Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm
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As a general rule of thumb, I think it's interesting to scrutinize dosage recommendations and compare regulations between countries. If someone claims that the science on some topic is well settled then health officials in multiple countries should arrive at roughly similar results. If there's a discrepancy between the suggestions made by health officials in the US and EU, it's worth asking why.
https://www.paragonwater.com/does-reverse-osmosis-remove-flu...
The latest generation of small under-sink reverse osmosis filters claim to waste only 1 gallon for every 2 gallons of usable water. Still bad but much better than before.
After years of RO water I switched to spring water due to health issues and I will never look back.
Of course, it is insanely expensive to drink 3L of spring water and so frustrating to not have unpoisoned water from the tap.
Also relying on municipal water for mineralization is a bad argument. The minerals in water supplies is highly localized, or drinking tap water could leave you deficient in one or more minerals depending just depending on where you live.
Defined as a completely made up percentage of people that is in fact < 100%.
I think until we can accurately simulate the human body, there is essentially no hope for these areas. Unless it is possible to run highly controlled multi-generational studies with large numbers of people, statistical significance cannot be attained. Various meta analysis are funded and completed, but these do not count as strict definition science requires actual experiments to be independently replicated.
Whenever you point this out, people respond with studies that focused on topical application. This topic is weird. Otherwise intelligent people shut down and begin quoting movies from the 1960’s, and are somehow incapable of distinguishing between a topical mouthwash and oral consumption.
Might as well drink sunscreen and talk about the reduction in lip skin cancer.
???
>Regular toothbrushing with fluoride toothpaste is the principal non‐professional intervention to prevent caries, but the caries‐preventive effect varies according to different concentrations of fluoride in toothpaste, with higher concentrations associated with increased caries control.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6398117/
Higher concentrations lead to better caries control (unless you go too high), what other evidence do you want?
The parent poster said "ingestion" of fluoride, but brushing is strictly not ingestion but rather topical application - you are directed to spit it back out. I'm curious if there were studies that covered drinking it.
N=3 but no fillings till post 25
Brushing teeth is a topical application of flouride, unless you swallow it, of course....
Putting fluoride in water to topically apply it to teeth (and get a higher risk of brain damage and stomach cancer among other things due to completely unnecessary ingestion).
The study you linked is indeed like proving that drinking sunscreen is great at preventing lip cancer. Or better yet: maybe we can start putting sunscreen in drinking water to prevent lip cancer?
I’m more confused by how you would coat your teeth while drinking, do you swish it around in your mouth every sip?
i also brush with a toothpaste containing fluoride and have a healthy diet.
I mean we are really going down a rabbit hole, but the water goes in my mouth, I swallow, my mouth remains wet with some residual water.
Unless you're opening your throat and pouring directly in, I guarantee water is touching your teeth, even with a straw.
We've been putting fluoride in water for a long time, and there are multiple studies that have looking in to it, I don't know why you think there aren't?
So if you didn't have fluoridated water as a kid, having it as an adult still provides a benefit. This particular study doesn't say anything about having it as a kid and then stopping, but again, it's hard to find significant populations that have experienced that.
But I prefer to rely on brushing my own teeth and avoiding certain foods to maintain my own health, rather than have a medication added to my water supply because the guy next door does not take care of his health.
Fluoride is beneficial only when applied externally on the dental enamel, so that the fluoride ions will passively substitute the hydroxide ions. There is no known biological process that uses actively fluoride in the human body and excessive ingested fluoride has bad effects, e.g. bone damage.
Therefore fluoride must be added only to tooth paste and mouth washes, which provides all the benefits and none of the risks.
Intentionally ingesting fluoride is incredibly stupid and it is beyond my power of understanding how this could be mandated by law in USA and in some other countries which imitated USA irrationally.
And that's after more than half a century of brushing teeth being a cultural expectation and something kids are taught in schools.
And that's not counting people in dire economic conditions, where frequency of brushing teeth with fluoride toothpaste is something to trade off against e.g. eating.
It's the 21st century. If we know anything about people, we know that self control and "free will" are overrated, and you can't rely on them at scale. On the contrary, you can rely on people having very predictable reactions to right nudges and incentives. It's the basis of modern economy and policymaking. It's the entire reason marketing and advertising are as big and well-paying jobs as they are. Etc.
However, for such people the solution is not to drink fluoridated water, but to use fluoridated water to wash their mouth and then spit it.
If they cannot take water in mouth and spit it, then they certainly cannot feed themselves and they need permanent care. Whoever does that should also take care of their teeth.
Regarding money, I cannot believe that to be an obstacle. I eat relatively cheap food, because I buy only raw ingredients that I cook myself. Therefore in most days food costs me at most $5. I doubt that anyone who is really poor succeeds to spend much less for food. I wash my teeth after each meal with rather expensive tooth pastes from Colgate or Sensodyne. Even so, the daily cost for the tooth paste is at least 30 or 50 times less than the cost of food, so unless there is some remote place where the price of tooth paste is much more than 10 times more expensive than in Europe or North America, I cannot believe that being poor would prevent someone to brush their teeth. They would die of hunger much sooner than that.
At some point, we can't just replace individual personal responsibility with the State as a solution. This attitude just reeks of infantilization of the total populace just because a certain percentage of them lack such self control.
If you still want to provide support to them, make it targeted towards those individuals in need of such help. Do not drag down the rest of the populace in order to make the lives of a few easier.
Have we reached that point? If so, why?
I don't think water should be flouridated and I don't think we should provide support for people lacking self control.
When you brush your teeth with fluoridated paste or you wash your mouth with a fluoride solution and you spit it, most of the fluoride acts against the tooth enamel to harden it and only a little is ingested.
On the other hand, when you drink fluoridated water, only very little of the fluoride acts against the tooth enamel to harden it and most of it is ingested, which will provide no further benefits, but which might have bad effects.
How there is even a discussion about which choice is better, beats me.
Source please.
Or even just a theoretical reason to think it could be beneficial. All I’ve ever heard is that the benefit is in tooth contact.
Those also come with a warning to only use it once a week, and to limit contact to 2-5 minutes. At least, all I’ve seen in Germany.
edit: Okay, apparently those I’m talking about have 12,500 ppm, I don’t know about 5000 ppm as I have not seen those.
Same reason why they stared iodine to salt… because people were having mental development issues.
