Fluoride in drinking water has no effect on IQ or brain function, long-term study shows
The new research is the first to measure community water fluoridation exposure during childhood and any potential impact on cognition up to age 80.
The paper is here
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/fluoride-water-children-iq-brain-cognition-study-rfk-jr-rcna267328Open linkView original on slrpnk.net944
Comments226
Alternative headline: Science disproves well known conspiracy theory again; conspiracy theorists deny evidence.
yeah I felt that way with the tynlenol one the other day. Its like we are using resources for this. ugh.
Honestly, I don't mind spending resources on this. Yes it turned out that the expected results were the ones we got, but until you do the study, you can't be sure you won't get unexpected results. Plus, once you've collected the data, it sometimes shows unrelated patterns that you wouldn't otherwise have been able to see.
people don't understand science at all.
It's not a 'do it once and it's the truth forever' type of thing. It's a perpetual process. You are SUPPOSED TO REPEAT STUDIES. Result replication is the point. You also re-do studies to create new datasets, see if baselines have shifted etc.
The notion science is some system of eternal truths is not science. That's Scientism... where science has been elevated to a extra-empirical authority.
It's also why you do experiments in science class... and you compare results.
anyway, a couple of times I tried to explain this to people, even as a teacher, and they basically told me that means science is stupid and worthless if that is how you are suppose to do it. people generally, do not think science is an empirical process, they think it should be revelatory, like the ten commandments.
Since you brought it up, it's worthwhile that most Abrahamic churches include common folk arguing about the nitty gritty of what scripture means, what are the consequences of those meanings, and how to account for those consequences in their daily life.
Which is kinda exactly how we should treat scientific studies.
Yup, a little skepticism is healthy. But that doesn't mean you should actually assume that everyone is a liar and you should only listen to "alternative" sources.
I assume that everyone trying to assert anything could be wrong, and if I do not know their process or track record, I work from the position that they are wrong.
I do not assume lies, since mostly they are simply wrong without malice. They may have believed someone else's lie, though, especially if there is money to be gained.
People crave certainty. Like are obsessed with it. They will do anything to obtain it including believing all kinds of wildly untrue things. Intuition is usually associated with these hard fictions.
Science starts from the premise that the universe is uncertain. Uncertainty is baked into all scientific measurements. This mindset leads to true knowledge but it is fundamentally not how people are naturally wired to think. It takes repeated practice to stay scientifically minded even if you are trained in the practice and you exercise it regularly. It’s uncomfortable to stay in the uncertain place for long periods of time for most people. Regression to certainty is the norm, science is the exception.
I give people a lot of empathy for the certainty mindset, even if it is wrong it helps people cope with the gaping abyss of uncertainty. It’s not an easy thing to grapple with.
I think its slightly different I'd say its closer to: People crave simplicity.
That can frequently mean certain answers, but even if the answers aren't certain, but simple, they accept it. This is the root of most conspiracy theories. It is much simpler to accept that a global cabal is specifically trying to convince people the Earth is flat rather than accept that we live on the surface of a very large round planet, that "down" doesn't always mean down, and that gravity exists to prevent people on the "bottom" of Earth don't simply fall off into space.
Oh I have met plenty of scientists who are scientific only about their own research field. And complete dumbasses about anything else, like they do biology all day but can't drive for shit because they have zero understanding of the laws of physics, including gravity, and they get hyper defensive if you tease them about this.
It's mind-boggling, but that's just how human beings are. And if you aren't wired like that... it's pretty hard to socialize successfully because social group identity is so often solely generated on shared beliefs many of which are 'hard fictions'.
Yes! That’s my point on it being very difficult to live in uncertainty all the time. You can live with it in a field of study but boy is it hard to live with in everything. You should live with it, but its psychologically challenging.
Yeah you can say that about anything and there was data before this indicating it did not have a negative effect. Its like have we studied water enough for its negative effects.
When lots of people believe something in spite of the numbers, it's often fun to sort of buttress the numbers by getting more and more and more of them. That way at least you can easily prove the correct facts to the part of the population that understands numbers.
It's not necessarily going to win over those in the anti-intellectual cult that dominates the world now, but it is highly satisfying, which helps maintain morale. Instead of explaining percentages to people, you can just stare at them while tapping the big green number on the graph then pretending to need a microscope to see the tiny, teensy, pathetic red line.
I may have lost the plot there somewhere.
actually I think I get yeah but its always going to irriatate me the necessity of it all. Todays devils panties has a good one where the husband is like. Isn't it funny your crazy uncle who would talk about the oil industry killing the guy who made an engine that can run on water is now pissed that a car can run on sunlight.
I've added so many "Conspiracy Theorist" tags to users thanks to these posts...
