I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Since I have crappy teeth that aren’t going to get any better, I think I’ll go with cry.
I guess San Jose could be used a control group in a study for what lack of fluoridation does for teeth.
Fluoridation doesn’t cost much, though, for the health benefits that it gives. This article says it costs about a dollar per person per year in the United States. That article also says fluoridation is
Another area not known for nutjobs, Waterloo Region, also voted to remove the fluoride from their water.
Now, there’s naturally occuring fluoride in the groundwater in the region, so I’m not quite sure how they’re going to accomplish that…
…to escape from flouridated water? 
Have no idea about the technical definition of “toxin”, but MSG is definitely an organic compound.
Not to say these folks aren’t nuts. They are. Just a nitpick.
Shit. Well, sorry, Canadian kids from cities without fluoride - hope you enjoy spending your life with crappy teeth and expensive, painful dental procedures like I have.
I see that Calgary’s natural fluoride levels are close to therapeutic, so I hope it’s enough to still give benefits to teeth here. I’ll just make sure I drink A LOT of water. 
I was born just before era of fluoride treatments and Crest toothpaste. The idea of fluoride in the water was said to be a Communist plot.
When I was three years old I had a tooth drilled because it had three cavities. Regularly after that when I went to the dentist I had to have cavities drilled and filled. I had a lot of mercury in my mouth. Then came fluoride in the water and Crest toothpaste. My parents had the wisdom to take advantage of free programs in the school where fluoride treatments would be applied to our teeth. We also started using Crest toothpaste. Lo and behold, no more cavities and no more drilling. Many decades later, I have good teeth and am cancer free.
Let’s look for bigger fish to fry than subjecting our children to a life of oral misery because of somebody’s unscientific agenda. There is a lot of shit out there that will kill you before a bit a fluoride. Attack that first.
I’m all for a more informed public not succumbing to hysteria. But I do find the “if I don’t consume enough of the product to cause outright death, it’s perfectly safe at any lower level of contact or consumption” mindset a bit silly too.
Touch my bottle of Obsession and I’ll break your face.
Me too. The levels of toxins in nutbars is just off the scale, man.
See, I knew that stuff was dangerous.
why? Who’s said that?
Fluoridation is a superfluous frippery. The policy made sense back when fluoridation started, though: scientists in the '40s thought fluoride had benefits when ingested. But modern medical advances have shown this isn’t the case. Fluoride is only effective when applied topically. A good fluoride toothpaste and occasional topical fluoride treatments will have a significant effect on dental health; fluoridated water does not. Fluoridation of our water supply is an anachronism; but, as it’s not causing harm, I doubt it’ll change anytime soon.
Fluoride *can *be destructive when ingested in large amounts, although that’s not a first-world concern (unless you consume well-water). While the low levels of fluoride added in the US aren’t going to harm anybody, well-water with excessive fluoride levels adversely affected a bunch of people in India. It causes bone deformation in children, among other issues.
Well I learned something so I can go home now, right?
It looks like the dictionariessay toxinsare organic. However peoply use it in a broader sense all the time.
Yeah. I’ll selflessly take on the risk of eating them myself. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.
If the “lower level of contact” I’m going to be risking is 0.00014375% of the amount that could kill me, is that silly? You can die from drinking too much water, and on the flip side the ER may give you atropine (from deadly nightshade) for resuscitation.
It’s silly to think that because a product contains a tiny amount of something that could harm you, the product as a whole is bad.
There are a number of things you need to ingest that could kill you if you got too much of them. Water, salt, iron, and vitamin A are a few examples. The world just doesn’t divide neatly into toxins where no amount is safe to ingest and things that are always safe, no matter how much of it you take in.
Fortunately, we have science to determine what is and isn’t a safe amount of these things to ingest.
See, IMHO a friend is someone who does not ask you to come to an event such as you describe.
It’s good to see that someone here actually understands this. There’s a reason why Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and other nations don’t fluoridate.
Suicide! Don’t you know that browned starches contain acrylamide, which has been shown to cause cancer in 10% of rats, at exposures of only 1000 times the level that it occurs dietarily? Thus is it perfectly reasonable to require McDonalds to post warnings at the door that their french fries are probably carcinogenic.
Which reminds me, it has recently come to my attention that ingesting a quarter gram of iodine daily is invariably and rapidly fatal, so I’m lobbying for legislation requiring the labeling all iodine-containing foods with a warning that they may kill you. (I think goiters are sexy.)
You’ll get my saltshaker when you pry it away from my cold, dead hands.
That’s just how selfless I am. I will eat those browned potatoes, to save the rest of you from them.
I’ll have some seaweed, too, to save you from the mean, bad iodine in it.