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Trump and America had a great week. The honeymoon is over. I hoped, prayed, and voted, for Trump to win this
I’m referring to RFK Jr’s promised position in the Trump administration. It seems he made a deal for an endorsement in exchange for leading the DHHS, or the FDA. His big push is to remove fluoride from municipal water supplies.
When I first heard the story of Kennedy wanting to remove fluoride from drinking water, I just rolled my eyes. Now that it has hit many news outlets, I feel I need to write something about this non-issue.
I am trying to grasp his perspective. I can only think of two possible angles. 1) He doesn’t know it’s a problem that doesn’t exist. Or, 2) He knows it’s not an issue but is good for political points.
In my business I have been in 100-200 water treatment plants in the Northeast. Sometimes I will program and set up chemical feed systems, dumping tons of chemicals into millions of people’s drinking water. I lost count of all the places I have been in, but I know exactly how many have the equipment to feed fluoride. There are exactly two. One is on the north shore of Boston. The other is a ski town north of MA. They don’t use it, and the fluoride tanks are empty.
Obviously putting chemicals in drinking water is highly regulated by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). These people who run treatment plants are just regular people. They wouldn’t put a chemical into drinking water without documentation or a good reason. They would lose their license faster than Kamala losing track of her thoughts. (Limited time on Kamala digs).
I would have guessed people would be worried about Potassium Permanganate. KMNo4. It’s a big scary long word that turns your drinking water purple. It clumps the manganese and iron so it can be filtered out before you drink it. Nobody cares about that.
Anyone can get the DEP reports from their town’s website. The numbers can’t be fudged without huge fines. From my experience, it doesn't happen. The fluoride issue isn’t an issue from my experience.
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STOP THE PRESSES. I needed to google the statistics so I wouldn’t have it thrown back in my face, which you all are so able to do. It seems according to the CDC nearly everybody is being fed fluoride. My experience says something completely different. Is it that only the northeast has naturally occurring fluoride? The data doesn't specify where the natural fluoride is. I have never seen it being done in over 100 treatment facilities. This seems strange to me. CDC LINK. Am I not supposed to believe what my eyes are telling me?
2022 National Water Fluoridation Statistics
These statistics were prepared using water system data reported by states to the CDC Water Fluoridation Reporting System as of December 31, 2022, by the U.S. Census Bureau state population estimates as of July 1, 2020, and by population estimates served by public water supply as of 2015, as published by the U.S. Geological Survey June 19, 2018.
Values were aggregated or calculated at county and state levels. National-level values are a summation (or appropriate calculation based on a summation) of state-level values.
Total U.S. population, personsa |
333,261,756 |
U.S. population on community water systems (CWS), personsb,c |
289,330,482 |
U.S. population on fluoridated drinking water systems, personsb,c |
209,135,866 |
Percentage of U.S. population receiving fluoridated waterc,d |
62.8% |
Percentage of U.S. population on CWS receiving fluoridated waterc,e |
72.3% |
Total number of CWS in United Statesb |
51,842 |
Number of CWS providing fluoridated waterb |
17,394 |
Number of CWS adjusting fluorideb |
5,561 |
Number of CWS consecutive to adjusting systems or to systems with naturally occurring fluoride at or above optimal levelsb |
5,749 |
Number of CWS with naturally occurring fluoride at or above optimal levelsb |
5,542 |
Population served by CWS with naturally occurring fluoride at or above optimal levelsb,c |
11,850,115 |
I am not qualified to say this is good or bad. Just don't literally want it forced down our throats.
In any case, I think we will get by just fine without another Kennedy.
Discussion (88)
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I am also not qualified. What I'll add is that many households have a filter on one or more taps, or at the point of entry for water service, that filters the fluoride out among other impurities. There are dozens of companies in that market, so it must be a popular choice. If the market is already choosing to get rid of it, why should we go to the expense of adding it?
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People probably drink more bottled water than tap water these days.
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Oh come on, people who don't want fluoride in the drinking water are just puppets of Big Dentistry.
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I have well water. Drink it all the time.
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The market has no control over what the DEP mandates. They forced a treatment plant on my town driving water bills up nearly $1000/yr
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