I like Rothbard and initially bought all this stuff.But soon came to see it smacks more than a little bit of nutty rightwing alex jones conspiracy .
Fluoride can be very harmful but is naturally occuring.It’s wrong the state puts it into water against our will.However it’s claimed harmful effects are overstated.
why do you think the ill effects are overstated? even if there is any net ill effect at all, there is reason to fuss about every single person in the country being forced to ingest it (or else having to buy bottled water). you are right that no one single health issue is huge; there are so many of them that if they were all huge we’d be dead already. it’s more of a gradual decline in health by 1000 cuts.
moreover, asbestos is also naturally occurring; that is no guarantee of safety.
My primary beef is with the way the OP seems a bit hysterical to the fact that it’s a byproduct of industrial production. That fact is entirely irrelevent. Was the origin of flouridating public water supplies a collaboration between state and corporation with the goal of rent-seeking? Absolutely. Are the concentrations toxic? Probably not. Again, I work in environmental sampling and the EPA reccommends that flouride not exceed 4 ppm in tap water. For my state regulations, it’s 2 ppm. From what I’ve read the average concentrations most municiple supplies shoot for in thier drinking water is 0.8-1.0 ppm. Are these state regulations actually safe levels? Who knows.
Also, I believe I’ve seen several studies that found that systemic, while having little effect on full grown adults, increases the strength of childrens teeth as they’re formed. So there’s little evidence it helps adults, but from what I’ve seen it does have beneficial effects for children.
Does this mean I approve of the method and history of public water flouridation? No. But the hysteria is unwarrented.
that it’s an industrial by-product is indeed irrelevant.
as the internet becomes more and more of a haven for clear argumentation, proponants of any position have to be careful not propagandize and sensationalize, especially if they are in the right, because people will catch them on it. a refutation is just a google away. the title of this thread is guilty of sensationalizing, but the fluoridation is baaaad anyway.
"Really, it seems that your only scared of this stuff because it’s INDUSTRIAL WASTE! "
you’re missing the point…why add industrial waste into drinking water? when there is not 1 shred of evidence showing its good for you to ingest it.
on the contrary, there are studies that show it is bad for you when ingested.
“Also, I believe I’ve seen several studies that found that systemic, while having little effect on full grown adults, increases the strength of childrens teeth as they’re formed. So there’s little evidence it helps adults, but from what I’ve seen it does have beneficial effects for children.”
there is not 1 shred of evidence that shows it is good for you to ingest it.
limitgov, it’s kind of hard to prove a negative. i’m sure there is a shred of some kind of “evidence” somewhere. in health issues there always is. it is always messy; there is always a lot of research to sort through that most lay people are not qualified to sort through. the only options are
trust certain experts who meta-review such things
i have done a bit of both.
“limitgov, it’s kind of hard to prove a negative.”
what in the world are you talking about? Many studies show the health benefits of many substances. Its not an impossible thing to do.
There is not 1 shred of evidence that shows ingesting this industrial waste is good for your health. Which brings me back to my original question…why in the world would you want to add this to drinking water?
Limitgov, there’s like half a dozen or more articles linked on the “Water Flouridation” Wikipedia page that show correlations between water flouridation and various levels of improved dental health. So there’s a few shreds of evdience for you.
“So there’s a few shreds of evdience for you.”
quote the evidence of just 1 of those studies…
there is none.
From what I know, Fluoride is beneficial to teeth when applied topically(Like the Fluoride in toothpaste)- but when ingested is supposed to do everything short of just straight out killing you. But when it comes to being poison it all depends on dosage for everything doesn’t it?
The articles cited in the wiki seem quite well researched, in fact.
This study by the University of York seems to be quite in-depth: http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/fluores.htm
“http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/fluores.htm”
that is just a link to a thousand other links…where is the evidence? you’re a brand new user? are you just 1 of many usernames from the logisticearth guy?
OH NO! MY DASTARDLY PLOT HAS BEEN UNCOVERED! I WOULD HAVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT IF IT WEREN’T FOR YOU LOUSY KIDS!
