this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
38 points (95.2% liked)

Health - Resources and discussion for everything health-related

2851 readers
137 users here now

Health: physical and mental, individual and public.

Discussions, issues, resources, news, everything.

See the pinned post for a long list of other communities dedicated to health or specific diagnoses. The list is continuously updated.

Nothing here shall be taken as medical or any other kind of professional advice.

Commercial advertising is considered spam and not allowed. If you're not sure, contact mods to ask beforehand.

Linked videos without original description context by OP to initiate healthy, constructive discussions will be removed.

Regular rules of lemmy.world apply. Be civil.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Awa@lemmy.world
WhoRoger@lemmy.world
RoyalEngineering@lemmy.world
38
As opposition to fluoride grows, rural America risks a new surge of tooth decay (www.npr.org)
submitted 1 week ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/health@lemmy.world
6 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Summary

Rural America faces rising tooth decay as anti-fluoride sentiment grows and dentist shortages persist.

Nearly 25 million Americans live in "dental deserts," while about 230 counties lack both dentists and fluoridated water.

Anti-fluoride momentum surged after a controversial report linked high fluoride levels to lower IQ, leading to fluoride bans and cuts in Medicaid funding.

Experts warn that cutting fluoride and Medicaid could drastically worsen dental decay, especially among low-income children.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Wolf314159@startrek.website 1 points 2 days ago

As someone that grew up on well water and the wasteland that is American health insurance for dental care that has resulted in me spending tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours of time, and suffering through at least twice (probably more) as many head X-rays as my peers I know exactly how this is going to play out for an entire generation.

It's probably more painful, expensive, and traumatic than you can imagine. Tooth pain is easily the worst I've ever experienced. Tooth infections are also particularly risky and left untreated or under treated will absolutely kill people.