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Originally Posted by Ustwo
Go read the links I provided earlier and then come back.
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I did read the links you provided (the first link by the way is ridiculous). All I see, however, is the conclusion that ever since water fluoridation has been introduced as a policy, dental hygiene has improved based on data collected from populations. This is debatable but not the issue that I am most concerned about.
What concerns me is a lack of studies about the overall health risks or benefits of fluoride. I did find a Chinese study claiming lower IQs in areas with fluoridated water ( link :
http://www.fluoride-journal.com/00-33-2/332-74.pdf ). There are also a few studies claiming that fluoride causes cancer and the weakening of bones (see wikipedia article for links). I did not find any studies about fluoride being safe in the long term.
The only argument which I have seen in favor of the safety of fluoride is that there is no long term health risks are statements that this is a natural occurring phenomenon and hence must be safe. This proves in no way that this procedure does not have adverse health affects, it only shows that these affects if they exists are not severe enough to cause the water to be considered unsafe. It also generalises the many different compounds which are considered fluorides and disregards the fact that while some of these compounds may be safe, most probably are not.
Now I am not claiming that fluoride is not safe or that it is; I would be stupid to do so with what little evidence I have. All I am saying is that there is a potential for it to be unsafe, that there are not enough studies that prove its long term safety let alone its short term safety and that even without knowing for a fact that it is safe, that is was introduced into our population's drinking water.
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Originally Posted by Sun Tzu
Why do you like it?
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I like it because its a common mistake which I made myself before looking at a periodic table to make sure. Fluorine != floride. Fluorides contain fluorine but they are not interchangable. So fluoride is a family of compounds, fluorine is an element. This is important because the fluoride family contains so many compounds that saying they are safe is impossible since they are so different from each other.