Now is it still necessary? That’s a different question but let’s not pretend that we don’t know why it was done.
Consider this excerpt from Wikipedia's article on 'Tooth brushing':
> In the United States, although toothbrushes were available at the end of the 19th century, the practice did not become widespread until after the Second World War, when US soldiers continued the tooth brushing that had been required during their military service.[4]
Asia: close to none in China (didn't find any hard numbers), none in India, less than 1% in Japan. Only Malaysia is doing it at any resonable scale.
Europe: 2% of the population get it, roughly 14 million people with 10.5 million of those being in the UK and Ireland.
So that leaves North America, with the exception of Mexico which jas high natural fluoride levels and fluorides salt, Australia and Latin America.
Going by these numbers, the majority of people get fluoride through different means from drinking water. Afroca of cpurse has a lot of other issues regarding drinking water, starting with the exostince of clean drinking water itself.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_countr...
So techinicalls you are correct, overall much less so.
Japan, China, India, and much of Europe have many areas with natural levels of fluoride in the water near or even above the recommended level. Which seriously distort their numbers as proponents of adding fluoride to water supplies don’t want to increase it arbitrarily only to safe and effective levels.
China has some really interesting data as in one location removing fluoride quickly resulted in “the incidence of dental caries among 4-year-old children had increased by 62%.”
>Water fluoridation reduces cavities in children, while efficacy in adults is less clear.[9][10] A Cochrane review estimates a reduction in cavities when water fluoridation was used by children who had no access to other sources of fluoride to be 35% in baby teeth and 26% in permanent teeth.[9] However, this was based on older studies which failed to control for numerous variables, such as increasing sugar consumption as well as other dental strategies.[9] Most European countries have experienced substantial declines in tooth decay, though milk and salt fluoridation is widespread in lieu of water fluoridation.[11] Recent studies suggest that water fluoridation, particularly in industrialized nations, may be unnecessary because topical fluorides (such as in toothpaste) are widely used, and caries rates have become low.[3]
A point to be considered here is that the institutionalised belief in water fluoridation for the half-century which preceded the York Review was apparently not grounded in much solid scientific enquiry, if any.
This review was conducted 3 years after the CDC published "Ten Great Public Health Achievements in the 20th Century", which included water fluoridation as one of these great achievements.
Another curiosity of this public health belief was the guideline that water fluoridation levels need to vary in a region based on temperature. This was because it is apparently a predictor of water consumption amounts by small children.
Colder climates were meant to have higher levels of fluoride (up to 1.2 ppm) because people apparently drink less water, and warmer climates were meant to have lower levels (0.7 ppm), because they drink more water.
It indicates that consumption is a very important factor in considering additive levels, and that all other factors are less important than climate.
This was codified in a 1957 paper "Determining optimum fluoride concentrations" (Galagan and Vermillion) [2] which includes their scientific formula:
parts per million of fluoride = 0.34 / E
"Where E is the estimated average daily water intake for children through 10 years of age in ounces per pound of body weight. It may be calculated from the estimation equation E=-0.038+0.0062 temperature, where temperature is the mean maximum temperature in degrees Fahrenheit."
This seems to reflect the kind of scientific rigour behind this belief, and perhaps the absurdity of the formula is why the US DHHS updated their guidelines in 2015 to settle on a flat 0.7 ppm regardless of climate [3].
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/4801410
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2031310/?page=1
[3] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/05/01/2015-10...
This is not directly related to the topic of Fluoride, but Iodine was actually initially introduced to reduce goiters. The mental benefits were a wonderful, unexpected side-effect. Studies have put the effects anywhere between 8-15 IQ bump for populations that were Iodine deficient. Pretty jaw dropping when you think about it.
Move that mean down one SD (15 IQ points). And now OVER 15% of the people meet the intellectual impairment criteria.
Put it another way, due to the shape of the normal distribition moving IQ down 10-15 points amounts to 2-3X increase in the number with abnormally low IQ.
Cut to the modern era, where fewer and fewer jobs are available for those with intellectual impairments, and the world requires more and more technical prowess and the situation is far worse than the figures appear.
An experiment in Windsor, Ontario (across the border from Detroit, MI):
> Yemmi Calito's children are patients of Dr. Meriano. The two oldest kids were raised on fluoridated water in Windsor and both have healthy teeth. Her two youngest weren't, and they've had to be treated for serious tooth decay. Calito said their oral hygiene habits are the same.
> "The younger two I feel they have more cavities," Calito said. "My little one, my three-year-old, actually had to go have general anesthesia … [about] four weeks ago to get his teeth fixed. They were in pretty bad shape."
* https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/fluoride-tap-water-1.4990257
Calgary, AB, stopped and has recently decided to restart:
* https://calgary.citynews.ca/2022/11/17/calgary-fluoride-wate...
The public voted in 2021 to stop:
> What’s happened since 2012? A study found that within a couple of years of ending fluoridation, decay in children’s baby teeth had risen by 65 per cent compared to 2005, while the increase was only 14 per cent in Edmonton, which continues to fluoridate its water. “We weren’t looking at little tiny cavities that needed to be fixed. They were large cavities, they were destroyed teeth,” says dental hygienist Denise Kokaram, who led a dental program for vulnerable Calgary youth in the wake of fluoridation’s discontinuation.
> In 2019, the University of Calgary’s public health institute summarized for council’s benefit the body of science on fluoridation—the abundant evidence that it curbs tooth decay in both children and adults, and the lack of conclusive evidence of the myriad harms that anti-fluoride activists allege, from bone deterioration to brain disease. (Authorities have lowered recommended fluoride levels in water to limit the risk of fluorosis, a condition that mainly causes mild tooth discoloration.)
* https://macleans.ca/news/after-a-decade-of-cavities-will-cal...
Stop giving kids these insanely high levels of sugar. No soda is a great start.
Same thorn in my side is this completely crazy trend that this new life-long injection Ozempic/Wegovy is being suggested for kids 12 and up. Like what? It also atrophies muscle, tendons, and bones.
I hope with the next generation of leaders, we stop this madness of blindly trusting big pharma and corporations and ask where the money trail goes, and what may actually be best for our kids and loved ones.
Not saying you shouldn’t reduce sugar intake, that’s not my point - but - factors like genetics are very important too, and fluoride might help for such people.
