany and Switzerland, have fluoridated salt.

broguinn• 3 years ago

Israel has completely stopped fluoridation.

Blackthorn3• 3 years ago

I'm sorry but the difference you can literally just see between the teeth of US vs EU should disabuse you of the notion that they "get by".

jcfrei• 3 years ago

Not sure if you are trolling but are you alluding that the US population has healthier teeth? The "difference you see" is most likely just the much more widespread usage of bleaching in the US (which actually worsens the health of your teeth).

BurnGpuBurn• 3 years ago

And I am happy to live in a country that doesn't fluoridate its water. That way I can just wait out the whole scientific and political discussion and start drinking fluoridated water when it has finally and conclusively has been proven that it's beneficial. I suspect it wont be though, because it seems like the real scientists are saying no and the political scientists are saying yes.

paddw• 3 years ago

So we know that there is definitely little benefit from ingesting fluoride, and also that we can not rule out negative effects from ingesting fluoride. This seems like... a bit of a big deal?

celdon25• 3 years ago

It's been known for awhile, but you'd get labelled as a conspiracy theorist for any mention of it.

FooBarBizBazz• 3 years ago

It goes all the way back to Dr. Strangelove at least. There's a whole bit in there about it.

mc322• 3 years ago

I think The Netherlands took it out of their potable/tap water some while ago (like in the '70s).

esperent3• 3 years ago

Because they added it to salt and toothpaste instead.

xk_id4• 3 years ago

Not from ingestion, but exposing the enamel periodically during the day to fluoride and having trace amounts of it on your saliva supports remineralisation.

giantg2• 3 years ago

I would think it's pretty much impossible to have it in your mouth and not ingest any of it.

koheripbal• 3 years ago

The harmful dose is many orders of magnitude higher than the concentration in tap water.

Dose makes the poison. Literally any chemical in sufficient dose is poisonous

Natsu2• 3 years ago

Tooth decay is caused by acid produced by bacteria.

It's too bad we can't displace the bacteria themselves instead of working downstream from that.

rthomas6• 3 years ago

Actually, the article says the report says harm happens at 2x the current recommended fluoridation level.

chaorace• 3 years ago

There are lots of "big deals" in the environment that we silently tolerate -- things which studies conclusively and repeatedly show are substantially detrimental:

* Roadside air pollution

* Lead pipes

* Indoor CO2 buildup

Studies relating to flouride are nowhere near as conclusive and show nowhere near the same magnitude of effect. If flouride is contributing negatively in a similar way, it's doing so to such a small extent that it very nearly falls within the margin of error. Anyone genuinely worried about flouride should consider double-checking that they've already taken more meaningful action regarding their health, such as going on a walk, getting a full night's rest, or opening a window.

ttctciyf• 3 years ago

This reminded me of an old CAQ/CAIB article I read in the '90s on the impact of fluoride as an industrial pollutant. I found a copy[1] hosted at a site operated by the "Fluoride Action Network", which is also hosting other alarming claims such as:

• As of July 18, 2022, a total of 85 human studies have investigated the relationship between fluoride and human intelligence.
• Of these investigations, 76 studies have reported that elevated fluoride exposure is associated with reduced IQ in humans.

- https://fluoridealert.org/studies/brain01/

There's a historical link between fluoride alarmism and the far right, famously parodied in Kubrick's Dr Strangelove in the person of Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper[2,3] who instigates a nuclear response to the communist conspiracy to impurify America's bodily fluids via fluoride.

The CAQ article at [1] explains this:

Oscar Ewing, as Federal Security Agency administrator, was a Truman “fair dealer” who pushed many progressive programs such as nationalized medicine. Fluoridation was lumped with his proposals. Inevitably, it was attacked by conservatives as a manifestation of “creeping socialism,” while the left rallied to its support. Later during the McCarthy era, the left was further alienated from the opposition when extreme right-wing groups, including the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan, raved that fluoridation was a plot by the Soviet Union and/or communists in the government to poison America’s brain cells.
It was a simple task for promoters, under the guidance of the “original spin-doctor,” to paint all opponents as deranged–and they played this angle to the hilt. For example, one widely distributed dossier on opponents “listed in alphabetical order reputable scientists, convicted felons, food faddists, scientific organizations, and the Ku Klux Klan.”

I should note that CAQ has itself been attacked as communist propaganda, (and for that matter, some of the studies linked on the fluoridealert site are Chinese in origin.) Nonetheless the article[1] has some interesting and (to me) surprising information on the politically entangled history of fluoride. An excerpt:

One thing is certain, the name of the company with the biggest stake in fluoride’s safety was ALCOA–whose name is stamped all over the early history of water fluoridation.
Throughout industry’s “roaring 20s,” the U.S. Public Health Service was under the jurisdiction of Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon, a founder and major stockholder of ALCOA. In 1931, the year Mellon stepped down, a Public Health Service dentist named H. Trendley Dean was dispatched to certain remote towns in the West where drinking-water wells contained high concentrations of natural fluoride from deep in the earth’s crust. Dean’s mission was to determine how much fluoride people could tolerate without obvious damage to their teeth–a matter of considerable concern to ALCOA. Dean found that teeth in these high-fluoride towns were often discolored and eroded, but he also reported that they appeared to have fewer cavities than average. He cautiously recommended further studies to determine whether a lower level of fluoride in drinking water might reduce cavities without simultaneously damaging bones and teeth, where fluoride settles in humans and other animals.
Back at the Mellon Institute, ALCOA’s Pittsburgh industrial research lab, this news was galvanic. ALCOA-sponsored biochemist Gerald J. Cox27 immediately fluoridated some lab rats in a study and concluded that fluoride reduced cavities and that: “The case should be regarded as proved.”28 In a historic moment in 1939, the first public proposal that the U.S. should fluoridate its water supplies was made not by a doctor, or dentist, but by Cox, an industry scientist working for a company threatened by fluoride damage claims.29 Cox began touring the country, stumping for fluoridation.

1: https://fluoridealert.org/content/fluoride-commie-plot-or-ca...

2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4XhhTF7vRM

3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKR32ImWYzw

wyldfire2• 3 years ago

Wow, I'd previously scoffed at anti-fluoridation stuff, thinking that everyone who made these claims sounded like General Ripper. But this was an interesting historical perspective.

But ... what then keeps us in the status quo of fluoridated water supplies? Aluminum companies, still? seems unlikely that their influence would hold sway for a century. A century during which we have found other environmental pollutants and enacted/enforced regulation to reduce or eliminate their influence.

simoom22• 3 years ago

But ... what then keeps us in the status quo of fluoridated water supplies?
...thinking that everyone who made these claims sounded like General Ripper.

hello_computer• 3 years ago

Just about every minerals business is going to have loads of fluoride to discard--aluminum, uranium, gypsum, NPK, etc. A few years back I watched a documentary about a fertilizer plant in Morocco, dumping the fluoride they discarded from their NPK mix into the water supply. All of the children near the plant had spindly, twisted arms and legs from skeletal fluorosis.

It is also peculiar that a toxicologist becomes a dentist, and ends up at the atomic energy commission[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Hodge

alakep• 3 years ago

I don’t brush my teeth because I don’t want the residual fluoride there.

It’s healthier to just slosh some vodka around to kill the germs (this wouldn’t work with kids, but hey they’ll lose their first teeth so who cares).

alliao• 3 years ago

whiskey work better apparently due to acidity

jorvi2• 3 years ago

Neither are a good idea but vodka is virtually pure water and alcohol. Whisky has a bunch of other stuff in it, including sugar.

s0rce6• 3 years ago

Whiskey is only very weakly acidic, likely having no impact compared to neutral unbuffered vodka.

AequitasOmnibus• 3 years ago

I hope this is poorly conveyed satire. If not… good God.

Apart from the hygienic value in brushing, whether you agree with it or not, halitosis is an offensive smell to most of the public. Some of the worst breath I’ve ever had to smell came from alcoholics whose spirit of choice is vodka.

throwaway29903• 3 years ago

I’m very much anti fluoride in drinking water. And did not buy fluoride tooth paste for my kids until they learned to spit.

But 1) kids brush teeth to form a healthy habit, and protect their gums. Kids who do not brush teeth often develop gum disease which can cause tooth loss in the future as adults.

2) residual fluoride isn’t anything to worry about. Just spit the toothpaste out. If you’re super worried about fluoride then look for calcium fluoride toothpaste which is not poisonous.

3) sloshing vodka or whiskey around doesn’t remove plague from your teeth and you will suffer tooth decay regardless.

s0rce6• 3 years ago

Whats the point of calcium fluoride in your toothpaste, the water solubility is very low I would suspect it to do almost nothing, could be wrong, never heard of this. Generally soluble salts like sodium or tin fluoride are used.

bandyaboot3• 3 years ago

This can also double as a sleep aid if you don’t spit it out.

tiberious7262• 3 years ago

That will just dehydrate your mouth and kill all the bacteria which is supposed to be there. I joke about it with my neighbors when we have a boil water advisory, do not actually do it in real life.

rale00• 3 years ago

Wait till you find out whats in mouthwash...

jancsika• 3 years ago

but hey they’ll lose their first teeth so who cares

Just like learning best practices in computer language-- fire up that REPL and don't do shit because it's not a real application.

heyoni6• 3 years ago

I could smell this comment

hammock7• 3 years ago

What is it about this report that no one is calling it a conspiracy theory anymore?

Edit: why am I being downvoted for this?

ahahahahah• 3 years ago

Science.

hammock7• 3 years ago

There are 85 studies… The science has always been there. A Salon article hasn’t been though. Is that it?

ajkjk• 3 years ago

Edit: why am I being downvoted for this?

I think because you presumed that everybody was calling it a conspiracy before, which is patently untrue? (Correct would be: some people were, and some people still are)

epgui5• 3 years ago

As a biochemist, this seems to be a very complex issue that has been unnecessarily politicized. What happened with this report is interesting in and of itself, but I would not draw any conclusions (or make any inferences) from this, frankly.

yeeeloit• 3 years ago

As someone who comes from an area with clean fresh water, that does not contain added fluoride, this is not a complex issue. It's simply not a question that comes up. People have good dental hygiene here.

