The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday announced it will begin the process of pulling prescription fluoride drops and tablets for children off the market. The supplements are usually given to kids at high risk for cavities.
The federal government and some state legislatures are increasingly drawing attention to what they claim are the risks associated with fluoride, a mineral that’s been used for decades in community water systems, toothpastes and mouth rinses to prevent tooth decay.
Dentists fiercely contest the notion that the harms of fluoride outweigh the benefits.
This is even more nuts than removing fluoride from municipal water systems. At least with that, parents who believe the science that their kids’ teeth will be better off with targeted fluoride treatment can buy the drops and tablets, and those who are afraid for some reason can choose to just not use it.
This is just trying to ban access to fluoride entirely, despite research showing its benefits and the distinct lack of significant harm. Madness.
What next, are they going to criminalize sending fluoride drops/pills through the mail, like mifepristone?
Calgary, AB Canada removed fluoride and a decade later added it back after seeing the effects of its absence.
Well yeah. These are extremists, absolutists, radicals. Their dogma must be simple and without exceptions. If they admit even one scenario where fluoride has more benefits than deficits, their whole ideology and worldview crumbles. Nuance is an existential threat.
Narcissism as a fascist dictatorship of a whole country.
They just banned it in Florida, with Meatball DeSatan calling it “forced medication,” and that if parents want their kids to have fluoride, they can give it to them. Now they want to ban those products, too.
So now we’re just going to reconfigure our entire society to indulge the fantasies of conspiracy theory weirdos?
Until Americans get off their couch and do something, yes.
I kinda buy the “forced medication” argument, but rather than removing the municipal water requirement, I think the municipality should provide water filters for those that want to opt-out.
I think the evidence is fairly clear that, in this case, opt-in should be the default as it protects VASTLY more than it harms.
Nah, I’m perfectly ok with “forced medication” when the societal benefit vastly outweighs the side effects. Mandatory vaccination, nutritionally supplemented food for children to aid in development, minor things like fluoride that reduce healthcare costs and promote long-term health, bring it on.
Giving credence to unsupported “skepticism” undermines the necessary faith in public infrastructure. Faith is a careful word choice here. I don’t expect the average person to really understand the benefits and chemistry and p-values, as much as I’d like them to. Some things just need doing because you trust the authority saying so. (And right now there are precious few American authorities worthy of trust.)
I can’t agree. Bodily autonomy isn’t a compromise position for me, and I think “faith” is a vice, not a virtue.
It’s not a compromise it’s the cost of a functioning society. Measles. Smallpox. Polio. Whooping cough. There are extremely real costs to “personal choice” in the face of disease. Those costs are quite often passed on to children. Rickets. Fetal alcohol syndrome. I don’t think parents should be free to make harmful choices for their offspring.
Faith is the compromise. I wish that every single adult had the education, interest, and wherewithal to make ethical and well-informed decisions about themself and their dependents but that’s not the world we live in.
Bodily autonomy doesn’t allow parents to make choices for children. It does allow people to make choices for themselves. Nice try at shifting those goalposts, tho.
The context of this thread is healthcare for children.
No reason to reconfigure anything. They have droves of people willingly agreeing to and gobbling this shit up. Our society is fundamentally broken
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I do not assert that merely swallowing water with fluoride offers any benefit to do with dental health.
It should be obvious that the act of directly swallowing water containing fluoride would give the water little to no opportunity to interact with one’s teeth, which would be required for the intended preventative effect.
This is very similar to the decision by most nations to put low base levels of iodine in table salt. Given peoples’ daily habits and diet, it was determined to be a safe and reliable way of ensuring exposure to a needed substance for general health. Not everyone has or will have the discipline to apply fluoridated paste to their teeth regularly (hell, many people don’t even brush their teeth regularly!). Nor would many people take steps to ensure they had a recommended dose of iodine if they had to think about it, rather than just getting it through their daily meal …
It should be clear to anyone that it’s the incidental daily, weekly, monthly, yearly cumulative effect of fluoridated water, even in the brief interval before it is swallowed, swishing in the mouth and in direct contact with teeth, that can be of benefit.
Explain to me the science of how municipal fluoridation causes health issues so severe that it should be discontinued.
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They’re not on general sale, they’re prescription. I’ve never been recommended these as a kid or as a parent (for my kids) and this is the first I’ve heard they even existed. They must be uncommon at best.
Hey everyone. It’s bad faith. Like, really bad faith. Watch OP say some stupid shit:
A reasonable user mentions an obstacle to childhood toothbrushing:
OP:
Also OP, later in that same thread:
See how that works? Remember what this article is about?
It’s bad faith conspiracy shit. Moderators? Anyone? (Edit: Thanks Mods!)
The tablets get chewed before they are swallowed.
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