Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Feds Say It's Time To Cut Back On Fluoride In Drinking Water

Posted by timothy on from the my-amount-of-fluoride-right-or-wrong-but-my-amount-of-fluoride dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Federal health officials Monday changed the recommended amount of fluoride in drinking water for the first time since 1962, cutting by almost half the maximum amount of fluoride that should be added to drinking supplies. The Department of Health and Human Services recommended 0.7 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water instead of the long-standing range of 0.7 to 1.2 milligrams. The change is recommended because now Americans have access to more sources of fluoride, such as toothpaste and mouth rinses, than they did when fluoridation was first introduced in the United States,' Dr. Boris Lushniak, the deputy surgeon general, told reporters during a conference call.

4 of 314 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's finally time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Britain has better dental health than the USA. But keep peddling that century old myth if it makes you feel better.

  2. Re:It's finally time by Chrisq · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Britain has better dental health than the USA. But keep peddling that century old myth if it makes you feel better.

    My wife is American and finds this particularly funny. When she came to the UK she had a lot of treatment that she could not have afforded in the USA, and our daughter has orthodontic treatment without charge - and some of her relatives who have had teeth removed because they could not afford treatment still make jokes about British teeth

  3. Re:Its about time by BonThomme · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Out of a population of about three-fourths of a billion, under 14 million people in Europe receive artificially-fluoridated water."

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoridation_by_country

    You might ask yourself why you've embraced a myth.

  4. Re:It's finally time by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's amazing to me the number of people who think the government, who can't seem to run anything well, should be running healthcare and dental care.

    Tell that to the people of Norway,New Zealand,Japan,Belgium,United Kingdom, Kuwait, Sweden, Bahrain, Brunei, Canada, Netherlands, Austria, United Arab Emirates, Finland, Denmark, Luxembourg, France, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Cyprus, Greece, Spain, South Korea, Iceland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland and Israel, all of whom have had government run health care for at least 20 years, some going back as far as 1938.

    And most of those countries have higher-rated health care systems than the US and eleven of those countries have greater levels of economic freedom and social mobility than the US.

    So you might want to take your tired tropes to the back yard and put them out of their misery.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.