Medical freedom vs. public health: Should fluoride be in our drinking water?
Medical freedom vs. public health: Should fluoride be in our drinking water?
Misinformation campaigns increasingly target the cavity-fighting mineral, prompting communities to reverse mandates. Dentists are enraged. Parents are caught in the middle.
Misinformation campaigns increasingly target the cavity-fighting mineral, prompting communities to reverse mandates. Dentists are enraged. Parents are caught in the middle.
The culture wars have a new target: your teeth.
Communities across the U.S. are ending public water fluoridation programs, often spurred by groups that insist that people should decide whether they want the mineral — long proven to fight cavities — added to their water supplies.
The push to flush it from water systems seems to be increasingly fueled by pandemic-related mistrust of government oversteps and misleading claims, experts say, that fluoride is harmful.
“The anti-fluoridation movement gained steam with Covid,” said Dr. Meg Lochary, a pediatric dentist in Union County, North Carolina. “We’ve seen an increase of people who either don’t want fluoride or are skeptical about it.”
There should be no question about the dental benefits of fluoride, Lochary and other experts say. Major public health groups, including the American Dental Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, support the use of fluoridated water. All cite studies that show it reduces tooth decay by 25%.
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Medical freedom? Can't people use bottled or just move to a town with naturally high fluoride?
They're talking about the freedom of morons to not drink fluoride.
OK use bottled water or move to a city that doesn't need to add it
It doesn't make any more sense the second time you say it.
They don't want to live in a place with naturally high fluoride. They don't want to drink flouride.
Most bottled water is just tap water with extra plastic waste. Nobody should be drinking bottled water if they can avoid it.
bottled water is often just tap water, and im pretty sure nestle isn't a big enough dumbass to start removing shit that's actually just beneficial to people.