I saw some pamphlets in the local health food store which talk about flouride.
They think its not only not necessary, but dangerous to our health.
I remember back in the old days, some kooks thought flouride was a commie plot, but IS it unnecessary or unhealthy?
Well, tooth decays rates have plummeted since we’ve had flouride in the water. As far as detriments, I don’t know if there is any conclusive evidence. Then again, flouride is in the same category of chemicals as chlorine and bromine, so who knows?
As with so many other things, it depends on who you listen to.
Dentists, generally speaking, are all for it. http://www.ada.org/adapco/daily/archives/9909/0909fluo.html
People who worry about chemicals and Big Government, in roughly equal proportions, are against it.
http://www.nofluoride.com/
There are people who have mixed emotions. http://www.oncolink.upenn.edu/pdq_html/6/engl/600315.html
In the cited study, they fed the rats levels of fluoride that were 25 to 100 times higher than normal, and some of the rats developed tumors. They proved much the same thing with peanut butter, too, as I recall.
Vanilla, generally speaking, the folks who are the most worried about fluoridated water fall into two groups. There are the health food nuts, who are already worried about food additives in general. And there are the folks who worry a lot about Big Goverment, who tend to get called “conspiracy theorists” by other people who aren’t quite so convinced that the Feds are out to get us.
The movie Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb has one of its main (screwball) characters do an ongoing riff on the subject of fluoridated water and “precious bodily fluids”, so if that comes up in this thread, you’ll know what everybody’s talking about, if you aren’t already familiar with it.
I don’t think it’s possible to say the words “fluoridated water” anymore without also saying “precious bodily fluids”, and snickering.
P.S. There’s probably chlorine in our water, too, but I don’t see anybody with a website protesting THAT.
[Dr. Stranglove hijack] That’s why I only drink rainwater and pure grain alcohol. [/Dr. Stranglove hijack]
It’s good for your teeth, according to the “official” people.
I wouldn’t say fluoridated water is necessary, but I would definitely NOT say it’s unhealthy.
The EPA has incredibly stringent regulations on public drinking water supplies as far as health concerns go, with good reson. The regulations are based on both acute (a single, large dose exposure) and chronic (smaller doses that accumulate over a long period of time) toxicity risks to humans. The statistical basis for their maximum allowable levels is a mortality rate of 1 in 1,000,000 healthy adults at the maximum allowed exposure. A professor I had in college likened this risk to smoking a couple of cigarettes over the course of your lifetime (I’ll look up the number and supporting statistics tomorrow if you really want to know).
That isn’t to say that new research can’t bring to light health risks not previously known; the EPA regs (at least for drinking water) change pretty regularly. But fluoride has been around long enough for a significant body of research to have developed, and, as far as I know, there’s very little (if any) reliable documentation of health risks.
Aside from the obvious dangers to our precious bodily fluids.
I truly wasn’t aware of the bodily fluids reference, not being a movie buff.
[hijack]
Well, you owe it to yourself to go find a copy and watch it. It’s one of the basic movies of the 20th century. After you’ve seen it, suddenly lots of other formerly incomprehensible jokes and comedy routines will suddenly make sense. Happened that way for me.
[/hijack]
A lot of the drinking water regulations are highly politicized. Some of the risks are like 1 in 1,000 whereas ideally, EPA prefers less than 1 in 1,000,000 (but may accept no worse than 1 in 10,000).
Overall, I think fluoride has benefits in small doses but large doses are hazardous. Similarly, chlorinated water has benefits in small doses (reducing pathogens).
Duck Duck Goose wrote:
And with cyclamates, and with saccharin, and with raw milk.
There’s an old saying in toxicology: “The dose makes the poison.” If, say, 10 times the usual adult dose of Aspirin has a 30% chance of killing you, this does not mean that 1 times the usual adult dose of Aspirin has a 3% chance of killing you. Remember that the next time someone warns you about the dangers of Dioxin or Alar or Second-Hand Smoke.