It is a scenario playing out nationwide. From Oregon to Pennsylvania, hundreds of communities have in recent years either stopped adding fluoride to their water supplies or voted to prevent its addition. Supporters of such bans argue that people should be given the freedom of choice. The broad availability of over-the-counter dental products containing the mineral makes it no longer necessary to add to public water supplies, they say. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that while store-bought products reduce tooth decay, the greatest protection comes when they are used in combination with water fluoridation.

The outcome of an ongoing federal case in California could force the Environmental Protection Agency to create a rule regulating or banning the use of fluoride in drinking water nationwide. In the meantime, the trend is raising alarm bells for public health researchers who worry that, much like vaccines, fluoride may have become a victim of its own success.

The CDC maintains that community water fluoridation is not only safe and effective but also yields significant cost savings in dental treatment. Public health officials say removing fluoride could be particularly harmful to low-income families — for whom drinking water may be the only source of preventive dental care.

“If you have to go out and get care on your own, it’s a whole different ballgame,” said Myron Allukian Jr., a dentist and past president of the American Public Health Association. Millions of people have lived with fluoridated water for years, “and we’ve had no major health problems,” he said. “It’s much easier to prevent a disease than to treat it.”

According to the anti-fluoride group Fluoride Action Network, since 2010, over 240 communities around the world have removed fluoride from their drinking water or decided not to add it.

  • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Instead of attacking people and engaging in conspiracy-based thinking where your evidence is vague feelings of untrust why not present solid scientific research that the levels of fluoride that are in the water supply offer no health benefit?

    • mojo_raisin@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Why should I have to prove to you why not to add drugs to my water?

      Will I have to do this to prove why not to add Ozempic to my water?

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        You don’t have to prove shit, your opinion doesn’t matter. I assure you of that. I gave you good advice, if you want to understand the world you live in use logic and study science. If you want to live in fear of your own shadows you are free to do so, just keep listening to Alex Jones and ignore rational thought.

        Follow it or not.

        • mojo_raisin@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          So saying that taking drugs, regardless of claims of safety or efficacy should be optional makes me a conspiracy theorist?

          If you want to live in fear of your own shadows you are free to do so

          I did not give consent to be drugged with fluoride.

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            No spreading conspiracy theories makes you a conspiracy theorist. But to be fair that is really just me using your term. I am not sure if spreading the ideas of others should count. More like conspiracy spreader. Maybe try to come up with something that wasn’t already boring in the 1960s next time.

            Can we wrap this up tonight btw? I have to go spread chemtrails tomorrow, makes the frogs gay you see.