I wondered that when I started reading: is this actual science, or being forced to disprove the idiots yet again? But right at the beginning it talked about bringing first of its kind, actual data, yadda yadda … reads like actual science, like something that adds value to our knowledgebase
I think in this case it's valuable to do the study. A lot of these conspiracy theories are based on the idea that common thing could be harmful in some way, but assumes that it really is and that they know the effects. Some are more plausible than others because chemistry is complex and biology is a lot of chemistry, so it can be hard to say that something is harmless without doing a lot of scientific research.
But a MAGA coworker told me Fluoride is bad according to new studies. When asked for specifics the answer was read the studies.
I always assume if MAGA says something is bad, then it's good.
Blind squirrels eventually find nuts.
Like knowing that there are pedophiles in the Epstein files.
In fact, nearly half of all blind squirrels don't even have to look far at all to find a couple. ☝🏼
The trouble is, MAGAts don't know the difference between a couple acorns and the absolute bollocks they're tweaking about.
🌰🌰🐿️ ‼️🐂💩
🏆
But it does have an effect on dental health! A positive one!
HEALTHY TEETH AND GUMS ARE THE FIRST STEP OF THE TRANS IDEOLOGY.
Man, I'm trans as fucking hell.
I became trans by choice.
Oh shit, I'm getting less trans by the day! I should floss.
Yes it has measurable effect, lots of research has established that with a very high degree of certainty. But maybe the causality isn't proven?
The claim is that it strengthen teeth, but I'm not sure that is proven, for all I know it could also be it prevents bacteria from flourishing in the mouth to a degree that is significant enough to prevent tooth decay.
But that may just be lack of access to the data. This issue is very heavily researched for many decades, so professionals should have a pretty good grasp on the facts by now. It just irks me that I've never seen anything documenting the causality, there is clear proof of correlation, but AFAIK not the causality.
If it did prevent bacterial growth it would prevent plaque formation because bacteria doesn't grow directly on teeth surprisingly and before anybody says anything please go search up some dentistry science
Wait, wtf is plaque then??!? Is there lichen on my teeth?
It creates a layer that it can live on thats how bacteria grows on your teeth
Awwww, no lichen.
The biofilm can attract multiple species so technically not lichen but similar.
Random guy on the internet claiming to debunk the WHO, various national health authorities, and every dentist I've ever talked to ever. Ok buddy.
Just to cover all the bases here: what's your take on the mRNA COVID vaccines?
…because they brush their teeth? With toothpaste that has fluoride in it?
The only research paper I have been able to find was from my own country Denmark more than a decade ago, and was about natural
flourfluor in the water, because it's illegal to add to the water here.That paper was very clear that people in the area that had flour had better teeth health.
Mmmm, pancake water.
I bet you never thought it would work. 😋
Got a source for those claims, buttercup?
Source pls. I have seen many, many studies showing the benefits of flouride here in Australia, especially on the teeth of people in the lowest rungs of society, controlled for diet, disease, etc. If you have countervailing studies, great! Show em!
I'm sorry, what were you just lying?
The worst it does is put spots on your (cavity-resisting) teeth.
You need a lot of fluoride for that to happen.
and thats only if you ingest a large amount of it during childhood.
But having healthy teeth will prolong your life statistically so...
Fluoride does harm brain development, but only if you get way too much of it. This happens in some places where the natural water already contains a lot of fluoride. You absolutely don't want to add even more fluoride there.
But most places, especially in the US, the fluoride level is far below that, so far below that we have to add fluoride to the water to get enough to maintain dental health. But it's still far below the level that causes harm.
The big issue is that the process to make ground water safe to drink removes the Sodium Flouride from it. We have to add it back in, unless you live in a town like mine where they decided to stop flouridating the water because they believe in conspiracy theories and Facebook science.
The levels you need to consume to cause harm are pretty substantial. You would have to be intentionally consuming a LOT of Sodium Flouride to cause issues. It's almost on the level of "how many bananas do you need to eat to get radiation poisoning".
That is dangerous misinformation. With an LD50 of 0.052 grams per kilogram of body weight, swallowing a teaspoon of sodium fluoride will kill most people (if they aren't induced to vomit or receive emergency medical attention). It's harmless in the dosage put in tap water, but if you have a tub of pure sodium fluoride it is similarly toxic to bleach or moth balls.
Meanwhile you physically can't eat enough bananas to get radiation poisoning. Bananas are less radioactive than human flesh, less radioactive than hotdogs, less radioactive than potatoes. You can swim in liquefied banana and be exposed to less radiation than walking outside on a cloudy day without sunscreen.
You physically can't drink enough (properly) fluoridated water to get fluoride poisoning.
Some back of the napkin math says a typical American (rounded to 200lbs) would need ~67 liters of water to get a lethal does of fluoride. Some lazy googling says that the absolute most your kidneys would handle is 20 liters in a 24hr period before they start failing. Literally, the amount water you can drink is more toxic than the amount of fluoride in it.
