Okay if that makes you feel better. It doesn't do it for me.

Its funny that you laugh in the face of the best source of knowledge humanity has ever had. Long term, well controlled study.

To me that is what defines our ability to be intellectual. Accepting conclusions when faced with solid explanations of studies which have used vast data to come to excellent conclusions.

Nothing more really needs be said, and each and every single pseudo scientific rebuttal does nothing to change the facts.

I am convinced that you are convinced.

I am still skeptical about adding it to water. If it is already naturally occurring in water that should not be necessary. Science has been wrong about a lot of things "long term."

I just don't think so many people would be against it if it was so great.

The FDA also wants to shut down natural grown foods, vitamin therapy, Pot for medical purposes, and a lot of other things.

Also if you watch television, there are dozens of ads by law firms suing drug companies for damages that prescription drug side effects are having on people.

How would you expect the average person to trust "authority" or even scientific studies?

Dose makes the poison, we have to make sure its at appropriate levels.

I am unconvinced that it makes a big difference is cavities having it in drinking water, but at the levels we set it to, both by adding, and by subtracting in some cases, its perfectly safe.

I dont trust the average person to do much of anything right.

So then I guess you consider yourself to be above average.
(I have discovered that is common in most all men.)

Anyway, Bushi, I hope you are right. I really do. I still drink reverse osmosis water. I don't like a lot of hard water. I like soft water.

Nature is erratic. Fluoride levels in ground water vary widely.

Death and disease are part of nature. Nature doesn't care if you get sick. Nature doesn't care if the fluoride levels in the local well water are dangerous to humans.

Nature doesn't care if your teeth rot out, nor does nature care if you suffer fluoride poisoning from drinking well water with too much fluoride.



How does that work? The popularity of a belief indicates its probability of being correct?

When I see a community of people with a belief, I look at the discourse in the community. Do they value evidence? Do they promote their beliefs with lies and false logic? The anti-fluoride community, as a whole, doesn't score so well.

Humans are totally capable of convincing each other of falsehoods.



The FDA wants to shut down vitamin therapy? I thought the FDA just wanted to stop vitamin pushers from lying on their products. The FDA is not doing enough to stop vitamin pushers from lying about their products effectiveness.

Drug companies, like the vitamin pushers, don't really care about your health - they just want to sell products. I agree they get away with too much.


It's great that people don't have blind trust in these authorities, but some of them automatically take up the contrary position, which isn't smart or helpful either.

Especially today where almost all mainstream toothpastes have fluoride, and almost everyone agrees their kids should brush their teeth with toothpaste.

It might be just fine stop fluoridating the water, and instead remind people to make sure their kids teeth are exposed to fluoride by other means.

If that were to happen, though, the anti-fluoride people would spin that (wrongly!) as evidence that fluoride is intrinsically dangerous, and up their campaign to rob children of fluoride as a tool to improve the mineralization of their teeth.

We have really soft water in Ireland...gets up quite a lather in the BathTub

In almost every way except physically, and that is only becuase of a very severe accident.

Ego, sure, but its objective fact based on data. I score top 95% percentile in nearly every test I have ever taken.

. . since my back injury I have had lots of reading time to gather data and understand fundamentals.

If I remember correctly my average of 3 different IQ examinations from age 10 to age 20 was 140-150.

Sadly/thankfully I have friends that put me to shame, so I remain at least slightly humbled. The internet has provided me with additional humbling as I have met slews of others who also put me to shame . . . and often.

I enjoy trying to hold my own, and pride myself on being able to articulate my conclusions in hopes others can find fault and help me gain a better understanding.

To me that in and of itself is enough to get most people well past having issues of critical thinking. An honest intellect that more often than not would prefer to claim ignorance over knowledge unless they can clearly show all there work on paper.

Well said

Well in this world you can spend your time researching two apposing factions opinions about something or not and I find my time is better spent painting. I hope fluoride is not dumbing down the population and causing cancer and all that jazz for the sake of people who have had it forced upon their water supply, but I remove all that from my water.

But to be honest, I really don't give that kind of stuff much thought if it does not directly and immediately apply to me. Selfish perhaps but:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAXwv7j_jbY&feature=relmfu
Interesting video with factual information.

Good guy Concordance even posted his citation list.
http://www.mediafire.com/?5cb4b738si9zk8g


Nothing wrong with that, this is true of all of us on many topics. When this is true one should just not express an opinion. While I know a bit about many things, there are more things of which I have no opinion than those I do. 4 years ago I didn't even know objections to fluoride existed(rational or otherwise), and only vaguely knew its role in fighting cavities.

I express an opinion, but I never expect everyone to agree with it. It gets annoying when on the one hand there are people warning us of some substance that is not good for us, and on the other hand there are people trying to push it onto us. If it were not for the fact that government wants to force fluoride on us by putting it in our water, it would not even be an issue to have an opinion about.

Now with all the controversy, we, as individuals have to make a decision. Shall we drink the tap water or not? Its as simple as that. That is the level at which I am dragged into the controversy. I have to make a decision. So I have to have an opinion.

For you to tell me that I should not express my opinion because it does not agree with yours because you believe you are right and more qualified to have an opinion is just kind of arrogant.

I made my decision. When in doubt..... don't.

