Water Fluoridation

[Horwood Beer-Master]

The argument for banning water fluoridation is essentially a civil liberties issue, not a health one.

We should get to decide what we put in our own bodies.

It is not a civil liberties issue at all. If you don't want to drink water with fluoride then buy your damned bottled water.

The state has a duty to ensure everyone has access to water at an acceptable price.

Water.

Just water.

Not water plus state sanctioned mass medication.


Water.

[Trolldor]

It's not mass medication at all, where the hell did that fallacy come from?

[Horwood Beer-Master]

It's not mass medication at all, where the hell did that fallacy come from?

Mass whateverthefuckyouwanttocallit then.

It's the "mass" part that's important anyway.



Although now I think about it - wasn't the point of fluoridation supposedly to prevent tooth/gum disease? Is that not a 'medical' issue? I think the term medication can be justified here.

[Trolldor]

No more than ingesting Iron in meat is medication.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

No more than ingesting Iron in meat is medication.

WTF? Iron in meat is there naturally.


If the government were dictating that additional iron were to all meat whether people wanted it or not, because they were worried about national levels of anaemia, then I would oppose that as well (and it would also count as 'medicating' the masses, since anaemia again is a medical issue.)

[Trolldor]

Fluoride occurs naturally in the water.

[Feck]

It's not mass medication at all, where the hell did that fallacy come from?

From out of a tinfoil hat ?From the same place that thinks adding Vit D to bread is mass medication ?

from the place that thinks 16-40% reduction in tooth decay for about £2 per person a year is a bad idea ?


And from someone who had free dental care as a child (I assume ) that cost the UK lots of money


If your drinking water had harmful levels of fluoride you would expect the water company to take it out. If it is accepted that some fluoride in your water is good for you why panic when some is added .Chlorine is added or the stuff wouldn't be drinkable ,is that Mass medication ? or just common sense .


Tooth Decay IS a medical problem and a potentially life threatening one at that .

[Horwood Beer-Master]

It's not mass medication at all, where the hell did that fallacy come from?

From out of a tinfoil hat ?From the same place that thinks adding Vit D to bread is mass medication ?

from the place that thinks 16-40% reduction in tooth decay for about £2 per person a year is a bad idea ?


And from someone who had free dental care as a child (I assume ) that cost the UK lots of money


If your drinking water had harmful levels of fluoride you would expect the water company to take it out. If it is accepted that some fluoride in your water is good for you why panic when some is added .Chlorine is added or the stuff wouldn't be drinkable ,is that Mass medication ? or just common sense .


Tooth Decay IS a medical problem and a potentially life threatening one at that .

I'm not against the government providing dental care, nor do I buy any "tinfoil hat" conspiracy about why the government are adding fluoride (incidentally - where in my posts do I say anything that suggests otherwise).

It's not the motives I object to here - it's the method. If the government care about dental health (as I'd like to think they do) they can provide education on it. If they want to pay to ensure everyone is provided with fluoride (which again I don't object to) they can send out coupons to the population for money off the purchase of fluoride toothpaste, or, if they really want to be proactive, send out regular supplies of toothpaste direct.
Indeed hypothetically, if it were practical to do so (which it happens it isn't) I would have no objection to individual households signing-up to have fluoride added to their own (but only their own) water supply - I may even be persuaded to sign-up myself if I thought it would benefit me (though since I actually brush my dammed teeth, I reckon I already get all the fluoride I need thank you very much).

My objection is purely to the government saying that because some people could benefit from extra fluoride, we all must have it in our water whether we choose it or not. Like I said - it's a civil liberties issue.

[Trolldor]

Bullshit it is. It would be a civil liberties issue to require the majority of the population to have to actively go out and buy specialised products for a product which occurs naturally in water.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Bullshit it is. It would be a civil liberties issue to require the majority of the population to have to actively go out and buy specialised products for a product which occurs naturally in water.

I don't object to the fluoride at it's natural levels.

[Feck]

Bullshit it is. It would be a civil liberties issue to require the majority of the population to have to actively go out and buy specialised products for a product which occurs naturally in water.

