Pseudoscientific terror ended fluoridation in Calgary, now kids' teeth are rotting

general topics
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Please don’t get moralistic. It seriously degrades the quality of your argumentation.

We’re talking about a freedom/safety tradeoff and you are automatically assuming safety is more important. If you were to use the same “reasoning” regarding terrorism, you would have to concede that the TSA is good because it slightly decreases the odds of a terrorist getting on an airplane and that NSA mass surveillance is good because it slightly decreases the odds of a large terrorist attack being committed.

Also, you’re making a bald assertion that the efficacy of fluoridation trumps the freedom of people who don’t want fluoride in their tap water. The only hint of an argument you offer is to compare fluoridation to vaccinations. But the two aren’t alike! Dental caries are not contagious, and so there is no notion of “herd immunity” to factor in for fluoridation!

Meanwhile, I’ve conceded that the positive health effect of fluoridation – fewer dental caries – is very real. I’ve simply argued that it’s not clear that the positive health effect, as small as it is, should definitively win out over concerns about increased cancer risk, dental fluorosis, and child neurodevelopment issues, all of which are found by scientific studies to be caused by concentrations of fluoride typical to those found in US water supplies.

Finally, I do believe freedom is important, and that includes the freedom to choose what to believe and what not to believe. Yes, this creates problems – some people may choose to believe differently from you! Horror of horrors! But nonetheless, I believe that freedom is good and forcing people to act according to your own beliefs instead of choosing for themselves is illiberal. This includes allowing people to choose for themselves whether the harms of fluoridation outweigh the benefits.

Why do you think fluoridation should automatically “win” such an argument? Do you really believe, contrary to a great deal of scientific evidence, that there are no risks associated with fluoridation of water? If you can acknowledge the risks, then can you quantify them in such a way that it’s clear why the harms are not serious but the benefits are? And can you provide some actual reasons for why people should be forced to buy bottled water to opt out of municipal fluoridation if they so choose instead of allowing people who want fluoridation to buy their own fluoridated bottled water if they so choose?

  1. It’s probably not worth bottling given the supply glut.
  2. Doesn’t the lack of demand among people who drink an astounding amount of bottled water suggest that maybe the benefit of fluoridation is really low? Or are we only allowed to make assumptions that make your arguments work better?
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Answer your own question. What is wrong with the argument that is presented on that page?

For the record, I assumed it would be pseudoscience, but when I actually looked, it was a completely legitimate argument that the benefit of fluoridation is exaggerated because a secular decrease in the number of dental caries was credited to fluoridation when it actually seems to have been caused by greater public health knowledge (people across the industrialized world taking better care of their teeth regardless of whether their drinking water was fluoridated).

This thread is a great case study in how people have no ability to evaluate the quality of arguments except with respect to their own opinions. People can find the flaws in arguments that disagree with their existing biases. People can find the merit in arguments that agree with their existing biases. But pretty much no one can evaluate their own arguments for flaws or arguments opposed to their own opinions for merit.

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Yes. Stop catering to the dumb masses and let Darwin sort it out. If you won’t have a selection factor against not-thinking, people will tend to not think as it takes too much effort.

I am all for defaults and gentle nudging. But I am also for opt-out.

Because otherwise I’d likely end up criminalized for the unilateral opt-outs I’ll have to do. And because way too many things are already restricted/banned and the workarounds are annoying.

Even the average isn’t exactly starry.

Only if you put an arbitrary threshold at 50%. And I tell you, I get blank stares in 30 seconds or less from quite more than mere half.

Also, advertising and election campaigns. If people were smarter in average, would such overwhelming majority of ads be aimed to emotions instead of to brain? Why are pretty images and simple sound bites so effective?

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Nope, sorry. We don’t live in your black-and-white world of absolutist fantasy freedom. Sometimes we decide science has proven the health benefits of something are good, despite your protestations to the contrary. See also: banning smoking in workplaces or restaurants, seatbelts, motorcycle helmets, vaccines. You’re free to drink bottled unflouridated water, but the rest of us have decided flouride in the water is a good thing and if you don’t like it, you can chew on that fact with whatever rotting teeth remain in your mouth.

