Forget about flouride, what about the dangers of dihydrogen monoxyde?

Oh my GOD! We used to put Nitrogen in the air conditioners!

Actually, DDT is pretty harmless to humans. It does however, kill insects, birds (adult birds survive it, fledglings don’t, and eggshells are very thin), very small mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fish.

Now, as for fluoride. Who gives a crap? We’re all going to die anyhow, and since it takes an entire life-time for any ill side-effects of ‘possible’ fluoride build-up to even appear, well, I think you know what colorful metaphors I would use.

As far as the Teslar watch, never heard of it. It’s probably junk. I’ll take your word for it.

In other news…
Soilent Green is people.

Les, I usually agree with you—especially when you pillory the tinfoil hat crowd and the Godidiots.  But this time, you blew it.

You really, really ought to go out and find the science on this before you choose your stance.  I’m pretty good at spotting junk science (I read the news every day, so I see plenty of it), and the case against fluoride looks pretty darned solid to me.

Yes, the “Fluoride is Toxic Waste” meme is over the top.  But if you can look at the research that has been done (lots of it, with repeatable results) and conclude that fluoride isn’t a serious potential health risk, then I’m going to have a pretty tough time taking your opinions seriously in the future.

Dave, fluoride is used to help build healthy teeth.. we learned this in elementary school.  If it’s safe enough then.. I’ll drink it straight now.  Serve me up a frosty mug of fluoride. mmm-mmm good.

Here’s a tautology for you:

If your water department adds toxic fluoride compounds to the water, the best course of action is usually to drink and cook with bottled “spring” water.

If your water department adds toxic anything to the water, you should cook and drink water that is known to be clean.  But that’s rather begging the question, isn’t it?

The CDC seems to be OK with water fluoridation

You may well be disappointed with me then, Dave. I’ve read a number of studies including the ones put out by the CDC. Too much fluoride can cause problems, but not of the sort expounded upon in the attachment replicated above.

As DOF has already mentioned, the CDC has a wealth of information in regards to the studies that have been done over the years to see if there were any safety issues with fluoridated water. You can find a good summary with links to several at this link here.

Almost every single site I’ve come across that claims that fluoride is toxic happen to be a part of an “alternative medicine” website that is often selling herbal supplements or dubious water filtering systems. If you’re asking me whether I trust the CDC over sites with names like “holisticmed.com” then I’ll tell you that I’m going to go with the CDC every time.

Fluoride done killed mah pappy!

Sorry, I just had to say that

Well, I certainly don’t want to get in the middle of a fluoride war, but if one doesn’t buy the “potential health issues”, one can always oppose it on political grounds. The book The Fluoride Deception is heavily about how, in the 1930’s, the Fed’s got medical agencies to publicly support fluoride and black-listed scientists who opposed it. The reasoning was that fluoride (the pure toxic kind) was used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons so when traces of it (yes, probably harmless traces) started popping up in the environment around places engaged in the weapons industry, they wanted it to have a good public reputation.

And while that Teslar watch sounds like a bunch of hooey, not every nut-case theory out there is. Research has shown dangers (especially in children under 6) of cell phone usage… Well, research done outside the United States anyway. But then a lot of those countries don’t fluoridate their water their water either, so what do they know?

Anyway, writing to you from Portland, OR, the largest American city with unfluoridated water.

If anyone is curious about “scientific evidence” the National Academy of Sciences made this determination:

“the committee concluded unanimously that the present MCLG of 4 mg/L for fluoride should be lowered. Exposure at the MCLG clearly puts children at risk of developing severe enamel fluorosis”
and
“A few epidemiologic studies of Chinese populations have reported IQ deficits in children exposed to fluoride at 2.5 to 4 mg/L in drinking water. Although the studies lacked sufficient detail for the committee to fully assess their quality and relevance to U.S. populations, the consistency of the results appears significant enough to warrant additional research on the effects of fluoride on intelligence.”

The whole thing is here, for those that might want to read it…
Fluoride in Drinking Water

By the way, blood letting is coming back. Read Chapter 1 of the book, “Survial of the Sickest by Dr. Sharon Moalem, 2007. Hemochromatosis is a hereditary disease that disrupts the way the body metabolizes iron and if your ancestors are Western European, the odds are about one in three that you carry at least one copy of the gene. Only about 1 in 200 exhibit the disease, however. Seems it was bred into our heritage by those who survived the Black Plague. And the contemporary treatment of choice is blood letting. Fascinating read. Also a good source of evolutionary evidence for the doubting Thomases.

David- if you think the Teslar Watch is a good thing because it has Nikola Tesla’s name on it, do I have a deal for you: the Einstein necklace, guaranteed to protect you from alien death rays!  Only $599.99!

Hi Les, thanks for responding.