So apparently there's a few things that trivially impact your dental health besides usual cleaning and few people seem to know about them.
You would think that in a “capitalist, free-market” such as the United States, an innovation with a clear and pronounced benefit over the status quo would take the marketplace by storm and quickly become the new status quo.
Last I checked, you can get Sensodyne with Novamin toothpaste on Amazon, but it does come from Canada.
"Review shows that Novamin has significantly less clinical evidence to prove its effectiveness as a remineralization agent in treating both carious and non-carious lesion. Hence, better designed clinical trials should be carried out in the future before definitive recommendations can be made."
I don’t know enough about chemistry or dentistry to really say beyond that which side is the correct side
https://www.lotusdental.com.au/post/effect-of-western-diet-o...
Previously, I’ve found the anti-fluoride argument to be a little shaky but I’m a scientist and some of the data in the report might make me reconsider that stance. That’s what science is. I must say that personally I haven’t drunk fluoride in my tap for decades really, since I use a reverse osmosis filter for my tap. So if you don’t want to drink fluoride you don’t have to.
I haven’t noticed more cavities in periods when I don’t drink fluoride vs when I do. But I brush my teeth twice a day (teeth bathed in fluoride toothpaste residue) and go to the dentist every six months. I don’t really have cavities.
I found this paper an interesting history on water fluoridation-
Debating Water Fluoridation Before Dr. Strangelove
Super simple answer: one requires everyone change their individual habits. Difficulty - very hard. The other requires no change at all on the individual level. Difficulty - very easy.
Be careful with falling into the "public health initiatives are just a bandaid" trap. I was going to say you probably wouldn't approach a pandemic by telling everyone to eat more healthfully but considering your last sentence, maybe you would have argued for that approach.
Or just every calorie?
Coca Cola, more fluoride, same classic taste!
I kind of remember this from being a kid. Until I was a teen anything with complex or savory tastes was absolutely disgusting. Only carbs, sugars, and very simple flavors and textures seemed edible. It changed when I got to around 12-14 when suddenly a salad was okay and some vegetables started to taste good. Another few years and I’d eat all kinds of things. Became a bit of a foodie by college.
It’s got to be some relic of early hominid evolution. My speculation is that in nature there are a lot of savory things that are toxic. So kids have a natural aversion to them until they are old enough to have learned the tribal knowledge about what is okay to eat. Sweet and carby things are usually safe to eat. If a kid eats random berries or grains thats probably okay. Random mushrooms or plants might kill them. Random sources of protein can also contain parasites or nasty infections.
No, it requires… parenting and education? And stopping children from being exposed to ads for sugary crap 12 hours a day.
Habits are a huge part of it. Kids who “would only eat sugar if they could” are already used to consuming lots of sugar. They will definitely not starve themselves to death if no sugar/carbs are easily available in the house.
Here in the Netherlands a lot of (but not all) kids choose to snack on cucumbers etc and are quite reserved in how much candy they eat. School doesn’t allow high-carb foods. Parties will have fries, lemonade and cake, no soda or infinite amounts of candy. Mine is approaching the early teens and hasn’t ever drank soda, without suffering any peer pressure (yet).
I see this like mandating using a helmet and HANS device when driving drunk. Surely it might help reduce casualties, but is not addressing the problem that people are inflicting unto themselves.
Dutch children love their bottles of apple juice and dutch teens love a can of chocolate milk, but I have to agree that the portion sizes of these are less than half of what you would get in the US.
> Reducing kids intake of sugar requires a level of vigilance bordering on isolation from society,
This is why I praise my child and treat him (not with sweets) every time that he turns down candy at friends' houses or parties. When the parent stands between the child and sweets, he is considered neurotic by other parents. When the child stands his ground, he is praised. I've been fortunate that all three of my children have stood with me on this stance.
Personally I didn't really understand that properly until either my late twenties or early thirties.
> In this study, maternal exposure to higher levels of fluoride during pregnancy was associated with lower IQ scores in children aged 3 to 4 years. These findings indicate the possible need to reduce fluoride intake during pregnancy.
"Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores in Offspring in Canada"
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
What I heard (but did not verify) was that cavities reduced similarly in countries that did not have fluoride in the water around the same time.
2. It is kind of difficult to consume fluorinated water without exposing your teeth topically to the fluoride.
3. Ingesting fluorine is definitely not good for you and recent studies seem to confirm this.
So, it seems to me that while fluorinating drinking water would incidentally topically expose teeth to its beneficial effects, we don't really need to fluorinate our drinking water as there are other ways to expose teeth topically to fluorine that don't involve drinking fluorinated water.
And no, fluorinating water was not a good decision because of the cautionary principle. Even from the beginning, they knew that the effects came from topical exposure, adding it to drinking water was reckless.
But hell, this was the time where we added lead to gasoline.
Fun fact: Dentists recommend flossing before brushing.
Edit: "For example, in Finland and Germany, tooth decay rates remained stable or continued to decline after water fluoridation stopped in communities with widespread fluoride exposure from other sources." - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation
Sir, this is the internet. Sources are for the weak. Just type your response so it’s passionate and angry and people will believe you!
Currently using BioMin F (fluorapatite - very little fluoride due to a novel delivery mechanism but still) but considering switching to BioMin C (nanohydroxyapatite)
These n-Ha toothpastes seem at least equal to if not greater than high-fluoride options (in effectiveness) I tried previously like sensodyne and prevident (prescription-strength). I would say the boka mint toothpaste tastes better also, and as a bonus their electric toothbrush is much nicer than the old one I'd used a few years ago.
I still drink water with fluoride in it as well, mostly because it's the best tasting water I've come across. (From a city I grew up in, and I still fill jugs full to drink at home) I have well water at my house, which is safe as far as I know, but I still feel hesitant to swallow it.
It isn't mandated by law in the USA. All water contains some naturally occurring fluoride, some localities choose to add additional fluoride to their water in the USA but certainly not all. I'm pretty sure it is added in something like 60% of city water supplies.
There is of course the "that was the plan all along" hypothesis, that mild cognitive decay on a large scale is a useful outcome for control purposes.
Lower cognition is strongly associated with dissatisfaction and violence, not to mention much lower economic productivity (less taxes!).
dissatisfaction and violence are the easiest problems for a state to deal with.
