I don’t care if she relocates to Belize in December of 2012 as long as she can deliver the votes.

I don’t expect her to do that, I expect that she’d be offered a post in the Perry administration that will lend some credibility to her skill at getting to the roots of things. Whether she will accept, and whether she will thrive if she does accept, who knows?

Mew

The reaction was ..less positive.

Mew

Given the number of trial lawyers looking for government pockets to extract cash from, it seems to this cat that if fluoride was a problem, we’d see advertisements for “If you or your parents were exposed to tap water…”

And yet, we don’t.

This tells me that, while there may be more refinement needed – and as Uma links above – in the process, but that it does not pose a threat.

As for the origin of the fluoride used, I fail to see a threat in it’s source. Are you concerned that the gold fillings in your teeth may have been some pharaoh’s bauble at one point?

Finally, have you ever looked at the contents of your milk, and your cereal, and your meat? You’re getting vitamins and minerals and antibiotics in your diet every day unless you’re growing your own. This isn’t just fluoride, and .. the results aren’t all bad, if you go back and compare life expectancies and disease rates in the 1920s to the 1950s.

Mew

the local WalMart doesn’t have cases of bottled water – with the ingredients and source in federally-mandated easy-to-read print right on the bottles?

Seriously?

You’re welcome to disagree with mandatory fluoridation, or vitamin D in milk, or iron shavings in Cheerios (from scrap metal, by the way – run a magnet over a bowl sometime) are a concern for some.

I know from exotic food allergies, I have some, my SO has some, our child has some. Grocery shopping is an endless cycle of “read the ingredients, nope X can’t eat that, try the next brand”. Going out to eat often means asking to speak to the cook.

You, however, are asserting a more general problem to be true, with no evidence, and worse, asserting there to be “no other option” … the lack of evidence you present and the inaccuracy of your secondary assertion lead me to conclude you’re talking out of your hat, repeating something you read, not something you live.

I don’t question that fluoride is a problem for a small percentage of us. I do not think, especially based on the lack of evidence presented, that it’s a real problem. Unwise, perhaps.

By the way, do you recall where and when fluoridation was discovered to help dental health? A little town in Texas where the water naturally contained fluoride, and where nobody needed a dentist.

Mew

Nobody is forcing you to do anything. That’s an unbelievably large canard.

Go live with the Amish if you want unfortified, unpreservatived, unaltered foods. Drill your own well if you want unfortified water.

This is not “forced”. This is “making a choice”. Your solution is just as much a “choosing for others” as the solution you reject .. only with fewer proven health benefits.

Mew

Good grief.

I’m not saying the government-mandated fluoridation levels are “optimal”, but I am saying that you are seriously overreacting when you confuse me with someone who supports big government.

You are also confusing something that’s under control of your city council, either as a department or as a managed monopoly, with a conspiracy.

Mew

Besides calling people who disagree about where on the slope to pitch the tent statists, that is.

Mew

Unless every problem is a nail, which I dispute, then the right tool for a big percentage of all problems is not a hammer.

For the remaining subset, though, the hammer is the right tool.

You strike me as someone who rejects the idea that there are nails. That is, someone who would prefer anarchy to a constitutionally restricted government.

I .. disagree with that conclusion.

Mew

Fluoridation was one example. Vitamin enhancements another.

Whether you are an anarchist or not, your position is sufficiently outside the mainstream to make one wonder.

Mew

they mostly affect river- and lake-based systems.

The only thing wrong with the wells was that the aquifer was over igneous rock, so ..quite naturally .. the water ended up with traces of radium, barium, and a couple other negative-long-term-effects minerals.

Mew

I can tell you, from personal experience, that the name brands taste better than bargain bleach.

Mew

It’s just that reverse osmosis filters are expensive, and distillation units, while they can be built pretty cheap, require lots of maintenance.

Mew

I have, as I mentioned, my own dietary restrictions, as do the rest of my family.

None of us have the same long-term prognosis, but without the federal food labeling guidelines – a rather statist thing – grocery shopping would be very challenging. In this case, I’ll take the statist position.

In fluoridation of water, I’ll agree that it’s become routine, and that maybe it shouldn’t be. I’m not familiar with early-onset osteo, does it have a statistically significant link to fluoride?

Mew

mostly calcium and iron around here.

Better than it was a decade ago – zebra mussels started congregating on the water intakes for the whole Chicago area. The females would lay their eggs, the males would fertilize the entire Chicago metro water supply…

Then there’s Milwaukee, where they lowered the level of chlorine, in response to a similar “it doesn’t need to be there in that concentration” campaign.. and found that it does, in fact, need to be in that concentration to kill cryptosporidum… and if crypto isn’t killed, it will kill anyone with a suppressed immune system.

Mew

What you’re describing sounds like lime and calcium, and is probably contra-indicated for you. Not sure.

The fluoride, though .. unless it’s in its’ acidic form, won’t eat your toilet, and if it is in its’ acidic form, it won’t coat your dishes, it’ll eat them too. Assuming, of course, your toilet and dishes are both ceramic.

All that said, there are proven benefits (and proven downsides) to fluoridation, especially to children of unattentive parents. There are also health problems associated with adult cavities. I think the trade-off is a tolerable one, but am open to hearing – with statistics proving causality – that I am in error.

Mew

Specifically their Linus Pauling Institute.

Please pay extra attention to the presence of fluoride in non-fluoridated foods like .. chicken.

Also, please note that fluoride is sometimes used in the treatment of osteoporosis as it encourages increases in bone density.

Mew