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And then there’s this: “Fluoride Officially Classified as a Neurotoxin in World’s Most Prestigious Medical Journal”
http://wakingscience.com/2016/02/fluoride-officially-classified-as-a-neurotoxin-in-worlds-most-prestigious-medical-journal/

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And that is where the fluoride should be coming from. Too much fluoride and you get tooth discolouration, which has happened to the children in my family that live in Calgary. You dont NEED it in you water, but it helps out those that don’t brush.

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Interesting. I haven’t advocated for any sort of absolutism.

I’ve acknowledged the benefits of fluoridation, but I have also pointed out that there are harms. I have argued that it is not clear that the benefits outweigh the harms, and that in such a situation, it should be up to the individual whether they subject themselves to the harms to gain the benefits.

This is very far from absolutism – this position is completely consistent with the premise that individual freedom can and even should be constrained for the greater good when there is a conflict between the two. Moreover, it is entirely evidence-based and acknowledges the benefits of fluoridation.

My argument is both principled and evidence-based.

Responding “arguments” are either straw man, ad hominem, both, or don’t address my argument at all. I’m waiting for a principled, evidence-based argument for why the benefits of fluoridation clearly outweigh the harms.

My teeth are in quite good shape. If you want to keep yours in shape, I would recommend using a fluoridated toothpaste as fluoridated tap water probably has a negligible effect on your oral health. However, fluoride can exacerbate chancre sores so if you are at all susceptible to those, I would recommend keeping a non-fluoridated toothpaste on-hand for temporary use while you have an active sore.

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Well argued, mostly.

Because ads are more effective aimed to emotions instead of the brain – even with smart people. In fact, if you want to convince a smart person of something dubious, you are much better off appealing to that person’s emotions than you are appealing to their brain.

BTW, you’re barking up the wrong tree if you think emotion and intelligence are enemies. Some dumb people have very little emotional affect, and some very smart people are passionate indeed.

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Mono is better than syphilis.

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Well, wait no longer. Here you go.

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But there isn’t any flouride in Calgary’s water… so now I’m officially confused about what you’re trying to claim.

Read the paper, not the utter hash someone made out of it in a blog post. It’s a review article that barely touches on fluoride and the concern is industrial sources rather than medical sources. People have known of fluoride’s dose-dependent drawbacks for a long time, but no one seemed to be aware that industry was presenting us with a fluoride hazard until relatively recently. The paper itself calls for further study and the formation of a panel, it’s actually quite conservative. Finally, it is a literature review, and not a systematic review. This means that there was no systematic evaluation of the new data, just an overview of the idea that we’re discovering new neurotoxic effects all the time.

Of course, it took me thirty minutes to read the paper carefully and realize what the conclusions really were. That blog post which is readable in two minutes flies around the world with nary a critical reader taking the time to understand this for themselves. As Terry Pratchett once wrote, “A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.”

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Well aren’t you a special catch? Welcome to BoingBoing, I’m sure you will make many great contributions to this community in the future! I hope you will enjoy what is sure to be a loooong stay! :wink:

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stalin_fluoride.png850×400 152 KB

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You have made many claims throughout this thread to argue that adding Fluoride to water also has negative health effects on top of the clear, and scientifically proven, beneficial dental health effects. So let’s look at the one citation you have given so far: The relationships between low levels of urine fluoride on children's intelligence, dental fluorosis in endemic fluorosis areas in Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia, China - PubMed So lets start with the title, yes?

The relationships between low levels of urine fluoride on children’s intelligence, dental fluorosis in endemic fluorosis areas in Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia, China.

Oh how about that, this is a study of levels of fluoride in urine not drinking water. Also if you actually look into this area of China it is known to have extremely high natural levels of fluoride already in the drinking water, levels over those recommended by the WHO. This quote from that very article also backs that up:

“Many cross-sectional studies showed that fluoride concentration in drinking water in this area [Hulunbuir City, Inner Mongolia, China] had been higher than the upper limit of 1 mg/L prescribed in Chinese Standards for Drinking Water Quality for a long period. Meanwhile, studies related to fluoride exposure in drinking water have found large number of children accompanied by dental fluorosis in this region.”

