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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Why did many European countries discontinue fluoridation? https://www.euronews.com/health/2024/11/23/trump-could-push-...

> However, in 1973, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that there was no legal basis for fluoridation…. The debate hasn’t been meaningfully revived since then, Hofman told Euronews Health. "People started to say, ‘Well, the government should not give us some medicine [when] we cannot choose where to buy our drinking water from," she said.

That’s the “little c” conservative viewpoint. You don’t need to prove it’s harmful. The default should be not putting chemicals in everyone’s drinking water.

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but youre taking chemicals out right? and lots of water has natural flouride?

there is definitely an argument for an optimal amount of minerals in water being non zero (not only because having it that clean would be practically expensive) but also because we benefit from natural minerals. now if some natural water source isnt as good as another one, why not correct it? we have the technology.

especially at the community level. the little c stance should be to let communities decide, not ban it from the top down.

    > and lots of water has natural flouride?

100% the treatment plant is adjusting for the natural amount of flouride to meet specific target PPM

im not saying they are putting too much in. im saying natural water is already fluorinated in many places and doesnt need supplementation. so to treat fluorinful water as unnatural is disingenuous.

You are assuming they are just randomly flouridating water without measuring for target levels. I don't even know if you are thinking this through clearly as if they are just randomly dumping flouride into water supplies without measuring against specific targets.

I didn’t say anything remotely like that, pretty much the opposite actually.

> im saying natural water is already fluorinated in many places

Fluoridated water seems not to have major effects.

I wouldn't want to drink, touch, or be near fluorinated water.

Why does the “little c” conservative look to Europe when convenient, hmm?

> Why did many European countries discontinue fluoridation?

Could it have something to do with the increasing use of fluoridated toothpaste?

Probably. But why take fluoride out of the water?

Because if adding fluoride to water isn't additionally preventative beyond the use of toothpaste, then adding the fluoride to the public water system is just wasting public funds.

Do not discount the tendency of Europeans to be wellness hippies.

Thanks for sharing the link. Learned something new today.

Nobody tell him what chemicals were put in his drinking water to produce it. This might be the dumbest sentence uttered yet.

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