Misinformation campaigns increasingly target the cavity-fighting mineral, prompting communities to reverse mandates. Dentists are enraged. Parents are caught in the middle.

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%.

  • QuentinCallaghan@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    4·
    2 months ago

    “Medical freedom”, the rallying cry for all kinds of grifters spreading disinformation and wanting to roll back the progress made in public health.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      3·
      2 months ago

      And they don’t seem to like the fact that they have the freedom to filter the fluoride back out of the water.

    • john89@lemmy.ca
      01·
      2 months ago

      🥱

      Or, give people the option to choose for themselves.

      Scientific consensus has been wrong many times before, and it will be wrong many times again.

        • john89@lemmy.ca
          01·
          2 months ago

          Right.

          Let’s put any amount of contaminates in our drinking water just so people can “filter them out.”

          Someone mentioned arsenic earlier in this thread, and I think I can find some study that says arsenic is good for you. Let’s add it to our water and anyone who thinks it’s harmful can just filter it out.

          Also, I’m adding my fecal matter to the water supply to improve people’s microbiomes. They can just filter it out if they don’t like it.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
            2·
            2 months ago

            Fluoride is not a contaminant, but please do find a study that says arsenic is good for you. This should be interesting.

            • john89@lemmy.ca
              01·
              2 months ago

              Fluoride is not a contaminant

              Says who?

              https://gizmodo.com/hey-remember-when-people-used-to-eat-arsenic-as-a-heal-1676316276

              It’s not a study, but there was a time when people believed arsenic wasn’t poisonous. There were most likely scientists back in the day advocating for its usage. You can find their work if you’re really interested.

              A more recent and easier to research example would be all the “studies” saying lead is safe. Do I have to specifically point to those, or can you understand my point without it?

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                1·
                2 months ago

                It’s not a study

                Okay, so note what you claimed.

                There were most likely scientists back in the day advocating for its usage. You can find their work if you’re really interested.

                It’s not my job to prove you aren’t lying.

                • john89@lemmy.ca
                  01·
                  2 months ago

                  I mean, if you don’t want to understand then you won’t understand.

                  I’ve done my part. If you want to replace arsenic with lead, then will it make sense?

                  Probably not because you don’t want to understand.

                  Also,

                  Fluoride is not a contaminant

                  Says who?

                  You conveniently ignored this part.

      • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
        1·
        2 months ago

        I’m struggling with this.

        You’re saying that because science was wrong about something else, it must be wrong about fluoride?

        I think that if you really dig into it, you’ll find that arsenic use wasn’t supported by science, but rather snake oil salesmen.

        • john89@lemmy.ca
          1·
          1 month ago

          it must be wrong about fluoride?

          This is where your confusion comes from. I never said it’s wrong about fluoride.

          My point is that unless you understand the science yourself, you have faith in other people who do. Scientific consensus has been wrong in the past, and it will be wrong again in the future.

          Everyone saying with such certainty that fluoride is good or bad without understanding the science themselves just highlights how most people treat science like a religion.

          • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
            1·
            1 month ago

            most people treat science like a religion.

            That’s just not true. By it’s very nature, what we describe as “science” is reproducible. That means faith is not required.

            • john89@lemmy.ca
              1·
              1 month ago

              If you understand the science yourself, then you’re correct.

              The problem is that most people don’t understand the science and just have faith in other people who might.

              • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
                1·
                1 month ago

                No, my point is that because “science” is reproducible, you do not need faith in the people producing said science, nor do you need to understand it.

                You merely need to confirm that it has been reviewed and accepted by other people who do understand it.

  • Red_October@lemmy.world
    2·
    2 months ago

    They have their freedom, they are free to do whatever they want to filter their own drinking water. They’re free to buy or produce distilled water for all their consumption. They’re free to only ever drink beer. But the drinking water provided as a public good should be maintained for the good of the public, and when the studies are pretty clear that fluoridated water fights tooth decay, then fluoridated water it is.

  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    So we’ve circled back to to water/fluoride water conspiracies again?

    History, doomed to repeat, before our very eyes once more…

    • iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com
      2·
      2 months ago

      Dentists are not scientists though. They suffer from a limited data set and all the other cognitive problems that we invented science to counteract.

      Having said that, scientists should not make policy, but inform public health experts, who understand that science does not tell you what to do, but just the best current view of reality. These experts have to take into account cost/benefit ratios as well as science from a wide set of fields.

      Luckily for fluoride in the water, they all agree!

  • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 months ago

    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.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 months ago

    The thing that seriously hurts those anti-fluoridation nuts is that fluoride can naturally be in water supplies and there are water supplies with higher PPM fluoride amounts than municipalities that add them in the U.S., but there don’t appear to be any increased health issues.

    Not that such people generally care.

    • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
      1·
      2 months ago

      …That’s a dangerous position to take.