That's not what they said, though. What they said is that "you would have to be intentionally consuming a LOT of sodium fluoride to cause issues". Not fluorinated water, sodium fluoride. The actual salt that kills you if you eat a teaspoon of it.
That’ll be a risk if you have pure sodium fluoride sitting around. Fortunately “no one” does. (Yes, industrial toothpaste manufacturing workers might have an opportunity to be exposed to such a thing).
Typical toothpaste is 1000-1100 ppm of sodium fluoride. “Prescription strength” is about 5000 ppm. So to hit your target LD50 you need to eat around 10 g of toothpaste per kg. Assuming on the extremely small end (40 kg bodyweight): if I did my math right, that’s about 400 g of prescription strength toothpaste, or more than two (170 g) tubes.
Normal toothpaste (1100 ppm) for a normal person (80 kg female average), you need to eat more than 22 tubes of toothpaste to kill half the people involved.
Thats just stupid, there’s zero risk of any of that happening.
Look, I'm not saying the average consumer will ever run into this risk, I'm saying that you shouldn't go around saying H301 acutely toxic chemicals are as safe to ingest as bananas. You're not the president of the United States.
That's not what they were saying. They were saying the levels in drinking water are so low that it's comparable to radiation levels in bananas.
As in, you'd need to consume so much for it to be lethal that you'd have to be intentionally doing it to cause harm to yourself.
I believe it is what they meant to say, but it is simply not what they said.
The bolded sentence is unambiguous. It uses no prepositions, no context-dependent phrases, no complex punctuation. It is a simple sentence ending in a full stop. How can you deny this is what they said?
And a teaspoon is 5 ml. Flouridated water is, on average, 0.7 mcg/L. Therefore, you would have to drink over 17,000 liters of water for the flouride to kill you.
That's cool, but kind of irrelevant to their remark that sodium fluoride is safe.
It is safe. The dose makes the poison.
Shit, even pure oxygen can kill you.
I wouldn't call a chemical that kills you if you eat a teaspoon of it "safe". It literally has a H301 "acutely toxic chemical" rating.
sigh
It's safe in the levels added to drinking water.
Absolutely no one is saying pure sodium fluoride is safe.
Why are you getting downvoted for providing relevant facts? Sometimes this place is as reactionary as 8chan
Critically judging authorial intent is a 6th grade reading level, and 54% of USAmerican adults have a 5th grade reading level or below. I could have written it more for my audience, the sort of person that needs to hear that pure sodium fluoride is unsafe to ingest.
It also begins to have a purely cosmetic but noticeable impact on your teeth long before the detrimental health effects kick in.
Bro, I eat half a tube of toothpaste a day for the health benefits. Have been doing that since I was 8.
Edit: /s for smooth brains
I wonder why we don't handle it like any other vitamin? Where's my multivitamin tap water?!
I filter my water, so the fluoride goes to waste sadly. Wonder if it comes in a small dose pill.
It does. But I don't know if there's a reason we fluoridate water and not something else, like iodine in salt and all the stuff they put in enriched flour.
Perhaps has to do with the medium and the tendency of things to decay away. Maybe fluoride is stable in water, but something like Vitamin D would break down. Sunlight for example breaks down some things like that. I imagine water is probably a difficult medium to survive in for a lot of things.
But IQ DOES have a long term effect on fluoridation!
Utah is proof of this.
I love how brainwashed right wingers pretend to be an authority on gender and sex, then believe shit like this.
What?
Berkeley hires a bunch of far-right types too.
I don't understand your point. I'm making fun of the right wing for believing in dumb pseudoscience. I'm well aware of the crunchy moms on the left, but that's not who I'm making fun of right now.
You're... Bringing in UC Berkeley and the aluminum industry for some reason? It really just seems like you wanted to rant and chose my comment at random to do that.
Anti fluoride people love listening and reading their own words. If they got used to the alternative they might change their mind, hence the correlation.
Yeah, you're really not fighting the allegation that you just wanted to rant. Literally no one brought up Berkeley.
Supposing your unhinged rant is at all accurate, why does any of that matter in the context of the article?
This guy knows his numbers!
How about you first watch a few Count Dracula videos and once you have done thosez you can play with the big numbers again
When crunchy lefties were first spouting off about this, they at least had an explanation. It was a nonsense explanation rooted in woo-woo pseudoscience and mysticism, but it was at least an explanation. Also, most people were inoculated against that kind of bullshit, we knew they were slightly crazy and wrong, and it was a view that was relatively harmless and allowed to exist. Most places it was "go ahead, you do you - drink your fluoride-free water and let your teeth rot, but you have to source your water yourself - this municipality fluoridates for the public good, it's backed by science and dental experts, etc."
