Hey I saw your comment on the post about the plants and watering them with microwaved water. You commented on fluoride in the water, I've been trying to look into that but I haven't been able to find a reliable unbiased source yet so I figured I'd ask you since you seem pretty cool and informed. You don't have to answer this especially since if I did a little more research I could probably find an okay answer, but I was just curious. Thanks for your time c:
Glad you liked the post. So you're curious about fluoride, eh? Here we go.
In the first half of the twentieth century, several dentists independently described the same phenomenon: regions where stained or mottled teeth were common and tooth decay was low. In the 40's, dentists working for US and UK government agencies proved that there was a common thread: all these areas had naturally high levels of fluoride in the water. They found that the optimum level of fluoride—enough to prevent tooth decay, but not enough to cause discolouration—was 1ppm (part per million).
Through the 40's, 50's, and 60's, water fluoridation pilot projects were successfully carried out around the world, and many countries began adding fluoride to their water. In some places, fluoride has also been added to salt, milk, and toothpaste.
Just as nowadays people fear that wifi and cellphones will give them cancer, some people back then worried that water fluoridation was a Communist plot (this was, after all, the Cold War), or the government infringing their civil liberties. This distinctive combination of anti-fluoridation and anti-Communist paranoia is especially associated with the John Birch Society, a radical right-wing American organization which at the time had tens of thousands of members. It was parodied in the classic 1964 film Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb:
Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridated water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk, ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake. Children's ice cream?…You know when fluoridation first began? Nineteen hundred and forty six. Nineteen fortysix, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your postwar commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard core commie works.
While anti-fluoridation is still a far-right staple, it has also gained currency with the lefty granola types who don't vaccinate their kids. It's a conspiracy theory with bipartisan appeal.
So is there anything to it? Well, it's true that excess fluoride will stain your teeth. You can gaze upon the horror here. At extremely high doses (i. e. fourteen times the recommended level), it can be more harmful, but typically fluorosis is a cosmetic problem. Governments and health agencies consider this possibility a worthwhile trade-off for preventing much more serious and expensive problems like tooth decay.
Reputable agencies that recommend water fluoridation include the Center for Disease Control, the American Dental Association, and the World Health Organization. I recommend looking up what your local public health agencies, medical associations, and dental associations have to say. For example, here's articles from Health Canada and the Ontario Dental Association.
One last thought: why isn't there similar opposition to chlorine? It can be made to sound equally terrifying: adding BLEACH? To DRINKING WATER? I suppose it's because the widescale adoption of chlorine as a water disinfectant began in the late 19th century, not long after public water and sewage systems became A Thing. In many countries, a cheap, plentiful supply of clean drinking water is something people take for granted. When that is suddenly taken away—e. g. by a natural disaster—the result is horrifying. People literally shitting themselves to death in the thousands is big and obvious. A gradual increase in tooth decay, mitigated by the "halo effect"—people often spending time in adjacent areas with fluoridated water—is much less visible. And unless your public health system really sucks, it's not usually fatal, just extremely expensive and painful.
Personally, I'm broke and uninsured, if I get a cavity I'm fucked, and my teeth are yellow anyway. I like my tap water just fine.
tl;dr: when those nine out of ten dentists recommend toothpaste with fluoride, they're not fucking kidding. I hope this helps, Anon.
