A great time to be a dentists in Calgary...

“Personally, I would like to see the fluoride brought back,” she said. “People benefiting from fluoride are lower income or on a fixed income. It’s not just pediatrics but also geriatrics, and it’s shameful we’re putting so much disrespect and disregard on that subpopulation.”
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@cecilia
And the poor commit the most crimes and suffer from them too so we should put lithium and valium in the public water as well.
Want to help the poor? Instead of putting stuff in the water supply that only the wealthy can afford to filter out, fix the system that keeps increasing the social divide.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
..... fix the system that keeps increasing the social divide.
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I'm fine with that.

In fact that's always my first choice for change

I just noticed that the people screwed are always the poor
 
The real danger with fluoridation isn't the fluoride, it's the crazy people who want to stop it.

Portland, Oregon rejects drinking water fluoridation by wide margin

Along with some civility, science itself went out the window. The campaign against fluoridation put up a website that said (contrary to evidence) that fluoridation doesn't actually work. It also plays a bit on chemophobia, calling the treatment an "industrial byproduct" and focusing on the tiny amounts of trace contaminants that come with fluorine. More generally, opponents focused on how pure the existing water supply was (without mentioning "purity of essence," though).
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It's funny. The right conservatives are often seen as anti-science when it comes to certain issues. But the left liberals are just as anti-science at times as well. That's probably just one reason why I dislike both extremes. Life is not black and white and people with black and white views are probably best left ignored.
 
Glaucus said:
It's funny. The right conservatives are often seen as anti-science when it comes to certain issues. But the left liberals are just as anti-science at times as well. That's probably just one reason why I dislike both extremes. Life is not black and white and people with black and white views are probably best left ignored.
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It's about personal liberty and the freedom to chose whether to be medicated or not. Christians think that there religion is so great that there are a significant minority who would like to see everyone being forced to abide by Christianity by law. Muslims think that Islam is so good for you that a significant minority would like to see everyone forced to abide by strict Islamic practices by law. Just because you think something is good for you it does not follow that you therefore get to force it on everyone else.
 
Well, if someone could prove that the Christian god is real, I'd be ok with that. However there is no evidence at all that it's true, which means it's just an irrational belief. But in sharp contrast, we DO have some pretty solid research backing up the "thinking" behind water fluoridation. The only non-facts are coming from those who oppose it.

And sure, it can be a matter of choice, but if that's the case we should base decisions on FACTS not LIES. Telling people fluoride is bad and has no good effect is a lie and no one should base their decision on that. There are other factors, such as financial for example. Perhaps some people don't want their tax money going to fluoridation because they'd rather just spend it on dentists. That's fine even though I don't agree with it. But basing a decision on lies is always a bad thing.
 
well, I was looking at the comments to that article looking enlightenment and I think I found at least one that seems to make more sense than anything I've seen before:
lunarobverse:

Speaking as a Portlandian, a liberal, and a skeptic, I thought I'd step in and explain my vote against building a fluoridation plant. I speak only for myself, of course, but my argument was persuasive to most folks I talked to.

I don't doubt the science. I'm sure that adding fluoride to the water supply will have a positive effect on dental health. Municipalities here and abroad have been doing it for years. It's probably safe, or at least with small known risks.

What I strongly objected to was our city council making some backroom deal to take out a US$5M bond measure, paid back by everyone in Portland, and handing it over to some private construction firm and building an addition to a water treatment plant located outside of city limits (in the nearby suburb of Gresham, OR). And at the same time, facing a US$21.4M budget shortfall, cutting essential services and jobs (182.5 full time equivalent, half of which are fire and police). Did we get to vote on the budget cuts? No. But voters were able to force a vote on what, to me, looked like looting the public for private interests. And I'm sure that that construction project would have been under budget and on time, right? I mean, humans are so efficient.

Another point raised by many of my friends who have to deal with ongoing health problems: what about consent? Adding another factor to the heady mix of medications and dietary restrictions they already deal with can cause future problems for them. They can't opt out if the fluoride is added to public water supply.

And my friends who are parents reminded me that every public schoolkid gets fluoride tablets, whether they go to the poorest school or the richest one. I imagine it would cost far less than US$5M to expand that so that pre-school kids get the treatment when it's most effective, and it's targeted. Dental health is important but it's not a situation like immunizations, where opting out can hurt herd immunity.

