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Comment by bicknergseng | Hacker News Reader

Ugh. I hate to think of all of the "I told you so's" from the misguided people in Portland who continually vote against fluoridating the water with no actual scientific basis for doing so.

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So you're saying that science says we should treat all drugs as being safe unless proven to be harmful?

Or think more broadly. Fluoridation of water carries a massive public health benefit, particularly to poorer families. Given the frequency of exposure across locations and generations, what negative effect it has appears to be extraordinarily very mild at best, while the benefit it provides is significant.

Whoops. I guess I'm uninformed on this one, but I thought the whole "Flouridation is bad" thing had some basis in truth? There have been a few other articles about it on HN.

Any chance I can get a more elaborate correction?

Here's some decent background:

http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/the-sanest-arguments...

I don't think the article you are linking is a good source. The first paragraphs are full of ad hominem attacks.

Studies showing that fluoride causes hyperactivity in rats go back to the 90s, according to the article. Maybe the people in Portland should be given the benefit of the doubt.

I understand the whole fluoride issue has been tainted by conspiracy theories, but honestly, it's not that unscientific to think that ingesting a known endocrine disruptor might have a biological effect.

Out of curiosity, do you have references on fluoride and endocrine disruption?

Further, I disagree regarding whether anyone should receive 'the benefit of the doubt'; we should defer to the many public health studies on the benefits of fluoride.

It's in the Newsweek article, which discusses several possible biological mechanisms for problems from fluoridation, complete with sources, many of which are direct links to studies. Perhaps read it?

  It's in the Newsweek article, which discusses several posible biological mechanisms 
  for problems from fluoridation, complete with sources, many of which are direct links 
  to studies. Perhaps read it?

No need to be rude here. I was curious about what the mechanism would be - even the reference pointed out in the Newsweek article[1] doesn't propose a model for how fluoride might disrupt endocrine levels.

[1] http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11571&page=265

I guess you have the results of a detailed poll which checked the Portland public's knowledge of the issues or are you being a tad patronizing in your assumptions?

Well, four votes within 60 years isn't exactly "continually", but I'll cede that point. Lots of Portlanders believe that fluoride is just fine, thank you (though the most recent vote was 60%-40%, sadly.)

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