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

[@ytrav]

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

[@NobleGamer889]

1.4k likes no replies? Lemme fix that

[@simolator]

A+ comment

[@Oliv_garden]

Thats actually insane considering 1/10 people in the US live in Portland😮

[@theprimeyeeter]

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

[@austinli8891]

fr

[@ezyybin604]

…

[@drewdavis2392]

He couldn't send Amy, because Portland doesn't have any fluoride adding facilities. Not that they will admit to, anyway, and certainly not open to visitors working for a popular KZbin channel to reveal the existence of the secret fluoridation program to all their many viewers.

[@F00Lsmack]

ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/completed/fluoride

[@InternetUser999]

hai really fell out

[@LENZ5369]

"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

[@TrialzGTAS]

I wouldn’t trust a study in Portland. That place is a trash can. They probably never been to a dentist before

[@JeremyLogan]

I got several cavities while living in PDX for 5 years... the only cavities I've had in my 25 years of being an adult.

[@derekasato9035]

So Portland has effectively volunteered to be the control group for a natural experiment.

[@thorwaldjohanson2526]

I never had a cavity in my life. In Germany it's common that table salt is fortified with fluoride and iodine. That stuff works!

[@Zen-hk5rt]

Yea.. & how much fentenal & meth are also in the water too?

[@jacobdebernardi4385]

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

[@Welgeldiguniekalias]

Yeah nah because actual data does not support the theory that adding fluoride to drinking water improves dental health.

[@Jehty_]

This is Half as Interesting.

[@markquintonii]

With the same diet, health tendencies, and genetics Portland would have the higher cavity rate.

[@Jehty_]

@@markquintonii source?

[@markquintonii]

@@Jehty_ check out NIH statistics for Seattle vs Portland cavity rates.

[@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.)

[@bhzucker]

to be fair, I would expect that most people who felt neutral wouldn't apply for such a task force. But anyway, what's happening with the task force??

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

@@bhzucker It ended years ago. They recommended that the city put the money that would have gone to fluoridation toward dental care for low income kids. One of the big things was “fluoridation is off the table, come up with other options.”

[@peter65zzfdfh]

@@AnonymousFreakYTah, so a more expensive option that serves less people but probably got more campaign donations, gotcha. It’s like having cheap road technology that reduces potholes everywhere and deciding to just look at filing some potholes in one neighborhood.

[@Nirioonossian]

Only industrial waste of the highest purity can go in my drink 👍

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

@@peter65zzfdfh Pretty much. But when people in the pothole-filled neighborhoods are the ones voting against filling the potholes, what are you supposed to do?

[@vigneshanand8490]

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.

[@l0lLorenzol0l]

Yeah the decision just means that agencies can't enforce it. They can suggest it, but without the legislation it is all just a sugestion.

[@vulpes7079]

So all you need is an antivax judge to ruin things for everyone

[@ilikedota5]

@@l0lLorenzol0l given how robust the scientific consensus, I wouldn't be worried, were it not for scientific illiteracy.

[@bguy645]

The explanation of that case was very bad.

[@hewhohasnoidentity4377]

The judicial review in this case is being done just as it would have been before the overturning of Chevron. This case is part of the checks and balances between branches of government. The judicial branch determines if the executive branch did what the legislative branch intended with the law. This case only questions the decision the EPA made as a result of following established processes. Chevron didn't cover the details of individual decisions.. It covered the processes used in accomplishing the mission defined by the legislative branch. The judge probably has several clerks reviewing the evidence that was submitted along with the source materials for the evidence and documents found on the dockets for every case in the federal system alleging possible harm linked to fluoride. Some federal judges have also been known to look to international sources for possible consideration if they find something worth including. The opinion on such a case will likely be 300 pages or more of both procedural and scientific details of how the determination is made.

[@DarrenPoulson]

As a science nerd.... Portland = the control. They're doing a valuable service.

[@F00Lsmack]

ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/completed/fluoride

[@F00Lsmack]

ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/completed/fluoride

[@DrPepperone]

A science nerd who’s also a non-science dum dum. Since Europe f’ing exists and yeah there’s no higher rate of cavities here

[@kurtlindner]

@@DrPepperone Diet. 🎤

[@2Fast4Mellow]

Only when those people from Portland stay in Portland. If they ever leave they contaminate the study... I vote we put a big fence around the city. I know a guy from a big house with white walls that have some experience with these sorts of things ;-)

[@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.

