The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday announced it will begin the process of pulling prescription fluoride drops and tablets for children off the market. The supplements are usually given to kids at high risk for cavities.
The news release suggested that ingested fluoride can alter a child’s gut microbiome and cause weight gain, thyroid disorders and “possibly decreased IQ.”
the agency said the best way to keep kids’ teeth strong is to stop eating so much sugar.
So we’re going to war on sugar and the way it’s marketed towards children?
There’s a grocery store near me where it seems like a quarter of the products are candy or some kind of sweet. Of course I bought some ice cream 😆
The U.S. going to war against an idea has never gone wrong!
Things we will prevent children from getting: sugar, fluoride
Things we will NOT prevent children from getting: lead
Things we will NOT prevent children from getting: lead, covid, whooping cough, measles, M.E., diabetes
I really worry this is a stepping stone. They’ll next try and ban children’s toothpaste with fluoride (lower amounts than adult toothpaste due to the risk of kids swallowing it) and after that they’ll ban or demand much lower levels of fluoride in all toothpaste.
The only place you’ll be able to get it will be from a dentist and it’ll be deemed “medically unnecessary and experimental” so not covered by government insurance for the poor and possibly not by some scummy and especially short-sighted private dental plans (which are only really discount plans and a free teeth cleaning coupon anyways compared to regular non-teeth health insurance which actually covers procedures a lot of the time). The teeth of the poor will rot even more and serve as an even stronger class identifier.
I don’t normally think that removing pawns from the chessboard would meaningful change things but in this one instance I think if RFK got hit by a tidal wave of dewormer and/or dropped over dead from an overdose of the poison he takes this nonsense would stop. Yes they’d still be tearing down medicaid and still push some random woo bullshit but not all of this garbage this fast and this stridently.
This shit is getting wild. Not only do you have to stock estrogen nowadays, but fluoride too?!
Tablets should be taken away from kids, they get way too much screentime
:I-was-saying:
Dental industry about to boom in a couple years and another childcare cost added to the pile
Also, to reduce sugar-intake, we’re relabeling candy as a vegetable.
The dentists will be pleased… (This is a joke, I’ve never met a single dentist who was favorable of poor oral health. Don’t hate on the dentists, they’re pretty fucking important.)
ETA: Oh no! I made a sarcastic comment on my sarcastic fake quote and now it looks like I believe one of these two things is true! None of this is real. Except the part about how cool and important dentists are.
The tenth dentist right now:
Why is there an argument with the right about this?
Just say “okay, we’re replacing fluoride in tap water with mandatory swish or bite plate application. It works better, costs less, has less chance of user error and it sidesteps all the legitimate concerns about over or mis application of fluorine.“
They don’t actually care about flouride, dude. They hate socially addressing health problems in a way that isn’t punitive.
mandatory swish or bite plate application
i’m sorry but i don’t know what this means
Back when I was your age…
They brought fluoride concentrates with bubblegum flavor in little paper cups on a brown plastic tray for us to swish with for like five minutes or whatever in kindergarten.
I’ve met other people who got disposable arc shaped cups that someone would squeeze a fluoride gel out in and have them bite down into. That was how some dentists offices would do it too.
It’s a more targeted and effective way to make sure the people who benefit most (children) get the most intense and useful dosage in a controlled and precise way.
We don’t need to spray and pray into municipal water supplies now that there are more effective and reliable ways to reach people with preventative care. I think it’s actually counterproductive to rely on municipal water supplies because more and more Americans live out in the sticks on wells that don’t provide the treatment.
Of course, if we weren’t paying for massive amounts of industrial grade fluorine to dump into water supplies then the companies that make it would have to pay to dispose of it so it’s unlikely that better system of care will naturally come about under the perverse incentives of the market.
I think it’s actually counterproductive to rely on municipal water supplies because more and more Americans live out in the sticks on wells that don’t provide the treatment.
Brother what? Let’s not do this
What do you mean? In my admittedly limited experience less than ten percent of private wells get fluoridated. American housing has seen tremendous growth in areas not served by municipal water. Fluoridation becomes less effective with each passing year. Why not switch to targeting the treatment directly and close that gap?
Most people live in cities. You’re saying we need to take it out of the municipal supply and rely solely on private dentists to administer the fluoride. You’re saying this is better because it helps people in rural areas get the treatment. If you wanted to help the rural people then you would just offer OTC treatments for free rather than take it away from the cities.
I’m saying administer it in schools like before.
Teachers have to buy pencils and paper for their students, they aren’t getting fluoride for free somehow
Isn’t the science pretty conclusive that it benefits adults too.
I’m pretty sure there have been small scale examples of this where conspiracy theorists managed to remove the fluoride from tap water and then 10 years later cavities absolutely skyrocketed.
It does but not near as much as it does in children who are building up enamel much faster. The whole point of water supply fluoridation was to reach children, not adults.
My point is that water supply fluoridation only made sense in a situation where you couldn’t reliably reach children and people didn’t have dental care. In a nation with mandatory public schooling and one which could easily provide dental care to children at the very least it is a goofy system.
Lol what planet do you live on where people have dental care in the US
Posting from the successful George mcFly timeline
I’m not suggesting that dental care is widespread, only that the conditions which proscribe water supply fluoridation are no longer present and we shouldn’t be saying “no, keep the fluoridation” but instead “you’re right, municipal fluoridation is an outdated practice, fluoride rinse for children and free dental care for all!”
Dentists are locked behind paywall. If you leave that treatment up to professionals only, then the the only people who will get it are the ones who can afford and regularly get care. This leaves millions of people not getting the treatment.
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