These new crazy people, most of them don't even have an explanation. (some of them are actually the same people, just moved down the alt-right pipeline after a couple decades of propaganda). If you were to ask them why they think fluoride is bad you could get responses ranging from blank stares to actual physical attacks. Transmission of conspiracy theories is so supercharged in this environment - all you have to do is jump on a bandwagon, and your buddies in the same club as you will give you the approval you desperately need just for wearing that opinion on your sleeve - no critical thought required, just base monkey instinct. This is such an irresistible way of belonging to some group and getting that special feeling that it's becoming a real problem for most of us.
A small minority of these folks are (small L) libertarians or anti-authoritarians who believe in bodily sovereignty. That's a rational thought process that I can actually sympathize with, so they get a minimum amount of points for having a comprehensible, defensible position. They just shouldn't be able to force their choice on everyone else. (That would seem to contradict their own philosophy anyway). The public good of fluoridation, backed by science and experts, should vastly outweigh even that position. As before with the crunchy hippies, fine, it's your right to choose what goes into your body - along with that comes the responsibility to take care of that for yourself, in line with your own stated ideals.
FWIW, the anti-fluoride thing started off when the John Birch Society, a right-wing hate group, started pushing it decades ago.
Not to any meaningful degree in the US. It was the John Birch Society and KKK here.
They both certainly existed, though the latter was somewhat underground in the 1950s.
It's easy to find documentation of their positions on fluoridation; it's not so common to find evidence of environmental groups opposing it when there was a clear public health benefit.
You've never met a conspiracy theory you didn't want to deep throat, have you, sweaty?
I always laugh when people misspell sweetie. You think you're being clever, but you've completely botched your insult.
You're assuming they meant to say sweetie. Calling someone sweaty can be an insult too.
I didn't misspell anything, spud.
And you definitely haven't met a conspiracy theory you didn't want to dry hump.
What was lefty uber-liberal hippieism got co-opted during covid by right wingers and fascist science deniers.
they are all the same people.
they just have different origin stories for their crazy beliefs.
It's a base human drive, that is far more powerful than critical thought. The only reason we sort of got around this was we had built institutions and had collective identities... and a lot of that is crumbling away the past few decades.
So people are reverting to forming their own little tribes around some niche set of beliefs to make them feel empowered. As most of them no longer feel apart of their larger tribe.
Anecdotally, I left a volunteer org I'd been a part of for ten years because this brainrot had taken it over. The new members wanted our org to some super special club for cool people only, instead of being just open to anyone and my emphasis on it being open and accessible made me persona non grata. BECAUSE HOW COULD I NOT WANT TO FEEL SPECIAL AND SUPERIOR. oh, and they also started saying they should be paid for volunteer work... because felt they 'deserved' all that money we were getting from donations from the public...
I am recovering from being raised by ultra crunchy parents. I had no vaccinations until I was already an adult. I have a unique vantage point into both sides of this issue and the thing of it is that yes maybe they are dumb, but the fear comes from a very real, even logical, place. Anything pushed on you by the American government should give anyone pause, because when was the last time the government spent gobs of money in the name of public health? Massive infrastructure spending in order to keep Americans from spending less on healthcare and increase their quality of life? Yeah that does not sound real. Why would the same government that has been dismantling public education and food/medication regulation spend a single red cent to make Americans' teeth better? It makes no logical sense, so it is easy to see why generations of Americans that have been screwed over by their government at every turn would be skeptical of anything put in the water supply "for their benefit." This is about a loss of trust in lawmakers, and all they've done to perpetuate it.
As an aside, though, I have watched a ton of people traverse the crunchy leftist to MAGA pipeline and it still bewilders me. "I don't trust the government, but I trust the sleezy car salesman I have vehemently loathed for decades." I can only blame lead poisoning for that one.
The decision to fluoridate is with the municipality afaik, but there are probably federal guidelines. Some places have never fluoridated, and if you want it you need to use tablets. There are also loads of people on well water where that's supported by the local geology - it's super common in my area. Well water may or may not contain naturally-occurring fluoride, and usually not at the level of a municipal source.
But that makes it even more amazing IMO, that a consensus was reached and implemented in a decentralized fashion in most places, to the point where it's normalized. The only other collective action I can recall, which might surpass it in scope and impressiveness, also backed by scientific insight, was the Montreal Protocol.
I'm all for replacing fluoride in water with ethanol. It lowers IQ, damages teeth, and fosters violence, but it'd be a lot more fun than fluoride.
I grew up in Moscow in the 80s, I think they tried fluoride in the water, but it wasn’t nearly enough to make a difference.
As a child, my teeth were atrocious. Constant cavities despite brushing and not eating a ton of sweets and never even trying soda.
After I moved here at 18, my teeth got significantly better. I’m glad there is fluoride in the water!