[@AtarahDerek]

Natural fluoride is safe at most of the levels at which it seeps into groundwater. But fluorosilic acid is toxic at ALL levels. And yes, fluorosilic is causing adverse health effects. I didn't get thyroid cancer out of the ether, and neither has anyone else who started getting thyroid disease after the government violated the Nuremberg code to add fluorosilic acid to our water and folic acid to our bread.

[@sterlingodeaghaidh5086]

My town is one of them, its actually at above 70% naturally occurring.

[@IndustrialParrot2816]

Fun fact PFAS actually are bad for the Same Reasons Fluoride is good because they don't Break down the way other Chemicals do because of the Chemistry of Fluoride, because it's so violently Reactive in its Elemental state it forms extremely Stable Compounds

[@Sir_Austin_T_Gee]

Let’s not forget that Sam said at the start of the video that Portland was the only city “out of the 50 largest cities in the country” so obviously that doesn’t include every little bitty small town in this country that doesn’t at it in.

[@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

[@puellanivis]

Not every location had to remove the fluoride from their water. Places with excessive fluoride remove some, but not all. As opposed to remove it all, just to add it back in. But most places don’t have enough natural fluoridation to be effective, which is why it had to be added in the first place. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation#/media/File:Groundwater-fluoride-world.svg

[@thomasrorke1775]

Wait until you find out its a unnatural amount of Floride 😮😮

[@Post_and_Ghost]

Isn’t there a big difference in the naturally occurring fluoride and fluoride added to the water which is a byproduct of aluminum refinement?

[@polygontower]

@@Post_and_Ghost Are you referring to the step where sodium aluminum fluoride is added to reduce the working temperature in the process of refining bauxite?

[@KevinJDildonik]

​@@Post_and_GhostThis crap with people arguing about "natural" chemicals needs to stop. I love when people say they have artificial MSG allergies. When they visit my house, I absolutely fill their food with MSG. Somehow, magically, they've never had any issues. It's only when they get food from Chinese people that they claim to have issues. Weird! Just like people who claim to be fluoride sentmsitive can drink spring water with high fluoride and claim to not have any issues, but fluoride from "the government" is somehow dangerous.

[@thomasdalton1508]

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...

[@lordhosk]

No, they don't, the rate of tooth decay in Portland is almost identical to other large cities. The reason is, The Fluoride in the water is at such a low concentration and spends so little time in your mouth when you drink it that it doesn't actually help your teeth in any measurable way. Are there any negative health effects? There haven't been any studies that show there are, but there are also no health benefits. Its literally a waste of money based on the concept of a good idea. Fluoride helps teeth-> we drink water in our mouths -> our teeth are in our mouths-> lets put fluoride in our water!

[@hypotheticalaxolotl]

@esotericcommonsense6366 oh, you're one of those.

[@desmeitit]

I think the answer is yes.

[@LENZ5369]

"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

[@Jehty_]

Is it not common in the US to have fluoride in toothpaste and table salt?

[@ref498]

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.

[@moth.monster]

So you're saying that drinking tea will make my teeth healthy (if yellow)?

[@pineapplerindm]

Once the fluoride concentration is beyond what the plant can naturally handle (through ROS neutralization) then the quality of the tea suffers; the formation of polyphenols (and other good substances) in tea is inhibited. Darker, more mature leaves will have accumulated more fluoride. The majority of fluoride is bound to the sugars in tea, though this can depend on tea variety If you are really concerned about fluoride you won't just need to avoid tea and coffee. It is everywhere, for good or bad

[@_ikako_]

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

[@JohnLeePettimoreIII]

because illegal immigrant frenchies ate them all. 😆

[@LRM12o8]

Flouride is the chemical that turns the freaking frogs gay? 🤯

[@agodelianshock9422]

@@LRM12o8 Atrazine

[@Fetecheney]

Oh, they have frogs. They're just much more heterosexual than other urban centers' frogs.

