A U.S. government report expected to stir debate concluded that fluoride in drinking water at twice the recommended limit is linked with lower IQ in children.
The report, based on an analysis of previously published research, marks the first time a federal agency has determined — “with moderate confidence” — that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. While the report was not designed to evaluate the health effects of fluoride in drinking water alone, it is a striking acknowledgment of a potential neurological risk from high levels of fluoride.
Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.
“I think this (report) is crucial in our understanding” of this risk, said Ashley Malin, a University of Florida researcher who has studied the affect of higher fluoride levels in pregnant women on their children. She called it the most rigorously conducted report of its kind.
It’s almost like “the dose makes the poison”.
Levels at twice the limit do bad things? Who would have thought.
Maybe
Sometimes
at twice the limit do bad things?
i call water fluoridation bullshit, i don’t care what anyone says. of all things, why force everyone to consume this toxic chemical, especially when there’s no way to know how much an individual is drinking, and also especially since the dose inevitably gets fucked up.
The Cochrane report also concluded that early scientific investigations on water fluoridation (most were conducted before 1975) were deeply flawed. “We had concerns about the methods used, or the reporting of the results, in … 97 percent of the studies,” the authors noted. One problem: The early studies didn’t take into account the subsequent widespread use of fluoride-containing toothpastes and other dental fluoride supplements, which also prevent cavities. This may explain why countries that do not fluoridate their water have also seen big drops in cavity rates (see chart).
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine/magazine_article/fluoridated-drinking-water/
i find it MUCH more likely that fluoride, as a toxic waste industrial by product was just sold to the public as a “miracle” cure for cavities, so that corporations could sell it to the taxpayer, rather than pay to have it disposed of
it’s the same shit as the “recycling solution” to plastic waste that was sold to us by…plastics manufacturers. which also turned out to be complete bullshit
edit: since no one’s offering a substantial defense of mandatory fluoridation without consent, i’m going to bed. enjoy your drain bamage
You must have had a lot of fluoride as a kid.
The same assholes made us take lead out of gasoline. Which also is a possible explanation for you.
I remember when gas was sweet.
Now it just makes me shit myself :(You’re being an asshole
Oh Christ, there’s two of them now
Fluoride does strengthen teeth. However, this study shows that maybe dentists should be administering it (A dentist handed me a mouthwash with it, and literally I had a choice of a daily one or a weekly one, and since it’s mouth wash, you’re supposed to spit it out. So clearly it can be applied to the teeth without needed to be ingested at all)
without needed to be ingested at all
that’s the point-- lots of things are beneficial–why force a chemical that can so easily be overconsumed on everyone without asking if they want it? people think their teeth are going to fall out if they don’t drink fluoride. fine–why not sell it as a product that people can choose to purchase if they want it, instead of dumping it in the water supply?
Because not everyone is like you. Not everyone has the eeucation you do. Not everyone has the same means to buy beneficial stuff. Not everyone takes the kind of care they should of their children.
Flouridated water, by most accounts, has had a really positivie impact on public health.
We should do our best to make sure our water supply is well funded and monitored. Unfortunately, more and more water systems are privatized and clean drinking water and corporate profits don’t seem compatible to me.
But we should be pragmatic and clear eyed. I worry to see phrases like “I don’t care what anyone says” in a scientific context.
it’s not even about science, it’s about principle. if tax dollars are already paying for the fluoride, then they can give it away as a supplement, instead of “welcome to the land of the free, except you’re drinking fluoride whether you want it or not. oh by the way here’s a study showing your kids’ brain damage from us dumping too much fluoride in the water. oops”
how many of these instances of “oops” is too many for you?
for me it’s >0
How do you feel about iodized salt?
there are plenty of no-iodide salts available
edit: as it turns out, i happen to have both
The amount of fluoride in water is significantly below the safe limits. To get fluoride poisoning like the article describes you’d have to drink so much water that you’ll die of drinking too much water first.
An accident can happen with everything. It’s very, very rare in most developed countries for something to go wrong with the water fluoridisation.
Again, what is your threshold for acceptable levels of accidents in overfluoridation?
it’s not even about science, it’s about principle.
How to say “I’ve never heard of public health” without saying “I’ve never heard of public health”
Also a case of “the accusation is the confession.” The literal next sentence is “but what about my FREEEEEEDOM!?!?”
The science behind this is literally highschool chemistry and highschool statistics.
Iodized salt was basically that. Soldiers turning up for WWI had lots of problems due to missing things in the diet.
Having a method of distribution that requires no effort and, perhaps more importantly, virtually no cost helps those who are often otherwise missed and forgotten by the systems in place. “Just have a dentist apply it” doesn’t work when you’re too poor for the dentist and/or have no way to get to one.
You can do a whole house RO system if you really care, but you need to be mindful that it can have serious downsides if the RO water sits in the pipes for too long while you are away from your house (Bad bacteria).
RO removes everything- the minerals that help your mouth healthy, the chlorine or chloramine inhibiting bacterial growth in your pipes, heavy metals and microplastics and PFAS that could be in the water (though this is null and void if your housepipes are plastic or lead or treated with PFAS)
…generally, unless you are living with extremely dangerous water, or you have massive aquariums that need more than a kiddie pool of water a week, you don’t need RO systems.
I mean, the best public health alternative to water fluoridation would be to impose limits to how much sugar is allowed in foods and force changes in marketing, since sugar consumption is one of the biggest causes of dental problems
i agree with this, and funny enough, i’ve heard people complain about soda machines being removed from schools because, of course, “they’re taking away my kid’s FREEDOM to drink cokes all day!!”
Like this?
if tax dollars are already paying for the fluoride, then they can give it away as a supplement, instead of "welcome to the land of the free, except you’re drinking fluoride whether you want it or not.
Downvoted for the truth
people can’t stand the thought that maybe they’ve been misled their entire life
I learned all of that myself decades ago at Uni. I had a high level water class and we were supposed to do a one-hour presentation on a topic of our choice.
During my research to come up with a topic for the lecture I read an article about a small town in Canada that ran out of fluoride for their water supply. The article cited a downturn in fertilizer production as the culprit.
I was very confused at first. Going to the EPA website revealed that fluoride was a naturally occuring compound in water supplies. No mention of how you could run out of something naturally occuring in water.
I went on a trip with the class to a water plant. I asked the operator there about fluoride. He explained they added it to the water and it was not naturally occuring.
This lead me to discover that fertilizer plants sold their toxic waste product to municipalities instead of disposing of it properly. Mind blown. Furthermore the research proving fluoride in the water supplies prevented cavities was flawed at best.
My research indicated that fluoride causes a developmental delay which results in teeth eruption about two years later than normal. So fluoride poisoning makes it look like your teenage teeth have fewer cavities but they are just not as old.
Once you looked at these same teeth later on there was no real difference. So the benefit of having your teeth erupt later disappeared as you got older. Which makes a lot of sense.
There is no clinical reason to ingest pharmaceutical grade fluoride let alone the toxic shit that comes from the scrubbers of fertilizer plants. There is no mechanism to return fluoride to your teeth except maybe throwing up before it has been absorbed.
My presentation went great. Everyone was fascinated and I got a near perfect score. I am not a fluoride hater because fluoride works great topically.
The truth is astounding and the amount of pushback I have gotten explaining all this on the Internet has been ridiculous to say the least.
what i find baffling is the fervent insistence that it be added to the water supply that can’t be avoided. as if the whole universe is going to implode if they take away our precious fluoride in the water
Maybe that’s why there’s a limit that’s lower than the danger point?
And also why water fluoridation is done at a level far below the limit. Lots of things that are good for you at one dosage level are bad for you at a much higher dosage level.
Including, funnily enough, water!
I don’t think this is conclusive without either a mechanism or an analysis that definitively shows there’s no other water contaminants in these poorly regulated areas
Considering they specifically say “with moderate confidence” I don’t think they think it’s conclusive either
Fluoride is naturally in the water in my area. Most toothpaste also has fluoride added into it. Guess I’m destined to be a lemon. Just don’t taste me after brushing.
Fluoride is naturally in most water sources. As long as your water is within limits, you’re fine using fluoride toothpaste.
You’re not eating your toothpaste are you?
What?
It said paste!
Fluoride in toothpaste is fine because you spit it out.
Adding it to drinking water is the problematic issue.
Having it at unsafe levels in drinking water.
A child would have to eat something like 10 entire tubes of toothpaste for fluoride to become toxic. Kids are gonna be fine.
Even if you swallowed your toothpaste, you’d be fine because the amount of fluoride is so insignificant.
General Jack D. Ripper : Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk… ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children’s ice cream.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake : [very nervous] Lord, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper : You know when fluoridation first began?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake : I… no, no. I don’t, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper : Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard-core Commie works.
Welp. Truth is stranger than fiction, they say.
I’ve been meaning to re-watch this for years. Brilliant movie.
Ahead of his time??
I once had an argument over someone who was anti fluoride. They said it makes you dumb. But they have also in the past commented that I was smart, so I said imagine how smart I’d be without fluoride? They don’t have a comeback for that one.
Also too much oxygen (twice the limit) will also cause you harm and possibly kill you, do we ban oxygen?
My son’s currently in the NICU. He recently came off his breathing tube, after receiving a DART steroid treatment to encourage proper lung development. Up until this point, he needed 30-40% oxygen (normal earth atmosphere has 21% oxygen) to survive. After the treatment, he was able to breath on a bubble-CPAP, which put significantly less strain on his lungs and reduced his oxygen requirement down into the mid-20s.
Back in the 90s, the DART steroid treatment was considered a fantastic pharmaceutical innovation precisely because it encouraged this rapid recovery. However, long term testing of infants on the treatment revealed a high risk of cerebral palsy. This was much worse than the damage inflicted on the lungs due to prolonged ventilator treatment, and so use of DART was halted. But fairly recently (the last decade or so) a minimal treatment of DART was experimented with on children with sever breathing problems. The lower dosage over a shorter delivery window yielded much the same results as the original study (rapid lung development) without the mental health impact. Kids came off the vent sooner (which meant less lung damage from the vent pressure and high oxygen) while experiencing minimal side effects. Now DART is the standard for premature babies with difficulty breathing on their own.
This is hardly the first time a medication has experienced such a historical arc. But the hysterics around industrial medicine, combined with the rather shitty history of experimental medical studies (Tuskegee Experiments, St. Louis slums radiation experimentation, Phen Phen and Oxycotin scandals, Theranos) and a fixation on “naturalism” as a panacea, do lead people to weird places.
I can understand why people are terrified of fluorine in their drinking water, given how much lead ends up in there, too. But I do think the fixation on one serves to inhibit discussion of the other. Curious how guys like Alex Jones and Joe Rogan will peddle these conspiracies ad nauseum while staying well clear of the far more profitable toxic waste that ends up harming enormous swaths of the American lower classes.
While contact with teeth may be beneficial, there is no reason to ingest flouride. There is also no reason to wash your hair with flouride and water your plants and lawn with flouride.
If you want to supplement for children, have swish packets at school. The money could be better spent for the desired outcome.
This used to be common in “the olden days” in rural America. I remembered the school nurse would hand out the fluoride rinse to students who’s families signed up for it. I remember thonking that they were all the rich kids who’s families could afford the $5/year for their fancy oral hygiene. Well who’s laughing now? I’ve got the most expensive teeth after all my fillings, crowns, root canals and dental surgeries!
Yeah, i’m leaving all the grammatical errors in there; it better illustrates my point.
Yep. Grew up in the unincorporated area of my town and had well water.
Also have plenty of dental work today.
It was obvious enough that the hygenist even asked if I’d grown up with well water.
A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard-core Commie works.
– Gen. Jack D. Ripper
Damn, beat me by about a minute!
strong teeth 💪🦷🦷🦷 dumb brain 🧠😵💫
Is there even a reason the levels are that high to begin with? Does it have something to do with regular treated water vs water from a water treatment plant althat recycles wastewater? Or is this just dumb government?
Fluorides, like all trace elements, naturally occur in many water sources. The reason water flouridation caught on initially was because of the strong correlation between locations with water supplies naturally high in fluoride and better dental health.
Indeed. Here in the UK, people can request that their water company should add it in if their water supply is low-fluoride, for instance from a reservoir, and the water company must add it in.
Back when I used to work in water, that was always the stuff that gave me nightmares. Concentrated hexafluorosilicic acid is what we’d use for dosing. We’d test all the equipment in the chemical room on plain water, drain it out and then literally brick up the doorway. Site would be evacuated during delivery - delivery guy would connect everything up in a space suit, hop in the shower afterwards. Lasted for ages and ages, since you only need the tiniest drip in the water supply to get what you need, but the tiniest drip on your skin would be enough to kill you as well; its lethal dosage is horrifically small.
Made working with all the other halides much less of a concern - we use shed loads of chlorine, but that stuff is much much less nasty in comparison.
It also caught on because the water treatment process removes the naturally occurring fluoride. If your water comes from an underground source rather than a lake they’re likely putting back less than was taken out.
Yeah. You know how “hillbillies” are always portrayed as having bad teeth in old media? That’s because the water in Appalachia is low in fluoride.
(And fluoridated toothpaste didn’t exist back then.)
I would have assumed it’s because old media is full of stereotypes
Yeah, but it was a stereotype because people associated bad teeth with Appalachia. And that’s because the water in Appalachia was low in fluoride.
Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral in water. Wells tend to have varying amounts of fluoride, while lakes have almost no fluoride. This is basically due to unsafe/untreated wells being used for drinking water.
Now we know where MAGA comes from.
Very cool picture btw
🎣
I dont think this report actually means anything, IQ isnt a real test of intelligence.
IQ is a real thing that has measurable effects and it’s very important if it goes up or down. It doesn’t directly measure intelligence (however you would even define that in the general sense) but it correlates strongly with many important outcomes.