If a society is making 400 widgets it doesn't matter whether each is priced at $2 or $999, the government will only be able to get 400 widgets.
A stupider population makes much less widgets.
Who to believe here, who should we believe here, hm, very difficult problem, adrian_b's passionate statements or practically all the professionals of the world. I go and contemplate over this for a while now. : )
Consider the following facts, which can be easily be verified in countless sources, e.g. in books written by real chemists or "health scientists":
The mineral component of the teeth and bones grown by a human body is made of hydroxylapatite.
When a hydroxylapatite crystal is immersed in a water solution of fluoride ions, in the superficial layer of the crystal, which is in contact with the fluoride solution, some of the hydroxide anions from the crystal are dissolved in the water and they are substituted by fluoride anions, thus converting the superficial layer of the hydroxylapatite into fluorapatite.
The fluoride ions bond more strongly to apatite than the hydroxide ions, so once formed the fluorapatite layer is more resistant to dissolution than the parent hydroxylapatite.
In the conversion of hydroxylapatite into fluorapatite, like in any other chemical reaction, the converted amount increases with the concentration of the reactant, i.e. of fluoride and with the time of contact between hydroxylapatite and solution.
All of the above explain how the contact between the tooth enamel and a fluoride solution creates a superficial tooth layer that is more resistant to dissolution, which decreases the likelihood of tooth cavities.
The dependences of the conversion efficacy on fluoride concentration and on contact time explain why tooth brushing or mouth washing are far more effective in enamel hardening than drinking fluoridated water, when the fluoride concentration is low and the contact time is very short and most of the fluoride never enters in contact with the tooth enamel to have a chance to harden it.
After the fluoride is ingested, it never comes again in contact with the tooth enamel, so there is no way for it to harden the enamel.
Please tell us how your "1E10 health scientists throughout the world and history" have told you that ingested fluoride from inside your body can harden the tooth enamel from outside your body.
Perhaps the fluoride ions use The Force to harden the enamel from a distance?
The fluoride ions are carried by blood in most parts of the body, but the tooth enamel does not contain blood vessels. Even if it had blood vessels, they would have been buried in it and they would not have reached the external surface of the teeth, which is where the fluoride is needed for protection against dissolution.
Moreover, the fluoride ions spread uniformly in the entire blood volume. Only a small part of the ions pass close to the teeth, most of them pass through the bigger organs, including through the bigger bones, which, unlike the tooth enamel, contain numerous blood vessels.
Because the fluoride ions have high affinity for apatite, many of those passing through the bones stop there and remain incorporated in the mineral part of the bones.
While at the surface of the teeth fluoride is desirable, in bones it is harmful because it makes the bones more fragile, increasing the likelihood of fractures.
In conclusion, when drinking fluoridated water, only very little fluoride is retained in the tooth enamel, but most ends in the bones, so this method is much more effective in making the bones fragile than in hardening the tooth enamel.
There are only 3 ways in which the ingested fluoride could protect against tooth cavities: eating one's own excrement, washing the mouth with one's own urine or biting one's own body and drinking one's own blood or washing the mouth with it.
Whoever does not have such habits will not receive dental health benefits from ingested fluoride.
I look forward to see how "all the professionals of the world" can explain the magical ingested fluoride effect claimed to exist by the proponents of drinking water fluoridation.
Hardening the tooth enamel by fluoride is exactly like an anti-corrosive treatment of a steel surface.
If someone would propose that instead of applying the anti-rust layer on the external steel surface, a hole should be made in the steel, then the anti-corrosive coating should be put inside, then the hole should be plugged, enclosing inside the anti-corrosive material, and after all this they would expect that the external untreated steel surface will not rust, they would be laughed at. But this is equivalent with the theory that one should drink fluoridated water to harden the tooth enamel.
[1] Article/study discussing Calgary vs Edmonton in Canada, linked elsewhere in the comments here that has this snippet:
What’s happened since 2012? A study found that within a couple of years of ending fluoridation, decay in children’s baby teeth had risen by 65 per cent compared to 2005, while the increase was only 14 per cent in Edmonton, which continues to fluoridate its water.
--
I won't argue the fact that there may indeed be problems with ingestion, and additionally that contact to the teeth is the only way for the fluoridated water to help, but I'm not convinced that existing water fluoridation isn't having a positive effect on tooth decay. Whether it's worth other potential health trade-offs is certainly a valid concern.
Consider that fluoride ingestion has been linked with increased anxiety and depression[*]. Depending upon one's political objectives, this could be a desirable outcome. For instance, the "anti-terror" decades of invasion would be easier to accept for an anxious public. Or depression may lead to more consumer activity.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258252498_Fluoride_...
Society comforted themselves with the official narrative while branding whistleblowers conspiracy theorists.
You may as well call the following "dissolved minerals": lead, arsenic, uranium, mercury, asbestos
Moreover, as someone else pointed out, watching commercial airliners fly into skyscrapers and having our world upended with military guards at airports and new governmental snooping powers that we just had to accept is all pretty much enough for the things you mentioned.
1: https://news.gallup.com/poll/102943/republicans-report-much-...
I have swallowed my fair share of fluoride pills.
Are you to tell me that I should have been a galaxy brain but am now a smooth brain? Fvck!
Let's say you're buying the most popular and common brand, Bad Reichenhall. This is your selection:
https://www.bad-reichenhaller.de/en/products.html
In most supermarkets you get almost all of these options. Disclaimer is I have never seen the one with Selenium added.
Wouldn't be surprising if it naturally had some fluoride
It's been a popular and wide spread conspiracy theory that the "shadow government" is either trying to lower the IQ or the total population numbers using fluoride in the water supply. And since politicians don't get chosen on a basis of competency, but rather popularity, you have the vast majority being relatively severely logically challenged and thus unable to read scientific papers and understand complicated topics like child dental care.
COVID made it pretty clear that neither the general population nor most politicians are remotely qualified to make decisions. Not just medical decisions, just… decisions.
One of them purchased a game that is like Apples to Apples but the point is to provide labels or name the axis of a graph.
It was enlightening just how many of my friends that had a passing notion of calculus could not intuitively interpret what a graph actually means. For example, they would often misunderstand the relation between the dependent and independent variable, or not even understand what it meant for a variable to depend on another variable. Too bad too, because it was a really fun game for me.