      How many times do you think there have been positions that were generally accepted as being correct that were later found to be wrong? Things that we had evidence at the time that demonstrated they were a net positive, that later ended up being deeply flawed or outright incorrect?

      Your version of ‘freedom’ would also say that no person has freedom of religion, both because it contradicts science, and because religion can cause real harms to both physical and mental health.

        • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
          1·
          2 months ago

          “Worse” is a value judgement rather than anything objective. People that like tinfoil headwear accessories would say that putting fluoride in the drinking water makes their lives “worse”. So where does that leave you?

      • PopcornTin@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        As we’ve seen in the last few years, you can find experts to say whatever you need. That’ll have a longer lasting effect on the public’s psyche than anything.

  • glimse@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 months ago

    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

    • undercrust@lemmy.ca
      11·
      2 months ago

      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.

      • glimse@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 months ago

        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

        • prole@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          As someone who works directly with water treatment systems, at best he’s an ignorant motherfucker. But good news: ignorance can be fixed.

          • starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works
            11·
            2 months ago

            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.

  • nixcamic@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 months ago

    Hey how come the government gets to put water in my pipes at all? There my pipes! True freedom is them being completely empty.

  • Canis_76@feddit.nl
    0·
    2 months ago

    I’m sure this has already been asked. I’m too lazy to read all comments. Um, why would the dentists be mad? Are they not all in it for the money?

  • batmaniam@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    I’m a sane libertarian (I promise some of us do exisit). People absolutely have a right to determine what goes in to their body, but fluoride is such a weird hill to die on. In particular when fortified grains are a mandate of the same ilk. All of this has a history, and shocker, it was always steeped in the same “but our culture” wrapping…

    Edit: tl;Dr if you don’t want to watch the video: and pellagra was proven to be one of those diseases that is zero problem… So long as your diet doesn’t suck. The science had push back because it upset the economics. We’re fighting the same battles now we were then.

    Edit2: yes. I’m a libertarian, because as much as they’re freaking nuts it still stems from a disagreement of a stated principle. A principle which had them back a ton of LGBTQ rights before anyone else. I’m voting Biden in 2024, strictly because I’d like to vote in 2028, but godamn this is how 2016 happened.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=reYKBgdrZsM&pp=ygUWUGVsbGFncmEgZXh0cmEgaGlzdG90eQ%3D%3D

    • pb42184@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 months ago

      Yeah, it seems like complaining about government provided WiFi.

      “What if I don’t WANT my kids on the internet dangit!?”

      • batmaniam@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 months ago

        Lol, a bit late but a certain degree yes. Like as a libertarian Ill never be able to square taking money from someone’s paycheck in NYC for subsidizing internet in Montana.

        But… No one actually cares about that… Eve libertarians, because it’s peanuts next to a shitty new f-30whatever that will ever fly.

        It’s by no mean perfect, and has been massively corrupted by whatever the hell we have going on right now in the US. But the principle of “if it doesn’t affect anyone, stop talking to me” is a good one, and at least it’s a stated one.

        So yeah, I do kinda think people should have the right NOT to make cakes for gay weddings. Sure. Do I care when they’re forced to? Ehhhhh. You were going to be out of business soon because you’re a godamn asshole sooooo not really no I don’t care lol.

        So no, the gov should subsidize wifi, but they also already subsidize all sorts of shit, so youre damn right you have to service those folks. I guess that’s the thing, libertarianism neccesaties egalitarianism, and nothing else does.

  • ryan213@lemmy.ca
    0·
    2 months ago

    I’m glad people are finally taking a stand against Big Dental conglomerates. Wake up, people! Take charge of your own teeth!!

    Edit: Sigh. I think I’ll just add “/s” to my username.

      • mojo_raisin@lemmy.worldEnglish
        01·
        2 months ago

        • Fluoride is a neurotoxin, easy info to look up (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7230026/). Even if this is unproven, should we be putting drugs in the water where there are questions about how it affects brain development? If lead was good for our teeth, would that justify adding lead to our water?

        • Drugging a population through tap water is a terrible way to dispense drugs. If you disagree, do you mind if I put LSD in your water? It’s been shown to have positive effects on mental health. How about lithium, should be add that too? Lithium is naturally found in some water also and also has been show to have positive mental effect in those areas, same story that got us to put fluoride in our water.

        • Our tap water effects so much more than our teeth, ignoring all other effects because it reduces tooth decay is plain dumb.

        • Fluoride is a mineral and builds up. Decades of fluoridated tap water used in gardens and our environment mean ever increasing toxin in our environment. It’s bad for plants (also easy to look up) and it’s effects on animals, birds, etc is unknown. Is it ok to gamble the well-being of other species when the tooth decay problem can be solved in ways without added risk?

        • The fluoride added to tap water is not of pharmaceutical quality, it’s a waste product of fertilizer or nuclear material industries.