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Revision as of 00:59, 17 August 2024

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Opposition to water fluoridation article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

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1990 end date for fluoridation in East Germany: reason?

I notice that the article lists 1990 as the end date for water fluoridation in East Germany. Was that date due merely to the termination of the DDR as a legal entity upon unification with the BRD; was it due to the DDR's adoption, upon unification, of the BRD policy of non-fluoridation; or did the DDR abandon fluoridation pre-unification, and if the last, did it do so under the influence of the USSR, which abandoned fluoridation in the same year?

Semi-protected edit request on 24 September 2023

This edit request to Water fluoridation controversy has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Request to add LGBT chemicals conspiracy theory under the section Water fluoridation controversy#Later conspiracy theories. 223.25.74.34 (talk) 13:50, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Do you have sources connecting fluoridation to that subject? It isn't mentioned in that article, so I'd suggest getting that fixed first. Then it could be added here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:27, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 October 2023

This edit request to Water fluoridation controversy has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

I'd like to include some recent citations from EPA.gov of a peer reviewed paper directly linking increase of violence in America to Fluoride in water:

https://hero.epa.gov/hero/index.cfm/reference/details/reference_id/519783

Public health is an important topic, and being able to conduction long term studies allows us to write better papers and help guide policy in the interests of public health. Inspector General Mills (talk) 07:10, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

This sentence from near the end of that document is critical - "This study presents a data-backed hypothesis about one possible cause of crime; it is not a definitive statement about crime causality." The difference between correlation and causation matters a lot here. HiLo48 (talk) 09:45, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. PianoDan (talk) 16:40, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 January 2024

This edit request to Water fluoridation controversy has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Removal of the recent edit which adds the text "now-debunked". The text has been added to the article is not be beneficial, for a controversial topic like this adding text like "now-debunked" is not helpful and can inflame the topic. The suggested text lacks proper citations or references to reputable sources. In Misplaced Pages, verifiability and reliable sourcing are essential. Without credible sources to support the claims made in the text. The article already provides historical context by mentioning the conspiracy theories from the 1950s and 1960s, which have been discredited. The topic of water fluoridation is controversial, and any additions to the article should be handled with care. Adding potentially controversial statements without solid references is not ideal. If this is to remain, I belive a more considered edit should be performed to highlight this point, but for now I belive the edit should be reverted.

Opposition to fluoridation has existed since its initiation in the 1940s. During the 1950s and 1960s, now-debunked conspiracy theorists claimed that fluoridation was a communist plot to undermine American public health. In recent years, water fluoridation has become a prevalent health and political issue in many countries, resulting in some countries and communities discontinuing its use while others have expanded it.

Original text bellow:

Opposition to fluoridation has existed since its initiation in the 1940s. During the 1950s and 1960s, conspiracy theorists claimed that fluoridation was a communist plot to undermine American public health. In recent years, water fluoridation has become a prevalent health and political issue in many countries, resulting in some countries and communities discontinuing its use while others have expanded it. 146.200.136.91 (talk) 16:39, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

References

1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Martin1989 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
2. ^ Johnston RD (2004). The Politics of Healing. Routledge. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-415-93339-1.

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. As correctly observed, this is not an uncontroversial edit, and as such the "edit request" procedure does not apply here. PianoDan (talk) 17:26, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Request to add information from The Fluoride Deception by Christopher Bryson

Hi everyone,

I think that the findings in Christopher Bryson's book The Fluoride Deception should be given more attention. According to this, journalist Christopher Bryson, who worked for the BBC and The Guardian, and another journalist, both on assignment with the Christian Science Monitor, conducted an in-depth investigation on supposed connections between fluoridation of public water supplies and the Manhattan Project that Bryson eventually turned into book-length exposé. As far as I understand, The Fluoride Deception claims that (to oversimplify) the need to deal with fluoride compound-containing runoff/waste from industrial projects, including the Manhattan Project, led to efforts to reclassify fluoride — which was challenging to filter out of the water for some reason — as medically or dentally beneficial. They also found industry-controlled studies showing harmful effects of fluoridation, that they say were deliberately not published.

Bryson also claims, according to this — which derives some of its information from a blacklisted site, fluoridealert.org — that "industrial interests, concerned about liabilities from fluoride pollution and health effects on workers, played a significant role in the early promotion of fluoridation" and that the fluoride used for fluoridation is from industrial waste. (Assuming that low-level fluoride is indeed mildly beneficial for dental health, the fact that its use and subsequent disposal were, at one point or another, industrially necessary is merely a fortunate coincidence.)

In other words, Bryson indicts the Left's boogeyman (the military-industrial complex) rather than the Right's (the world Communist plot). I think this observation deserves more attention; it's also notable in of itself that this is a horseshoe issue. Yet, this article only has a major section for the right-wing conspiracy theory. That may or may not be a balanced way to faithfully reflect the controversy. I would just point out that, most likely, the conspiracy theory based off of The Fluoride Deception is arguably more grounded in fact.

Bryson's book is already listed as citation 45, but it contains additional notable information about the controversy that I did not find in this article (nor in the water fluoridation article) which I would suggest for inclusion.

Full disclosure: I found out about this from r/conspiracy. But still, it might be surprising for many Misplaced Pages readers that such a reasonably high-quality source, as Bryson's book seems to be, is cited by conspiracy theorists but neither it nor its core claims are referenced in Misplaced Pages at all. While fluoridealert.org is not a valid source, the book itself is, as far as I understand (assuming it says what they say it says).

If this has already been brought to your attention, I'd love to know why it was decided not to include it.

Respectfully,

... RecentlyZealous (talk) 21:45, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

It reads like a conspiracy. Three quotes from the Intro:

• “The plot (to add fluoride to toothpaste and drinking water) includes … Hiroshima atomic bomb..”
• “Twists and turns of the fluoride story are propelled by nothing less than the often grim requirements of accumulating power…”
• “… fluoride was systematically removed from public association with ill health by … U.S. military and big corporations”--Smokefoot (talk) 22:10, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a poor souce. I've trimmed it (with some other unreliable/undue stuff). For WP:BMI we need WP:MEDRS. Bon courage (talk) 00:59, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

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