To my mind, yes sure you can over complicate the entire debate, but all of that is irrelevant in the face of these basic points:

- Is there a chance that fluoride ingestion could be detrimental to human health? - Can tooth decay be prevented by diet and brush/floss with good quality toothpaste?

Presumed safety of chemicals (at the behest of organizations) to human/environment until proven otherwise is shocking to me.

They irony of all this is that if you want to buy good quality toothpaste you are forced to import it from overseas, due to the FDA limiting ingredients in toothpaste.

bsder• 3 years ago

Citing: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24308394/ which recommends flouridating salt.

"Children and adults of the low socio-economic strata tend to have substantially more untreated caries than higher strata. Salt fluoridation is by far the cheapest method for improving oral health."

Sure, good for you that you're in one of the higher socioeconomic strata who can take care of their teeth. Not everyone else is.

trws• 3 years ago

What do you consider necessary for “good quality toothpaste?”

seanmcdirmid2• 3 years ago

I always thought anti fluoridation sentiment in Utah was related to them having the highest dentist count per capita. It’s the only state that I know of where fluoridation isn’t common.

rexarex• 3 years ago

My understanding is that some water sources naturally contain fluoride anyhow so this isn’t a great comparison. From the sources I read awhile ago they started fluoride additives because it was known that certain areas like Texas had bad teeth.

rgrieselhuber• 3 years ago

It seems pretty simple. Stop putting toxic waste in the water. If you’re worried about dental health, cut the sugar and use those little interdental brushes in addition to flossing and brushing well.

xupybd6• 3 years ago

My wife comes from a country that did not add fluoride to the water. She has very good dental hygiene but here teeth are not in good shape for her age. That's one data point that I have observed.

throwaway20372• 3 years ago

    They irony of all this is that if you want to buy good quality toothpaste you are forced to import it from overseas, due to the FDA limiting ingredients in toothpaste.

I never heard such a thing. Can you be more specific? Plus you can buy Darlie toothpaste in most Chinatown's around the world, even if unapproved by local dental orgs.

TeMPOraL3• 3 years ago

but all of that is irrelevant in the face of these basic points:
- Is there a chance that fluoride ingestion could be detrimental to human health? - Can tooth decay be prevented by diet and brush/floss with good quality toothpaste?

When evaluating those points, be sure to assess what actually happens, in real life, to real people, and not what could happen in theory.

For example, even if tooth decay could be effectively "prevented by diet and brush/floss with good quality toothpaste" in theory, the effect might be smaller (possibly much smaller) in practice, as people in general suck at lifestyle changes, dieting being a prime example, and then a noticeable subset of the population has problems with regularly brushing their teeth (for some reason, this is surprising to many). Unless you have a way for fixing that (so far no one has), this may well make fluoridated water come out ahead in comparison.

EDIT: The above is similar to the argument for, e.g., opt-out health insurance and social retirement savings plans - you're still free to choose an alternative or decide to stay with the default, but if for some reason you can't understand the choice or can't be arsed to make one, you and everyone else are better off with you having some insurance and savings by default. The similarity is that we know for certain that the "incapable of making a choice" bucket will contain a substantial segment of the population, so at policy level, making health insurance/retirement savings opt-in with nothing as default, is just deciding to screw all those people over.

d0mine• 3 years ago

In theory, obesity can be solved with diet. In practice, it is a complex issue.

wrp• 3 years ago

Besides being politicized, views on this issue will also be affected by personal experience. I've lived much of my life in Oregon, where there is no fluoridation. It seems to be widely believed by dentists here that people growing up in Oregon have poorer teeth and that it's largely because of the lack of fluoridation. I'm not arguing the merits, just pointing out the cultural belief.

epgui5• 3 years ago

What you’re pointing at is a scientific question of fact though, not a cultural belief. It’s the (or a) conclusion you’d likely reach after completing dental school.

There is a cultural/political side of the question, however: given that we know water fluoridation is safe and relatively efficacious at preventing caries, are we willing to pay for it and actually do it, and how much do we want to listen to people’s arbitrary feelings on the matter? That is a valid political question.

pessimizer2• 3 years ago

There are significant lobbies now trying to put both statins and lithium into the tap water.

Blackthorn3• 3 years ago

Statins on a wide scale could make for the single greatest life expectancy increase we could get anywhere...that would be awesome.

pessimizer2• 3 years ago

I hear that every few years from press releases written by people who sell statins.

Valmar• 3 years ago

Statins are dangerous... they block cholesterol, which incidentally, is fundamental, crucial, even, to the formation of both cell membranes and innumerable important hormones.

They are no solution at all. Just a fad.

logicchains• 3 years ago

The effect of statins is incredibly modest at best: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articl... . Anyone telling you otherwise is doing so because of financial incentive, not from following the actual science.

