Why Only One US City Doesn’t Add Fluoride to Its Water

Video written by Amy Muller

[ThePrimeYeeter]

the audacity of Sam to not send Amy to one of these fluoride adding facilities 😭

[LENZ]

"A recent state survey showed 21 percent of Portland children between 6 and 9 have untreated dental decay – 6 percentage points higher than what was found in a similar 2010 survey of Seattle children who drink fluoridated water.

Plunkett, who primarily treats lower-income patients, is from Arkansas and went to dental school in Kansas City. He moved to Portland in 2007 and has noticed that teeth here, generally speaking, are softer, more prone to decay and breakage."
-The Seattle Times ("Portland revisits issue of public fluoridation"), May 2013

[ytrav]

Now we finally know where all those 1/10 dentists who disagree live.

[AnonymousFreakYT]

Fun fact - the issue was so polarized that when a local civic group decide to form a task force to study what could be done if the vote failed, they got about 5000 entries to be a part of the task force. I decided to apply.

On the application was "how do you feel about the city's plan for fluoridated water?" with "strongly agree" "agree" "neutral" "disagree" and "strongly disagree."

I was picked for the task force.

I was the *ONLY* person to pick anything other than "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree". Literally every other applicant was *STRONGLY* one way or the other. (I picked "neutral" - I was in favor of fluoridated water, but opposed the specific city plan to do it because it was going to be done terribly, with impure fluoride "because it was cheaper" while being a too-expensive no-bid contract.)

[jacobdebernardi]

I was hoping for a statistical comparison of cavity rates in Portland compared to the rest of the country

[DarrenPoulson]

As a science nerd....

Portland = the control.

They're doing a valuable service.

[nikujaga_oishii]

wait until they find out that natural groundwater does have fluoride in it, and it was water treatment that removed them from drinking water in the first place

[vigneshanand]

At 6:50, the video mentions that the judge is no longer able to defer to the EPA, but this is wrong. The overturning of Chevron deference means that judges no longer have to defer to regulatory agencies, but they can still choose to do so if they find the agency's reasoning persuasive.

[thomasdalton]

You missed an important question in the video - does Portland have more cavities than other similar cities? It seems like an obvious point to address...

[ref]

Friendly reminder that if you are concerned about fluoride, you shouldn't drink tea or coffee. Both bioaccumulate fluoride at higher levels than other plants.

[_ikako_]

it's because that's the only city that doesn't have any frogs!!

[Zenerd]

Calling birth control and vaccines uncontroversial is the kind of deep cut that only Sam can give us.

[Jarekthegamingdragon]

As someone who lives in Portland, people aren't voting no due to the conspiracy theories. I've never heard any of them and I'm willing to bet most other Portlanders haven't either. People vote no purely because our tap water is extremely clean and don't want any thing added to it. It really is that simple. That said, I still think it's stupid. Fluoride isn't going to mess with the flavor. Seattle does it, and their water is just as clean.

[frankdebot]

Aren't americans brushing their teeth? Toothpaste has fluoride

[fireflightphoenix]

Possible mistake? At 5:29, Food and Water Watch et al. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency et al. is abbreviated as FAWAEAUSEPAEA, and even assuming the V is meant to be omitted, the 4th word is "Watch", which starts with a W and not an A. I can't believe Sam would mess up one of the most important details in the video 😦

[lukaswild]

5:18 That sounds like a joke Ben would make. Please don't fire Ben, I need more Jet Lag

[BlueSunHiredGun]

The city of Honolulu (and most of Honolulu County) is also very blue and doesn't fluoridate its drinking water, while being just outside the top-50 most populous cities list. I think it also comes down to the fact that Oahu generally does not treat the water with almost anything, as it's already naturally filtered through a volcanic aquifer.

[krallja]

1:00 “biggest public health victories, up there with such non-controversial wins as birth control and vaccines” …🤔

[cherenkov_blue]

To put a stop to all the people saying "but X town also doesn't put fluoride in" yes, because fluoride also naturally occurs.

A lot of towns don't add fluoride not because they think it's bad, but because wherever they get their water from already has it. In fact, chances are that if you live in a geologically active area, your groundwater has well above the level of fluoride purposefully added to tap water.

To be clear, if fluoridated water was actually as catastrophically toxic as people claim, a significant portion of the well water in this country should be causing noticeable adverse health effects... this is not the case. While some untreated well water does contain unsafe levels of fluoride, measurable adverse health effects only begin to occur at levels much higher than what is purposefully added.

You want to know what's really poisoning our water? Try PFAS and micro-plastics.

[corruptedpoison]

Spokane Washington also doesn't add Fluoride to it's water, it's the second largest city in Washington.