why would you want this? brush your teeth or swish with high concentration fluoride mouthwash. there's actually no benefit of ingesting fluoridated water. any benefit is simply incidental since it must touch your teeth down the hatch. don't take my word for it - go read the papers yourself, they all say as much. Or to put it another way, would pumping fluoride to your stomach help your teeth? I hope you know the answer.
literally every toothpaste in the united states explicitly says to spit, not swallow. there's a reason for that.
Not everyone has impeccable brushing habits and reducing cavities is a net benefit to public health like sanitation departments. I would be more interested to see a source as to why you think there's no benefit to fluorinated water when there are studies that are a quick search away for fluorinated water.
> reducing cavities is a net benefit to public health like sanitation departments
what is the connection between reducing cavities and sanitation departments? cavities are not communicable.
Also, the paper you linked is my point. there's no actual benefit of ingestion. the effect is purely incidental. it's more effective to apply fluoride to the teeth. nowhere does it actually explain that drinking it is what is beneficial. the difference in the incidence of caries is because by fluoridating the water it obviously will touch teeth, which has well known positive effects.
the main conclusion of the paper is what everyone should hopefully know already - brush your teeth regularly with fluoride toothpaste.
out of curiosity, would you be OK with vitamins being added to the water? most people are deficient in many.
> would you be OK with vitamins being added to the water?
Provided there's reasonable scientific evidence that this is fine and effective and not expensive, I don't see why not. I don't think I've ever seen it proposed.
that is good to know. fundamentally we'll have to agree to disagree. I do not agree with experimentation with the populace's water supply as a matter of principal. fyi there's already plenty of evidence that supplements are useful for those that are sufficient. of course the main counter argument is that if you're eating a balanced diet supplements are unnecessary (which is true). though that's just about as helpful as saying water fluoridation is unnecessary because you can brush your teeth (which is also true).
Whilst I can see your point of view, I think that fluoride in water is an issue that provoked knee-jerk reactions.
Here in the UK, there's areas with and without fluoridisation - the reason being that naturally the water in different areas has different fluoride concentrations with some areas having no need for adding fluoride as it's already there. The benefits were very easy to determine as (presumably) cavities were more common in those areas with low fluoride content, so it's less about experimentation and more about ensuring that more people can gain the same benefit.
There’s a left-right split on the issue in America, which leads to a lot of specious and lazy reasoning, breaking away from typical impulses to have clean unpolluted tap water, etc.
Natural water supply has feces, bacteria, etc too. Civilization has progressed because we have managed to remove them from the water and provide clean water to the masses.
So what you're saying is that, as educated humans with access to decades of scientific research, we can use that research to make decisions about treatment plans for water to keep our population healthy?
Despite consensus this benefits dental health (an important part of heart health) and has no side effects, and the reality that municipalities that already banned fluoride suffered a huge upturn dental issues - particular in children who don't brush as often.
I'm sure the state is ensuring that this little experiment doesn't harm anybody by guaranteeing access to dental care, right? Putting our money where our mouth is and making sure that if they're doing demonstrable harm that anyone affected is compensated?
Oh, no, the poors can just deal with it? Nice.
Makes sense in a bill about "freedom and liberty" that also bans transporting mushrooms that naturally grow in the state and flying drones above farms.
the consensus was that ddt was okay too, and the current consensus is that oil is not a big enough issue to bother with.
the state didn't feed small children radioactive oatmeal for fun oh wait
imo, water is one of those things we should keep simple. today they add fluoride, tomorrow what? maybe "brushing people's teeth for them" in the name of convenience is doing people a disservice. pick up healthy habits or get lost.
signed, fluoride free toothpaste user and boiled tap water drinker.
as for the mushrooms, i agree that it's a stupid law
literally every toothpaste in the united states explicitly says to spit, not swallow. there's a reason for that.