But it's perfectly harmless and stops your teeth from rotting. The guys at the Kettering Lab in a study funded by Alcoa said so, so it must be true.
You need a reverse osmosis water filter to remove this crap from your water. Luckily desktop and under sink versions of these are cheap enough to buy nowadays.
What I find the most ridiculous is that it's all under the guise of "it's good for you" and only for a pretty archaic reason. Dental health isn't such a dire issue anymore in this country. I also don't think the government should be in charge of deciding, and forcing upon me, what they feel is "good for me" despite the many questions posed. Being in a scientific field I am continually shocked at just how "close enough" things are. We like to think that all outcomes are accounted for, all measurements taken are correct, and all decisions/actions are based upon a very precise set of inputs. That due to all of the research and metrics taken we know exactly what to do. Except when actually working in these fields it's utterly shocking just how imprecise things are. Seeing how much the human conditions enter into the equation and tend to muddy the precise calculations and metrics. So even using this precise science and carefully recorded calculations we still make grave errors. Look at NASA and the challenger mission. When we tend to think of these precise sciences, calculations, and engineering we think of NASA. An institution that has had to engineer the rocket science to make it to space, the calculations required to orbit other planets and use gravitational assist, and the precise calculations to launch and put a satellite in orbit. Let alone send a manned mission to the moon. Even in this highly scientific and precise engineering of NASA they also made grave mistakes. The challenger mission had engineers who opposed the launch mission. The day was unusually cold. Below freezing which was not ideal for a launch. An engineer was worried about the integrity of the O-rings on the rockets and their ability to remain intact due to the temps. Yet it was launched anyway. These types of human failure, either through calculations or oversights, occur all of the time in these fields.
So I have a hard time believing a few studies that say it's good when a bunch say it's bad. People make mistakes. The benefit from fluoride is minimal and minor. The potential risks far outweigh it. Why not just throw lithium in the water as an attempt to fix mental healthy? Or how about anti-obesity meds in the water because we clearly have an issue with that? Or how about blood pressure meds since the leading cause of death in the country is heart failure? We can easily see how this "good for all" way of thinking can clearly break down. To think in any other situation it's okay is insane.
Dental health isn't such a dire issue anymore in this country because of water fluoridation.
Incorrect. There is no correlation between fluoridation of water (or salt fluoridation) and and the level of dental health. This is demonstrated by a number of studies, including the 2012 Malmo University (Sweden) study conducted on behalf of the WHO.
To quote from the British Medical Journal;
“Although the prevalence of caries varies between countries, levels everywhere have fallen greatly in the past three decades, and national rates of caries are now universally low. This trend has occurred regardless of the concentration of fluoride in water or the use of fluoridated salt, and it probably reflects use of fluoridated toothpastes and other factors, including perhaps aspects of nutrition.”
SOURCE: Cheng KK, et al. (2007). Adding fluoride to water supplies. British Medical Journal 335(7622):699-702.
perhaps fluoridated rinses are the way to go and more people brush their teeth than once did but the benefits to dental health from fluoridation are pretty well documented.
https://www.umassmed.edu/fmch/communityhealth/OralHealth/townlisting/
Latest figures from the New Zealand's own Ministry of Health show that non-fluoridated areas have healthier teeth than fluoridated areas. They don't advertise this, but we at Fluoride Free NZ try to :)
I'm not familiar with those cities, go you have a graph to compare poverty rates in those cities?
Most of the country is represented in this graph. Socio-economic information about New Zealand is readily available online. Google is your friend.
These kind of stats are shown around the globe. You're onto it though- dental decay is about poverty, it's not about fluoridation in the water.
http://www.newsweek.com/fluoridation-may-not-prevent-cavities-huge-study-shows-348251
uh huh, and do you have a graph with the median income in those areas?
Kent University in England did a study of every GP office in the country and found a 60% increase in hypothyroidism for women when fluoride levels in water were tripled: https://www.kent.ac.uk/news/society/4137/stop-water-fluoridation-says-public-health-expert
The CHILDSMILE programme in Scotland is what works:
Much of the dental industry literature is based on the original aluminium industry funded researched performed by the infamous Kettering Labs.
Here is a table of results from the 2012 Malmo study
The note the absence of water fluoridation in the majority of the top 10 countries.
By the way, when we are talking about the addition of Fluoride to the water supply, it isn't pharmaceutical grade product, but an industrial process byproduct that would normally attract a large disposal fee.
Now if you wished to argue the benefits in using dental care products containing sodium fluoride as a topical treatment, that may be a different matter (although stannous or calcium fluoride are likely more effective and thus utilized in the more expensive toothpastes). However, after you have brushed your teeth do you swallow the toothpaste, or spit it out ? If ingestion of sodium fluoride is a bad idea then, why add it to the water supply ?