Misinformation campaigns increasingly target the cavity-fighting mineral, prompting communities to reverse mandates. Dentists are enraged. Parents are caught in the middle.
The culture wars have a new target: your teeth.
Communities across the U.S. are ending public water fluoridation programs, often spurred by groups that insist that people should decide whether they want the mineral — long proven to fight cavities — added to their water supplies.
The push to flush it from water systems seems to be increasingly fueled by pandemic-related mistrust of government oversteps and misleading claims, experts say, that fluoride is harmful.
“The anti-fluoridation movement gained steam with Covid,” said Dr. Meg Lochary, a pediatric dentist in Union County, North Carolina. “We’ve seen an increase of people who either don’t want fluoride or are skeptical about it.”
There should be no question about the dental benefits of fluoride, Lochary and other experts say. Major public health groups, including the American Dental Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, support the use of fluoridated water. All cite studies that show it reduces tooth decay by 25%.
That’s a dangerous path to go down, considering scientific consensus once thought lobotomies were appropriate treatment for unruly housewives, lead was acceptable to put in… pretty much everything, tobacco isn’t as bad as you think, burning fossil fuels doesn’t cause global warming… etc etc. (don’t get me started on nutrition)
You know what’s really useful? Understanding the science yourself. That’s difficult though, which is why most people treat it like a religion.
Have faith.
You know one of the key differences between science and religion? Theories are changed/developed in the face of empirical, experimentally reproducible evidence. If we learn we were wrong about something, we change our practices to match our new knowledge of reality. That’s why smoking is discouraged and even outlawed in some places. That’s why we limit lead exposure now. The people who don’t have their heads buried in their own asses are very much aware fossil fuels are contributing to climate change.
There was never a consensus that lobotomies were an appropriate treatment for anything. I don’t know whose crusty asshole you pulled that shit out of. (Source: my psych degree, I actually studied this shit.)
You seem to be under this blatantly wrong assumption that “scientific consensus” means anyone in a white coat is an infallible member of the priestly caste.
Yeah, but you don’t understand the science.
You have faith in other people who might. That’s how you treat it like a religion.
I don’t perform my own surgeries or diagnose my own illnesses. Doesn’t mean doctors are wizards.
I and others who follow science don’t trust by blind faith, we trust based on the training and expertise of those doing the research. I am not qualified to make decisions about chemicals or engineering or stuff like that, so I trust those who are. And one or two assholes willing to falsify data for their own agendas will not survive peer review of the rest of the scientific community.
Unless you’re convinced the entire scientific community is in cahoots to pull off some grand conspiracy. In which case you’re a hopeless fucking nutjob and we’re all just wasting our breath until you get on your meds.
I don’t even understand their argument. Scientists have been wrong in the past, therefore fluoride is definitely dangerous in the amount added to drinking water?
Ah, another lie about scientific consensus.
Do you need another history lesson?
That depends. Will it be based on evidence or will you just continue to lie about things like scientific consensus and scientific papers?
But sure, go ahead and give me a ‘history lesson’ about the scientific consensus on lobotomies.
Which doesn’t mean another website about how people who weren’t scientists thought it was a good idea. That doesn’t make your lie true.
It’s not feasible to expect every person to know everything about the world. Experts exist for a reason and our trust in them is what pulled us out of the dark ages. Seems to me you use contrarianism as a means of exercising a misguided sense of superiority. The data shows fluoride is safe and effective. Until that changes there is no reason to condemn its use beyond baseless fear mongering.
Yeah man.
See you in church on Sunday?
I fully encourage you to do some research to support your hypothesis. Until then you’re just JAQing off.
Sure bud.
You know what’s really useful? Not conflating “a thing that happened” with “a thing based on scientific consensus”
American Institute for Economic Research Menu How Government Prolonged the Lobotomy Vincent GelosoVincent Geloso Raymond-J-MarchRaymond J. March – August 1, 2019Reading Time: 3 minutes AIER >> Daily Economy >> History Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrint
Ramming an icepick through someone’s eyelid to remove a part of their brain sounds like a horrifying method of torture. However, this procedure, named the lobotomy, was a common method to treat mental illness in the United States for nearly 40 years. From 1936 until 1972, nearly 60,000 people were lobotomized. Most lobotomies were performed without the patient’s or their legal caretaker’s consent.
Unsurprisingly, the procedure was a spectacular failure. After surgery, patients often found themselves paranoid, emotionally volatile, incontinent, and with severely impaired intelligence. Surgical complications often left patients unable to function independently, requiring constant supervision and caretaking. When a patient was released from the asylum after being lobotomized, they typically found themselves returning within a few months. Upon their return, they often underwent a second (or, in one case, fourth) lobotomy.
The lobotomy has been described as “one of the most spectacular failures in the history of medicine.” But unlike many historic medical practices which seem barbaric and detrimental only in hindsight, the lobotomy was scorned and dismissed by medical professionals when it became most popular. By 1941, the American Medical Association denounced the lobotomy as ineffective. Shortly after, a world-wide consensus developed along the same lines. However, the procedure continued to grow in popularity, eventually reaching a “lobotomy boom” in the mid-1940s and early-1950s.
Consider this: you are making the same “Science is a removed… sometimes” argument that Mack made on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. You are making the exact same argument that was intended to show how unbelievably stupid he is.