The new research is the first to measure community water fluoridation exposure during childhood and any potential impact on cognition up to age 80.
The paper is here
Alternative headline: Science disproves well known conspiracy theory again; conspiracy theorists deny evidence.
yeah I felt that way with the tynlenol one the other day. Its like we are using resources for this. ugh.
Honestly, I don’t mind spending resources on this. Yes it turned out that the expected results were the ones we got, but until you do the study, you can’t be sure you won’t get unexpected results. Plus, once you’ve collected the data, it sometimes shows unrelated patterns that you wouldn’t otherwise have been able to see.
people don’t understand science at all.
It’s not a ‘do it once and it’s the truth forever’ type of thing. It’s a perpetual process. You are SUPPOSED TO REPEAT STUDIES. Result replication is the point. You also re-do studies to create new datasets, see if baselines have shifted etc.
The notion science is some system of eternal truths is not science. That’s Scientism… where science has been elevated to a extra-empirical authority.
It’s also why you do experiments in science class… and you compare results.
anyway, a couple of times I tried to explain this to people, even as a teacher, and they basically told me that means science is stupid and worthless if that is how you are suppose to do it. people generally, do not think science is an empirical process, they think it should be revelatory, like the ten commandments.
they think it should be revelatory, like the ten commandments…
Since you brought it up, it’s worthwhile that most Abrahamic churches include common folk arguing about the nitty gritty of what scripture means, what are the consequences of those meanings, and how to account for those consequences in their daily life.
Which is kinda exactly how we should treat scientific studies.
Yup, a little skepticism is healthy. But that doesn’t mean you should actually assume that everyone is a liar and you should only listen to “alternative” sources.
you can’t be sure you won’t get unexpected results
I’ve added so many “Conspiracy Theorist” tags to users thanks to these posts…
I wondered that when I started reading: is this actual science, or being forced to disprove the idiots yet again? But right at the beginning it talked about bringing first of its kind, actual data, yadda yadda … reads like actual science, like something that adds value to our knowledgebase
I think in this case it’s valuable to do the study. A lot of these conspiracy theories are based on the idea that common thing could be harmful in some way, but assumes that it really is and that they know the effects. Some are more plausible than others because chemistry is complex and biology is a lot of chemistry, so it can be hard to say that something is harmless without doing a lot of scientific research.
Fluoride has a special property that causes people’s low IQ levels to be confirmed.
But it does have an effect on dental health! A positive one!
HEALTHY TEETH AND GUMS ARE THE FIRST STEP OF THE TRANS IDEOLOGY.
Man, I’m trans as fucking hell.
I became trans by choice.
But a MAGA coworker told me Fluoride is bad according to new studies. When asked for specifics the answer was read the studies.
I always assume if MAGA says something is bad, then it’s good.
Blind squirrels eventually find nuts.
Like knowing that there are pedophiles in the Epstein files.
In fact, nearly half of all blind squirrels don’t even have to look far at all to find a couple. ☝🏼
The trouble is, MAGAts don’t know the difference between a couple acorns and the absolute bollocks they’re tweaking about.
🌰🌰🐿️ ‼️🐂💩
🏆
But IQ DOES have a long term effect on fluoridation!
I love how brainwashed right wingers pretend to be an authority on gender and sex, then believe shit like this.
Fluoride does harm brain development, but only if you get way too much of it. This happens in some places where the natural water already contains a lot of fluoride. You absolutely don’t want to add even more fluoride there.
But most places, especially in the US, the fluoride level is far below that, so far below that we have to add fluoride to the water to get enough to maintain dental health. But it’s still far below the level that causes harm.
The big issue is that the process to make ground water safe to drink removes the Sodium Flouride from it. We have to add it back in, unless you live in a town like mine where they decided to stop flouridating the water because they believe in conspiracy theories and Facebook science.
The levels you need to consume to cause harm are pretty substantial. You would have to be intentionally consuming a LOT of Sodium Flouride to cause issues. It’s almost on the level of “how many bananas do you need to eat to get radiation poisoning”.
That is dangerous misinformation. With an LD50 of 0.052 grams per kilogram of body weight, swallowing a teaspoon of sodium fluoride will kill most people (if they aren’t induced to vomit or receive emergency medical attention). It’s harmless in the dosage put in tap water, but if you have a tub of pure sodium fluoride it is similarly toxic to bleach or moth balls.
Meanwhile you physically can’t eat enough bananas to get radiation poisoning. Bananas are less radioactive than human flesh, less radioactive than hotdogs, less radioactive than potatoes. You can swim in liquefied banana and be exposed to less radiation than walking outside on a cloudy day without sunscreen.
And a teaspoon is 5 ml. Flouridated water is, on average, 0.7 mcg/L. Therefore, you would have to drink over 17,000 liters of water for the flouride to kill you.
But having healthy teeth will prolong your life statistically so…
good fucking god is that where we’re at.
We always knew excess flouride fucked up your bones and teeth. That was the potential danger. We’ve known that since Colorado Springs. Why are we testing cognition.
A recent analysis (1) finding a negative relationship between fluoride exposure and adolescent IQ was prominently cited in decisions to end community water fluoridation (CWF) in parts of the United States. However, the quality and salience of that evidence have been questioned (2, 3). Most notably, the bulk of the evidence presented by Taylor et al. (1) concerned extremely high dosages of fluoride—far exceeding levels relevant to CWF policy discussions. None of their evidence came from population-representative samples; most failed to account for selection into treatment. None of the research was conducted using data collected in the United States.
this research was done to figure out the unknown
That’s good, I love tap water where I live. Always drank it, mostly sharp but years are adding up. Drank it more as I aged, don’t need extra calories and all.
Grew up where tap water tasted like ass, to the point even hung over it tasted like shit. Love BC tapwater, though gets better closer to the coast in my opinion.
This study was funded by people that don’t wear tinfoil hats outside. They’re compromised.
Safe at the levels being added by municipalities. At higher concentrations, Fluoride can do some nasty stuff, like skeletal fluorosis. So don’t take this paper to mean any amount of fluoride is safe.
True but not a large risk unless you eat like 5 toothpaste tubes a day or something like that.
Toothpaste Georg over here with very brown but cavity-free teeth
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I grew up in Moscow in the 80s, I think they tried fluoride in the water, but it wasn’t nearly enough to make a difference.
As a child, my teeth were atrocious. Constant cavities despite brushing and not eating a ton of sweets and never even trying soda.
After I moved here at 18, my teeth got significantly better. I’m glad there is fluoride in the water!
Russian dentistry during that time period, from what I recall reading, was horrific.
Yeah, it wasn’t fun, even though I was able to get “the good stuff” cause my dad started working for the government in an important position. The good stuff was… marginal.
The worst it does is put spots on your (cavity-resisting) teeth.
You need a lot of fluoride for that to happen.
