Misinformation campaigns increasingly target the cavity-fighting mineral, prompting communities to reverse mandates. Dentists are enraged. Parents are caught in the middle.

Misinformation campaigns increasingly target the cavity-fighting mineral, prompting communities to reverse mandates. Dentists are enraged. Parents are caught in the middle.

The culture wars have a new target: your teeth.

Communities across the U.S. are ending public water fluoridation programs, often spurred by groups that insist that people should decide whether they want the mineral — long proven to fight cavities — added to their water supplies.

The push to flush it from water systems seems to be increasingly fueled by pandemic-related mistrust of government oversteps and misleading claims, experts say, that fluoride is harmful.

“The anti-fluoridation movement gained steam with Covid,” said Dr. Meg Lochary, a pediatric dentist in Union County, North Carolina. “We’ve seen an increase of people who either don’t want fluoride or are skeptical about it.”

There should be no question about the dental benefits of fluoride, Lochary and other experts say. Major public health groups, including the American Dental Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, support the use of fluoridated water. All cite studies that show it reduces tooth decay by 25%.

  • glimse@lemmy.world
    225·
    6 months ago

    All right settle down, he’s not a stupid motherfucker. He isn’t advocating to remove it from tap water, he was just saying why HE doesn’t drink tap. He didn’t try to pursuade me.

    Perhaps he’s misguided on that but he is not the person you’re probably picturing.

    My friend is a doctor and he also doesn’t drink tap but for him it’s the other contaminates, not flouride

    • prole@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      106·
      6 months ago

      As someone who works directly with water treatment systems, at best he’s an ignorant motherfucker. But good news: ignorance can be fixed.

      • glimse@lemmy.world
        82·
        6 months ago

        Ignorant, sure, but he’s not stupid. Flouride in water is not for people like him who already take great care of their teeth - it’s for people who don’t.

        It’s not stupid to avoid consuming something that doesn’t benefit you. Like I know lithium is used safely to treat bipolar but I don’t have bipolar so I wouldn’t be stupid for wanting it filtered out. Like I said, he doesn’t advocate for its removal - he just doesn’t want to drink it himself

    • jose1324@lemmy.world
      1218·
      6 months ago

      Yes he is. If you’re unironically wary of fluoride you’re a stupid motherfucker

      • starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works
        115·
        6 months ago

        I would’ve agreed with this a few years ago, but when you realize things can have subtle effects on our body that aren’t easy to measure or readily apparent, you shouldn’t fully trust something just because studies say it’s safe. A study can’t really show that “50 years of repeated exposure caused slightly more exhaustion,” for example.

        However, we DO know tooth decay is a major health risk for our whole bodies. Avoiding a maybe possibly slightly harmful chemical isn’t stupid, but avoiding something that prevents known and documented dental harm and the effects that has on your entire body, that’s just letting fear override rational thinking.