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%.
“Medical freedom”, the rallying cry for all kinds of grifters spreading disinformation and wanting to roll back the progress made in public health.
And they don’t seem to like the fact that they have the freedom to filter the fluoride back out of the water.
…what?
medical freedom for me, but not for thee who want no more penis.
🥱
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.
You do have the option to choose for yourself.
You can not only choose to filter it out, you can choose which filter you want to purchase from a selection. Here you go. https://apexwaterfilters.com/blogs/top-5-water-filters-to-remove-fluoride-from-water/
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.
Fluoride is not a contaminant, but please do find a study that says arsenic is good for you. This should be interesting.
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?
Okay, so note what you claimed.
It’s not my job to prove you aren’t lying.
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,
Says who?
You conveniently ignored this part.
Sure, if you can show me a scientific study that claims that lead is not a contaminant.
Correct. I will continue to until you show me the scientific studies you claim exists or admit you made them up.
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.
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.
That’s just not true. By it’s very nature, what we describe as “science” is reproducible. That means faith is not required.
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.
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.
Have faith.
Semantics.
To me, faith is belief without evidence.
The science is the antithesis of faith, because it’s a system of evidence and confirmation.
If you want to water “faith” down to mean the acceptance of evidence which you have not personally tested then it becomes meaningless. That’s flat earth stuff. “I personally have not seen the curvature of the Earth therefore it is flat”.