[@Feipers]

@@FetecheneyIt’s funny because frogs can actually turn trans because of environmental factors like pollution. Trans frogs in Portland

[@fireflightphoenix8710]

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 😦

[@sageDieuvids]

My uncle works at Deutsche Bahn and if this isn't corrected in the next "all my mistakes" supercut video he says he will delay all the trains by a random amount of time next time Sam buys a ticket

[@ConWolfDoubleO7]

You wouldn't add "et al" to an acronym either

[@CatWhisperer570]

Guess everyone also missed the beginning where he said "Portland Oregon, the only of the country's 50 largest cities..." The US has way more than 50 cities. Unless they meant state. But even then, I'm sure Oregon has more than 50 cities. Sometimes I wonder if this channel is AI.

[@Bitmaker64]

@@CatWhisperer570 that is a correct statement. He means, Portland Oregon is the only city in the the country's 50 largest cities... . Not that the country has only 50 cities

[@Nazuiko]

@@CatWhisperer570 Fifty largest. As in, of the cities in the top 50 populations As in, If you made a list of the 50 most populous cities in the US, Portland would be the only one without healthy water.

[@catipto]

The 55th largest city - Honolulu - also doesn't fluoridate its water on the entire island of O'ahu. The exception is the water on the US military bases. And the children who live on base have fewer cavities than those who don't.

[@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.

[@katherenewedic8076]

yes, and the taste and benefit is obvious in the mouth and body

[@catipto]

The military bases on O'ahu (aka Honolulu County) do fluoridate their water, and the kids who live on-base have fewer cavities than those who live off-base.

[@kanderson-oo7us]

​@@catiptoInteresting! Being military dependents, though, they also likely get better health & Dental care...

[@FinalBossPlagueRat]

0:33 found the 10th dentist

[@SkyQuakee]

Underrated comment lol

[@RubberyDuckkery867]

i live in portland and can confirm all of my teeth have fallen out due to having no flouride in my drinking water.

[@renegade-master29]

It's most likely something that runs through the family and bypasses and misses a generation but not the next. Fluoride isn't good for you, don't buy into the propaganda

[@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.

[@friendlybane]

Still stupid because adding Fl has nothing to do with the cleanliness of the water.

[@celarc99]

Fluoride is present in most natural sources of water. The treatment process to clean water removes it. All fluoridation does is re-add the fluoride at a slightly higher than natural concentration. Without fluoridation, the water ends up slightly less natural than it was before the treatment process.

[@Bob_Smith19]

Do you use fluoride toothpaste? Congratulations, you don’t need fluoride added to your drinking water.

[@friendlybane]

@@Bob_Smith19 Not everyone uses fluoridated toothpaste. You are making the opposite point.

[@katherenewedic8076]

Florida does effect the taste. I grew up in Portland and now live on the east coast where fluoride is in the water and children actually die from tooth decay. so what's the problem with addressing proper tooth hygiene and diet and keeping a clean water source? explain that?

[@lukaswild9908]

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

[@DartzinhoV]

This was actually written by Amy (you can see who wrote the video at the bottom of the description), so Team Ben keeps on winning! No more Amy Puzzle Boxes though :(

[@4thalt]

It was Amy, the certified most savage writer

[@app103]

You forgot to mention places like Hawaii, which have a statewide ban on the addition of fluoride to their water supply, and therefore rank 50th for fluoridated water. And NJ, which ranks 49th, where it's not banned, but water for multiple towns may come from the same supplier, and they all have to agree to fluoridation, and that has only happened for about 15% of municipalities.

[@bhzucker]

When I was a kid, my parents were extremely insistent on getting my brother and me to brush our teeth (with fluoride) and do a daily fluoride mouth rinse. It wasn't until decades later that I realized that that was because our house was on well water instead of a municipal supply, and so our water was not fluoridated. Thanks mom and dad for a full set of intact teeth! 😁✨

[@JimboRustles]

Who knew you could just brush your teeth with the stuff instead of ingesting it, like basically the entire world except for the US and a handful of other countries?

[@xynonners]

you can always count on the US to be as lazy as possible ​@@JimboRustles

[@etsyshoppe]

@@JimboRustles do you think people in the us swallow their toothpaste ?