Your points are well taken here.  Sadly, I think your comments are indicative of a much larger and more disturbing problem.  That problem being the hazards of black-and-white thinking in a world that is colored in all shades of gray, but little or no black, or white.

You see, I too have a lot of faith in and respect for the CDC and other major institutions within the community of allopathic (mainstream) medicine.  I too have abundant contempt for quacks, charlatans and “experts for hire”.  I wish that the CDC, in particular, would be a voice that I could trust 100% of the time.

But there is money involved—a lot of money—and this means, just as surely as if controlled by the laws of physics, that they cannot be fully trusted. One must be wary of what they say.

I believe that doctors and researchers are, on the whole, ethical and diligent.  But I also know that there are enough douchebags among them to justify lingering skepticism.

And that’s where you have burst my bubble, Les, because you are normally one of my favorite skeptics.

So let me get this straight, Dave…

Les believes that the CDC is a more credible source than websites that disagree while peddling a holistic cure, and you think that he’s not being skeptical?

You can’t claim that he’s blindly trusting the CDC.  He’s said that he’s read the other side.  He just finds the CDC to be more credible in this case.  That is being skeptical.  He was skeptical of the claim that goes against what we’ve all been told, but he read the documentation anyways, because it could be right.  In his reading, he’s determined that the CDC seems more credible to him.

How should this at all be disappointing to you, unless you have an unnatural hate on for the CDC?  He did exactly what he always does, and just happens to believe the CDC in this case. 

If you feel that he is in error, then supply evidence from a more trustworthy source.

A bigger problem than flouridated water may be pharmaceuticals in the water supply. There is not yet enough research on the topic to come to solid conclusions about what, if anything, should be done, but here’s a link to a news article I read: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080309/ap_on_re_us/pharmawater_i

But there is money involved—a lot of money—and this means, just as surely as if controlled by the laws of physics, that they cannot be fully trusted. One must be wary of what they say.

David, I’d like to point out that the makers of every homeopathic/new age treatment can be accused of the same thing. When you add in the fact that most of them refuse to allow true double-blind tests or to release their own data it makes them even more suspect.

Stalin (allegedly) said it best Trust no one, not even yourself.

Given toothpaste is fluordated, seems the amount you will get from water is very low.  4mg per litre is 32mg per day if all water source you get are fluoridated (at 8 ltr per day, some of which will come from food). That is 32 THOUSANDTHS of a gram.

Dave, yes there is indeed a lot of money involved. It’s no coincidence that the vast majority of sites that have ominous warnings of the dangers of Fluoride also tend to be sites that are peddling so-called alternative medicines and herbal supplements. The herbal supplement industry makes over $21 billion dollars a year selling alternative medicines.

I have also admitted that high fluoride levels can cause problems. The most common of which is enamel fluorosis. The claims that it causes cancer, impairs the immune system, and other various severe issues aren’t backed up by the research I’ve seen. Also as I’ve mentioned previously there are places around the country where they actually have to reduce the amount of fluoride in the water because it’s already naturally high. There was an New York Times article about this back in 2006:

WASHINGTON, March 22 — High concentrations of fluoride that occur naturally in a small minority of the nation’s drinking water supplies can damage teeth and bones, and federal regulators should reduce the level that is considered safe for human consumption, a National Academy of Sciences panel said Wednesday.

The 12-member panel, which spent almost three years studying the issue at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency, did not address the health effects of the much smaller amounts of fluoride added to the drinking water of 160 million Americans to prevent tooth decay.

Instead, its report dealt with the 200,000 people whose water supplies have at least four parts per million of naturally occurring fluoride, the environmental agency’s current maximum.

“Our committee concluded unanimously that E.P.A. should lower the maximum contaminant level goal for fluoride,” said John Doull, the committee chairman, a retired professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Kansas.

A majority of the committee, Mr. Doull said, concluded that water fluoride concentrations at or near the current standard caused adverse health effects.

[...] A vast majority of Americans consume water containing 0.7 to 1.2 parts of fluoride per million, well below the limits set by environmental and health authorities, the study said.

But about 10 million people live in areas where the drinking water contains naturally occurring fluoride. Besides the 200,000 whose levels are four parts per million or higher, 1.4 million more are drinking water with two parts per million, a so-called secondary limit set by the E.P.A. to protect against cosmetic dental discoloration and other effects.

The communities that have high levels of natural fluoride are widely scattered around the nation, the report said. Because the problem has been well reported over the years, many of the people affected are already drinking bottled water or using commercially available filters to reduce the fluoride to safer levels.

[...]While most panel members concluded that this severe enamel loss should be classified as an adverse health effect, Dr. Doull said 2 of the 12 members felt there was not enough evidence to classify it as more than a cosmetic problem. But he added that all concurred with the recommendation that the maximum allowable level of fluoride should be lowered to prevent the condition.

