Comment by ChaoticGood | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChaoticGood | Hacker News Reader

It is a great idea to revisit public policies that were put into place at the same time Doctors were advertising Cigarettes as healthy. Water is a precious resource and should be protected as such.

"Generally, in Germany fluoridation of drinking water is forbidden. The relevant German law allows exceptions to the fluoridation ban on application. The argumentation of the Federal Ministry of Health against a general permission of fluoridation of drinking water is the problematic nature of compuls[ory] medication." (Gerda Hankel-Khan, Embassy of Federal Republic of Germany, September 16, 1999).[0]

Germany halted its water fluoridation in the 1970s and France never started.[1]

[0] http://www.slweb.org/50reasons.html [1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/17/water-fluoridat...

Generally Europe doesn't fluoridate its water, true, but the practical effect is a bit more nuanced. For example, Germany has mostly moved its fluoridation program from water to salt: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16156167

In Denmark the water isn't fluoridated, but its natural levels of fluoride are only slightly lower than the levels that U.S. cities add (for example in the Copenhagen water supply, fluoride is around 0.6 mg/L). So it's a bit pedantic to claim that it isn't fluoridated. It's true that the utility company is not adding more fluoride to the water, but the end result is still that the pipes are delivering tap water with fluoride in it.

Fluoridation has been mandatory in Ireland since the 50s. Considering how radically Irish lifestyles have changed in the last few decades (less poverty, better access to dental products, inexpensive/free dental care etc) I think it's crazy we're still forcefully mass medicating the majority of the population without their consent. Although mostly harmless, excessive fluoridation was recently linked to hypothyroidism in a UK study. I think it's time to seriously reconsider the decision instead of the occasional self-assurance everything is fine as is.

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