So I don't drink tap water. It may not only be the fluoride that is in that water that is not good for me, but in any case, I like purified reverse osmosis water. It tastes better anyway.

Now this might surprise you, but I have a bottle of gel that is fluoride that I use on my teeth in addition to toothpaste. But I certainly don't swallow it.

But I do apologize for calling it "poison" and hurting people's feelings. If I really thought it was poison I would not brush my teeth with it. I still don't want to ingest it. ... just in case.

JB, the anti-fluoride movement has been preying on innocent people for many decades, brainwashing them and turning them into anti-fluoride activists. With the rise of the internet they have had a surge in popularity and effectiveness, and it seems now that there are just legions of people who think they are doing the right thing by spreading lies about fluoride. It can be frustrating to watch this happen.

While I don't agree with BBC telling you that you should not express an opinion, I share (what I assume to be) his frustration with all the harm that is done by those people who are actively spreading lies about fluoride. The world would be a better place if more people took more time to question and investigate before they spread those lies. Maybe BBC sees you as 'one of them', and maybe, just maybe, his (presumed) frustration with them is being applied to you.




I think that's great. I want to avoid an either-or approach in the dialog - as if we had to choose between being pro-fluoride or anti-fluoride. I'm anti-falsehoods, and the anti-fluoride camp (ime) just loves falsehoods, so I lean anti-anti-fluoride, but I'm not trying to tell people they personally ought to drink fluoridated water.

BBC, that's a great video. Thank you for sharing that. Googling about fluoride is depressing - the level of discourse if pathetic. No wonder so many people buy into the lies - they are repeatedly endless by so many people.

I fell for it, too!

Again and again I have heard the nazi/fluoride connection - so much so that I assumed (stupidly!) that it was true.

The claim didn't impress me - so what if the nazis did so? All that matters is what fluoride actually does, not what the nazies (supposedly) believed that fluoride does.

Not until watching that video you linked, BBC, did I learned that some people credibly claim the nazi connection to be a complete lie. It wouldn't surprise me. The anti-fluoride movement is built on lies.

IFF fluoride is harmless or even "good for you" what is the point of the anti-fluoride movement? What do they gain by it? The excuse that someone might sell a few books is not good enough. Where is the payoff?

I still don't like the government forcing people to add it to the water.

Yes, the collective actions of a group of people cannot be completely understood by just looking at one or two motives.

Many people speak out against fluoride for the same reason I speak out against american war mongering. I believe it is wrong. The question that remains is: are my beliefs reality based? Are they sensible? Did I build my beliefs on lies and false logic?

The answers to those questions relate to other parts of my personality and worldview. Ultimately I speak out against a war because of what I believe.

Look at this:



You will find this style of thinking among a very large number of anti-fluoride conspiracy people.

They get off on feeling superior to other people, and this is what drives their embrace of these false beliefs, and their evangelism.

For one year, I ate only raw food, and associated mostly with raw foodists. I saw the same kind of thinking being prevalent in the raw food community. Many didn't even want to really encourage other people to eat healthier - they really got off on being a part of a small group of people that they believed were smarter and better than everyone else.

So, we have money, we have honest desire to make the world a better place, we have 'getting of on thinking you are one of a very few people who know whats really going on', but the list of motives is much longer than that.

These lies also play into and support other beliefs (true or false) that people have, and want to validate.

You and I do not trust our government. But some people go way out of their way to find reasons to distrust the government....they are eager to jump on anything which validates their distrust of the government - factual or otherwise. So there is another motive.

Bushidobillyclub can have our doses then

i know that fluoride builds up in your body over time causing great health issues

i dont think not having fluoride in the water ever made anybody sick

now they want to add prozac and lithium and maybe statins

how does cadmium ,mercury and lead get in your water? through the adding of fluoride

our water company quit adding chlorine to our water because it costs too much

but they keep adding fluoride they even almost doubled the dosage from 1. ppm to 1.75 ppm

Bushidobillyclub seems always seems to say the opposite of my posts whats his agenda?

why would anyone be against pure healthy water?

Fluoride can build up in our bodies, it doesn't mean that it will. It does mean that we should be a bit cautious about how much fluoride we take in.

Calcium can also build up in the wrong places in our bodies, causing health problems.




I do think there is room in this discussion for people who have different values to reach different positions on the compromise between liberty and health, and between one persons convenience/health and another persons convenience/heath.

It does look like 'not having fluoride in the water' has actually denied people protection from oral infections that has made them sick.



Who are 'they' ? There is a large list of professional organizations that support the fluoridation of water at safe levels, including the ADA.

Are you claiming that the ADA wants to put prozac in our water?



Which municipality is allowing what levels of these elements in along with the fluoride?


The problem with making a generalized statement about this is that the sources used for fluoride vary with the region. For the most part, in the US, this claim is just wrong. The fluoride used is something like 99.6% pure. Even if the remaining 0.4% did contain any of these elements in measurable quantities, the fluoride itself is added in at just a few ppm.




Completely quit? Weird. Do you live in the US?




I know, right? Why do people oppose low level fluoridation?

I am still waiting for you to present a claim, all you do is link to video's which are so far off in wonderland as to not be worth my time.

Spell out for us what you think fluoride does that is harmful to the human body, and at what dose those effects occur.