[@JimboRustles]

@@etsyshoppe Are you daft? They swallow their drinking water don't they?

[@augiegirl1]

When my brother & I were growing up, we took prescription fluoridated vitamins. I was in my late 20s when I got my first cavity, & my 43-year-old brother has never had one.

[@jackmandu]

The reversal of Chevron doesn’t mean the judge can’t consider the EPA’s position in his decision it just means he doesn’t have to automatically defer to their judgement. He can still ultimately agree with EPA and rule in their favor.

[@that_fluff]

But, if I am reading correctly, he will have to come to those conclusions on his own via information presented in the case. He can no longer say "This board of every relevant expert that's currently alive says x."

[@jackmandu]

@@that_fluff - That may be correct, but the EPA can still present their own side urging the case and the judge will have to that into account during his decision making. It’s just that he doesn’t have to automatically accept their position.

[@l0lLorenzol0l]

@@that_fluff If he asks for their input he can. It's just that their opinions will be that: opinions. Not word of law.

[@Thee_Sinner]

@@l0lLorenzol0lIt’s a case asking if the law is good. Maintaining Chevron is analogous to a parent saying “because I said so.”

[@the_warpwny]

As others have stated, all this does is let the judge rule on the law and not be required to accept the agency's interpretation of it. They still present their case and largely are still looked at as experts but now other facts and information is weighted against them instead of auto losing. It stops things like the EPA suddenly deciding your house is built on a wetland because the drainage ditch in front of it flows into a creek and the EPA suddenly decided that makes it a navigable waterway and thus the things flowing into it being wetlands. That is a real case btw.

[@evandonovan9239]

Title is misleading since it's actually just the only one of the top 50 cities by population not to, not the only city overall. There is no universally agreed-upon definition of a US city, but the title made me think this was rarer than the video described. Still entertaining, though, except the incorrect information on Chevron deference

[@CMTZ11]

Yea my first thought was Hawaii.

[@ps.2]

Yeah, pretty clickbaity. "Only One US City"? Really? So weird that he just happened to pick 50 largest cities as his cutoff, given cities #51 and #55 also do not fluoridate. The headline "Why Only Three US Cities Don't Add Fluoride" would be somewhat less compelling. But I'm sure that's _purely_ a coincidence. Not intentional clickbaiting at all.

[@etsyshoppe]

​@@ps.2 this is definitely something worth getting upset about

[@rzeqdw]

I did a bit of a double take when the video title said "the only city" but a few minutes in the video said that abouy 35% of americans drink unfluoridated water. I didn't know that 22 million people live in Portland!

[@ps.2]

@@rzeqdw Yep. Portland, Oregon has 650k people and Portland, Maine has just over 21 million. Little-known fact.

[@krallja]

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

[@profile5]

Jenny McCarthy wins again. America is really something.

[@brianbarker2551]

Wait til they find out about fortified flour and milk, oh heck even salt.

[@macdjord]

That's what's called sarcasm.

[@brianbarker2551]

@@macdjord You'd be amazed what people trotted out during the Covid kerfuffle.

[@SalzmanSoftware]

Trump & RFK Jr are about to take away all 3

[@Pestsoutwest]

Bakersfield Ca (ranked 47 in population size) does not add fluoride to the water either... This makes your statement incorrect

[@rozorahk]

Bakersfield is a travesty not a city

[@frankdebot4389]

Aren't americans brushing their teeth? Toothpaste has fluoride

[@Mr.Bimgus]

And kids always do what they're told. It doesn't have any negative effects, and is stupidly cheap, so why not both? Also, if I remember correctly, it's more beneficial because it helps reduce damage while you eat. If you eat something acidic, and then take a sip of water, it's much more effective then eating something acidic, and waiting until hours later when you go to bed to get that fluoride.

[@user-tr1zj]

@@Mr.Bimgus "It doesn't have any negative effects" - not true, scientific studies show fluoride lowers IQ and causes other health problems there's a reason you spit out your toothpaste instead of swallowing after brushing

[@isaacvaladez22]

There are toothpastes that are made without fluoride here in the states

[@bertdog2119]

People aren’t against fluoride, they’re against it in water. There’s a reason your mother always said to never swallow your toothpaste.

