Misinformation campaigns increasingly target the cavity-fighting mineral, prompting communities to reverse mandates. Dentists are enraged. Parents are caught in the middle.
The culture wars have a new target: your teeth.
Communities across the U.S. are ending public water fluoridation programs, often spurred by groups that insist that people should decide whether they want the mineral — long proven to fight cavities — added to their water supplies.
The push to flush it from water systems seems to be increasingly fueled by pandemic-related mistrust of government oversteps and misleading claims, experts say, that fluoride is harmful.
“The anti-fluoridation movement gained steam with Covid,” said Dr. Meg Lochary, a pediatric dentist in Union County, North Carolina. “We’ve seen an increase of people who either don’t want fluoride or are skeptical about it.”
There should be no question about the dental benefits of fluoride, Lochary and other experts say. Major public health groups, including the American Dental Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, support the use of fluoridated water. All cite studies that show it reduces tooth decay by 25%.
Yeah, but you don’t understand the science.
You have faith in other people who might. That’s how you treat it like a religion.
I don’t perform my own surgeries or diagnose my own illnesses. Doesn’t mean doctors are wizards.
I and others who follow science don’t trust by blind faith, we trust based on the training and expertise of those doing the research. I am not qualified to make decisions about chemicals or engineering or stuff like that, so I trust those who are. And one or two assholes willing to falsify data for their own agendas will not survive peer review of the rest of the scientific community.
Unless you’re convinced the entire scientific community is in cahoots to pull off some grand conspiracy. In which case you’re a hopeless fucking nutjob and we’re all just wasting our breath until you get on your meds.
I don’t even understand their argument. Scientists have been wrong in the past, therefore fluoride is definitely dangerous in the amount added to drinking water?