His explanation was that nobody understood the numbers anyway, the graph is just there to be a pretty colourful picture while he talks.
The CDC recommends breastfeeding infants, as breastmilk contains significantly less fluoride than fluoridated drinking water. If breastfeeding is not possible, the CDC also endorses using fluoridated water in infant formula, though it suggests mixing the formula with low-fluoride bottled water to lessen the risk of dental fluorosis.
Infants who are fed formula made with fluoridated tap water can have three to four times higher fluoride exposure than adults, warned Lanphear. He added that before an infant's teeth erupt, there's no benefit to fluoride exposure. "There are vulnerable groups we have to be worried about," he said, "and that's not being brought out adequately by these agencies."
https://www.dentalcare.com/en-us/ce-courses/ce334/pre-erupti...
Excess exposure can cause fluorosis but nothing to do with the brain.
It’s in the entire water supply.
You were gestated in a womb of a woman consuming highly fluoridated water.
You were fed formula made with fluoridated water tuned to dose a 200lb man when you were 8lbs.
The water you drank as your bones were growing was similarly overdosed
The food you eat is washed in fluoridated water. The coffee and beer you drink is brewed with fluoridated water. The bread you eat is made with fluoridated water.
Basically, the dose is insanely wrong from the get go and then it’s applied to everything so there’s no way to accurately measure exposure. Then factor in the bell distribution and you are massively overexposing huge numbers of people a few standard deviations out.
Er, no. A baby only consumes 4-8oz of water per day while an adult is consuming 125oz. The concentration is the same in both cases so the adult is getting 30X more.
> Then factor in the bell distribution and you are massively overexposing huge numbers of people a few standard deviations out.
How are you defining 'overexposed' and 'highly' in these statements. Do you have any studies or evidence? How are you deciding this consumption isn't factored into how much is put in water?
And of course "overexposed" is exactly the dose that fits their narrative.
I'm suspect they'd also have an opinion about not showering as much to not absorb the flouride through their skin.
That should read 15-30 times more, according to your own figures. And then, the baby's mass is about 15-30 times less than the adult, so at the end you are in the same ballpark again, percentagewise.
Not quite. In the US about 15% of the population get their drinking water from private wells. I wonder if anyone has compared groups that are similar except for whether they are on a well or municipal?
It shouldn’t be hard to find such groups by looking at the boundaries of municipal water systems. For example on my street everyone east of me is on city water and everyone else is on wells. Both groups are demographically very similar.
It's two clicks away from an online shop for (fluoride) toothpaste.
First kid was born and lived for a year or so when we had city water, which was flouridated. 2nd and 3rd kid were born where we were on well water, with no flouride.
First kid had no baby tooth cavities. Second and Third wound up with cavities on the front teeth, and we used topical flouridation for re-mineralization.
To my mind, yes sure you can over complicate the entire debate, but all of that is irrelevant in the face of these basic points:
- Is there a chance that fluoride ingestion could be detrimental to human health? - Can tooth decay be prevented by diet and brush/floss with good quality toothpaste?
Presumed safety of chemicals (at the behest of organizations) to human/environment until proven otherwise is shocking to me.
They irony of all this is that if you want to buy good quality toothpaste you are forced to import it from overseas, due to the FDA limiting ingredients in toothpaste.
"Children and adults of the low socio-economic strata tend to have substantially more untreated caries than higher strata. Salt fluoridation is by far the cheapest method for improving oral health."
Sure, good for you that you're in one of the higher socioeconomic strata who can take care of their teeth. Not everyone else is.
That is a scary recommendation. Would be very hard to avoid fluoride if restaurants, packaged food etc all used fluoridated salt
Iodine is essential, you cannot survive without it, and it is added to supplement a deficiency.
Fluoride is not essential, you can survive without it, and its addition is purely therapeutic, not due to some deficiency
Also as a Canadian you should avoid Amazon for groceries and most hygiene goods, they're overpriced even compared to Shoppers Drug Mart most of the time, half of the time the goods aren't even offered by the company but instead by a random middleman charging absurd markup.
Man that's silly. Where I am (Australia), 5000ppm is chemist-only, but doesn't need a prescription
https://www.deseret.com/2000/9/29/19531458/fluoride-brochure...
It was a weird position against back then similar to the anti-vax position today.
And literally, no one will talk about molybdenum. Maybe Texas has low levels of molybdenum?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/222941122016020...
As with many things genetics plays a big part.
I neglected going to the dentist for 15 years and take just ok care of my teeth (brush at least once per day, don't floss).
I was expecting bad news, lots of cavities, but my teeth are perfect. After some plaque removal, not a single cavity.
Asked the dentist about this, he shrugged and just said "genetics".
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/222941122016020...
Her home city of Hanoi doesn't have tap water that the locals like to drink. Even after boiling I think it can taste bad. So she grew up with heavily filtered water or bottled water. I would guess her diet was lacking in many trace minerals from this.
They irony of all this is that if you want to buy good quality toothpaste you are forced to import it from overseas, due to the FDA limiting ingredients in toothpaste.
It has been proven in many clinical trials to not only reduce sensitivity, but also protect against tooth decay and cavities.
Basically FDA won't let them label it without studies. Other countries consider toothpaste a cosmetic and don't requite studies.
For me, novamin/biomin didn't seem to make a difference with tooth sensitivity.
I mention that I like this toothpaste due to the lack of SLS - not for the cavities prevention. But I've not had any cavities, so that is another datum on top of the others who mention using this toothpaste and not having dental problems.
> I use Sensodyne for a completely unrelated reason
> - Is there a chance that fluoride ingestion could be detrimental to human health? - Can tooth decay be prevented by diet and brush/floss with good quality toothpaste?
When evaluating those points, be sure to assess what actually happens, in real life, to real people, and not what could happen in theory.
For example, even if tooth decay could be effectively "prevented by diet and brush/floss with good quality toothpaste" in theory, the effect might be smaller (possibly much smaller) in practice, as people in general suck at lifestyle changes, dieting being a prime example, and then a noticeable subset of the population has problems with regularly brushing their teeth (for some reason, this is surprising to many). Unless you have a way for fixing that (so far no one has), this may well make fluoridated water come out ahead in comparison.
