(You were told not to swallow the fluoride in school because it’s significantly more concentrated than contents in the water supply. The dose makes the medicine and the poison.)
(Saying that fluoride accumulates profoundly misses the point: it is supposed to accumulate. What fluoride doesn’t do is accumulate in soft tissues, which is why acute exposures to high doses of fluoride don’t guarantee intellectual forestallment like lead frequently does.)
That there are places around the world that have high with F doesn't make it safe. There are places in the world that had catastrophically high rates of cretinism. Turns out it was a natural factor in an otherwise idyllic natural setting.
I am aware that fluorine is supposed to accumulate in your teeth and doesnt in "soft" tissue; but it also accumulates in your bones and anywhere there is calcium.
Bones and teeth are not dead scaffolding, but an integral part of your body's biochemical system. I should know - they gnawed a hole into my hip to get at my marrow.
Again: it’s supposed to bioaccumulate there. Bioaccumulation is a part of homeostasis; the fact that iron (calcium, etc.) bioaccumulates is neither a reason to avoid it nor to exceed a healthy dietary quantity. And the evidence is overwhelmingly supportive of municipal fluoride levels being both safe and sufficient for dental health.
The whole thing with fluoridated water is that whilst small doses may be harmless for most people, the more you consume the worse it is, and plenty of people - based on official recommendations - drink a lot of tap water each day.
What figures can you point to on mg/L of fluoride in (commonly consumed) green tea vs tap water?
Even aside from that, it’s a specious argument: people who want to avoid fluoride can just avoid green tea; it’s much harder to avoid it in tap water.
As for “delusional panic”: it matters a lot for iodine absorption and thyroid function for some people, which is a both widespread and overlooked/diminished, at great harm and cost to those who are affected and unable to get help.
For what it’s worth I’m not advocating for removal of fluoride from tap water, but there does need to be more recognition of the harms to those affected and serious efforts made to develop treatment approaches for those with iodine deficiencies and thyroid dysfunction, as it really is a catastrophic problem for a lot of people.
Municipal tap water in the US is fluoridated between 0.7mg/L and 1.2mg/L, per the CDC's 1962 guidelines[1]. To my knowledge, most municipalities choose the lower end of that range (since the effects are diminishing and, well, it's cheaper).
By contrast, at least one survey of black tea infusions finds an average of 2.65mg/L[2]. So over twice the CDC's highest baseline for municipal fluoridation.
(Note: at that average for black tea, an adult would still need to drink ~4L of black tea a day to pass the CDC's tolerable upper limit. People grossly overestimate both how much fluoride is dangerous, and how much they actually consume.)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34343066/
General discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_tea#Fluoride...
Your relationship with cavities doesn't change anything about the statistics of cavities with and without flouride in people's diet.
I was merely pointing out that your anecdote is already part of the statistical evidence and not particularly useful to a discussion of whether it should be added to water
"I don't want it in my water" is actually a better and more relevant thing to say. As irrational as they are, peoples comfort levels, personal beliefs, and fears are rational to consider for policy decisions. (All people have irrational beliefs , fears, etc - its just a fact of people).