UncleOxidant• 3 years ago

Lithium based on studies that show that areas with higher lithium levels in the water tend to have less crime?

lxe• 3 years ago

These are just a few of the images we've recorded. And you can see, it wasn't what we thought. There's been no war here and no terraforming event. The environment is stable. It's the Pax. The G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate that we added to the air processors. It was supposed to calm the population, weed out aggression. Well, it works. The people here stopped fighting. And then they stopped everything else. They stopped going to work, they stopped breeding, talking, eating. There's 30 million people here, and they all just let themselves die.

EMCymatics• 3 years ago

Sources?

dr_kiszonka• 3 years ago

Wouldn't statins lower cholesterol in large populations of people who need it to, e.g., produce hormones? I can't imagine anyone wanting to inhibit the production of sex hormones (testosterone, estradiol, etc.) in children.

rlt2• 3 years ago

My vote is for LSD.

vallismortis• 3 years ago

Twenty years ago, I moved from Michigan (a state that uses fluoride) to Mississippi (a state that doesn't use fluoride). My dentist at the time told me that I was going to end up with tooth decay if I stayed down there for more than a few years. Sure enough, five years later I moved back to Michigan and ended up with a cavity in an unusual place. My (new) dentist in Michigan was completely unsurprised.

He said there are two problems with tooth decay in Mississippi:

1. They don't use fluoride in their water. 2. No decent dentist would ever work in Mississippi.

Fifteen years later, with no changes in dental hygiene in my entire life, and I've had no other problems with my teeth. Anecdotal evidence, maybe. But that is my experience.

dhbanes• 3 years ago

I think the fact that fluoride is beneficial to your teeth is a settled fact. However, the issue being discussed is fluorides impact on brain health.

adrian_b7• 3 years ago

Fluoride is beneficial only when applied externally on the dental enamel, where it converts the hydroxyapatite synthesized by the human cells into fluorapatite, which is less soluble in the acids contained in food or excreted by bacteria.

On the other hand, ingested fluoride has no benefits, because it cannot reach the tooth enamel and when in too large quantities it has bad effects, e.g. it may cause bone damage.

Brushing the teeth or washing the mouth with something containing fluoride is very good, drinking water with fluoride is very stupid.

throwaway2903• 3 years ago

And since oral hygiene seems to be linked to eg. Alzheimers (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/264164) and flouride seems to be indispensable oral hygiene thing the issue is not so straightforward...

newZWhoDis5• 3 years ago

The link you mention is from the mouth bacteria/plaques and their leakage into the blood stream near the brain.

Fluoride is not an antibiotic, so there is no plausible mechanism for it’s known topical benefits to prevent bacterial growth that might lead to Alzheimer’s (itself a theory, but an interesting one)

dosman33• 3 years ago

That is funny. However Ill postulate this: Why wouldn't someone go to where the most interesting work is to be found though? You don't become a military doctor if you don't find it interesting stitching up bullet holes. And vice versa, you don't become a military doctor if you're not interested in working on the same.

yCombLinks• 3 years ago

Because if you're educated, you generally don't want to move to Mississippi. I grew up there!

adrianN• 3 years ago

Maybe because people prefer earning money over interesting work?

arcticbull4• 3 years ago

Why wouldn't someone go to where the most interesting work is to be found though?

Well, Mississippi is ranked 34th in crime, 41st in education, 49th in healthcare, 49th in economy, 40th in fiscal stability, 47th in infrastructure and 36th in opportunity. Assuming a medical professional cares about anything other than "natural environment" in which they rank 16th, I suspect there's a long list of places they'd rather end up.

[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings

adgjlsfhk1• 3 years ago

because you're gay, or black, or not Christian, or don't want to be shot?

VectorLock2• 3 years ago

Thats a very HN opinion. Sometimes people pick careers for factors other than how interesting they are.

HWR_14• 3 years ago

For other people moving to Mississippi now, they make fluoride mouthwash that you can use daily to help counteract a lack of fluorinated water.

s0rce6• 3 years ago

Genetics plays a huge roll. As does your daily dental hygiene routine. Based on you posting here means you probably have access to tooth brush, floss, tooth paste and somewhere to use them daily and effectively, this reduces the impact of water fluoridation variables.

newZWhoDis5• 3 years ago

Once again, this is akin to drinking sunscreen having a positive effect on lip skin cancer.

Yes, but… no.

dtech2• 3 years ago

Is brushing twice a day with fluoridated toothpaste and floss or similar not a thing in the US? In Europe most countries don't fluoride tap water and there's not a massive tooth decay problem.

manmal2• 3 years ago

Not to refute your n=1, but reviews are a safer way of establishing whether something actually works. Eg here, from 2015:

There is insufficient information to determine whether initiation of a water fluoridation programme results in a change in disparities in caries across socioeconomic status (SES) levels.
No studies that aimed to determine the effectiveness of water fluoridation for preventing caries in adults met the review's inclusion criteria.
Over 97% of the studies were at high risk of bias and there was substantial between‐study variation

From here: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD...

TLDR: The existing research is low quality.

rixary• 3 years ago

Is caries the Spanish word for it or is that actually an English word for cavity as well?

rlt2• 3 years ago

No decent dentist would ever work in Mississippi.

This sounds like some elitist BS.

