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It’s a brilliant icon of Cold War cinematography: Dr Strangelove, Or How I Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Where Air Force General Jack Ripper goes nuts and orders his bomber wing to nuke the Soviet Union. Hilarity ensues. At the heart of Ripper’s paranoia was his certainty that fluoridation was being used by communists to “sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.” He knew this because, as the years went by, he noticed a growing malaise right after the ‘physical act of love,’ which he correctly recognized as the loss of essence. Some classic Strangelove video below.
Fluoridation was actually picked by early model wingnuts back in the late 50s and early 60s as an example of evil Big Socialist Government robbing the people of their God given right to gaping cavities and early tooth loss. But it’s not just commies, Hitler was down with fluoridation, too:
Politifact — I worry about it tremendously. We’re forever incorporating Nazi things into our lives. Fluoride in the water, that was originally done by the Nazis! I don’t particularly like anything the Nazis did too much, and they were the first ones to put fluoride in the water. They tell us, ‘Oh, it’s for your teeth’ and all that — well, isn’t that your parents’ job, to teach you how to brush your teeth and use mouthwash? Why do you need the government putting some type of chemical in your water? I don’t know if you know this [but] fluoride is the main component of Prozac! What you’ve got is people drinking Prozac-water. Well, what does Prozac do to you? It calms you and dumbs you down so you’re less emotional. There’s a reason for all that stuff; what do we need fluoride in our water for? There’s no reason whatsoever to put chemicals in our water.”
Jesse Ventura spoke up on this some time ago, it’s gotten recent press thanks to new articles about the long term effects of removing fluoride. But just to put this out, there’s really good reasons to put all kinds of chemicals into our water: to make it safe to drink. Safe drinking water is one of those great industrial age achievements we take for granted, like modern sewers, vaccines and antibiotics, that have saved millions of lives. It’s not surprising that other cultures, Nazis included, might have appreciated clean water. In fact out of all the things Nazis did, fluoridating water would surely rank among the least objectionable.
We don’t have to look very far to see the effects of removing fluoride from public drinking water. Calgary, Canada did it three years and guess what?
CBC — Dentists and dental hygienists are seeing an increase in child tooth decay and Dr. Sarah Hulland says the decision to remove fluoride from Calgary’s water supply three years ago is playing a big role. “I’m seeing a lot more children having a lot more cavities,” she said. “I’m seeing a lot of decay on 19- to 20-month babies, and this is even before they’ve got all the teeth in.”
What a shock! Who could have predicted that taking a substance out of drinking water known to fight tooth decay would result in more tooth decay? I mean, who could have seen that coming?
It turns out there’s a whole international movement afoot, similar in goals and tactics to the anti-vax movement, to remove fluoride from drinking water. In addition to Calgary they’ve made progress in Israel, Florida, and Oklahoma. The gist of it seems to be that fluoride is bad for kids — won’t someone please think of the children? — and of course variants of the age old commie conspiracy to sap our precious essence. In some fevered circles there is a shadowy conspiracy to cover up the bad effects because … Big Socialist Government!
But the fact is fluoride has been in water for a long time, we have a lot of data on it. There’s just no consensus, not even close to a consensus, that its harmful and a huge amount of data showing exactly what the citizens and dentists in Calgary are learning anew: fluoridated water helps prevent cavities, especially in kids.
Fluoride is the main component of Prozac in the same sort of fashion that chlorine (a poisonous gas used in warfare by those exact same Germans that went on to become Nazis or daddies of Nazis) is the main component of salt. I don’t know whether people that write that sort of crap are better described by “ignoramus” or by a new word like “igmoranus.”
There’s also the fact that, in many areas, fluoride occurs naturally in the water at levels equal to (or beyond) those targeted by fluoridation schemes. But of course, that’s good, wholesome, natural fluoride, which is completely unlike evil, poisonous, artificial fluoride…
It’s especially amusing to encounter anti-fluoridation nuts here in the UK, because, across most of the country, the fluoride in the water is entirely natural. They’re fiercely opposed to the idea of fluoridation, but it’s simply never occurred to them to check the natural fluoride levels.
Slightly OT Yesterday evening my daughter was telling me about her son’s bad congestion and cough. During his week with his father, his illness wasn’t treated at all and he was sent to school sick. He’s getting better now that my daughter and her fiancée have taken turns staying home with him and treating the illness.
By court orders, his father has to have him on his insurance, but the jerk got a junk insurance policy with such a high deductible that he might as well have no insurance.
She told me that she was worried because her finance’s aunt had told him that whooping cough was in the schools where she works as a school nurse. I asked if my grandson was up to date on his immunizations and my daughter told me that he was. I had to explain that pertussis and whooping cough are the same thing – LOL.
Mandrake! … it’s hard for me to take this seriously. Some say this particular hare-brained cause is more popular on the left. I don’t know if that’s the case or not, but I’d sure like to find out and be an accessory to murdering that terrible idea in its crib. People like me have no influence on the usual suspects, but we have tens of progressive readers.
Not if you care about your precious bodily fluids!!
Is the bit about it being a main ingredient in prozac even true? I tried googling, but it seems most of the links go to sites with lots of crazy, and I don’t want it infecting my precious bodily fluids….
When I was in grade school we lived far enough out in the country to be on well water. To combat the deficiency, there were flouride treatments provided at school. I forget how often they happened, I want to say a couple times a year? They were targeted at specific ages I think. If I understood and am recalling correctly, flouride is much more necessary during development. Makes a big difference in formation of the enamel (outer layer of teeth). So when the older nutters decide to get off of it, they won’t notice many ill effects. As with vaccines they aren’t the group being harmed the most by this.
I used to occasionally see groups like this pop up in sci-fi stories. It was hard to believe people would work against their own interests so vehemently, especially when it comes to health issues or health issues for their children whom they supposedly care a great deal for. Even seeing it in real life it’s a bit hard to believe.