This article covers it pretty well if you would like to look into the issue further. Your welcome!

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The whole blather is worth keeping around for the laughs

Does this lying subhuman monkey who wrote this scientifically false article realize that The Lancet just classified fluoride as a neurotoxin? I’m trying to get a lawyer to force nyc to remove it from the drinking water

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Sharpen your knives!

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Threadjack. I just want to say something nice about Irfanview. I soooooo wish it was mandatory use to qualify for an email address. Got an email yesterday with 5 x 6MB .JPGs attached. .JPGs!

Irfanview… I love that program.

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Yipes, and you illustrate perfectly why this issue has not been settled for decades. Please don’t shill for the Aluminium and Chemical Fertilizer industries! This has been topical because of Flint, MI, and so let me drop a couple of things here on top of the base premise:

The are two aspects for Potable Water Fluoridation that are fundamentally troubling: One, research indicates that silicofluorides inhibit cholinesterase*, an enzyme that plays an important role in regulating neurotransmitters. But fluoridation has long been associated by its opponents as having myriad other symptoms that didn’t seem to pan out in fluoridated water sample testing… Two, and this is the big smoking gun, Fluoridated water may be associated with plumbosolvency, but it is certainly associated with increased lead absorbption in the blood:

“In a (December 2000) article in the journal NeuroToxicology, a research team led by Roger D. Masters, Dartmouth College Research Professor and Nelson A. Rockefeller Professor of Government Emeritus, reports evidence that public drinking water treated with sodium silicofluoride or fluosilicic acid, known as silicofluorides (SiFs), is linked to higher uptake of lead in children.” **

This is turn was followed up with a number of studies. I’ve cited at least one in this debate previously linking Fluoridated water with decreased IQ assays in populations of children. The mechanism wasn’t well-understood, and it is now appearing as if there was possible synergistic effect between fluoridated water and lead-bearing pipes, solder, and plumbing features. Eventually, other studies have been conducted:

"(2010) Fluoride increases lead concentrations in whole blood and in calcified tissues from lead-exposed rats. Higher blood lead (BPb) levels have been reported in children living in communities that receive fluoride-treated water. Here, we examined whether fluoride co-administered with lead increases BPb and lead concentrations in calcified tissues in Wistar rats exposed to this metal from the beginning of gestation…

These findings show that fluoride consistently increases BPb and calcified tissues Pb concentrations in animals exposed to low levels of lead and suggest that a biological effect not yet recognized may underlie the epidemiological association between increased BPb lead levels in children living in water-fluoridated communities." ***

Where this gets dark is when you start digging into the testimony of people who are vehemently opposed to fluoridation in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s… The issue has always been defeated with dismissiveness-- even in spite of all the science against it now. There was never an intellectually-honest public debate about it and the implications of it, and for too many, now there never can be…

"(St. Peterberg Times, July 1959)

…“It’s ridiculous to assume that fluoridation could in any way be harmful. Almost 10 percent of the first 2 million draftees in WWII were rejected from military service because of dental defects.” “The U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force and the federal Civil Defense administrastion-- all four of these organizations express their approval of fluoridation and deserve your support…”

“…opponents charge the substance ‘causes cancer,’ and ‘damages the kidneys, liver, and heart,’… (it’s) a causative agent in “producing nerve paralysis, causing a slow-up of brain and body function.” … Symptoms named include backache, sore mouth and stomach disorders, muscular weakness, mental sluggishness, blurred vision…” “stammering”…" ****

Yeah. Those are all symptoms of lead poisoning, the poor bastards. Just how many people has this cut down over the decades?

What I do find shocking out of Calgary is that none of the correct/right arguments are really being discussed in the hatchet job of news coverage I’ve seen thus far, just a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt pushback from the vested interests who don’t want to see the silicofluorides gravy train ride end, much less admit exposure to corporate and municipal liability for taking great cavalier risk with public health and wellness on poorly-founded ‘dental science’ that doesn’t stand up well to public health scrutiny, and never did.

** (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2001/mar01/flouride.html)

*** (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20188782)

**** (https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19590713&id=8RtSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_nYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5365,1586287&hl=en)

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