DoreenMichele• 3 years ago

FYI:

The CDC recommends breastfeeding infants, as breastmilk contains significantly less fluoride than fluoridated drinking water. If breastfeeding is not possible, the CDC also endorses using fluoridated water in infant formula, though it suggests mixing the formula with low-fluoride bottled water to lessen the risk of dental fluorosis.

Infants who are fed formula made with fluoridated tap water can have three to four times higher fluoride exposure than adults, warned Lanphear. He added that before an infant's teeth erupt, there's no benefit to fluoride exposure. "There are vulnerable groups we have to be worried about," he said, "and that's not being brought out adequately by these agencies."

s0rce6• 3 years ago

Hmm, its been a while since I worked in the area of dental fluoride (was part of my PhD) but my understanding was systemic exposure pre-eruption was still beneficial. This (possibly biased source) agrees:

https://www.dentalcare.com/en-us/ce-courses/ce334/pre-erupti...

Excess exposure can cause fluorosis but nothing to do with the brain.

newZWhoDis5• 3 years ago

None of the studies I have seen properly account for the lifetime effect, and instead only deduce lack of harm from flawed isolated studies.

It’s in the entire water supply.

You were gestated in a womb of a woman consuming highly fluoridated water.

You were fed formula made with fluoridated water tuned to dose a 200lb man when you were 8lbs.

The water you drank as your bones were growing was similarly overdosed

The food you eat is washed in fluoridated water. The coffee and beer you drink is brewed with fluoridated water. The bread you eat is made with fluoridated water.

Basically, the dose is insanely wrong from the get go and then it’s applied to everything so there’s no way to accurately measure exposure. Then factor in the bell distribution and you are massively overexposing huge numbers of people a few standard deviations out.

yarg2• 3 years ago

Possibly biased?

It's two clicks away from an online shop for (fluoride) toothpaste.

wiredfool• 3 years ago

My n=3 test would tend to confirm this.

First kid was born and lived for a year or so when we had city water, which was flouridated. 2nd and 3rd kid were born where we were on well water, with no flouride.

First kid had no baby tooth cavities. Second and Third wound up with cavities on the front teeth, and we used topical flouridation for re-mineralization.

CrampusDestrus• 3 years ago

Every chemical imbalance in infants is going to have much greater effects than on adults. They are literally a fraction of our body mass

quinto_quarto• 3 years ago

"Mandrake, have you ever seen a commie drink a glass of water?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr2bSL5VQgM&ab_channel=Jacob

TheAceOfHearts• 3 years ago

Adding fluoride to water has always seemed weird to me, since you can't control for how much water someone is drinking or account for different bodily factors like age and weight. I wonder why the European solution of adding it to salt isn't the default, especially given that iodized salt is already so popular and commonplace.

As a general rule of thumb, I think it's interesting to scrutinize dosage recommendations and compare regulations between countries. If someone claims that the science on some topic is well settled then health officials in multiple countries should arrive at roughly similar results. If there's a discrepancy between the suggestions made by health officials in the US and EU, it's worth asking why.

nathanwh• 3 years ago

Don't you have the same problem with the salt that you have with the water, no way to tell what dose everyone is receiving?

para_parolu• 3 years ago

My guess it easier to buy different salt but hard to get second water pipe.

dr_dshiv• 3 years ago

Omg, no wonder my teeth are getting worse after moving to Amsterdam. I drink a ton of water and use Maldon salt. I didn’t realize there wasn’t fluoride in the water. (All the Nutella isn’t helping either, but… ooh, maybe that’s a reasonable vector for Europeans)

dtech2• 3 years ago

Everyone in the Netherlands is using fluorided toothpaste and brushes twice a day, cavities are really low.

isoprophlex• 3 years ago

Don't you brush your teeth?!

osigurdson2• 3 years ago

I think the obvious answer is, we can’t actually tell one way or the other if it is a net benefit. However, humans can’t handle uncertainty so must be told in confident tones that the decision is the correct one. If anyone questions the established decision, they must be discredited.

TeMPOraL3• 3 years ago

It's worse than that. We may know perfectly well which way is better on the net. But since masses can't handle uncertainty, you can't just say "doing this is more beneficial on the net" - you have to project certainty, or else people will interpret your lack of confidence as indicative of scheming, and do the opposite.

newZWhoDis5• 3 years ago

No credible scientific evidence exists that ingesting fluoride is beneficial.

Whenever you point this out, people respond with studies that focused on topical application. This topic is weird. Otherwise intelligent people shut down and begin quoting movies from the 1960’s, and are somehow incapable of distinguishing between a topical mouthwash and oral consumption.

Might as well drink sunscreen and talk about the reduction in lip skin cancer.

a_bonobo• 3 years ago

No credible scientific evidence exists that ingesting fluoride is beneficial.

???

Regular toothbrushing with fluoride toothpaste is the principal non‐professional intervention to prevent caries, but the caries‐preventive effect varies according to different concentrations of fluoride in toothpaste, with higher concentrations associated with increased caries control.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6398117/

Higher concentrations lead to better caries control (unless you go too high), what other evidence do you want?

