this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] solarvector@lemmy.dbzer0.com 62 points 17 hours ago (5 children)

It's not about toxicity, it's about mind control! Fluoride makes you passive. But you know this since you're a tool of the government pushing poison.

Just bleach your teeth like normal people! You know, with the bleach under the kitchen sink.

(Don't actually do this)

[–] chillBurner@lemmy.ml 24 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Like the ol' General said / s

We can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face.

[–] solarvector@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 16 hours ago (2 children)
[–] marcos@lemmy.world 7 points 13 hours ago

This is the correct response from any line from Dr. Strangelove taken out of context.

In context, it takes some 15 to 30 minutes for you to understand that you are supposed to laugh.

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[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 24 points 16 hours ago

I mean, trump got reelected. I hope it's the flouride.

[–] Luvs2Spuj@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Eating seeds as a pastime activity

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[–] walden@sub.wetshaving.social 56 points 17 hours ago

Toxicologist, toxicity, minuscule, fluoridated -- your big doctor words are just trying to trick us!

[–] zephorah@lemm.ee 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Next headline will be how fluoride contributes to autism and it will have just as much evidence as the vaccine bit does. How is this even a thing? Is ground zero on this RFK?

Meanwhile, all the people who can’t afford dentists will have even worse teeth going forward. Make America’s teeth British again.

[–] Robust_Mirror@aussie.zone 6 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (8 children)

Well look at the statistics:

Fluoride:

  • Water fluoridation in the United States began in the 1940s
  • By 1949, nearly 1 million Americans were receiving fluoridated tap water
  • In 1951, the number jumped dramatically to 4.85 million people
  • By 1952, the number nearly tripled again to 13.3 million Americans
  • In 1954, the number exceeded 20 million people
  • In 1965 an additional 13.5 million Americans gained access to fluoridated water.
  • By 1969, 43.7% of Americans had access to fluoridated tap water.
  • In 2000, approximately 162 million Americans (65.8% of the population served by public water systems) received optimally fluoridated water
  • 2006: 69.2% of people on public water systems (61.5% of total population)
  • 2012: 74.6% of people on public water systems (67.1% of total population)

Autism:

  • First recognised in the 1940s
  • During the 1960s and 1970s, prevalence estimates were approximately 0.5 cases per 1,000 children.
  • Prevalence rates increased to about 1 case per 1,000 children in the 1980s.
  • 2000: 1 in 150 children
  • 2006: 1 in 110 children
  • 2014: 1 in 59 children
  • 2016: 1 in 54 children
  • 2020: 1 in 36 children

Seems pretty clear cut to me.

/s because people think I posted this in seriousness.

[–] Redex68@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Damn, I guess fluoridated water also then caused computers, world population growth and the eradication of polio.

Idk if this is a troll post or this person never heard of the fact that correlation does not equal causation.

Case and point.

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[–] thesmokingman@programming.dev 23 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (7 children)

I want someone who knows about these things to respond to this 2012 metastudy that ties naturally fluoridated groundwater to neurological problems. I have used this the past decade to say “well the science is unclear;” I found it back then (2013 at the latest) when I was trying to disprove a crank and really questioned my shit. There was a(n unrelated?) follow up later that questioned the benefits. Since this is very far from my area of expertise, I’m not championing these; I just want to understand why they’re wrong or at least don’t matter in the discourse.

(Edit: for the educated, there could be a million ways these are wrong. Authors are idiots, study isn’t reproducible, industry capture, conclusions not backed up by data, whatever. I just don’t have the requisite knowledge to say these are wrong and therefore fluoridated water is both safe and useful)

Update: great newer studies in responses! You can have a rational convo starting with these two that moves to newer stuff.

[–] macarthur_park@lemmy.world 18 points 15 hours ago

There’s a follow up meta study from 2020.:

In conclusion, based on the totality of currently available scientific evidence, the present review does not support the presumption that fluoride should be assessed as a human developmental neurotoxicant at the current exposure levels in Europe.

[–] SuperIce@lemmy.world 17 points 15 hours ago

A study in Canada was published in 2019 looking at the differences between 2 neighboring cities where on stopped fluoridating water in 2011. They saw that saw a significant increase in cavities in children in the city that stopped fluoridating vs the other. This is despite the fact the the city without fluoridation actually has somewhat higher adherence to brushing, flossing, and going to the dentist. No difference was seen yet in permanent teeth, but that's because the study would need more time to see effects there.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdoe.12685

Of course, we still should do more studies on fluoride neurotoxicity. Most studies look at levels of fluoride at 1.5mg/L or higher, which is more than double the recommended level by the US (0.7 mg/L). There is a hard limit in the US of 4mg/L, but the EPA strongly recommends a limit of 2mg/L. This only really matters for locations with very high levels of fluoride in the groundwater, and is thus quite rare. The EU's limit is 1.5mg/L.

[–] tehmics@lemmy.world 10 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

I also came across the same study while looking to disprove a conspiracy nut. We should really do more research on the effects of fluoride.

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 14 hours ago

The Harvard geneticists little opinion piece she wrote completely ignores all the direct evidence that was gathered back then, about how cavities always decreased in fluoridated areas when compared to neighboring cities that hadn't yet done so.

Also, yeah, it's bad for you in large doses. Literally anything is bad for you in large enough doses.