--
EDIT: The above is similar to the argument for, e.g., opt-out health insurance and social retirement savings plans - you're still free to choose an alternative or decide to stay with the default, but if for some reason you can't understand the choice or can't be arsed to make one, you and everyone else are better off with you having some insurance and savings by default. The similarity is that we know for certain that the "incapable of making a choice" bucket will contain a substantial segment of the population, so at policy level, making health insurance/retirement savings opt-in with nothing as default, is just deciding to screw all those people over.
And no, your health insurance / social retirement example doesn't fit. Sticking to the default in these cases does not amount to willingly poisoning oneself.
There is a cultural/political side of the question, however: given that we know water fluoridation is safe and relatively efficacious at preventing caries, are we willing to pay for it and actually do it, and how much do we want to listen to people’s arbitrary feelings on the matter? That is a valid political question.
He said there are two problems with tooth decay in Mississippi:
1. They don't use fluoride in their water. 2. No decent dentist would ever work in Mississippi.
Fifteen years later, with no changes in dental hygiene in my entire life, and I've had no other problems with my teeth. Anecdotal evidence, maybe. But that is my experience.
On the other hand, ingested fluoride has no benefits, because it cannot reach the tooth enamel and when in too large quantities it has bad effects, e.g. it may cause bone damage.
Brushing the teeth or washing the mouth with something containing fluoride is very good, drinking water with fluoride is very stupid.
This should be easy since it's been done at enormous scale for decades so a huge quorum of people have spent their their lives drinking fluoridated water.
You need search no further than Wikipedia.
I am not aware of any study about the incidence of fluorosis in places where the drinking water is fluoridated artificially, but it would be very difficult to do such studies, due to the lack of comprehensive past statistics, to the many confounding factors and because only few of the existing cases are detected. When someone heals a bone fracture they almost never do additional complex tests to determine if it was normal for the fracture to happen or its likelihood was increased by a condition like fluorosis.
In any case no such studies are really needed, because when you have an activity like ingesting fluoride, for which there is absolutely no evidence of benefits and no known mechanism by which it could provide benefits, but there is weak evidence that it might be harmful and there are known mechanisms by which it may be harmful, then there is no rational doubt whether that activity should be done or not.
So you don't get to say "well obviously it's dangerous just cuz".
The dose makes the poison, and you are making a very specific claim about the dose.
Fluoride is not an antibiotic, so there is no plausible mechanism for it’s known topical benefits to prevent bacterial growth that might lead to Alzheimer’s (itself a theory, but an interesting one)
“Fluoride acts to enhance membrane permeabilities to protons and compromises the functioning of F-ATPases in exporting protons, thereby inducing cytoplasmic acidification and acid inhibition of glycolytic enzymes.Basically, fluoride acts to reduce the acid tolerance of the bacteria. It is most effective at acid pH values. In the acidic conditions of cariogenic plaque, fluoride at levels as low as 0.1 mM can cause complete arrest of glycolysis by intact cells ofStreptococcus mutans.Overall, the anticaries actions of fluoride appear to be complex, involving effects both on bacteria and on mineral phases. The antibacterial actions of fluoride appear themselves to be complex but to be dominated by weak-acid effects.” https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/m95-133#:~:text=Basica....
Well, Mississippi is ranked 34th in crime, 41st in education, 49th in healthcare, 49th in economy, 40th in fiscal stability, 47th in infrastructure and 36th in opportunity. Assuming a medical professional cares about anything other than "natural environment" in which they rank 16th, I suspect there's a long list of places they'd rather end up.
Yes, but… no.
> There is insufficient information to determine whether initiation of a water fluoridation programme results in a change in disparities in caries across socioeconomic status (SES) levels.
> No studies that aimed to determine the effectiveness of water fluoridation for preventing caries in adults met the review's inclusion criteria.
> Over 97% of the studies were at high risk of bias and there was substantial between‐study variation
From here: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD...
TLDR: The existing research is low quality.
This sounds like some elitist BS.
This links to OECDs compilation of WHOs data, was easier to get the overview from imo: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/health_glance-2009-1...
Having lived in both the US and France, I can say that it’s been my experience that Americans have “nicer” looking teeth. Whether that translates into anything medically relevant is apparently really difficult to prove.
I’m sorry I didn’t dig any deeper than the link that was presented but it was about adolescent kids. And no one is saying that these differences show up in young people.
When I lived in Canada (which I assume isn't too different from the US) with poor social security due to my legal status, I never went to a dentist because it was far, far too expensive.
I have no idea if there is a genetic difference in the US, but according to Wikipedia, it seems modern toothpaste first took hold in America.
Colgate, a US company, introduced modern toothpaste in 1873. Later, toothpaste that had been developed by researchers in the UK and US, did not find commercial success in the UK, and they focused on the US where it took off.
This suggests that the US were more interested in the appearance of their teeth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toothpaste#:~:text=Pre%2Dmixed....
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3956646/ - Water Fluoridation: A Critical Review of the Physiological Effects of Ingested Fluoride as a Public Health Intervention
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8930857/ - The use of hydroxyapatite toothpaste to prevent dental caries
> In vitro and in situ studies are demonstrating promising results of HAP toothpastes on the remineralization of enamel lesions and preventing/reducing demineralization. Specifically, research appears to demonstrate either its superiority or equivalency to fluoride toothpaste as anti-caries agents.
I'm not sure how conspiratorial I'm being, but for years I've felt that the fluoridation of water was more about the dilution of neurotoxic industrial waste product and not oral health.
Regardless of whether I'm on or off base in that regard, I see little reason to continue to use something that - at best - will only react with pre-existing enamel, when hydroxyapatite toothpastes can actually fix damage (albeit to a limited degree).
"CITIZEN, please check yourself into a fema retraining facility! The government is there to serve us all for the greater good."
Nevermind the double speak, where the term 'the greater good' means the good of those people who consider themselves to be greater than you.
https://www.kansas.com/news/article1101667.html
And a Fresh Air interview with a historian who recently wrote a book about the John Birch Society:
https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2023/05/17/1176658584...
Usually it's alongside that one study that shows naturally occurring fluoride in water is harmful to children's mental development. Which is true, but neglects to mention that the areas studied (in rural China) had levels of fluoride twenty times higher then public water fluoridation programs and that the same study also included a control group at "normal" added fluoride level and found no negative effect.