RC_ITR2• 3 years ago

Im interested in your take about how humans get water into their bodies without coating their teeth in it

markmark2• 3 years ago

Here you go: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/003335491012500507

We've been putting fluoride in water for a long time, and there are multiple studies that have looking in to it, I don't know why you think there aren't?

adrian_b7• 3 years ago

No, fluoride must not be added to any food or beverage, because it provides no benefits whatsoever when ingested.

Fluoride is beneficial only when applied externally on the dental enamel, so that the fluoride ions will passively substitute the hydroxide ions. There is no known biological process that uses actively fluoride in the human body and excessive ingested fluoride has bad effects, e.g. bone damage.

Therefore fluoride must be added only to tooth paste and mouth washes, which provides all the benefits and none of the risks.

Intentionally ingesting fluoride is incredibly stupid and it is beyond my power of understanding how this could be mandated by law in USA and in some other countries which imitated USA irrationally.

levzettelin3• 3 years ago

Some people lack the self control to use toothpaste regularly. For those people it's beneficial adding flouride to water.

blackhaz• 3 years ago

Wouldn't some part of toothpaste end up ingested? With strong fluoride pastes (like those 5000 ppm specialized ones) could there also be a risk?

thrashh• 3 years ago

Well it halved childhood cavities in the 50s. It did its job and I don’t think it’s hard to understand why it was done.

Same reason why they stared iodine to salt… because people were having mental development issues.

Now is it still necessary? That’s a different question but let’s not pretend that we don’t know why it was done.

dash22• 3 years ago

Given that the health bureaucracies of many countries seem to disagree with you, you need to cite more evidence and sources to support this claim. You can't just do it by strong assertion.

dharma12• 3 years ago

I’ve been thinking about this recently - fluorapatite is stronger than hydroxyapatite when it bonds to enamel, and less soluble by acid. But fluoride doesn’t occur in any natural processes in the body - while hydroxyapatite is a perfect biomimetic - very safe, you can swallow it safely - and also works great in toothpaste to remineralise teeth.

Currently using BioMin F (fluorapatite - very little fluoride due to a novel delivery mechanism but still) but considering switching to BioMin C (nanohydroxyapatite)

jjcon• 3 years ago

it is beyond my power of understanding how this could be mandated by law in USA

It isn't mandated by law in the USA. All water contains some naturally occurring fluoride, some localities choose to add additional fluoride to their water in the USA but certainly not all. I'm pretty sure it is added in something like 60% of city water supplies.

elif7• 3 years ago

beyond my power of understanding how this could be mandated

There is of course the "that was the plan all along" hypothesis, that mild cognitive decay on a large scale is a useful outcome for control purposes.

mihaaly5• 3 years ago

adrian_b vs. health scientists throughout the world and history, ca. 1:1e10

Who to believe here, who should we believe here, hm, very difficult problem, adrian_b's passionate statements or practically all the professionals of the world. I go and contemplate over this for a while now. : )

elif7• 3 years ago

it is beyond my power of understanding how this could be mandated by law in USA

Consider that fluoride ingestion has been linked with increased anxiety and depression[*]. Depending upon one's political objectives, this could be a desirable outcome. For instance, the "anti-terror" decades of invasion would be easier to accept for an anxious public. Or depression may lead to more consumer activity.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258252498_Fluoride_...

aatd86• 3 years ago

They give that to babies in France...

I have swallowed my fair share of fluoride pills.

Are you to tell me that I should have been a galaxy brain but am now a smooth brain? Fvck!

shrx• 3 years ago

EU citizen here, they're not putting it in salt here, but in toothpaste.

cinntaile• 3 years ago

He's probably confusing it with iodide.

tpush• 3 years ago

Salt is definitely commonly supplemented with fluoride, say least in Germany.

irthomasthomas• 3 years ago

I always found it bizarre that health care is so expensive, and yet here we are given unlimited, free medicine, on tap!

Garvi• 3 years ago

it's worth asking why

It's been a popular and wide spread conspiracy theory that the "shadow government" is either trying to lower the IQ or the total population numbers using fluoride in the water supply. And since politicians don't get chosen on a basis of competency, but rather popularity, you have the vast majority being relatively severely logically challenged and thus unable to read scientific papers and understand complicated topics like child dental care.

jiggawatts2• 3 years ago

Or any topic that involves more than one interacting decision, a graph, or any numbers at all.

COVID made it pretty clear that neither the general population nor most politicians are remotely qualified to make decisions. Not just medical decisions, just… decisions.

taskforcegemini• 3 years ago

so salt would not only be bad for my heart but also for my brain?

jeezfrk• 3 years ago

change our kids over to frack fluid! better still ... give em dioxin the way capitalist Jesus intended!

LispSporks22• 3 years ago

I once found myself stuck in a biker bar west of Dallas. I had to listen to this old timer Hell’s Angel go on and on about fluoride conspiracies. Some of them are pretty wild - “fluoride is created by nuclear weapons construction as waste and the government has to get rid of it somehow, so in the water it goes” for example. The rest of the evening is a little hazy but I remember that.

Incidentally, I used to think Hell’s Angels were just retired dentists.

