Get ready for The Big Book of British Smiles: Florida Edition
this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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Except British people tend to have fairly decent dental care, they just focus less on orthodontics work and teeth whitening. This is just going to be bad everything.
So there's trends towards practicality where ours to sheer vanity, now stupidity?
Stupid is as stupid does...
Its called summer teeth some'r here, some'r gone, some'r gonna need to be pulled.
I think Florida Man is worse these days
Other countries don't have fluoride in the water, it isn't the end of the world. And don't people usually drink bottled water in Florida anyways?
HOWEVER other places that don't have flouride in the water do normally have affordable and accessible dental heathcare. And most people brush their teeth with toothpaste with flouride in it. You don't really need all that much of it, as long as you get some.
With the anti-fluoride mindset, people are not going to get it through other means most likely. And this especially hurts poor people and the homeless, since they are going to have the hardest time getting enough fluoride and won't have access to dental healthcare. So small issues that would normally be prevented, are going to cause huge issues.
It's just another way the Republicans can punish the poor.
I moved from a location that had fluoride where I grew up, to one that didn't as an adult, and with the same oral routine, I went from 1 cavity to like a dozen and multiple root canals.
I'm not saying my routine was sufficient and I've gotten better at it, but if people are used to one thing and it suddenly changes, they're gonna be pretty surprised at the impact.
Places that don’t fluoride are their water add it to their salt, much like America does with iodine.
Every kid who dies of an untreated dental infection is one who couldn't grow up to vote for Democrats
Most of those "other countries" you refer to are in Africa, the Middle East, and Russia. You're not selling me.
What are you trying to say? Those are all shit hole countries so it doesn't matter what they do?
I live in Germany, no fluoride is added to our water and it isn't there naturally. There is salt with added fluoride available and almost all toothpastes have it. There's also fluoride tablets people can take. And the dentist will apply fluoride treatments where needed or prescribe high fluoride toothpaste.
Dental care and hygiene is excellent here.
The same thing applies for many countries in Europe.
Clearly there are many ways to administer it and you're almost proving my point that it's an important part of dental health. It just sounds like Germany has decided to deal with this problem on an individual level rather than en masse. Big difference with places like Florida is that they don't have universal healthcare.
Africa, the Middle East, and Russia
And, like, about 98% of the population of Europe...
I hate most of what Trump and his cronies do, but from what I've seen fluoridating water has meager benefits in today's day and age with fluoridated toothpaste, whilst potentially having side-effects according to a few newer studies. Personally, it's whatever in my opinion, I'd wait for more conclusive studies that prove whether it's worth it or not, but I also don't think it's a big deal if it's stopped.
Flouride can naturally occur in drinking water. In some parts of Europe (same article) it's actually in excessive amounts. Just because they don't add it doesn't mean it's not there.
Ok but that's kinda shifting goalposts. My point was that the vast majority of Europe doesn't artificially add fluoride into water, probably not without reason. Even then, just 3% of French people receive naturally fluoridated water, for Germany its < 1%, Italy also by the sound of the article probably <1%, Spain is 10%. It doesn't give information about natural fluoridation levels in Croatia but it's probably at the same levels and I can attest to the fact we don't have a cavity epidemic.
Interestingly it also notes this in the article:
In the GDR (East Germany) in the late 1980s, about 3.4 million people (20%) were receiving water with added fluoride... A fluoride cessation study found that consistent with a previously observed population-wide phenomenon that the rate of cavities continued to drop after the fluoride concentration in water fell from the augmented 1.0 ppm to its natural level below 0.2 ppm. Water fluoridation was discontinued after the German reunification although still exists on some US military bases.
My point is that I think it doesn't really matter whether you fluoridate water or not and that it's fine to be skeptical of it when the benefits in today's day and age are minor and there might be potential drawbacks.
This behavior is just teenage emotionally immature, stunted edgelord/mean girl high school cruelty.
The reason MAGA politicians do it is that they know that 1/3 of the population have that level of emotional maturity. And they love it, due to 40 years of Fox News, and shit like Jerry Springer, Maury, and Judge Judy. Cruelty as entertainment.
This is Evil. Capital "E" Evil.
Looks like wooden teeth are back in fashion!
Ron is just so sad to be out of the national news cycle since daddy Trump crushed him. He is so desperate for right wing news attention he pulls these stunts. Florida suffers extra for another man baby “strong” man’s ego.
the Netherlands doesn't have fluoride in its drinking water, but most teeth here are pretty healthy. its just that the poor and homeless do have incredibly unhealthy teeth, and Florida has a lot more of those than the netherlands
Netherlands has dental care included in healthcare. Florida, if you need dental work, you go into debt.
And they probably don't eat a lot of processed foods that are packed with sugar.
Which is weird considering the nation's relationship with weed and chocolate.
Something no one seems to realize is that the poorest people in the South don't drink municipal water in the first place. These people already have horrible teeth. I've seen it first hand and it's honestly more that they often live in food deserts and their diets are literally honey buns and mountain dew. This is much ado about nothing.
Insurance companies are already leaving Florida. I expect the whole state will be uninsurable once the uptick of medical issues starts as a result of even poorer dental hygiene.
Of course it will have negative consequences. This government is on the prowl to kill off as many normal people as possible.
They want to kill resistance to their optimal Neo-Feudalist Theocratic Oligarchy.
Invest in dental supplies related to the treatment and management of cavities.
Many Americans will simply go without and let their teeth rot due to the cost.
Yay! A state wide experiment to see what happens!
My condolences to those stuck in that state with no escape.
Invest in dental supply companies.
Its proven but cool :/
Read the article but it didn't cover some questions. I haven't paid that much attention to this because the stupid hurts. Thought this was settled science like iodine in salt.
What does mainstream science generally say about the efficacy and dangers of modern flouride in municipal water? What are the MAGAts regurgitating as the reason to ban flouride/what's the conspiracy?
It’s been a crunch my Republican talking point for a while.
Some counties have voted to remove it based on inconclusive data from some studies on fluoride exposure.
Problematically the results to childhood issues require doses far in excess of the FDA minimum. More problematic is the example we have of a similar country with similar demographics removing it, and seeing a massive uptick in oral cavities. So we know what happens as a massive test already unintentionally from Canada.
The will do nothing but cause harm to long term oral health.
There was a study comparing test scores of children from a more poor neighborhood that had city water with fluoride and test scores of children from a rich neighborhood that had its own water system and didn't add fluoride to the water. To nobody's surprise, the rich kids tended to score higher on tests and those publishing the study claimed that it was the lack of fluoride in the rich kids' water that helped them score higher, instead of the inherent food and home security and additional parental support that comes from wealth.