Do these people not brush their teeth? Fluoride in the water doesn't do shit for your teeth.
this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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In same cases no, but fluoride in the water quite clearly does "do shit for your teeth" at least for children, that is the premise of the article.
But their teeth fall out
9 out of 10 dentists (who want another boat) favour this idea
My mother was one of the most ignorant people I've ever known. Clueless, uneducated, proud of it, assured she was right about everything.
I remember her cursing her bad teeth due to lack of fluoridation in Depression-era West Virginia. I remember her telling me what a miracle the polio vaccine was, and how scared she was a child before it came along.
One time I asked my great-great-aunt, an old woman living on a Civil War-era farm, why the moon was round. She explained gravity and how it pulls the moon into a sphere.
And somehow, it this wondrous age of free information, we've collectively become more ignorant than these people. And it fucking enrages me.
Do these people not use fluorinated toothpaste? I've been drinking primarily distilled water for about ten years now and I'm not aware of it having caused any issues for me. I'd have thought I'd get enough fluoride from brushing my teeth.
Do you mind if I ask why you've been drinking primarily distilled water for about ten years?
Is it because you can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of your precious bodily fluids?
... no? I drink distilled because it's the most effective filtration method, especially for PFAS. Why the snarky reply?
No snark question, why not drink tap water or rain water?
Where do you get the water, etc. I'm just curious, no snark.
It's from the tap. As I said, you still need to filter it. Look up PFAS.
It is a reference to the film Dr. Strangelove.
And indeed, the impact on public health has been dramatic: After Calgary ended fluoridation, 700 percent more children needed intravenous antibiotics to avoid fatal dental infection. The city is now working to upgrade systems to turn the fluoride back on in 2025 after citizens mobilized to add it back.
Ahhh Calgary, everything makes sense now
So just a genuine question, but do some % of the population just have awful teeth? Or is it just a ton of sugar?
For 95% of my life (including my childhood) I have lived in an area without fluoride, and I have never had a problem. And I only usually brush my teeth once a day. I only go to the dentist when I have insurance that covers it, which has been off and on every like 5 years of my life.
So just a genuine question, but do some % of the population just have awful teeth?
To the best of my knowledge, kinda
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-some-people-get-mo/
There are definitely differences person to person on how prone they are to various dental issues.
Seems like after reading that article, the answer to my question is just "yes"
Genetic makeup has a factor and sugar has a factor, probably more so.
It makes me wonder after reading this why people aren't encouraged to increase the alkalinity of their mouth? It seems relatively straightforward.
I knew acids were bad for the teeth, but I never realized more basic environments are actually restorative.
My other thought is I wonder how much well drinking environments differ? My dad once tested our water as a kid, and it was very mineral dense (also evident by our dishwasher). So I have to wonder how much that comes into play.
vaccines and flouride in water are the most definitive helpful things. Its so funny that in doctor strange love it was used to clearly indicate the character was a nutter.
But of course. What a way to drive business to dentists.
Same reason capitalists won't cure cancer. If the cure were discovered tomorrow, they'd spend money to cover it up.
So we really are doing the bit from Dr.Strangelove just, you know, with the executive cabinet and not a single crazed general. Once again pitching the idea of spreading conspiracy theories that just take out the believers instead of convincing them to take the rest of us with them.
Haven't watched Dr. Strangelove but yeah, fatal conspiracy theories seem to be what's happening. The problem now is that people believing these conspiracy theories can get into power to force them onto the wider population. (I'm wondering if this could eventually give rise to counter-conspiracy theories, e.g. the government hiding flouridated water and vaccines from us.)
Haven't watched Dr. Strangelove
Strong recommend to do so, for whatever that's worth from some dude on the internet.
Short summary of the relevant thing (not really a spoiler since the whole plot gets more or less explained immediately) a general in charge of nuclear weapons gets the idea that fluorinated water is a communist conspiracy to turn people to their side and things go downhill from there.
Do you really need it?