Heres the study. You'll start to recognize it if you get involved in a few of these discussions.
While it obviously absorbs less than eating any compound, it still absorbs quite a bit!
There is evidence both ways, the original reports were that children's dental health improved after they stopped fluoridation in the 70s.
Has that effect been persistent? I would think the news of flouride being removed from the water would cause an increase in dental health diligence, but I would also be surprised if that effect didn’t wane over time.
Anecdotally, this is what I had and I have great Dental Health despite for brushing hygiene. I often skip brushing my teeth and almost never floss and haven't had a cavity in 40 years
But the practice was later abandoned, as it seems that the 6-8 age is the worst one to supplement (too much) fluoride, that could later develop in dental fluorosis:
There have been various iterations of dentist office flouride treatments I remember.
As an adult the dentists I went to switched to a 2x 30 second rinse (60 second?) with a mouthwash at the end of the appoinment.
The last 10 years they eliminated that and I do a nightly flouride rinse.
I lived various places as a kid, from 10-18 I lived somewhere with no flouride in the water (rural with well water) and we did pills and dentist treatments instead.
Too much in this thread assumes everything is the same everywhere in a given country.
I have also probably never brushed my teeth with a non fluoride toothpaste living in the US. So it's not like that's different from the EU.
I have very little tooth decay in my mid 40s.
Dose makes the poison. Literally any chemical in sufficient dose is poisonous
It's too bad we can't displace the bacteria themselves instead of working downstream from that.
Shameless plug for my company (Bristle Health) that is trying to do exactly that via oral microbiome testing and personalized recommendations and products to improve.
Did notice a difference for a couple of days after taking antibiotics for a week for something else, but it quickly subsided (my regular micro biome probably quickly recolonised the mouth).
I noticed L. ruteri in some screenshots which I already know from other probiotic uses.
and our first probiotic here: https://www.bristlehealth.com/pages/probiotic
All the species in the probiotic have been clinically studied with evidence that supports improvement in the oral microbiome and reduction of oral disease. Although, for transparency, the mechanism of action of some of the probiotics is still unclear, and we're working on figuring that out to improve oral probiotics and products in the future.
Keyword possible.
e.g. for a while there was a scare for RF from overhead powerlines causing brain cancer.
Turns out, the issue is the statistics used to try and isolate an effect from a general population sample have bias: plug in any effect, and any grouping factor, and you'll probably observe a doubling of the risk.
This effect was the cause of a whole spate of "X may cause cancer" reports in the 2000s.
* Roadside air pollution
* Lead pipes
* Indoor CO2 buildup
Studies relating to flouride are nowhere near as conclusive and show nowhere near the same magnitude of effect. If flouride is contributing negatively in a similar way, it's doing so to such a small extent that it very nearly falls within the margin of error. Anyone genuinely worried about flouride should consider double-checking that they've already taken more meaningful action regarding their health, such as going on a walk, getting a full night's rest, or opening a window.
with
>> Despite this unusually rigorous review process, a network of health officials and influential dental groups argued that the NTP had failed to address several issues raised by the NASEM review committee.
Health officials and dental groups have interest on fluoridation for political reasons? I don't buy it!
I would imagine a self interst focused dental and profeccional helthcare group would argue for the decrease of fluoridation so more income comes from the work on decayed teeth. If it is meant of interest of their patients then that is just desirable! Also health officials and dentists are not the typical polititian group I picture in my mind. I'd sooner call them scientists than politicians. (if meant about scientific politics then should say so - including themselves and that why they push despite widespread scientific critics).
I am telling this with having only topical use of fluoride - with good results -, and with no desire for water fluoridation but also knowing that topical may not be sufficient enough for children and the broad population.
Somehow the feeling is that the NTP and Birnbaum is the manipulative and polititian here. Just a felling though, based on this limited and filtered report, but based on quotes.
Edit: why am I being downvoted for this?
I think because you presumed that everybody was calling it a conspiracy before, which is patently untrue? (Correct would be: some people were, and some people still are)
Incidentally, I used to think Hell’s Angels were just retired dentists.
Like some wild conspiracy theories, there is a kernel of truth to this one. Namely, the fluoride used in water fluoridation is indeed an industrial byproduct -- except not from nuclear weapon manufacture, but from the production of phosphate fertilizer.
From the CDC (which is definitely on the pro-fluoridation side of things) website https://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/engineering/engineering-sho...
> The three fluoride additives used for water fluoridation are derived principally from phosphate fertilizer production.
https://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/engineering/engineering-sho...
>The three fluoride additives used for water fluoridation are derived principally from phosphate fertilizer production.
Plus we don't just drink fluoridated water- we bathe in it, we cook with it, our pets drink it, we water our lawns with it, its everywhere. I recall trying to find studies on the effects of these non-drinking uses years ago and not finding much. Again, I wonder why.
This is more a report about consuming excess fluoride from other sources that water.
>Because many common foods and drinks contain fluoride, consuming them along with fluoridated water could amount to harmful exposure levels, these experts say.
I do wonder what the other common food and drinks could be
They are listed in the article
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeWdEr1XyTw
My friend is convinced her autistic child was over exposed to aluminium or other metals...but maybe it was fluoride. These things need to be investigated.
We know that Lead exposure is widely known to cause harm to the brain, so other metals could have similar effects. Babies having a much smaller mass, would be much greater risk of ingesting toxic amounts or slow dose environmental exposure through things like aluminum cookware.
A substance might not be toxic on its own, but in combination with another substance in the environment could be highly toxic, but affect only some small percentage of people that come in in contact with both.
Like we know many prescribed drugs, can't be mixed with alcohol, because they become toxic if you do.
are you assuming they haven't been? that people just bunged in chlorine into swimming pools without a second thought? that nobody has thought to look into heavy metal exposure in babies?
If anything, the issue is the opposite. All of these tests have been repeated so many times, often by honest scientists, but also often by biased companies, that people struggle to find the truth and instead find whatever they want to believe (and its usually something about how all the professionals are stupid and dumb but they personally are special and right)
How do you think those labels about mixing drugs with alcohol/grapefruits/whatever else came about? if it goes into your body, it needs to be tested.
I'd like to take this as an opportunity to voice frustration with "rationalist skeptics", who for the longest time have ridiculed critics of mass water fluoridation. Maybe it's because they're really into the comforts of orthodoxy moreso than skepticism?
