[snapcaster]

I don't know why everyone just accepts uncritically the water fluoridation stuff. It seems like as a culture we're re-examining so many things we incorrectly thought was "safe" but water fluoridation seems to still be a "sacred cow". I'm guessing it's hangover from Birch Society people being against it, but seems weird to just assume it's fine (especially when looking into the somewhat shady origins of the program)

[Spivak]

What shady origins? It was done because because of the horrible state of dental health in the US.

"To join the armed services, men had to have six opposing teeth in their upper and lower jaws; in 1941, almost 10% of recruits were rejected for this reason alone"

Like it doesn't even matter if army recruits is a skewed sample, young men not having 6 pairs of teeth that touch is insane.

"In the early 1950s, two public health researchers stated that on average young men between the ages of 20 and 35 years had already lost an average of 4.2 teeth and that 90% of them were in need of bridges or full or partial dentures."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4504307/

The authoritative source of water fluoridation is https://www.york.ac.uk/media/crd/crdreport18.pdf which, broadly concludes that there isn't any strong evidence of harm.

[antisthenes]

> "In the early 1950s, two public health researchers stated that on average young men between the ages of 20 and 35 years had already lost an average of 4.2 teeth and that 90% of them were in need of bridges or full or partial dentures."

Do wisdom teeth count? Because if they do, I am already missing 4 teeth, in addition to 4 more that were taken out to help make space for the rest of my teeth to prevent crowding.

So missing 4.2 teeth on average doesn't actually sound as bad as you make it out.

[KoftaBob]

1. Is it actually "accepted uncritically", or has there just been no meaningful evidence that the risks of water fluoridation outweigh the benefits? If there has been quality research showing the risks outweigh the benefits, care to share? 2. What are the shady origins of the program?

[slenk]

Flouridation has been studied and scuritnized pretty heavily since the 40s. No one is just assuming it's fine. It is.

The positives of flouridation far outweigh any of the negative consequences that could occur. But I have never heard of anyone with a flouride problem in my life.