I think there are town where the fluoride occurs naturally and the inhabitants teeth turned brown, but their teeth were healthy as hell
Russian dentistry during that time period, from what I recall reading, was horrific.
Yeah, it wasn’t fun, even though I was able to get “the good stuff” cause my dad started working for the government in an important position. The good stuff was… marginal.
Fluoride has a special property that causes people's low IQ levels to be confirmed.
That's not fluoride increasing the rate of cavities though. It's evidence of the opposite.
This study was funded by people that don't wear tinfoil hats outside. They're compromised.
good fucking god is that where we're at.
We always knew excess flouride fucked up your bones and teeth. That was the potential danger. We've known that since Colorado Springs. Why are we testing cognition.
this research was done to figure out the unknown
i feel like if you drew a venn diagram containing people who complain about fluoride in the water and people who argue we should bring back leaded gasoline, it would just be a circle. making this study particularly hilarious
who argues that? I haven't seen that.
And what is their reason? that it would be cheaper?
Not recently but last I heard it was from boomers that are mad kids aren't drinking out of hoses and riding bikes on the roads.
Any changes for safety, they presume, make us weak.
I see kids riding bikes on the roads and drinking from hoses, and I live in a major city.
I see bikes too, less numbers. Haven't seen hose drinkers in a long time. Just had a conversation with my youngest today that we didn't carry water bottles in school when I was young, we just used water fountains.
he was appalled :)
don't you fill up a water bottle at a water fountain?
Are these groups of people in the room with you right now? Who's asking for leaded mogas back? Or do you mean stuff like avgas 100LL? No one really wants that either, other than the last owners of planes that don't work with unleaded...
Doubly so when you remember that the people worried about fluoride affecting their brain function haven't ever demonstrated that they possess a functioning brain.
You hear that, people? You have no excuse
That's good, I love tap water where I live. Always drank it, mostly sharp but years are adding up. Drank it more as I aged, don't need extra calories and all.
Grew up where tap water tasted like ass, to the point even hung over it tasted like shit. Love BC tapwater, though gets better closer to the coast in my opinion.
Try telling that to a generation of anti-science troglodytes who believe some rando chiropractor on YouTube over FUCKING SCIENCE.
IQ research is boring, does it calcify pineal gland or the third eye or whatever the legend is. That's a more practical control method than stupidification
Why would you put it in water if you can also put it in toothpaste?
Studies have shown significant improvements in dental health from adding flouride to water. As an example getting kids to brush their teeth regularly is difficult, but we can provide a layer of protection and avoid expensive dental costs whenever they drink water.
Because that puts the burden on the individual.
For you that may be bearable. But for poor people, who have to choose between eating and brushing their teeth, that may not be as straightforward. Similarly small children are at higher risk, because they don't usually choose their toothpaste. So if their parents incorrectly believe that fluoridated toothpaste is harmful or cannot afford it, they might end up with tooth decay through no fault of their own.
Not everyone has great dental habits.
No shit says majority
I rest my case.
Well played
That's just what they want you to think.
/s
All that lead we still spew into the atmosphere does though.
Sure, tell that to General Jack D. Ripper.
Now do a study on Fox News on cable Networks and its effect on brain function.
They already have. People who stopped watching gradually stopped being so afraid of the world and experienced other similar benefits. Unfortunately, after the study was finished, they went back to watching and their old beliefs and fears returned.
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/study-reveals-fox-news-viewers-exposed-truth-can-change-their-minds-foxs-poisoning-truth
Safe at the levels being added by municipalities. At higher concentrations, Fluoride can do some nasty stuff, like skeletal fluorosis. So don't take this paper to mean any amount of fluoride is safe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeletal_fluorosis
Pretty much anything will harm you at too high a dose. Water included.
I think what you mean is "don't take this paper to mean that every amount of fluoride is safe."
Yes.
I don't think anybody is reading this study and then going out there to buy a bunch of extra fluoride
No, but I am on a well that has too much fluoride. Several times the amount that municipalities would put in. I don't want someone in the same position as me to misinterpret the study and not reduce their fluoride to a safe level.
That's fair
True but not a large risk unless you eat like 5 toothpaste tubes a day or something like that.
Toothpaste Georg over here with very brown but cavity-free teeth
We have to keep proving this, but they still don’t listen.
Ya! That's what people putting fluoride in water want you to think.
/S
Study does not list all data or amounts per person.
Unfortunately, it’s not a great study. It relies on a lot of assumptions, including assuming that different school districts would be equal in terms of their students’ innate ability quality of education and it doesn’t have a placebo group.
What about autoimmune diseases and inflammation? It looks like there might be a link, but they haven't studied it enough.
https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6304/13/2/95
Maybe, but the study you linked is specifically studying people who get way more than the highest recommended amount of fluoride and have fluorosis
SOME of the evidence was from way more than what humans get. Also, let's not get all gloaty and dismiss all questions about flouride's safety just yet. Science is a process.