Europe, from what I know, has moved away from water fluoridation to putting it into bottled water and doing more targeted treatment. That seems like a better, cheaper way to go for me. But instead, I have had to sit through months of the pro- and anti-fluoride sides screaming about how it's for the kids. Sigh. Maybe there's just a better way to do this, huh, folks?

PS: I'd link the FAQ that the City of Portland put together on how they intended to fund the construction but it appears they pulled it after the vote. Normally they don't move that fast.
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at least this guy is not anti-science, he's just anti-pork, which is fine by me.
 
Glaucus said:
Well, if someone could prove that the Christian god is real, I'd be ok with that.
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Yup - even if "He" demanded the death of your child if she is disobedient. Sounds easonable.
But what is "real" is nothing to do with it. Is it right to force people to consume something whether or not they want to or incurr a cost if they want to opt out?

If yuo want fluoride in your diet drink tea. The fluoride content of black tea has gone up quite a lot in recent decades because tea seems to be pretty good at absorbing fluoride from the soil and fluoride has been inceasing in the tea growing areas due to industrial processes that release it. If you like to drink tea and you lie somewhere they fluoridate the water you will be getting too much fluoride. What are you going to do? Buy a filter for your tapwater so you can make tea? Small kids tend to consume too much of their toothpaste as it is. Give them fluoridated water and once again they are getting too much.

Now we make laws from time to time that we see as being for the public good like compulsory seatbelts or crash helmets, but driving is not the same as drinking water. One is a modern convenience, the other is a fundamental necessity of life.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Yup - even if "He" demanded the death of your child if she is disobedient. Sounds easonable.
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That's beside the point. My point was, if the existence of God was as provable as the existence of the Sun or the moon, denying it would be the irrational thing to do. Also, knowing with certainty that there's a god removes the paradox of fearing death. Hey, heaven is now assured, so why waste time with life on this horrible earth?

But what is "real" is nothing to do with it. Is it right to force people to consume something whether or not they want to or incurr a cost if they want to opt out?
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Well, I'm not gonna argue that we should force people. My argument was more along the lines that those who fear the fluoride itself do so on false facts. And I gather that most of them base their decision on those false facts. I see that as a problem. The majority of people could decide that atheists will bring the wrath of the gods upon the rest and they could decide that the best thing to do is to burn them alive. And they sure could, but that would be based on false facts too - because god is fiction.

If yuo want fluoride in your diet drink tea. The fluoride content of black tea has gone up quite a lot in recent decades because tea seems to be pretty good at absorbing fluoride from the soil and fluoride has been inceasing in the tea growing areas due to industrial processes that release it. If you like to drink tea and you lie somewhere they fluoridate the water you will be getting too much fluoride. What are you going to do? Buy a filter for your tapwater so you can make tea? Small kids tend to consume too much of their toothpaste as it is. Give them fluoridated water and once again they are getting too much.
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All reasonable but you lack the science to back it. The science points the other way. That's your problem. Most people who suffer from too much fluoride do so from water supplies that naturally have too much. The ones where it's added tends to be closely regulated.

Now we make laws from time to time that we see as being for the public good like compulsory seatbelts or crash helmets, but driving is not the same as drinking water. One is a modern convenience, the other is a fundamental necessity of life.
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Using your teeth is also a necessity. People live longer than ever before, we need our teeth to last. We forget that it wasn't all that long ago that people could die from a bad tooth. Keeping them healthy is a good thing.
 
Glaucus said:
The majority of people could decide that atheists will bring the wrath of the gods upon the rest and they could decide that the best thing to do is to burn them alive. And they sure could, but that would be based on false facts too - because god is fiction.
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So what you are saying is that if god really existed then there really should be a law that says that atheists should be burned alive. That doesn't really sound like a counter argument. Allowing atheists to live would obviously cause great danger to the rest of us. However, if someone gets a cavity how much danger does that put you in? You are basically treating people who don't want to use fluoride the way the Christian right treats homosexuals. They have to be "cured" whether they want it or not else somehow it will horribly effect us.
 
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