Several studies indicate an increased risk of bone fracture in populations exposed to fluoride concentrations in water at or near the limit, the committee said. Although fluoride increases bone density as it accumulates, there is evidence that under certain conditions it can weaken bones and increase the risk of fractures, it said.

Now compare that to the health claims being made in the text of the original entry.

Well to hell with Fluoride. It is just another of the many things we’ve dumped into our environment. As I look around and see all of the crap we’ve put everywhere, blood-letting and leeches are actually starting to look like a good idea…

Edison was in no way a good man. He was a nasty, conniving thief. If he had had it his way, we would all be enslaved to his direct current. Plus he fried dogs with AC trying to discredit Tesla. People need to stop thinking that Edison and Marconi were anything but quick to the patent office with stolen ideas.

I haven’t really been paying much attention to this thread, but Otkon, what the hell does Edison having been a bastard have to do with the Teslar Watch being total BS or for that matter, the Fluoridation “controversy”?  Are you just trying to get all the staunch Thomas Edison fanatics (you know, those bastards that insist on using incandescent lightbulbs instead of CFL or LED lights) all riled up? Is that it?

History does indeed show Edison to have been a dick, and it’s quite possible Marconi was the same sort, but the fact that both were dishonest idiots in no way makes all of Tesla’s ideas correct or true. Sure the man was a genius and definitely had some innovative ideas (like as you indirectly pointed out, AC current), but he also had some really fucking weird ideas too, like the resonator he claimed could topple a building through harmonic resonance (the Mythbusters addressed that particular device in one of their episodes btw).

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that movie, The Prestige, you know the one where David Bowie plays Tesla and he invents a teleportation machine?  Sorry, that’s all bullshit, even if Tesla really did think it was possible. If he did invent one of those or something like it, where is it today? Why don’t we teleport to work instead of drive? Could it be that he never actually made such a thing? Naw, musta been that asshole Edison burnt down his lab and drove him out of town.

BTW, I realize you aren’t claiming that Tesla invented a teleporter, it was just an example. I would love however to know who really invented the light bulb. I know there is some issue of Marconi actually being the first person to build a radio (invent the radio), just as Bell apparently was not the first person to coble together a telephone.  He was however the first person to have the fucking foresight to patent the idea, and ultimately that is all that matters to the history books. 

Just look at the guy who invented that fucking Smiley Face. Does anybody remember that guy?  Hell no.  He didn’t bother to patent that fucking annoying ass thing, but we see them everywhere.  Is he living high on the hog off all the sweet, sweet smiley face cake that he surely raked in over the years? Hell no. Nobody remembers him because he never bothered to patent that damn thing and when he eventually tried to do so, a court ruled it was too widespread and ruled it was public domain. I think the phrase is: “You snooze, you lose.”

Another example is the classic one of Xerox inventing both the mouse input device and the GUI operating system, but the executives at the Palo Alto Research center didn’t have the foresight to think these things were anything more than novelties.  I believe they decided to sell both of them to some young turks for what amounted to a song.  Those guys I believe (go ahead and fact check me on this, I’m kinda drunk right now) went on to found a little company called Apple.  Perhaps you’ve heard of them?  In any event, history is written by the victors, not the losers.  Maybe it sucks, but that’s how it goes.

Edison was a careful and exhaustive experimentalist, but he was no theoretician. Tesla, almost the exact opposite, did many “experiments” in his head with little physical prototyping; his brain was like a simulation supercomputer.  The fact that Edison had a research team - and the ability to get them to work long hours for him - doesn’t detract from his accomplishments any more than the pilot of the plane has less meaning because of mechanics, navigators, etc.  Nor does the fact that he was a jerk and a huckster and a ruthless capitalist; he landed the plane, time after time. 

Neither Edison or Marconi were “idiots” except perhaps in the modern, internet sense of “someone we probably wouldn’t like if we knew them personally”.  But I suspect that very few famous people are really likable in person.

There were several people working on the light bulb (and radio) at the same time.  Edison was just the one who figured out how to make a filament last long enough to be commercial before the others.  If anyone remembers the old 3M motto “We don’t make things - we make things better”, that is exactly what Edison did.  If Edison had been a theoretician, he would have invented radio first (the Edison Effect led to radio, if I remember correctly), but he only looked at what was immediately usable.  Edison was extremely stubborn and tenacious, which is why he had over 1000 patents, but yet championed DC over AC, even though it became physically obvious that the DC distribution was not economically feasible.

Matthew Josephson wrote a pretty good bio on Edison.  Showed how tenacious he was in the lab, and how poor he was as a family man.

Henry Ford was an asshole in many ways as well, but that doesn’t diminish his accomplishments in the automotive industry. His company pretty much wrote the book on assembly lines and affordable cars.

Don’t forget Hitler’s contribution to the affordable cars - maybe not very likable, either.