Modern problems require modern solutions. That is the ethos of the world we are living in today. Reversing course, looking at the bigger picture is hardly considered; modern problems are often not acknowledged as such, or only the smaller facets of it are observed.
Adding fluoride to water supplies is one such modern solution to a modern problem. The vast majority of the world does not have fluoridated water, beyond the small amount that may already exist in it naturally. Humans do not need fluoride in their bodies to live, nor will they suffer from a deficiency of it.[1] It is not needed in your body, and ingesting it is not good for you.
The main observation for fluoride, is that applying it to teeth to a moderate extent, marginally prevents tooth decay. It is argued that the amount of additional fluoride in water is not enough to harm a human, even if there is an implicit acknowledgement that it is harmful when consumed. However, there is a difference between brushing and swishing something around in your mouth and spitting it out, then rinsing it, and drinking it.
In practice, this is adding more of something known to be harmful and adding to reduce another problem, thus creating and exacerbating a host of new problems, while not even close to eliminating the other one. Adding fluoride to a municipal water supply has a financial cost associated with it as well, while claiming the tradeoff in reduction of cavities and increase in dental health would be a net benefit. Apparently, potential neurological damage is not factored in for them.
Typical modern diets are the primary contributor towards tooth decay and poor dental health. Ancient hunter-gatherers did not brush their teeth, and very scarcely had any cavities, attributed to diets full of meat, nuts and berries, and low carbs. The addition of grains in diets allowed for bacteria to spread, causing heavy tooth decay among the first agriculturalists/farmers. There was a possible natural cure for this problem, by a community of likely farmers who chewed a particular ancient plant, but the fact stands that early agriculture overwhelmingly was associated with tooth decay.[2]
The heavy addition of corn, seed oils, and artificial sugars, among other things in the modern human diet, has exacerbated this problem. Few are willing to address this, and even fewer hold any amount of power that could fix this. This cannot easily be fixed, so they advocated for a solution that ends up causing more damage: poison the water supply with something that won’t outright kill you. It’s really not so different from when drugs used by a large population are urinated into the water supply. “Experts” declare it’s not enough to have an effect, although it is difficult to confidently assert such a thing. Home water filters are not just there to make its users feel good about themselves.
Obesity, hypertension and other health issues from the aforementioned ingredients compound on each other, until a person who indulges in a poor diet becomes a wreck of a person. Fluoride itself is also found in small amounts in other things people consume, and in many household products. Certainly, this is something to reduce, rather than encourage.
Fluoride is but one concern in this massive web of problems, all increasingly interconnected and expound on one another. I myself am not advocating that everyone adopt a certain diet, as I do not believe it is feasible to achieve this. Those can be difficult to afford, while the more commonplace staple foods of poor quality are difficult to avoid. Meats and many protein foods are not as healthy as they once were, without many of the pollutants that are present now.
Nonetheless, these frequently inextricable problems create a sense of acceptance from the population about a relatively new status quo that they did not even know existed. It easy to get tangled up in other political issues as the main things that are affect your life, and never realize the consequences of things much more immediately impactful in your own life, that are not typically seen as political, although they shape society far more.
All of this sets a precedent. If fluoridated water is accepted as a good thing, they will accept many other things in their bodies without understanding their full ramifications. Prescription drugs that hurt you more than they help you, vaccines with limited protection against something that is not a serious illness for the vast majority, mystery foods with ingredients that throw your body into disarray. One gives an inch, and they will keep being pushed back until they are spent and acquiesce to everything.
Modern “cures” for most problems rarely seem to address an issue holistically. There are a multitude of factors that are ignored, whether it be policymaking or one’s diet. Instead of stopping something ingrained in culture and lifestyles entirely, excess is ignored or encouraged. If it gets out of hand, bandaids are applied, while the core issue itself remains. A dentist telling someone to quit smoking or use a certain mouthwash and floss more may help them to some extent, but it will not fix their issues of consumption. Going to a reputable dietitian may help with that, but there will always be another category affecting one’s life that there is left unnoticed, where these things are not interlinked.
Mental health, physical health, lifestyle, friendships, opportunities, personal autonomy: all of these interconnected components of life cannot be fixed by any one individual, and counting on others to make all of these decisions for you, often incongruent with each other, will overwhelm you. For most, there are many problems that they cannot keep up with, and either accept them, reject them, ignore them, and do what they can with that.
Such is the consequence of a world where one’s autonomy is sacrificed for a “greater good” that does not even exist anymore, as communities with and are replaced by the artificial identity of a socially conscious global citizen, who is expected to believe in this ideal fully. Otherwise, they will be treated as a pariah. It is not bad to be selfish towards a society, when there is increasingly little worth preserving, and when said society treats you with utmost disdain for not accepting their vision.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3956646/
[2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/140716-sudan-sedge-toothbrush-teeth-archaeology-science
"Fluoride itself is also found in small amounts in other things people consume, and in many household products. Certainly, this is something to reduce, rather than encourage."
"I don't like em putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin frogs gay!" was not a meme song but an actual warning.