Dose matters.
Warfarin is a old anti-blood clotting drug that has saved millions of lives...but you can also buy warfarin at Home Depot to kill rats.
The dose is the poison.
I didn't think it would but I still don't want it in my water.
I want flouride toothpaste, flouride rinses and free teeth care for children though.
Why?
If you buy spring water do you check the fluoride content to make sure it's below a certain threshold? Magnesium, Calcium, Potassium?
Why would I want an adjunct in my water? I have no need for it, I don't want the government wasting money on it.
It does very little for adult teeth, and is barely a blip compared to the effects of dental care and fluoride toothpaste for children.
If you feel differently, feel free to add it to your water.
97% of Europe does not fluoridate their water. Of the seven countries with the lowest tooth decay rates in children in the world, six have no water fluoridation programs.
Finally in the US there have been four fairly serious fluoride accidents. Also, phosphate rock mining and processing is very hazardous so if you are going to use Flouride use it purposefully, in a toothpaste or rinse, not just distributing it into water. Which, by the way, kids don't drink a whole lot of.
To protect the teeth of your neighbour's kids.
Is it a waste of money? It seems quite plausibly cheaper than your suggestion. In Canada we have implemented a national dental care program for people earning under a certain threshold. I think anything we can do to improve the sustainability of that program is a good idea.
So why is it that 6 of the 7 countries with the lowest amount of caivities do not flouridate their water? Throwing floride around into a substance you use for everything is a poor approach to a problem.
Probably because of diet or availability of dental care. But if only 4/44 countries in Europe fluoridate, then fluoridating countries are over represented in that example's 7 ( ie if fluoride didn't help we would expect it to be 10/11).
Why did you pick top 7 by the way? Is it 6/8? 6/9? 6/10? It's an extremely weird threshold and makes me think you're cherry picking data to suit your narrative.
Because you don't understand the alleged statistics you're citing, you don't understand that flouride is naturally present in most freshwater, that Europe has a different history of how they consume water, and water fluoridation is actually a brilliant approach.
I do understand the statistics, but I also acknowledge that many cities in Europe have varying levels of flouride in the water and saying "country" does not take into account variations within countries.
At the same time many places in the world are contaminated with flouride. There is a sweet spot for efficacy of course.
I am not saying fluoride isn't helpful. But adding it to water? No thanks. Both places I live do not do this, and neither have higher instances of cavities than anywhere else (given relative incomes, lifestyle, and health care).
Besides I will say it again, since when do kids drink water?
The fact that you're still making these ludicrous claims show tbat you don't understand the statistics, kiddo.
Adding it to water is cheap and effective, no matter how much you shriek otherwise.
Do you have any evidence that kids don't drink water, spud?
You actually do have a need for it. Water flouridation is a safe, simple, and cost effective way to ensure everyone has at least a basic level of oral health.
Both places I live in dont do it and I am happy with that.
sure
I feel like Lemmy has a short attention span
This is getting into the realm of the same cyclical argument as "Butter bad, oil good" / "Oil bad, butter good"
Each time a new study saying the opposite is released, everyone swears up and down they always had that opinion, haven't flipflopped their stance, and that anyone who disagrees has a mental disability lol
Just think for yourselves, christ.
Did... did you actually read what you posted?
Nearly everyone in that thread is saying, "of course if you take TWICE the recommended dosage of a chemical it might be bad for you." Nearly everyone in this thread is saying, "of course taking the recommended dosage of a chemical is not bad for you."
It's almost like, and this might be difficult for you to comprehend, the dosage matters.
You're looking at studies of the impact at far higher fluoride concentrations than are used in the US. We've known that those high concentrations are problematic for a very long time...which is why they're not used. They remain a problem in some parts of the world where fluoride is naturally present.
You lost me here. We knew there was some evidence that high doses were bad, your article says high doses are bad where “high” is twice the recommended, and this new study says actual use is fine
Accepting everything at face value here since I don’t have energy to dig right now, I’m not seeing anything inconsistent
Are you joking?
So why is this news coming out now? We are good without flouride .
Because researchers got data. We know flouride helps prevent tooth decay, and a bunch of Republicans are lying about it so they can harm kids
Our teeth aren’t good without fluoride.
adults will be fine. it's kids who get fucked w/o fluoridation, and will have lifelong dental issues.
Because it's a dirt cheap public health intervention with measurable positive outcomes that has come under attack by people who think "chemicals are bad".
except when you inject them in your pp to make it hard.
Can we trust this study though? Everyone is dumb as shit now, the baseline has degraded, and people are more docile. Something is going on, somethings. I wouldn't absolve flouride that crystallizes in the decision making part of the brain, and it in the soil and food to a huge degree, from aluminum smelting, because of a study. Given, you know, things.
