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submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[-] [email protected] 274 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Toxicologist here. I think that take is dishonest or dumb.

Taking a lethal dose is almost never the concern with any substance in our drinking water.

Hormones, heavy metals, persistent organic chemicals, ammonia are all in our drinking water. But for all of them we can't drink enough water to die from a high dose.

Some of them still have a large effect on our bodies.

It's about the longterm effects. Which we need longterm studies to learn about. That makes them harder to study.

Still doesn't mean flouride does anything bad longerm. But the argument is bad.

[-] [email protected] 116 points 6 months ago

Yeah, by this argument lead in the water isn't a concern.

[-] [email protected] 110 points 6 months ago

You just made me mad by helping me realize that the Trump bros are going to break water by removing fluoride long before they fix water by removing lead.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

They like the lead, though!

(Probably. I mean, they did in Flint, MI...)

[-] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Removing fluoride won’t break the water. However, it may break our teeth.

[-] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago

Yeah but lead bioaccumulates where as fluoride/ine doesn't

[+] [email protected] -18 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Are you sure fluoride doesn't? It does accumulate in the soil, building up in crops. Considering fluoride exposure from all sources, many people are above upper safe limits, even from tea drinking alone

I don't think fluoride should be added to water as it just pollutes the environment, where 99.99% of water isn't coming in contact with teeth

[-] [email protected] 35 points 6 months ago

It doesn't. This is high-school chemistry.

Fluoride only "accumulates" up to the peak concentration of the environment (no further) on places where it is removed from contact with that environment.

You can only accumulate fluoride in the soil if you keep adding it and there is almost no rain to wash it away.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago

Yup, same with PFAS and forever chemicals. Maybe I'm ignorant because I'm not a doctor, but I don't know if this line of thinking holds water - pun not intended.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

lead poisoning becomes evident pretty early though doesn't it? (With respect to kids)

I would think that the ratio of persistent exposure to unsafe level has got to be easily higher in cases like Flint than any fluoride-in-the-water usage. Just speculation on my part.

What measures are taken to avoid screwing up the dosage, anyone know? Maybe predilute so that an oops requires multiple buckets instead of vials?

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this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024

1627 points (96.8% liked)

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