Obscurity4340• 3 years ago

They (ADA) were sort of Mafia-ish in South Park

zkms• 3 years ago

fluoride is created by nuclear weapons construction as waste and the government has to get rid of it somehow, so in the water it goes

Like some wild conspiracy theories, there is a kernel of truth to this one. Namely, the fluoride used in water fluoridation is indeed an industrial byproduct -- except not from nuclear weapon manufacture, but from the production of phosphate fertilizer.

From the CDC (which is definitely on the pro-fluoridation side of things) website https://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/engineering/engineering-sho...

The three fluoride additives used for water fluoridation are derived principally from phosphate fertilizer production.

emodendroket• 3 years ago

This seems like it is ultimately a result of the politicization of the issue: it becomes difficult to have an honest conversation of the merits and demerits of something if you know there’s a political faction ready to seize on everything you say and take it out of context. Not saying that makes it right, but it’s an outcome we could anticipate, I think.

yownie• 3 years ago

But the report did find a possible link to cognitive harm at approximately two times the current recommended water fluoridation level, records show.

This is more a report about consuming excess fluoride from other sources that water.

Because many common foods and drinks contain fluoride, consuming them along with fluoridated water could amount to harmful exposure levels, these experts say.

I do wonder what the other common food and drinks could be

FollowingTheDao3• 3 years ago

Black Tea.

cubefox• 3 years ago

I do wonder what the other common food and drinks could be

They are listed in the article

pkphilip• 3 years ago

Health officials, believe it or not, are like any other human beings - in that they also have their own agendas and sometimes those agendas may be in direct opposition to the well being of others. I am surprised that anyone is surprised when news like this comes out.

dukeofdoom• 3 years ago

This guy posted a video a few weeks ago, claiming to be sick from being over exposed to chlorine in drinking water in Mexico. He believes the combination of highly chlorinated drinking water and swimming daily in a chlorinated pool caused his symptoms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeWdEr1XyTw

My friend is convinced her autistic child was over exposed to aluminium or other metals...but maybe it was fluoride. These things need to be investigated.

We know that Lead exposure is widely known to cause harm to the brain, so other metals could have similar effects. Babies having a much smaller mass, would be much greater risk of ingesting toxic amounts or slow dose environmental exposure through things like aluminum cookware.

A substance might not be toxic on its own, but in combination with another substance in the environment could be highly toxic, but affect only some small percentage of people that come in in contact with both.

Like we know many prescribed drugs, can't be mixed with alcohol, because they become toxic if you do.

RugnirViking• 3 years ago

These things need to be investigated

are you assuming they haven't been? that people just bunged in chlorine into swimming pools without a second thought? that nobody has thought to look into heavy metal exposure in babies?

If anything, the issue is the opposite. All of these tests have been repeated so many times, often by honest scientists, but also often by biased companies, that people struggle to find the truth and instead find whatever they want to believe (and its usually something about how all the professionals are stupid and dumb but they personally are special and right)

How do you think those labels about mixing drugs with alcohol/grapefruits/whatever else came about? if it goes into your body, it needs to be tested.

NeuroCoder• 3 years ago

Are places generally adding more than the recommended level of fluoride in their water? How much water do you have to ingest to reach the maximum recommended exposure? Given how bad people are at drinking the recommended level of water, I'm curious how they accurately assessed outcomes based on what I assume are relatively few data points

nathias• 3 years ago

maybe just brush your teeth

VerminOctopus12• 3 years ago

maybe do some basic thinking about public health policy

yarg2• 3 years ago

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6923889/ - Developmental fluoride neurotoxicity: an updated review

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3956646/ - Water Fluoridation: A Critical Review of the Physiological Effects of Ingested Fluoride as a Public Health Intervention

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8930857/ - The use of hydroxyapatite toothpaste to prevent dental caries

In vitro and in situ studies are demonstrating promising results of HAP toothpastes on the remineralization of enamel lesions and preventing/reducing demineralization. Specifically, research appears to demonstrate either its superiority or equivalency to fluoride toothpaste as anti-caries agents.

I'm not sure how conspiratorial I'm being, but for years I've felt that the fluoridation of water was more about the dilution of neurotoxic industrial waste product and not oral health.

Regardless of whether I'm on or off base in that regard, I see little reason to continue to use something that - at best - will only react with pre-existing enamel, when hydroxyapatite toothpastes can actually fix damage (albeit to a limited degree).

verisimi• 3 years ago

I'm not sure how conspiratorial I'm being, but for years I've felt that the fluoridation of water was more about the dilution of neurotoxic industrial waste product and not oral health.

"CITIZEN, please check yourself into a fema retraining facility! The government is there to serve us all for the greater good."

Nevermind the double speak, where the term 'the greater good' means the good of those people who consider themselves to be greater than you.

raverbashing2• 3 years ago

Looks like the future neuralink test subjects have come into force against fluoride.

