To play devil’s advocate, salt and milk aren’t pumped into your house by the government. You can also buy iodine-free salt and vitamin d-free milk if you choose.
Just pointing out something I recently learned that others may not be aware of -- most bottled water also has fluoride added. iirc water labeled as "distilled" cannot contain additives (or at least fluoride), but most of the "spring water" and other variants you'll find at the store do have those additives.
No. Unless you want the US added to the list of countries where the advice to tourists is "Don't drink the water".
Water additives are proven to improve the health of the populace. There are corner cases, and we can debate appropriate levels, but an outright ban of all additives is regressive.
There seems to be a lot of regressive attitudes going around these days. See: Measles outbreak.
Tourists don't stay long enough for the presence or absence of fluoride in water to matter to them. Pathogen- and contaminant-free water are the only priority for them. Stories like Flint would probably do more to scare tourists about US tap water.
water additives are used to remove bad things in the water. so in effect the additives exist to actually move the water qualify closer to the "default", not "enhance" it. if tap water was literally h20 and nothing else the additives would be unnecessary, no?
as far as measles go, people have the right to not get vaccinated if they choose - it's dumb, though and others have the right to not let them participate in things since they're not vaccinated, too. it's not really analogous to the fluoride thing at all anyway.
Default water, lol. What an incredibly, terribly, dumb argument. There is no such thing as "Default Water" - it neither exists in nature, nor in man-made systems. Good luck with that. We can - and should - modify our our systems in the interests of public health. Nothing comes without corner cases which impact people like you - them's the breaks. Life isn't fair, but we are engineering a society for the benefit of almost everyone in it.
People can choose not to drink flouridated tap water if they want - building a well isn't that expensive, although you will probably need a treatment system because of the naturally occurring stuff (minerals, hydrogen sulphide, possibly excess flouride and other stuff).
"Freedom isn't free", as they like to say. You may have to invest in your "freedom" to drink the water you want to drink. You will have to pay the price of your kids not getting vaccinated - they may not be able to go to public schools.
There are much bigger hills worth dying on (see: Flint, MI). Leave the wildly successful public health programs alone.
> People can choose not to drink flouridated tap water if they want - building a well isn't that expensive, although you will probably need a treatment system because of the naturally occurring stuff (minerals, hydrogen sulphide, possibly excess flouride and other stuff).
that's hilarious because brushing your teeth is more effective, and cheaper than adding fluoride to water. I'm sure people in Manhattan will really get on building those wells.
at the end of the day there's not a single paper that actually says ingesting fluoride is water. they all correlate incidental fluoride contact on the teeth, due to it being in the water.
fact is, brushing your teeth is more effective and has no downsides. ingesting fluoride is bad and is discouraged literally not only by all dentists, but this fact is present on all toothpaste in the usa.
If we had universal health care and guaranteed basic income, then I might be inclined to agree with you.
Fluoride in drinking water is supposed to be a cost-effective way to prevent a lot of suffering from those who cannot afford to take care of their teeth, for example, children in poor families.
I grew up in an area with fluoride in the water and most of my peers had no cavities until we had moved away and were in our late twenties.
salt and milk don't come out of your tap, though. would you agree with governments building giant towers everywhere resulting in humidifying the air with chemically infused mists (which are said to be beneficial)?
after all, if you prefer the current air, you can wear a breathing mask attached to a tank with your air of choice.
it's crazy to me that people can see what harm the government can do in 2025 and still think the government knows best.
It's not about thinking the government knows best it's about thinking the research knows best. Fluoride in water is widely considered one of the largest public health victories and study after study finds it largely safe and worth the potential trade offs.
The thing that's so wild about being anti fluoride is it's been going on for so long, it's possible your grandparents have never drank unfluoridated water at least in their adult lives, and at such scale that even if everything was a coordinated lie there would be very clear numbers showing problems.
> if everything was a coordinated lie there would be very clear numbers showing problems
that's not how science works though. people in the western hemisphere are becoming more unhealthy, and there is definitely not a consensus that fluoridated water is good. there are plenty of papers showing both conclusions.
at the end of the day though, there's actually no benefit to fluoride ingestion. no paper has shown this. what they do show though, is that when you add it to the water people have better tooth health, because the fluoride touches your teeth. however brushing your teeth is even more effective.
so can I assume that if there was research that breathing some chemically infused mist is good for you, you'd support the government in creating towers to spray this mist across the country? after all in this premise the research says it's good.
I do not see how this matters at all. The government regulates it, how it gets to your house makes little difference. Also, I don’t pay “the government” for my water/electric/etc, I pay companies which makes your argument even more confusing, it all comes down to regulations.
the default water people consume comes from the tap. you don't see how it's different? it's not like people buy water of their choice and hook it up to their plumbing.
Okay. But that's not at all present in the post I responded to.
This is government action we are discussing right now. The government can't know best when it puts fluoride in the water but it can know best when it bans municipalities from doing so?
> This is government action we are discussing right now. The government can't know best when it puts fluoride in the water but it can know best when it bans municipalities from doing so?
I don't agree with the ban. people should be about to vote on this.