Yeah I don’t care about studies either when my feelings are telling me otherwise.
You should care about the fact that studies will tell you roundup is safe, atrazine is safe, and the like. My sweet summer child, the system is corrupted. If you don't know that yet, there is little hope for you.
You either need more drugs or less drugs. Whatever level you're at now is not working.
First of all, the answer is always more and better drugs. That you don't know that indicts your understanding!
Second of all, you have no idea what you are defending, you trust the establishment and follow their lead. I would argue at this point to not question what you are told by the experts exposes you for a fool.
Yeah what do the experts know?
That is a good point, they know who pays them and who can take their living away from them. What were you fucking born yesterday? That last sentence was delivered in a yell.
I agree with you.
In a world of sheep be a Steve Jobs.
I guess that answers that question.
Oh rather, and accepting what you are told without question is such a display of intelligence by the way! We've all seen how trustworthy the experts are, to not trust them, ha, right? GTFO. I don't care how many half wits vote with you because they think they are right on this issue, you are, how can I not be offensive, a sheep. A particularly dumb one trusting your shepard to lead you to safety when you are heading to the slaughterhouse.
Nobody here is listening to you without question. That's what bothers you.
Are you old enough to be using the internet?
If not, are you too old to be on the internet?
My honest answer, is to do your own research. To be more specific though, read the article. Then the study the article is based on. Then do a few google searches and read a few related studies. Look for a general consensus. How many studies are there. What methods do they use? Sample sizes?
Basically, validating this stuff requires work and critical thinking. It's much easier to claim the institutions are corrupt, and that you don't trust anything they say. Doing that also leaves you with nothing but popular opinion, rumors, and whatever you think sounds about right based on a knee jerk reaction.
How can anyone hold a conversation or argument about it when you look at data and go "no actually I don't agree because spooky unrelated study on a different thing by a different journal like
10years ago"Edit: *26 years ago, mb friends
I did not reference any 10-year-old journal. I referenced a lack of faith in these United states.
You can talk your establishment bullshit all you want, all I said was I am not willing to concede the point that it is safe because of a study commissioned by someone.
Were you born yesterday? Or do you just not understand the world we live in? The answer is obviously the latter. Go back To sleep
I was referring to the (retracted) study by monsanto, saying Roundup was safe. I was actually underestimating though, the study was from 2000, so the study you referred to in terms of roundup is actually from 26 years ago :)
Though there was a study in 2019 bringing up a lot of the concerns, and I think that might be the one I was thinking of. https://www.washington.edu/news/2019/02/13/uw-study-exposure-to-chemical-in-roundup-increases-risk-for-cancer/
Also, just in case you were serious, hard to tell, I wasn't born yesterday. I'd have a hard time typing if so.
The trick here is to look at who is funding it and if the methods are correct. If it's independent and competently done, it's probably correct
"the system" doesn't mean scientists are corrupt, it means your politicians are.
Are you for real? Do you not realize mercenary scientific outfits take jobs with the understanding of working backwards from the position their funders want them to be that's and engineer those studies to come to that conclusion, which is in turn taken up by lobbyists and politicians and all that bullshit. I shouldn't have to explain this to you. The fact that you don't realize this at this point, frankly it's just fucking depressing. We are fucked because you are fucking, ahem, not so enlightened.
Dumbass
Source?
I think the top of the post you replied to is speaking out of hard earned personal wisdom. /S
Those things are safe, kiddo. We use this thing called evidence to determine that.
That wouldn’t implicate fluoride, because not everyone was exposed to it. And the study indicates that fluoride exposure (on a community level, which would take into account soil and food) doesn’t make a difference.
There are huge levels of flouride in some foods, per National Geographic. California raisens are super high for instance.
And I'm not saying flouride is bad, only that I wouldn't say it's not bad because of a study and "experts."
And it's obviously death by a thousand cuts in the dumb department/low sperm count/90% loss of insects worldwide since the 90's/crash of the frog populations, et al. Flouride is a bit player. Yet something is affecting our trust center, and it's not all taxoplasmosis, we are being dosed, coincidentally or no by pollutions. It's worse than you think.
While there are always biased studies, the data in this case comes from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, a broad health and social sciences study conducted by the University of Wisconsin that’s been ongoing since 1957. You can access the data yourself here.
Yet there might be limitations in what they're looking at, changes in Behavior are subtle. And would be missed in such a study would they not? I am not declaring fluoride guilty, I am saying I would not absolve it.
Those kinds of issues would come into play if they were trying to establish a correlation between two things—it’s notoriously hard to eliminate confounding variables, spurious coincidences, etc.
But it’s far more straightforward to establish a lack of correlation, which is what this study does.
