I don't know about acidity, but fluoride has been implicated in many health problems. Here's a list of peer reviewed studies: http://fluoridealert.org/studytracker/?effect=&type=reviews&...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dose_makes_the_poison
Water fluoridation is at safe levels. Other fluoridation is not. Completely agree.
Oh, and eat a diet that has no carbohydrates in it.
I have no idea what you meant with the carbohydrate comment if you wouldn't mind explaining.
Oh and thanks for the down vote, but this isn't reddit.
You do ingest toothpaste, albeit only small amounts. Much like you ingest mouthwash, you just try to keep it to a minimum.
> HN's propensity for "don't like it? Just buy this gadget/start your own company/move to Somalia"-style rhetoric also makes an appearance.
What else can I suggest? In a democratic society that is your choice. You can fight to change the law, or you can work around it.
> I have no idea what you meant with the carbohydrate comment if you wouldn't mind explaining.
Since humans developed agriculture and started consuming large amounts of carbohydrates, they have experienced tooth decay. Fluoride is necessary to prevent it.
> Oh and thanks for the down vote, but this isn't reddit.
This discussion is completely off-topic and your comments are unhelpful. A downvote is justifiable.
Ridiculous. First, neither of us live in a democracy. There was no vote where the general populace elected to receive low doses of toxic minerals in our drinking water. Rather cabals of lobbyists persuaded municipal officials to add it under the guise of it being a good thing. Which has yet to be statistically demonstrated.
You don't know where I live! Though I'd agree that capitalist countries are not very democratic, at least not mine and the United States.
> There was no vote where the general populace elected to receive low doses of toxic minerals in our drinking water.
It varies by country.
"Toxic minerals" is an amusing statement given that virtually all substances are toxic in the correct dose. As someone else pointed out, sola dosis facit venenum: the dose makes the poison.
Your statement about toxicity is quite valid, nevertheless you can remove the word toxic and my point still stands.
I would love to know of the country that democratically elected to receive fluoride in their water.
Yeah, I'd just assumed from the way you worded that, that you didn't know where I lived. My bad.
In short, he's known as the father of Public Relations. Fluoride can only legally be disposed of in expensive toxic waste dumps, and Mr. Bernays came up with a plan to dispose of it for free by passing it through the human body. His public relations skills were so amazing that he even succeeded in making people (like you) want to ingest it.
This has no impact on its health benefits, however. For $1 a year, we get less cavities. This isn't marketing bullshit, it's science.
TLDR: most of Europe
That tells me all I need to know.
Says exactly what I claimed. I'm not going to waste my time finding primary sources, because your asinine response tells me all I need to know.
Therefore, "anti-fluoride" seems fitting.
If you must dispute water fluoridation on Hacker News, do so by making careful, factual, respectful comments.
The site guidelines specifically ask you not to call names. That includes both calling each other names as well as calling each others' arguments names (e.g. "woo").
Someone participating in this discussion would either know this from general knowledge, or could look it up.
People aren't that ignorant.
You have only to look up the rates of tooth decay among non-fluoridated countries to find that there is no difference whatsoever.
It doesn't matter what theirs is, the link I gave you isn't useful as a source, but as a list of sources.
I'm not sure how any of this relates to vaccines, since we are talking about fluoride. But anytime you want to know if something is true or not, the only way I know of is to dig deeper for more information.
One thing to keep in mind while digging in, we know there is a financial incentive behind pro-fluoridation studies (it is expensive for business to dispose of it). As far as I know, there isn't much financial incentive in being against fluoridation, save for some boutique toothpaste brands that would probably lack the resources to conduct peer reviewed studies.