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

submitted 5 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] 11 points 5 months ago (3 children)

There's other ways to do that too. Kids here (Netherlands) get fluoride treatments from a young age (after their adult teeth have come through, I think) up to 18. It's not particularly enjoyable but like you said, it benefits you for the rest of your life.

Free/affordable healthcare means checkups at the dentist about every 6 months. After the checkup you get these two small jaw shaped containers (for upper and lower sides) filled with a fluoride paste and you just sit there for a few minutes drooling into a metal bowl. There's even flavours but they're all gross, haha. Apparently that's on purpose so you don't swallow too much.

Anyway, this whole fluoride in the water thing appears to be a very US based discussion, so I've got no horse in this race. I just wish the US had better, more affordable healthcare to begin with.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

If you're poor and American, you essentially can't afford a dentist. This is better than nothing.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

Excuse me! The fluoride treatment flavours ar wonderful! Best part of going to the dentist as a kid!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

The missing ingredient in the US is a lack of public health infrastructure that universally covers poor people. Obama's healthcare reform didn't even cover every poor person in the country. But if we had that, adding in a fluoridation regime would be trivial. "Fluoridating tapwater is the cheapest way to get it to poor people" is only true because so many poor people in the US have no healthcare, period, so you have to set up all the infrastructure from scratch. Dumping it in the city water is cheaper than setting up real public health infra, but only before you factor in every other benefit of having public health infrastructure and all the cost savings across all of society caused by having public health infrastructure.

Neoliberals in the US love it because it's one of those "smart" solutions that requires absolutely no national-level infrastructure, you just need companies with fluoride waste on one side, and municipalities willing to buy some on the other. You don't have to make our society better, and what's more, you can castigate opponents for hating poor people when really you're the one preferring dumping a single chemical in the water to address a single type of dental problem instead of supporting actual public dental health infra in this country.

Also, dumping it in the water sort of obviates one of the more important aspects of administering compounds like fluoride, which is dose control. Water fluoridation increases the rate of fluoride toxicity because drinking water is not the only source of fluoride in people's diets. Improperly administered fluoridation schemes have killed hundreds of people in the past. More recent research has also indicated that there are heath risks associated with accumulation of fluoride in soft tissues leading to damage heart muscle, kidneys, liver, and brain which had not been documented back in the 19-fucking-40's when this dipshit policy was first invented. all claims in this paragraph from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9920376/

We fluoridate the water so we don't have to actually help poor people with their health in this country, and apparently so liberals don't need to keep up with health research conducted since the 1940's.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Lol