[–] thesmokingman@programming.dev 7 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

It looks like someone else linked one of these studies in a different comment while I was writing my own. I don’t feel as crazy now. I don’t care one way or another; I just want to make sure I can respond correctly! I wonder if the emphasis on fluoridated water is itself linked to industry capture?

[–] Xanis@lemmy.world 10 points 15 hours ago

I managed to catch myself good old Periodontal Disease. This freaked me out. My anxiety and ADHD shook hands and many of you can imagine what happened.

A couple days and who knows how many hours later I emerged like a butterfly from my self-imposed isolation with new knowledge. In short, yes, the amount of fluoride in water processed in various districts across the U.S. is tiny. The amount used does vary. Some studies have concluded that excess fluoride can have an effect on brain activity. However, they have been inconclusive in drawing actual parallels between any form of neurological functioning - though I can't remember if I've read that particular study.

Anyway, remember who is yelling about this. As with many issues brought up like this it's more about standing on a hill and shouting rather than any real significant problem. A platform to be seen and heard.

Btw, I completely halted my Periodontal and even reversed some of the lesser effects it had. Sometimes that adhd rabbit hole comes in handy.

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[–] MidnightPocket@hexbear.net 7 points 12 hours ago

I had the misfortune of eavesdropping on a conversation recently where some guy who was working in a bourgeoisie brewing facility recently switched jobs to work at a waste water treatment center and he was advocating for removing fluoride from water with a level of rationale that I have to assume he picked up from co-workers parroting information they heard on the Joe Rogan podcast.

[–] Rookwood@lemmy.world 15 points 16 hours ago (8 children)

Fluoridated water doesn't seem to make a difference on cavities. It does have neurological effects. It's simply not acutely fatal. It's already in our toothpaste. We don't need it in our municipal water supply and the majority of developed countries don't.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine/magazine_article/fluoridated-drinking-water/

[–] gofsckyourself@lemmy.world 21 points 13 hours ago

This is a disingenuous take. This is a cherry-picked article that does not come to the conclusion you draw here. You also state "It does have neurological effects" but leave out the most important piece of information for that to be true: high doses.

Why should anyone trust what you say when you're twisting the information to suit your narrative?

[–] heraplem@leminal.space 23 points 15 hours ago (6 children)

Counterpoint: I live in an area without fluoridated water, and I'm told that dentists can reliably identify people who didn't grow up here by the state of their teeth.

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[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 14 hours ago (5 children)

Your link is more or less an opinion piece from a geneticist, so this isn't even her field of study.

All her health issues she points out are for fluoride concentrations over triple the amount that tap water is brought up to.

The reason it's usage spread across the country was because while the entire country had access to things such as fluoridated toothpaste, counties and cities that started fluoridation of their water supplies consistently had fewer cavities than areas that didn't fluoridate the water. This alone outlines the glaringly obvious flaw in her argument.

Further still, while the US adds fluoride to the tap water in a concentration to reach 0.5mg to 0.7mg per liter of water (a couple drops per 50 gallons), natural drinking water for over 20% of the world is in concentrations well over that (to be clear, being well over that can cause health issues. Too much of anything can cause health issues.)

In other words, there is no evidence that this low concentration of fluoride causes health issues. There is loads of direct evidence that it reduces cavities. Plus, this woman from your opinion piece is talking out of her field. Not to mention that 21% of the world's drinking water supply naturally already falls within the recommended range of what the US takes theirs up to. It's just that most of the US water supply naturally falls below that amount.

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[–] sleen@lemmy.zip 11 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

I appreciate that you put some reputable sources, rather than relying on a random tweet/post.

[–] Squiddlioni@kbin.melroy.org 26 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

The source is not as reputable as it appears. The article in question is not from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and in fact was condemned by the HSDM. The actual dental experts at Harvard requested a formal retraction of the article: "Based on the significant flaws in the magazine article, we respectfully request that the article be rescinded, and a correction be published to clarify any misleading information that was provided."

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 14 hours ago

That's because it's just a bs opinion piece by some geneticist. There's loads of very conclusive evidence and testing proving that it reduces cavities. Also, this geneticist points out that it only causes problems in doses far higher than what fluoridated tap water gets brought up to.

[–] Ahrotahntee@lemmy.ca 11 points 15 hours ago

Keep in mind that they listed Canada as having non-flouride water, presumably based on the sole criteria that it's not a national requirement. The split between communities with and without flouride in their water varies wildly by province.

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 14 hours ago

It's an opinion piece by a geneticist (so not a chemist or biologist or a field that could be related) and she ignores all the direct evidence that every city and county that added fluoride started having fewer cavities than neighboring areas that hadn't yet added it.

She then further points out that it only causes health issues in much higher concentrations than what the US was getting our water supply up to. You know, like literally anything that you get too much of is bad for you. You can literally die from drinking too much plain water. Too much of anything will kill you.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 5 points 14 hours ago

Only 3% of Quebec's population has access to fluoridated water and we have way more dental issues than any other province in Canada.

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[–] ristoril_zip@lemmy.zip 6 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

but what about my precious bodily fluids?!?

[–] mxcory@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 13 hours ago

"Have you ever seen a commie drink a glass of water?"

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[–] cikano@lemmy.world 6 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

But what about our precious bodily fluids?

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[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 8 points 15 hours ago

Lemminologist here:

the fluoride levels vary because that’s how numbers do in reality

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