But of course people forgot the history of water fluoridation and the risks of dental cavities

(of course, for modern countries I guess it makes more sense to have it in dental products than just in tap water, but I don't buy the moral panic)

The report found that a link between typical levels of fluoride added to water and possible harm to brain development is unclear... the report did find a possible link to cognitive harm at approximately two times

Well good think we are at the current level and not at two times it then

kukkeliskuu• 3 years ago

Discussion on fluoride is interesting, but isn't the real news the censorship of the research results?

tonis2• 3 years ago

All foods are full of sugar, government does nothing, children get teeth issues, government solves it, by adding fluorine to our drinking water, adding more to our toxic overload.

mihaaly5• 3 years ago

> This January, Birnbaum issued a scathing legal declaration as part of the lawsuit, writing, "The decision to set aside the results of an external peer review process based on concerns expressed by agencies with strong policy interests on fluoride suggests the presence of political interference in what should be a strictly scientific endeavor."

with

> Despite this unusually rigorous review process, a network of health officials and influential dental groups argued that the NTP had failed to address several issues raised by the NASEM review committee.

Health officials and dental groups have interest on fluoridation for political reasons? I don't buy it!

I would imagine a self interst focused dental and profeccional helthcare group would argue for the decrease of fluoridation so more income comes from the work on decayed teeth. If it is meant of interest of their patients then that is just desirable! Also health officials and dentists are not the typical polititian group I picture in my mind. I'd sooner call them scientists than politicians. (if meant about scientific politics then should say so - including themselves and that why they push despite widespread scientific critics).

I am telling this with having only topical use of fluoride - with good results -, and with no desire for water fluoridation but also knowing that topical may not be sufficient enough for children and the broad population.

Somehow the feeling is that the NTP and Birnbaum is the manipulative and polititian here. Just a felling though, based on this limited and filtered report, but based on quotes.

dm808• 3 years ago

This extensive review has been available since 2006: https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11571/fluoride-in-... Neurotoxicity, especially in the presence of iodine deficiency, which is common, has been clearly documented. Toothpaste level exposure is enough to lower IQ in iodine deficiency.

ycombinete• 3 years ago

So does that mean that it’s fine if we’re not iodine deficient?

bob_theslob6462• 3 years ago

It's fascinating. Having gone through 301 comments and there really hasn't been any deep discussion at whether or not fluoride has been linked to brain harm.... There are little debates about drinking water. I'm disappointed..I'm gonna to have to do some digging.

VerminOctopus12• 3 years ago

This is unfortunately not the place for deep, thoughtful conversation on topics not directly pertaining to tech

mensetmanusman2• 3 years ago

I learned this too late: after brushing, don't rinse your mouth clean with water, leave the toothpaste residue on your teeth all night to improve effectiveness.

r3trohack3r• 3 years ago

I’ve heard from someone who worked in a water district that they didn’t add fluoride to water for dental health, that was a spin they put on it. Not sure how true it is though.

After the city treated and purified the water, they needed something to add in to keep it from reacting with the city’s pipes. Otherwise the water will eat the pipe and you get dirty water full of pipe delivered to the tap.

They needed something that was cheap, relatively safe to drink, and available in large quantities- fluoride checked those boxes. Supposedly they came up with the dental spin to sell the solution to the public.

jscipione• 3 years ago

Once again the conspiracy theory has become a conspiracy. If you get your news and information from Alex Jones you would know about this since at least 2008 making you a well-informed citizen, but if you only get your news from places like Salon you have been misinformed.

aftbit• 3 years ago

A reverse osmosis filtration system will remove the majority of ions from water, including fluoride. This enters into another scientific debate though, as some suggest that you are also removing beneficial minerals from the water at the same time.

thebigspacefuck• 3 years ago

My filter has a cartridge that adds beneficial minerals back in

blurbleblurble• 3 years ago

Fluoride increases precipitation of calcium onto tissues. It's very straightforward. Some parts of the brain are directly exposed to the blood and get easily calcified. In particular, parts of the brain associated with regulation of circadian rhythm are known to get calcified in the presence of higher fluoride. This has been known and understood for a long time.

I'd like to take this as an opportunity to voice frustration with "rationalist skeptics", who for the longest time have ridiculed critics of mass water fluoridation. Maybe it's because they're really into the comforts of orthodoxy moreso than skepticism?

Using bullying and ridicule to reinforce unfounded scientific/medical orthodoxy in the name of "skepticism", or even in the name of "evidence" that you don't have... It isn't scientific no matter how much you'd like to believe it is.

winrid• 3 years ago

TIL black tea concentrates fluoride since the plant absorbs it.

Also this is kinda scary if true... https://assureasmile.com/fluoride-in-your-water/fluoride-in-...

shushpanchik• 3 years ago

What does "possible link" mean? p<0.05?

cheeseomlit• 3 years ago

I wonder why it's been so difficult to stop blanket water fluoridation. Maybe something to do with corpos having a cheap way to dump toxic waste from fertilizer production that would otherwise be expensive to dispose of:

https://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/engineering/engineering-sho...

The three fluoride additives used for water fluoridation are derived principally from phosphate fertilizer production.

Plus we don't just drink fluoridated water- we bathe in it, we cook with it, our pets drink it, we water our lawns with it, its everywhere. I recall trying to find studies on the effects of these non-drinking uses years ago and not finding much. Again, I wonder why.

Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

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