Hacker News Reader

Comment by themgt | Hacker News Reader

What needs to stop happening is people ignoring objective reality just because the results happen to align with the other "team's" position on something.

"Out of a population of about three-quarters of a billion, under 14 million people (approximately 2%) in Europe receive artificially-fluoridated water."

The problem I continually see in the USA is the ascription of differences of opinion on [any topic] to America's Great Divide between enlightenment and barbarism. I find it often helpful to just check, what do these policies look like outside of America? It doesn't mean Europe got it right on fluoride, it just suggests against adopting the framing that your POV is 100% objective reality proven beyond doubt by Science™ and no rational person not in the throes of "own the [other team]" bad faith might disagree.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_country#...

View on HN

Fluorinated table salt. Naturally fluorinated water sources. Public healthcare that covers dental

European policy isn't based on modern fluoridation being dangerous, it's based on having alternative systems in place (which vary by country)

In Windsor Ontario, across from Detroit, they took fluoride out of water for nearly a decade before reversing that decision based on results: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/fluoride-water-system...

Maybe Utah will be a place with alternative systems, based on another thread it sounds like they have an interesting Mormon safety net. But I would hope states do pilot tests first at least. If studies show that the historic gap in dental health between fluorinated & unfluorinated communities no longer apply, then that would be data driven policy

But it seems like this policy is based on someone's common sense that you shouldn't put minerals in water

> based on another thread it sounds like they have an interesting Mormon safety net

as long as you're Mormon. Approximately 60% of the state.

It’s iodine in table salt not fluoride. In the US.

Never knew that France fluoridated their salt.

"In Switzerland 85% of domestic salt consumed is fluoridated and 67% in Germany. Salt fluoridation schemes are reaching more than one hundred million in Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Cuba. The cost of salt fluoridation is very low, within 0.02 and 0.05 € per year and capita. 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. "

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24308394/

(Sea salt and Kosher salt are the salts that aren't fluoridated and iodated in those countries, fancy, more expensive salts, regular table salt- and the salt added in commercial/restaurants has both.)

So sure, you don't need to fluoridate the water, if you fluoridate the salt instead. But you have to do it some way or another. And the US and Canada doesn't, at present fluoridate the salt because we have it in the water. Remove it from some people's water but don't add it to the salt because everyone else has it in the water? Bad combination.

“Dual fortification” is mandatory in Mexico.

>Public healthcare that covers dental

laughts nerviously in Dutch

heh, I feel it, I'm in Canada where oral healthcare is deemed cosmetic. Giving us some 22minutes satire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZsUp-DHMZ4 "do people really need to see & chew?"

That said, WHO does profiles of dental health, providing comparison:

https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/country-profil...

& for my own interest, Canada: https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/country-profil...

Didn't the NDP and Liberals recently pass universal government payer dental coverage in Canada?

It never made sense that dentistry somehow is considered a separate form of healthcare from the rest of your body.

Especially considering researchers are increasingly finding links between oral health and other conditions such as Alzheimer's heart disease. And that preventative dental care is so much cheaper and less invasive than treating major decay when care is delayed.

It’s not universal, but yes there is some coverage for young, old, and disabled people.

https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/dental/dental-car...

Ah yeah with our yearly widening own risk insurance too. Great system… for health insurance companies

yeah what EU country does that? Not Denmark...

Neither Spain apart from under 18 and pulling teeth.

In many US states, Medicaid covers dental. CHIPs, for kids, covers dental in every state.

Look - all for whatever science says is best, but wouldn’t countries with public healthcare also be incentivised to have fluoride in the water to reduce costs/public efficiency of public dental healthcare?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7546136 over half the table salt in France has fluoride

This Nevada health info has an in depth response on page 5 https://dpbh.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/dpbhnvgov/content/Programs...

this is a red herring. Who cares what other people are doing - we should look at the evidence and make decisions based on that.

the evidence can clme from seeing the results of what other people are doing

seeing the results of what other people doing is different from making decisions just because other people are doing it.

themgt quoted the 2% figure to show that the europoors reject fluoride in water, but neglects to mention that tap water often naturally contains significant levels of fluoride already, nevermind other fluoride-fortified foodstuffs.

When you watch any British tv the first thing you notice is teeth indeed.

Indeed. While the UK and the USA have comparable levels of dental health, in US television actors typically require very good (or rather, cosmetically appealing according to local norms) teeth in order to succeed. In the UK, it's less important.

Not just comparable, UK is actually a bit higher. The difference is the NHS doesn't cover anything cosmetic, so they are very healthy teeth but they look rubbish unless you're lucky.

in better condition than American teeth, studies find: https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20150602-do-the-british...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com