Using bullying and ridicule to reinforce unfounded scientific/medical orthodoxy in the name of "skepticism", or even in the name of "evidence" that you don't have... It isn't scientific no matter how much you'd like to believe it is.
But of course people forgot the history of water fluoridation and the risks of dental cavities
(of course, for modern countries I guess it makes more sense to have it in dental products than just in tap water, but I don't buy the moral panic)
> The report found that a link between typical levels of fluoride added to water and possible harm to brain development is unclear... the report did find a possible link to cognitive harm at approximately two times
Well good think we are at the current level and not at two times it then
Also this is kinda scary if true... https://assureasmile.com/fluoride-in-your-water/fluoride-in-...
After the city treated and purified the water, they needed something to add in to keep it from reacting with the city’s pipes. Otherwise the water will eat the pipe and you get dirty water full of pipe delivered to the tap.
They needed something that was cheap, relatively safe to drink, and available in large quantities- fluoride checked those boxes. Supposedly they came up with the dental spin to sell the solution to the public.
They are no solution at all. Just a fad.
> • As of July 18, 2022, a total of 85 human studies have investigated the relationship between fluoride and human intelligence.
> • Of these investigations, 76 studies have reported that elevated fluoride exposure is associated with reduced IQ in humans.
- https://fluoridealert.org/studies/brain01/
There's a historical link between fluoride alarmism and the far right, famously parodied in Kubrick's Dr Strangelove in the person of Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper[2,3] who instigates a nuclear response to the communist conspiracy to impurify America's bodily fluids via fluoride.
The CAQ article at [1] explains this:
> Oscar Ewing, as Federal Security Agency administrator, was a Truman “fair dealer” who pushed many progressive programs such as nationalized medicine. Fluoridation was lumped with his proposals. Inevitably, it was attacked by conservatives as a manifestation of “creeping socialism,” while the left rallied to its support. Later during the McCarthy era, the left was further alienated from the opposition when extreme right-wing groups, including the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan, raved that fluoridation was a plot by the Soviet Union and/or communists in the government to poison America’s brain cells.
> It was a simple task for promoters, under the guidance of the “original spin-doctor,” to paint all opponents as deranged–and they played this angle to the hilt. For example, one widely distributed dossier on opponents “listed in alphabetical order reputable scientists, convicted felons, food faddists, scientific organizations, and the Ku Klux Klan.”
I should note that CAQ has itself been attacked as communist propaganda, (and for that matter, some of the studies linked on the fluoridealert site are Chinese in origin.) Nonetheless the article[1] has some interesting and (to me) surprising information on the politically entangled history of fluoride. An excerpt:
> One thing is certain, the name of the company with the biggest stake in fluoride’s safety was ALCOA–whose name is stamped all over the early history of water fluoridation.
> Throughout industry’s “roaring 20s,” the U.S. Public Health Service was under the jurisdiction of Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon, a founder and major stockholder of ALCOA. In 1931, the year Mellon stepped down, a Public Health Service dentist named H. Trendley Dean was dispatched to certain remote towns in the West where drinking-water wells contained high concentrations of natural fluoride from deep in the earth’s crust. Dean’s mission was to determine how much fluoride people could tolerate without obvious damage to their teeth–a matter of considerable concern to ALCOA. Dean found that teeth in these high-fluoride towns were often discolored and eroded, but he also reported that they appeared to have fewer cavities than average. He cautiously recommended further studies to determine whether a lower level of fluoride in drinking water might reduce cavities without simultaneously damaging bones and teeth, where fluoride settles in humans and other animals.
> Back at the Mellon Institute, ALCOA’s Pittsburgh industrial research lab, this news was galvanic. ALCOA-sponsored biochemist Gerald J. Cox27 immediately fluoridated some lab rats in a study and concluded that fluoride reduced cavities and that: “The case should be regarded as proved.”28 In a historic moment in 1939, the first public proposal that the U.S. should fluoridate its water supplies was made not by a doctor, or dentist, but by Cox, an industry scientist working for a company threatened by fluoride damage claims.29 Cox began touring the country, stumping for fluoridation.
1: https://fluoridealert.org/content/fluoride-commie-plot-or-ca...
But ... what then keeps us in the status quo of fluoridated water supplies? Aluminum companies, still? seems unlikely that their influence would hold sway for a century. A century during which we have found other environmental pollutants and enacted/enforced regulation to reduce or eliminate their influence.
> ...thinking that everyone who made these claims sounded like General Ripper.
The film didn't come out until half way into that century. And now we have generations who've never heard of it.
It is also peculiar that a toxicologist becomes a dentist, and ends up at the atomic energy commission[0].
It’s healthier to just slosh some vodka around to kill the germs (this wouldn’t work with kids, but hey they’ll lose their first teeth so who cares).
Apart from the hygienic value in brushing, whether you agree with it or not, halitosis is an offensive smell to most of the public. Some of the worst breath I’ve ever had to smell came from alcoholics whose spirit of choice is vodka.
But 1) kids brush teeth to form a healthy habit, and protect their gums. Kids who do not brush teeth often develop gum disease which can cause tooth loss in the future as adults.
2) residual fluoride isn’t anything to worry about. Just spit the toothpaste out. If you’re super worried about fluoride then look for calcium fluoride toothpaste which is not poisonous.
3) sloshing vodka or whiskey around doesn’t remove plague from your teeth and you will suffer tooth decay regardless.
Calcium fluoride is naturally occurring and was what was discovered to be so good. Well the water it was first discovered was contaminated with sodium fluoride from aluminium but the water that promoted the research was calcium fluoride.
But while sodium fluoride is poisonous in high levels. You could drink super high levels of calcium fluoride and be totally fine.
So if you’re super worried about sodium fluoride (which you shouldn’t be in tooth paste since you should spit it out and anything you swallowed is harmless as the dosage is so low) then the alternative is to source tooth paste with calcium fluoride. Which is harder to get but it does exist.
I understand that calcium fluoride isn't going to harm you because its not soluble, its just like eating some inert rocks but its basically pointless to add to toothpaste.
I'm not worried about fluoride, its very helpful for dental health, I did a bunch of my PhD on this.
The parent comment I originally replied to is.
Just like learning best practices in computer language-- fire up that REPL and don't do shit because it's not a real application.