I don't object to the fluoride at it's natural levels.

Ok so then it would presumably be fine not to reduce it in areas then had harmful levels then ?

I can no reason for you objecting to the addition of fluoride ,but not chlorine no studies have come up with anything other than the benefits.

Do you consider the addition of vitamins to bread to be a matter of civil liberty , or iodine to salt ? Because children don't get rickets much now and the residents of Derbyshire aren't all cretins !

We rely on government to take harmful things out of our food water and air for the good of our health why is the addition of things so very different ?

[Trolldor]

I suppose you think it's the parent's rights not to vaccinate their child, or take them to hospital when they have a fatal illness because they weren't vaccinated. Yeah, civil liberties man!

Why does your want not to have fluoride in water overrule my want to have it in there?

[Horwood Beer-Master]

...Ok so then it would presumably be fine not to reduce it in areas then had harmful levels then...

For the last time - this has nothing to do with how 'harmful' it is (or isn't) I frankly couldn't give a fuck about that argument right now. It's the principle of the matter I care about.

...I can no reason for you objecting to the addition of fluoride, but not chlorine no studies have come up with anything other than the benefits...

As it happens I would ideally like levels of chlorine reduced as far as they safely can be, (bearing in mind the need to purify the water of harmful microbes). And as I said before, this has fuck-all to do with the safety of these things.

...Do you consider the addition of vitamins to bread to be a matter of civil liberty, or iodine to salt? Because children don't get rickets much now and the residents of Derbyshire aren't all cretins!..

Actually I do consider these things matters of civil liberty. Bread with added vitamins and salt with added iodine should be sold separately and labelled as what they are.
If any children subsequently get rickets, that's just negligent parenting plain and simple. The products are available to prevent the children getting such conditions after all, the parents would have no right to blame the state for not making the addition of vitamins mandatory in all bread (provided 'bread with vitamins' was sold at roughly the same price as 'bread without').

...We rely on government to take harmful things out of our food water and air for the good of our health why is the addition of things so very different?..

Because arsenic being in the drinking water will kill you. Fluoride not being in the drinking water won't - provided you take certain simple common sense measures such as eating a healthy diet and brushing your teeth.

I suppose you think it's the parent's rights not to vaccinate their child, or take them to hospital when they have a fatal illness because they weren't vaccinated. Yeah, civil liberties man!...

Analogy fail.

Firstly, unlike not having vaccinations, having bad dental hygiene does not lead to outbreaks of dental health issues in the wider population, and secondly any parent who doesn't care for their child's health is negligent and should be prosecuted. And yes that does include taking care of their dental health, but that doesn't justify the state circumventing the whole parental responsibility bit and just adding stuff to the water supply.

...Why does your want not to have fluoride in water overrule my want to have it in there?

Well if we just make the water going to everybody's home as pure as possible, then each individual could add whatever the fuck they want to their own water - makes sense yes?
Or else you may as well go to the other extreme and add absolutely everything that could be of any health benefit to anyone to everyone's water. Eventually we'd end up with some thick organic broth pumped into every house which fulfills all essential human dietary requirements and cleans your fucking mouth at the same time. Never mind not having to bother to buy toothpaste from the supermarket - you wouldn't even have to buy food either.

Wouldn't want to shower in the stuff though, would you?

If you object to such a proposal and don't want this stuff pumped to your home then, "why does your want not to have all this stuff in water overrule someone else's right to have it in there?"

[beige]

Considering that by my age my parents already had a few fillings and my teeth are perfectly fine and healthy, I'd say I don't really mind fluouride being in the water.

We did a chemistry assignment on how fluoride helps build up tooth enamel or something suchlike - I don't remember much of it, because I'm drunk - but it made sense at the time.


Fluoride ftw!

[Trolldor]

If any children subsequently get rickets, that's just negligent parenting plain and simple.

You're an idiot, plain and simple. You actually say it's alright to force malnutrition, a life of illness and disability, retarded mental development and a whole host of other problems as a direct result of malnutrition, because of civil liberties?