Seriously though, I have no relation to that user, either you’re joking or paranoid.
That study he linked is a meta-study, which reveiwed many smaller papers, and compiled the results. I’m not sure where you’re getting the “link to a thousand other links” from, because it very clearly lists links to PDFs of the Executive Summary, full report text, and appendicies. Not to be condecending, but it seems that you just clicked that link and without actually reading anything for more than two seconds, and automatically rejected it. There’s well over a hundred pages of PDF files there.
“There’s well over a hundred pages of PDF files there.”
there’s probably thousands of pages and links in there…
where is the evidence though…that’s what I’m interested in…not hundreds of pages of opinion.
I know you really care, but you should drop it. Even if you present hundreds of thousands of research papers it won’t do any good and he won’t budge. Instead of taking the stand that even a broken clock may be right 2 times a day, he prefers to reject everything done by the government as wrong. While it may very well be a health hazard, sodium fluoride has been shown by studies to help prevent tooth decay in populations where it has been added to the water supplies.
Fluoride taken from the bloodstream is uptaken into teeth like the other calcified tissues in the body for negative effect. However, there is no way to apply it strictly topically that it will not enter the bloodstream. There is a good reason that nutritional supplements these days tend to be sublingual.
That is a misunderstood qualifier. The difference between poison and non-poison is not a difference in chemical interaction. Fluoride binds easily with calcium, which is probably why it is hypothesized to “prevent cavities”. However, it is still does not have the same properties as calcium and is therefore not an equal replacement.
That is 100% useless. I don’t care about how some compiler interterpreted studies. I want to see base research papers with an explanation of method and exposition of plain data.
“I know you really care, but you should drop it. Even if you present hundreds of thousands of research papers it won’t do any good and he won’t budge. Instead of taking the stand that even a broken clock may be right 2 times a day, he prefers to reject everything done by the government as wrong. While it may very well be a health hazard, sodium fluoride has been shown by studies to help prevent tooth decay in populations where it has been added to the water supplies.”
There was no evidence presented. There certainly aren’t thousands of papers showing a benefit to drinking sodium fluoride. Medical doctors around the world would not be so concerned about the toxic substance if there were.
However, there are numerous studies that show the harmful effects of drinking sodium fluoride.
Tooth enamel, as naturally produced by the body, is hydroxyapatite. Naturally, saliva and the tooth itself will remineralize eroded apatite, and adding flouride to the process means that, instead of hydroxyapatite, you will get fluorapatite, which is similar in the mineral family, but harder than the orginal hydroxyapatite. The downside is it’s more brittle, however you’re only replacing a surface veneer on the original tooth, so that’s no big deal. You can get fluorosis, but 99% of the cases of that are cosmetic. The benefits of topical fluoride are fairly well documented.
Ultimately, I was posting in this thread for two reasons: One, to show the absurdity of objecting to fluoridation on the basis that it is INDUSTRIAL WASTE, and two, to object to the claims that there “isn’t one shred of evidence” to show that it has benefits. Considering that I’ve made the first point fairly clear, and that it’s been made clear that there’s a large body of research devoted to the topic, with signifigant portions of said research showing positive effects, I think I’m done here. I don’t have time to play the post-conflicting-studies game. If you don’t like meta-studies, and want to see the individual studies, they’re easy enough to find. Go read them.
“and adding flouride to the process means that”
there’s a difference in calcium fluoride and sodium fluoride. especially when the sodium fluoride comes from industrial waste which leaves it with all sorts of trace pollutants like mercury and arsenic.
“to object to the claims that there “isn’t one shred of evidence” to show that it has benefits.”
when INGESTED. there is not any benefit, nor is there any evidence that shows this. As a matter of FACT, there is evidence showing harm when ingested.
Look it, you’re on mises.org…so i assume I’m talking to someone with some sense here…I assume you don’t want government in control of our water supply at all…which, if it was in private hands this wouldn’t even be an issue. I assume we both want the privitization of alot of government controlled things.