Out of a population of about three-quarters of a billion, under 14 million people (approximately 2%) in Europe receive artificially-fluoridated water. Those people are in the UK (5,797,000), Republic of Ireland (4,780,000), Spain (4,250,000), and Serbia (300,000).
Most European countries don't use it and we are fine.
I think it would be less important in a place with universal health care and dental care as kids would probably be brushing their teeth and get taken care of properly, but it's more dire in North America than you would think. Canada doesn't have free dental and America doesn't have free health or dental whereas lots of European countries have universal healthcare.
whereas lots of European countries have universal healthcare.
Almost none of which include dental care.
They're called luxury bones for a reason..
Wait hold on really? I saw NHS covers dental and eye exams. Do the countries with universal healthcare that do not cover dental, also not cover eye exams?
I saw NHS covers dental and eye exams.
Maybe in the distant past, but definitely not anymore. The rules in other countries in the UK differ, but from a quick look in England eye tests are free only for under 16 (or 18 and in education) or over 60, people on income related benefits, and or have certain conditions or predisposition to them.
Dental is charged in tiers, from £26.80 for simple work to £319.10 for more complex work, however these reset every 2 months, so if you have to go back to complete complex work after longer (which is likely due to lack of availability) you gave to pay again. Kids, pregnant and postnatal people, and or those on income related benefits get treated for free. However there are hardly any NHS dentists left, they've almost all gone private, where they charge much more, and while private clinics are required to provide NHS services, the wait times and availability as I already mentioned, are terrible.
TIL. Sounds pretty close to the American Medicaid system (which is health, dental, and vision) tbh. It's free if you're low income, pregnant, and it's not as hard to get for children, but the number of times I heard "we don't have any openings for Medicaid patients" was... Too high.
The sad truth is that the NHS has slowly and steadily been defunded in to uselessness, to justify and enable large chunks of it to be sold off to (mostly) American insurers under the guise of "increasing efficiency" or whatever, in the very deliberate process of tuning our system in to one more like yours.
This means private insurance has become a flourishing business here, but all that does is syphon trained professionals, facilities, and resources from the NHS, and hands them over to those who can pay to skip the queue, and the profits to a bunch of already rich bastards, resulting in staff and bed shortages which lead to months and even years long waiting lists for not only simply seeing a doctor, but also getting treatment, even for time sensitive conditions like cancer.
The same thing is happening in Canada and other places where there is socialised healthcare, because making money is more important to our capitalist, and at best neoliberal, governments and those who fund them, than our lives are.
I'm from the Netherlands, we have healthcare but dental is usually not included and most people pay it themselves. You can include it but it's usually more expensive than a normal yealy check-up.
Why do Americans and Canadians have bad teeth? Is brushing something people just don't do?
but dental is usually not included and most people pay it themselve
Children under 18 are covered for almost all dental care under the basic Dutch health insurance and therefor free of charge.
https://iwcn.nl/living/healthcare/dental-care/
So you are wrong, you (most likely depending on your age I guess) had free dental as a child, the fluoride is aimed at children who are not guarenteed that in the US, it varies state to state and depending on your income.
That I didn't know, the healthcare system was very different when I was a kid myself. We have made it a lot more commercial on the last 20 years.
And if you look at Canada the province with the worst dental health is Quebec and it's the only province where fluoridation is pretty much non existent.
But why is dental health so bad? Is going to the dentist very expensive? I don't have dental insurance and I pay about a 100 euros to get my teeth checked and cleaned yearly. But for most people it's about 50 for a normal check-up.
I pay about $200 CAD per visit for cleanings and x-rays, so about $400 per year. That is an acceptable amount for me, personally, but that can be a lot for some people, especially low income households that have more than one child.
No more expensive than anywhere else in Canada especially now that they've launched an instance program for anyone under 18 and over 65 for the whole country.
If you’re not getting X-rays, how are they finding cavities or other issues?
sponsored by dentist lobby?