• humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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    6 hours ago

    I believe the objection to fluoride is that it is a tranquilizer that keeps us from achieving glory through violent uprising… or sweet sweet dentist profits.

  • sit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 hours ago

    Toxicity is a big word. What about small long term effects?

    Lithium is prohibited in eu outside of psychiatric therapy, too. But it might be an essential nutrient (small doses).

    My trust into the official narrative is limited.

    • frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe
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      18 minutes ago

      You’re replacing the word science with “narrative” because that’s what your far right deep state overlords have told you to do. Wake up sheeple!

      However you described toxicity as a big word, so I doubt you are…a thinker.

    • Zetta@mander.xyz
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      2 hours ago

      You don’t need to place any trust in any narrative, there are scientific studies on the topic.

  • aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    11 hours ago

    Yeah but I read an article on a bullshit website. I think some no name website knows more than a toxicologist

  • wolfshadowheart@leminal.space
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    11 hours ago

    Back when I was in college, people didn’t like fluoride because it calcifies the pinneal gland. I assume that rhetoric has only been further exaggerated over the years

    • ZeffSyde@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Another point that conspiracy bros will bring up is that fluoride is a toxic byproduct of aluminum manufacture and dumping it into the water supply is a cheap way for Alcoa to dispose of it benevolently.

      • nBodyProblem@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        Honestly it really is sad, we have so many more uses for it

        Every atom of fluoride going into our water is another atom that can’t go into chlorine trifluoride production. Putting it into the water is a huge sacrifice we make for the health of society.

        • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
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          33 minutes ago

          Real men make chlorine pentafluoride anyway. We have no use for pathetic hypergolic oxidisers with only three fluorine atoms.

        • multifariace@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          Weird. The only argument I heard, and successfully made it to policy in my area is that it costs tax money and takes away choice. All thus smart stuff is for those damn yankees.

    • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      It does do this. However so does ageing, low sunlight exposure, low altitude, ethnicity, sex, nutrition, neuro-divergence, cell phone use, EM fields… you get the idea.

      • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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        5 hours ago

        Don’t forget the gravitational pull of Betelgeuse. In a very, very small way, that also effects calcification of the pineal gland.

      • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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        6 hours ago

        Does fluoride-enhanced water actually do this, though? Or just pure fluoride? Yes, pure fluoride has an effect, but I always thought the miniscule amount in our water is not enough to actually make a difference to the natural calcification of our pineal gland, anyways.

        • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          From what I have read studies do not show it, however it is believed it does happen because, when the data in those studies is extrapolated for 60+ years, it shows that it should contribute to it, at least

          So, yeah, seems too, but it really isn’t a factor worth worrying about

    • rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee
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      4 hours ago

      Welcome to Science Memes, where the science isn’t memes and the memes aren’t about science.

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      The meme is now this is not US policy.

      Its like stating the world is not flat… when in fact NASA’s official stance is that the world is, indeed, flat.

  • Heavybell@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    The people who need to hear this sadly would not believe that too much water can kill you even if you showed them someone die from it, I fear. I’d also be shocked if they read “water poisoning” and didn’t think of poisoned water.

    • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
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      11 hours ago

      I didn’t know this was a thing when I was younger, but not young enough to not be classified as a moron.

      Drank about 7-8 litres of water in 3 hours without going to the bathroom as a contest against a work colleague. Suffice to say I started feeling a little off on the way home, even after going to the bathroom. Years later I finally learned you can drown yourself from drinking too much and the symptoms were eerily close to what I experienced that night.

      • Heavybell@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        Oh don’t get me wrong! I also only learned about water toxicity when I was very much an adult.

        But the difference between us and the type of person I’m talking about, is that we (I’m presuming on your part) don’t think fluoride in water is a bad thing.

        The kind of person who hears “the government adds CHEMICAL_NAME to water” and assumes that’s a bad thing is the kind of person who will not believe drinking too much water can kill you, even (or especially) if they are told by an expert.

  • beebarfbadger@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    Oh yeah? And what if someone ignores that, simply lies and says it’s toxic? I’m convinced!

    • Brickhead92@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      And both of these people telling me about fluoride in water are both experts in their field. One an expert toxicologist, and the other an expert liar. Now I don’t know what to believe.

  • RQG@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Toxicologist here. I think that take is dishonest or dumb.

    Taking a lethal dose is almost never the concern with any substance in our drinking water.

    Hormones, heavy metals, persistent organic chemicals, ammonia are all in our drinking water. But for all of them we can’t drink enough water to die from a high dose.

    Some of them still have a large effect on our bodies.

    It’s about the longterm effects. Which we need longterm studies to learn about. That makes them harder to study.

    Still doesn’t mean flouride does anything bad longerm. But the argument is bad.

    • FreshLight@sh.itjust.works
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      12 hours ago

      Yeah, it seems to me like he got the right idea and wanted to convince people by making an extreme statement…

      • RQG@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        That might well be the case. I’m not sure if it is helpful to use those half truths which are simpler to convince certain people. Or if it weakens the point because it is in the end not really correct.

      • Hylactor@sopuli.xyz
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        1 day ago

        You just made me mad by helping me realize that the Trump bros are going to break water by removing fluoride long before they fix water by removing lead.

        • ryannathans@aussie.zone
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          24 hours ago

          Are you sure fluoride doesn’t? It does accumulate in the soil, building up in crops. Considering fluoride exposure from all sources, many people are above upper safe limits, even from tea drinking alone

          I don’t think fluoride should be added to water as it just pollutes the environment, where 99.99% of water isn’t coming in contact with teeth

          • marcos@lemmy.world
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            23 hours ago

            It doesn’t. This is high-school chemistry.

            Fluoride only “accumulates” up to the peak concentration of the environment (no further) on places where it is removed from contact with that environment.

            You can only accumulate fluoride in the soil if you keep adding it and there is almost no rain to wash it away.

            • ryannathans@aussie.zone
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              21 hours ago

              Like how crops are irrigated with town water, and in many areas with lowering rainfall? Accumulates in fruit, vegetables, leaves too

              • marcos@lemmy.world
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                21 hours ago

                Yes, irrigation with the minimum possible amount of water is known to destroy land for millennia at this point. But sodium will be a problem way before you notice any change in fluoride.

      • Ferrous@lemmy.ml
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        24 hours ago

        Yup, same with PFAS and forever chemicals. Maybe I’m ignorant because I’m not a doctor, but I don’t know if this line of thinking holds water - pun not intended.

    • NeverNudeNo13@lemmings.world
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      23 hours ago

      It’s so funny I was just having a similar conversation about neurotoxic venomous animals in another thread. Lethality is an obviously concerning threshold, but there are substances out there that can easily destroy your quality of life and livelihood that never reach the concern of being lethal.

      I think for mostly rational people concerned about fluoride in their water is that it was a public health decision made with little to no actual science proving it’s safety or efficacy when it was first decided that they were going to add it to the public water supply. The proposed benefits of it weren’t even supported by scientific evidence, it was just supposed that exposure to sodium fluoride could potentially reduce tooth decay for some.

      Personally, I’ve suffered from the cosmetic damage of dental fluorosis, and I’m not necessarily thrilled about fluoride. But I have way more issues with public mandates founded on pseudoscience than I am with sodium fluoride. Especially now that we can see evidence that for some people fluoride can be especially beneficial.

      So what was wrong with giving people the option of using fluoride toothpaste or mouthwashes… Why did it have to go into the public water supply?

        • NeverNudeNo13@lemmings.world
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          14 hours ago

          Yeah that proves my point entirely.

          In 1945 they fluoridated the first public water supply.

          In 1979 the first published research began to appear to show how fluoride might be able to remineralize dental enamel.

          • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
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            4 hours ago

            In 1945, Grand Rapids became the first city in the world to fluoridate its drinking water.The Grand Rapids water fluoridation study was originally sponsored by the U.S. Surgeon General, but was taken over by the NIDR shortly after the Institute’s inception in 1948. During the 15-year project, researchers monitored the rate of tooth decay among Grand Rapids’ almost 30,000 schoolchildren. After just 11 years, Dean- who was now director of the NIDR-announced an amazing finding. The caries rate among Grand Rapids children born after fluoride was added to the water supply dropped more than 60 percent. This finding, considering the thousands of participants in the study, amounted to a giant scientific breakthrough that promised to revolutionize dental care, making tooth decay for the first time in history a preventable disease for most people.

            • Alteon@lemmy.world
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              4 hours ago

              Yeah, I guess that somehow totes proves his point. Super easy to see the world wrong when they have the reading comprehension of a 6th grader.

              • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
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                3 hours ago

                So the person above may think they’re so clever, or whoever fed them that factoid may think that. Notice the claim is remineralization. Maybe that’s true, it may be that a study first showed that in 1975 and that’s not contradicted by your link but that is a non sequitur. It’s not what we’re talking about, it’s not a good faith argument.

    • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works
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      23 hours ago

      Also, isn’t it recommended to not give infants fluorided water, hence why you can buy it in virtually every grocery store?

      • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
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        20 hours ago

        Pretty much anything you can think of is recommended by someone, because different people have conflicting views. The key is to choose whose recommendations are based on the best reasoning & evidence aligning with your goals.

    • Mango@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      Also “because I’m an expert and I say so” is a good way to convince someone to let you poison them.

    • ryannathans@aussie.zone
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      24 hours ago

      Fluoride does have long term effects though once you consider fluoride exposure through all sources like diet, which is mostly due to fluoride from water ending up in farmland. Tradesmen alone regularly exceed the upper limits due to high water consumption in hotter seasons

    • protist@mander.xyz
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      17 hours ago

      I 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.

      Second time I got to post this today, unfortunately because it’s almost ceased being satire.