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The difference is that a consumer must purchased cereal or table salt.
Those good were selected for the additives because nearly everybody buys them. Especially salt, which like water you need to stay alive. It isn't just table salt. To avoid added iodine, you'd have to prepare all your own food (excepting fruits and a few other things) or go kosher.
So you couldn't come up with amount of $ of public benefit, could you? What about tax savings, make something up, my friend. Don't redirect attention from your insane propositions and Orwellian language using cheap tricks.
Western Diet is #1 cause of bad teeth. Perpetual stress and anxiety encourages people to indulge in the high sugar/high fat food products. Local governments introduce insane amount of stress and anxiety in the lives of the peons using tax codes and countless ordinances (to pay for all that public good). Local governments pay SQUAT for dental care, so it's mighty Samaritan of them to invest in fluoridation. If saving teeth is a priority there are dozens of things more important than alleged lack of fluoride in the drinking water.
To answer your question, the CDC studied whether fluoridation of water supplies was cost effective. Between 1979 and 1989, the CDC's study estimates that water fluoridation saved this country $39 billion a year. That's approximately $4 billion a year. BTW, that's after the cost of fluoridating the water is taken in to account.
I'm sure this study isn't perfect and its open to questions. How do you come up with the exact dollar amount of benefit from preventing a problem like tooth decay? It can easily be said that the miniscule amounts that cities spend to fluoridate water supplies is far less of a cost than the dental bills to fix the decay would be. This, of course, assumes people can afford to go to the dentist. In the absence of any other data though, the CDC's study is the best evidence we have and it says fluoridation is working and saving some money. It would save more if all communities fluoridated their water supply.
The problem with your comments about the "Western Diet" is that tooth decay was a problem in this country in the 18th and 19th centuries as well as in contemporary times. George Washington had false teeth. John Adams lost many teeth as he got older and was ridiculed by some newspapers as "old toothless Adams". There are many reasons that teeth decay. Not brushing, flossing, or using a water pick is as important as the diet one eats in terms of causing decay and tooth loss. Fluoride, given to children, at an early age has been scientifically demonstrated to prevent tooth decay.
I guess you don't believe an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? I do believe that and when the best argument that opponents of fluoridation can muster is that its a "deprivation of their liberty" it shows the bankruptcy of their position. Local governments have always had powers to protect the "Health, welfare, and safety" of their citizens. The Supreme Court early on recognized this an exception to any rights under the due process clause of the Constitution.
Tell us what else you believe. Do you believe immunization is a hoax? Do you think its unconstitutional to have laws that make restaurants and food vendors serve sanitary foods and uncontaminated beverages? Are you against pasteurizing milk? Inquiring minds want to know.
Last edited by markg91359; 10-11-2013 at 08:56 AM..
So you couldn't come up with amount of $ of public benefit, could you? What about tax savings, make something up, my friend. Don't redirect attention from your insane propositions and Orwellian language using cheap tricks.
Western Diet is #1 cause of bad teeth. Perpetual stress and anxiety encourages people to indulge in the high sugar/high fat food products. Local governments introduce insane amount of stress and anxiety in the lives of the peons using tax codes and countless ordinances (to pay for all that public good). Local governments pay SQUAT for dental care, so it's mighty Samaritan of them to invest in fluoridation. If saving teeth is a priority there are dozens of things more important than alleged lack of fluoride in the drinking water.
If the local water systems do not fluoridate, what Medicaid spends will go up. It does not matter whether the funds are raised by local collections for water bills or what we pay in state taxes. No fluoride in the water means taxpayers pay more for Medicaid and for their own dental care.
Diet? Yes, eating less sugar helps. But fluoridated water, toothpaste with fluoride, brushing, and flossing are needed, too. Do all of those and the need for expensive dental care goes way, way down.
There's no controversy about water fluoridation. There are, however, nuts in this country.
Back in the 1950s/1960s, water fluoridation was supposedly a Communist plot. Seriously, some people believed that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OpenD
Yes, exactly.
There is a wave of ignorant anti-science activism currently that is attacking mainstream science the way the Luddites once attacked the looms. People who don't understand science, or who fear it, are easy prey to hucksters selling their tales of denial... vaccines are bad, fluoridation is bad, climate change isn't happening, they're spying on you with those smart meters, the doctors don't want you to get well, etc... and oddly enough, people choose to believe those emotional appeals based on little to no credible evidence over the rationality of large scale well structured research.
This anti-fluoridation nonsense has been debunked over and over and over, but like crabgrass, it keeps coming back.
The only cure for this epidemic of anti-science, I'm afraid, is better education.
Well said. Unfortunately, I know some allegedly well educated people (all college educated with at least 1 with a Masters degree) who are at least 2 cans short of a six pack when it comes to this. People will believe wingnuts on the Internet who have their own agendas rather than reputable scientists. I don't think education can help them.
Well said. Unfortunately, I know some allegedly well educated people (all college educated with at least 1 with a Masters degree) who are at least 2 cans short of a six pack when it comes to this. People will believe wingnuts on the Internet who have their own agendas rather than reputable scientists. I don't think education can help them.
The same situation exists with refusal of vaccination by supposedly educated people who are unable to separate internet garbage from reputable sources but are convinced that their "research" shows that vaccines are harmful. We are seeing whooping cough in affluent communities because of undervaccination.
I highly recommend this site if you want to search on medical and science topics and not have to weed through the wingnut sites:
The same situation exists with refusal of vaccination by supposedly educated people who are unable to separate internet garbage from reputable sources but are convinced that their "research" shows that vaccines are harmful. We are seeing whooping cough in affluent communities because of undervaccination.
I highly recommend this site if you want to search on medical and science topics and not have to weed through the wingnut sites:
IMO, if adults want to chance getting the flu, tetanus, shingles, pneumonia, etc, that's their choice. Stupid, but their choice. However, allowing their children to go unvaccinated for measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, whooping cough, diptheria, etc is criminal IMO. What these people don't realize is that these "childhood diseases" can be life-threatening.
If the local water systems do not fluoridate, what Medicaid spends will go up. It does not matter whether the funds are raised by local collections for water bills or what we pay in state taxes. No fluoride in the water means taxpayers pay more for Medicaid and for their own dental care.
Yes, exactly. The medical problems caused by bad dental health are a hidden cost, as is the human suffering that results. But even just considering the reduction in dental health costs alone proves the public health benefit and the large payback to the taxpayers from making this very small investment.
As pointed out by the naysayers there are places that don't add fluoride. You can also drink bottled water that lacks fluoride. The rest of us want fluoride in our water. Live with it or move.
You got to be kidding, lack of fluoride in the water is the least worry of the folks partaking of the medicaid dental largess. Many (if not most) of them destroyed their teeth with high sugar diets, smoking&chewing, harder drugs, not brushing, avoiding check ups and high cost dentist visits long before medicaid kicks in (and fluoridated water doesn't do a squat to prevent that). Pay attention to the mouths of the working class folks (forget about people on medicaid), just open your eyes and look at the mouths of the middle class people who do harder labor for living, there is no damn thing fluoridated water did/could do for many of those folks, quite a few have a rotten mess for a mouth (no medicaid would pay to fix). Many seniors on medicaid have few teeth to call their own, just dentures. $38 is a highly creative number.
Last edited by RememberMee; 10-11-2013 at 09:48 PM..
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