To fight forces like big oil, we need to be able to focus our efforts appropriately. Indiscriminately attributing everything to big oil serves their purposes as much as complacency does.
Working at a university is part of the "establishment"? What the fuck does that even mean
That means you are dumb, the group of them have the collective experience of over 100 years of academic and research work. These people are the literal definition of experts.
Your lack of any actual investigation means that your suspicion is something that the rest of us should not trust.
Yooo same!
So what criteria do you have for thinking a thing is true? Why the quotes around experts?
Because In our society the experts are often the last ones you can trust. They are paid and influenced by Monied interests.
Crossing corporate interests will get one of these experts de expertified. And or they will find something to destroy them with, be it sexual in nature or not.
And all I am saying here is that I would not admit that fluoride does not have an effect on human behavior and or health because of these experts and their studies.
Am I wrong? ( no.)
That's a whole lotta words to avoid answering a pretty simple question.
What criteria do you have for thinking a thing is true?
That's a correlation, not a causation. It's infinitely more likely it's the mass propaganda outlets that have only gotten more effective. Especially with the advent of algorithms and the brainwashing brick.
The one does not preclude the other, it in fact amplifies it. Mark my words, we are being systematically poisoned in multiple ways, be flouride one of them or no, and the fact you would argue against that at this point would lead me to classify you as a sheep, a particularly ill informed one at that.
"even if what I'm saying is factually incorrect I'm still right and you're still wrong."
Incredible, thank you for distilling your world view for us
Acknowledging a lack of certainty as you do exposes you. Don't let a few score half wits convince you otherwise. You are ignorant, not engaging on issues, just following the lead of an establishment that has lied to us every step of the way for our entire lives, progressively getting worse.
I have an exciting investment opportunity for you by the way, because I see how intelligent you are! Ha ha.
No it doesn't. I think the fact that they've looked long term for links and found none does male a song argument however. Yes we are being poisoned in multiple ways. But we can generally prove them.
People arent dumber. People have always been dumb. The difference is that the internet exposes this idiocy more, makes it easier for idiots to organize and influence the world, and uses marketing and propaganda to take advantage of this dumbness. But the dumbness itself isn't new or increasing.
The President being dumber than any president before, and frankly dumber than most people in many ways, doesn't mean that humanity as a whole has become collectively stupider.
In the 50s doctors had recommendations for the healthiest cigarettes. In the 70s, they thought they could give people drugs to unlock superhuman mental abilities. In the 90s, people thought mortal kombat was responsible for gun violence. In the 2010s, we thought that social media would free the world from corporate media control and misinformation (and not that it leads to shit like Trump). And today we have people who outsource their every thought, question, and task to an AI chat bot.
Now that last one will almost certainly lead to dumber people. Average IQs fluctuate, and are in part dependent on good health and nutrition and the ability to regularly exercise logic and critical thinking at a young age. As people outsource more of their critical thinking to a robot, they may very well get dumber. But on the whole, as it is now, we've always had smart people and we've always had dumb people. Your bias towards seeing more dumb people is just that, a bias. You'll see what you're looking for. But a single point of reference is never going to be a good judge for the whole system.
Well you're certainly helping your own case by demonstrating unintelligent discourse. Denial without cause, assertions without supporting reason or evidence, vague implied claims that can't be refuted because you didnt give enough detail to understand what you're even really claiming, a call to action without any actual suggestion of what action to take, personal attacks (apparently using talk-to-text "question mark"), and then your mic drop was "I'll help you through this" without doing anything helpful whatsoever. Wow. What a spectacularly useless comment. Impressive in it's pointlessness.
LMAO has this dude genuinely been yelling into his phone this whole time?
A couple of the dumbest people I know believe that fluoride is bad for you
So you don't respond with any intellectual points but, that some dumb people think that so obviously the opposite is true. Yet dumb people also think what you think. So piss off, your argument Falls flat outside of this Echo chamber of fucking sheep.
you have to have some intellectual points to respond with intellectual points. Human beings if baseline inteligence was less can certainly do the scientific method properly. Its a procudure and does not require hawking level intellect to work with. The studies do not require any new field of math or such. You points he was resbonding to where your feelings. you feel baseline intellect is degraded (which if it was would not give a feel for the intellect of the average scientist), you freel something is going one. you would not absolve flouride based on your feelings.
I just want to complement your honest to goodness tin foil hat beliefs. Don’t forget to mention the homosexual amphibians. And more than anything else, Godspeed in your quest for loosely connected facts!
Sodium Flouride is a naturally occuring salt in ground water. The water purification process for public water systems removes the Flouride, and it needs to be put back in to maintain dental health. This was directly observed and figured out in the 1940's.
Please explain the chemical process that results in "fluoride crystallizing in the decision making part of the brain".
Just DM'd to me from this fuckin guy: