Great post… but where is the meme?
How much oatmeal would I have to eat to die of fluoride poisoning?
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.
I feel like I woke up in the movie Dr. Strangelove
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.
Oh yeah? And what if someone ignores that, simply lies and says it’s toxic? I’m convinced!
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.
I don’t understand your point.
Nobody drinks the ocean. Fluoride is barely active topically. Most humans rarely if at all swim in the ocean.
So, once again, DHMO is the chemical we need to fear.
The stuff also known as hydric acid. People just don’t talk enough about how corrosive it is. Plus, it gets in the air and gets in your lungs!
It’s 10 million times more acidic than drain cleaner!!! And the government is trying to force you to drink it by forcing it to be used in municipal drinking fountains
It’s so pervasive that they have found it in the bodies of every single child worldwide.
There was an incident involving it on April 14th 1912 that took over 1500 lives.
I heard that anyone who’s ever come into contact with it has later died
Its a common component of all cancer cells, and trace amounts have been found in the blood of dead lab rats.
terrorists will drink vast amounts of it every day before an attack
i know this guy has a fancy degree and everything, but is he really as reliable a source as rfk junior? you don’t need fluoride when you have an army of worms ready to eat any kinds of bacteria that may enter your system.
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 longterm studies to learn about. That makes them harder to study.
Still doesn’t mit flouride does anything bad longerm. But the argument is bad.
Yeah, by this argument lead in the water isn’t a concern.
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.
Yeah but lead bioaccumulates where as fluoride/ine doesn’t
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
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.
Like how crops are irrigated with town water, and in many areas with lowering rainfall? Accumulates in fruit, vegetables, leaves too
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.
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.
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?
Mate, your entire second paragraph is completely false. Like, you need to just read this: https://www.nidcr.nih.gov/health-info/fluoride/the-story-of-fluoridation
It’s considered by the CDC as one of the greatest Public Health Achievements of the last Century. There have been dozens, if not hundreds of studies about fluoride affects in the water supply.
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.
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
Also, isn’t it recommended to not give infants fluorided water, hence why you can buy it in virtually every grocery store?
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.
Also “because I’m an expert and I say so” is a good way to convince someone to let you poison them.
The fluoride added to water gets it up to 0.7mg/liter.
That ends up to be 2 or 3 drops in a 55 gallon drums worth of water. Not much.
Fluoride is a natural substance and is found in many areas drinking water already. Many areas in much higher concentrations than 0.7mg/liter, so realistically people all over the world have drank fluoridated water for thousands of years.
You have to well over double the 0.7 before any health issues may appear and the first to appear is at about triple the concentration in kids under 8 years old who drink it for years getting spots on their teeth. The spots are only superficial.
Going into concentrations even higher than that CAN cause health issues when drank for longer periods of time. All of those cases being from naturally occurring fluoride, which actually effects somewhere north of 20% of the world’s population.
Which makes the argument that fluoride in our water keeps us passive as being extra stupid, since water sourced around Columbia (the country) is far higher than .07mg/liter and Columbia seems to be caught in violence and turmoil and instability quite a bit over the decades.
*edit: Colombia
Just because a concentration is low doesn’t mean it’s safe. Water with 0.7 mg/L of Po-210 is lethal.
You can put an amount of it in a 55 gallon drum that is not visible
It’s a natural substance
Fluoride is in fact safe at the amounts that the FDA regulates but saying it’s a small concentration or that it’s natural are not the reasons it’s safe. It’s the hundreds of peer reviewed research articles that show that it’s safe
Its presence in groundwater is how we discovered it’s good for teeth.
In fact, there used to be so much in some areas,it actually stained the teeth. In Colorado Springs a dentist noticed that the children were developing brown stains on their teeth. In researching it, it was discovered that the “Colorado Brown Stain” was caused by excessive fluoride in the drinking water. But it also lead to the discovery that regions with natural fluoride present but in lower levels than Colorado Springs didn’t have stained teeth, but did have lower levels of tooth decay.
Yep. In fact, 21% of the world’s natural drinking water used falls within the recommended range for fluoride, while over another 20% is higher and in some countries actually does cause some non-superficial side effects and problems. Those don’t pop up until in concentrations at least 3 times higher than recommended.
Small note: the country name is spelled “Colombia,” and spelling it correctly means you don’t need to specify which one!
Fair enough!
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.
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.
They need to do stuff like this often in HS to show students how you can bullshit truths and make its facade of truth feel legit.
This is, and I don’t say this lightly, one of the dumbest conclusions I’ve ever seen someone jump to.
Might as well say that fluoride in the water caused software developers, lmao.
Satire, I think.
Classic ice cream sales and violent crimes in summer correlation.
It’s too much like the real anti-fluoride arguments, man. I can’t recognize it, man.
Actually, software developers cause autism
Let’s ignore the better diagnosis processes and just take two trending upward statistics and make a broad correlation and call it fact.
Not sure if you’re being sarcastic but if not, then I’m about to blow your fucking mind
STOP EATING RICE!
NAME YOUR DAUGHTER SARAH, IT’S THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE THE AMAZON! AND WHATEVER YOU DO…
…DO NOT NAME THEM TRISTEN
If we shut down flights to Antarctica, inflation would’ve been solved yesterday.
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.
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)
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.
Yikes 😬
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.
Its from Dr. Strangeglove
I mean, trump got reelected. I hope it’s the flouride.
Eating seeds as a pastime activity
And that’s why you should only drink grain alcohol and pure, natural rain water. To preserve the essence of your precious bodily fluids.
</s>
The real Chads use raw organic free-range non-GMO pesticide-free lemon juice with baking soda. It’ll leave your teeth as white as they’ll be sensitive! Keep it crunchy. You’re welcome.
Toxicologist, toxicity, minuscule, fluoridated – your big doctor words are just trying to trick us!
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 removedd up from co-workers parroting information they heard on the Joe Rogan podcast.
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.
You want some fancy rebuttal to a single linked study that the article states was a bunch of partials thrown together, that came from a country famously known for half-assing and cutting corners to get ahead? The country that was caught mixing lead into ground Cinnamon to sell it for a higher weight? The one where buildings sit half done or the cement falls apart by the time it’s together? The ones who lay sod over cement in order to pass the amount of vegetation present on new construction?
That’s the article you could and and latch onto in order to believe? Are you even aware that fluoride occurs naturally in water and that about 40% of all the drinking water across the globe already has around the amount the US gets theirs up to, or a larger amount(some places so large they do actually cause health issues)? It’s literally been drank for thousands of years.
But you trust an incomplete study from China more than anything else? Why?
I’m was just hoping for a solid rebuttal, not necessarily a fancy one! If you’re able to explain why the criticisms you mention mean that specific study is bad, that would be great! I’m assuming you’re not from China and mistakenly think wherever you’re from doesn’t suffer from similar issues, meaning we can only trust you as much as the article.
It would be great to have some citations for that so I can point to things when I get into these discussions! That was part of what I asked for. You seem really passionate about this so you must have that available to help me out. Thanks!
I’m not sure you read my post if you think I trust any of the studies I linked more than anything else. It might be good to reread it!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
The Takeaway I’m getting from both of these studies being talked about Is that things are very unclear. The Cochrane group is very well regarded for conducting Meta studies and finding flaws in previously held understandings. The term high fluoridation is mentioned many times, and it’s unclear what that is meaning.
Vitamin A is an incredibly important molecule to many biological processes in the human body, but we do not want to supplement it, aggressively, as it can become toxic. Fluoride is noted to be beneficial for enamel hardening. No one is recommending taking large amounts of it. The second link you have points out the important questions, what is the actual danger, and who is in danger the most?