[@Mr.Bimgus]

@@bertdog2119 I genuinely don't understand people like you. A single Google search will tell you that you're wrong. It has no negative effects whatsoever when in the amounts they add to drinking water, and we have decades of evidence to prove that fact. Like you're literally just objectively wrong, and could easily verify the truth if you wanted, but you choose not to. Why?

[@orangeflaws8088]

I live in a suburb of Portland and I’ve heard and seen so many adds about fluoride and water and always been very confused because I never knew that putting fluoride in water was a thing

[@masterxak]

My city doesn't add flouride to water. Mostly because of of our 17 breweries and 8 meaderies (flouride kills yeast and not having it in the water saves them money)

[@stevk5181]

Chlorine added to ensure clean water will cause more issues than 0.7 ppm of fluoride.

[@masterxak]

@@stevk5181 boiling the water removes the chlorine. I brew mead as a hobby, and this is all I need to do. Also our water is probably the most delicious tap water I've ever drank, better than most bottled wayer (we just got a new water treatment facility) weirdly though people can swim and use gas motors on the lake that is our water source. I still kinda wish we had fluoridated water. My dentist knows I didn't grow up here because I have some of the nicest teeth she's seen, and I know I don't brush as much as I should....

[@masterxak]

​@@busimagenI would hope not, the breweries are the biggest push for the no fluoride in the first place, because of the high quality flavor of our water, outside of that we are a very liberal town. They were even the ones that pushed for our new water treatment facility after we had an algae bloom that affected the taste, but not the safety of the water (it got me to buy a Brita filter for the first time) as a city we are proud of our breweries and they bring in a lot of income, so keeping them happy is a point of some importance. (Yes, we are an alcoholic city)

[@rzeqdw]

@@masterxak Honestly, kind of surprised that boiling doesn't remove fluorine as well. Both are halides, I'd expect them to have similar chemical behaviours in this regard.

[@sevegarza]

There are a lot of breweries in Portland that market their beer as being better because there is no fluoride in it and the water is natural. So ya, money is involved.

[@JoonasD6]

1:25 Medical misconception correction: teeth may be hard and stereotypically white and hence compare easily to bones, but they are not bones. Their internal structure is different, they originate differently from the so called germ layers during embryo development and organogenesis, roughly stated bones actively heal/restructure and teeth don't, bones take part in multiple metabolic duties in maintaining a specific blood composition, ... a human's first teeth do emerge and poke out from within the jaw bones, but teeth themselves are not bones. 🙏

[@maverick9708]

That explication of chevron deference was almost as bad as all the extra cavities I Portland 😂 I trust you'll do a better job next time, or not, it's really hard to find unbiased information on that subject lol

[@FoxxelPobieski]

2:21 You said 2014 but editor graphics says 2012; Add this to the bucket of blunders HAI

[@thundercats2004]

I really hate how dumb our country is sometimes

[@matthewwelsh294]

I look at the government and we have a former teen mom and a high school dropout in the government. I do not have much love for this country

[@michaelmcchesney6645]

