this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2025
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46
Something not in the water: why are Queensland councils voting to remove fluoride? (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 2 months ago by Severus_Snape@lemmy.world to c/australia@aussie.zone
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[–] JustARegularNerd@lemmy.dbzer0.com 32 points 2 months ago (2 children)

“People should have choice,” she says. “If you want to eat bad foods, if you want to have fluoride, if you want to have, let’s say, vaccines, then you choose that. But there should be no coercion, bullying, bribery. It needs to be a choice.”

Ah, letting the anti-vax sentiment slip a little there..

Regardless of that, I don't understand how putting fluoride into drinking water is coercive, bullying or bribing behaviour. We are already treating drinking water with other chemicals like chlorine, should we stop that too so that Queenslanders have a choice and aren't bullied or coerced into drinking healthy water?

[–] Tenderizer@aussie.zone -5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Chlorine is to disinfect the water, fluoride is to prevent tooth decay. Fluoridated toothpaste is widely available, and it's recently been found that relatively low levels of fluoride in the water have an adverse effect on IQ.

To be clear and so there are no misunderstandings here, I am aggressively pro-vax. I also strongly support a sugar tax.

[–] The_Decryptor@aussie.zone 11 points 2 months ago

it’s recently been found that relatively low levels of fluoride in the water have an adverse effect on IQ.

Yeah, but the levels where it starts being noticeable (1.5mg/L) are double the level that fluoride treatment targets (0.6-0.8mg/L). It's something to be worried about if you're drinking well water and it's got a natural high fluoride content, not from anything added by the water treatment processes.

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 4 points 2 months ago

I really really hate john birch.