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Cake day: August 17th, 2023

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  • just because fluoride reduces cavities doesn’t automatically mean it’s safe to ingest over long periods. The same institutions praising its dental benefits are also historically slow to acknowledge health risks (think lead, asbestos, DDT, etc.).

    Historical failures are usualy valid cautionary tales, but that doesn’t mean they automatically apply. Unlike lead or asbestos, fluoride has been studied extensively for decades. Drawing parallels without evidence is oversimplifying the issue.

    Plus, we banned all those things when we learned they were harmful, even though they were big money savers. Why would we be resistant to banning flouride if the evidence showed it was harmful? Is our fight against cavities more important to us than better gasoline milage?

    The criticism isn’t just ‘old studies vs. new ones.’ It’s about the fact that most of the large-scale safety studies on fluoride aren’t actually designed to detect subtle or long-term harm—especially to the brain or endocrine system. Recent, peer-reviewed research (like the studies on lowered IQ in high-fluoride areas) suggests we might be underestimating the risks.

    Those studies focus on areas with high-fluoride levels (often above 2 mg/L), which exceed the levels used in water fluoridation programs in most countries (typically 0.7 mg/L). Extrapolating findings from high-fluoride regions to areas with controlled fluoridation ignores dose-response relationships and misrepresents the risks.

    And let’s not pretend there’s no conflict of interest. Fluoride used in water systems comes from fertilizer industry byproducts. There’s a real economic incentive to spin waste into something profitable—especially if you can sell it under the label of public health.

    This doesn’t inherently mean it’s unsafe or that its use is driven purely by profit motives. Regulatory agencies evaluate fluoride safety based on scientific evidence, not its source. Your argument is conflating the origin of fluoride with its safety.