Sam, I think you may misunderstand what Chevron stood for and what overturning Chevron means. Chevron's deference meant that when a federal law that applied to an agency decision was ambiguous, courts had to defer to the agency's interpretation of the law, so long as the interpretation was reasonable. Federal judges may not have much expertise about toxic chemicals, but they teach statutory interpretation in law school. Assuming the law that says the EPA gets to decide whether fluoride in our drinking water is safe isn't ambiguous, then Chevron has no bearing on how the EPA decides that issue. There were serious problems with Chevron. You may not have noticed this, but Washington D.C. Is profoundly broken. For example, Congress has tended to pass more ambiguous laws in recent years, not less. That's because it can be hard to reach a compromise on controversial issues. If a Senator or Representative votes for such a compromise, they may get primaried and lose their cushy federal job. So, instead, they deliberately make the law ambiguous and figure the administrative state can take the heat. But when an agency reaches a decision on how to interpret an ambiguous law about a controversial issue, that decision isn't final. That's because every 4 to 8 years (on average), we elect a new president who wasn't a member of the old president's party. When that happens all the federal agencies that had reached controversial decisions suddenly change their minds and decide the law really meant the opposite of what the agency had said before the election. And federal courts had to defer to that interpretation, too. Issues like that were why Chevron was widely considered a zombie precedent. Federal courts found ways to avoid applying it (hey, that law's not ambiguous!), but because the Supreme Court hadn't gotten around to officially overturning it, it would wander around like a zombie in a George A. Romero movie. The Supreme Court finally gave Chevron a proverbial shot in the head in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024). That case was about a fisherman in the Atlantic Ocean. The law at issue was the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), which was about the management of marine fisheries in U.S. waters. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), part of the Department of Commerce, decided that the best way to be sure fishing boats weren't violating the law was to place a federal monitor on every boat. However, because the NMFS was dealing with budget cuts, they decided that the owners of the fishing boats should pay the cost of the federal observer on their boats. The MSA authorized the NMFS to place federal monitors on the boats but said nothing about whether the NMFS or the boat owners should pay the cost of those monitors. Does that sound ambiguous to you? Well, it did to the NMFS and the Commerce Department. They then interpreted the ambiguous law and decided that the owners should pay. Do you still think the Supreme Court made the wrong decision? I want to move into your house and take all your stuff. This law doesn't say I have the right to do that, but I think that makes the law ambiguous. So, I am going to interpret that ambiguous law to mean I get all of Sam's stuff. Henceforth, this channel will be known as HAM (Half as Mike). Well, I would do that, but I think the Supreme Court got the case right. Sam, if you disagree, let me know where I can pick up all your stuff. Thanks to everyone who read all the way to the end.

[@jefffinkbonner9551]

Well said. His snarky summary of the case was woefully inadequate and one-sided.

[@michaelmcchesney6645]

@@jefffinkbonner9551 Thanks. Judging by the Likes, I don't think many people read my comment to the end. It's a shame because I would be happy to debate anyone who disagrees with my take. Unfortunately, it seems very few people are interested in whether a Court decision follows the law and/or the Constitution. All they care about is the outcome. Who won? There are pro-choice legal scholars who agree that Dobbs was correctly decided, but expecting the general public to accept that distinction wouldn't be reasonable. But so many people getting worked up over the end of Chevron deference did surprise me. However, now that Donald Trump will be in charge of the Administrative State again, I wonder if all the people lamenting the end of Chevron will start throwing parties to celebrate the decision. Lee Zeldin is about to become EPA Administrator...

[@rzeqdw]

I think you mean HAM, not HIM 🤣 I want to agree and highlight a nuance that i feel is under-discussed. And as a blanket disclaimer for my own argument, this is about how the system _should_ work, not about what is practical in the real world > Federal judges may not have much expertise about toxic chemicals, but they teach statutory interpretation in law school. The thing about the law is that the law is not science. It's not medicine. It's not ecology. It's law. The purpose of the court system is _not_ to make our society better. It's to _accurately_ enforce the law. The purpose of the law is to weigh all these factors and come to a satisficing position on them, of which scientific input is one very important factor (but not the only one). If the government passes a bad law, it is the proper function of the court to enforce the bad law. If the law is bad, we should change it. We shouldn't just magically reinterpret it to fix it. Judges don't need to understand toxic chemicals. They just need to be able to understand statutes governing toxic chemicals. Politicians don't need to understand toxic chemicals. They just need to be wise enough to listen to people who do, and balance their concerns against other concerns. At the risk of touching a third rail, this is one of the reasons why "we're just following the science" irked me so hard in 2020. Science _cannot_ justify a policy, and any politician who says "we're just following the science" is just deflecting responsibility for criticism from people who don't like the policy. The proper job of those politicians and regulators is to listen to the science, balance the scientific concerns against other concerns which are just as valid and important, and then make a decision and take responsibility for it. "We locked down society because Science said so" => always bs. "We locked down society, because we looked at the science, and the science said that such a decision would have costs X and benefits Y, and we believe that Y > X, so we have decided to implement this policy" => reasonable leadership, assuming they have judged X and Y correctly. Note that this is not a mere semantic argument, it's important. You might say "oh come on, we all know that that's what they _meant_ when they said "following the science", but there's an important distinction. When they say "we're following the science", if you are unhappy with the policy, they can say "hey, don't get mad at me. It's not my fault if you _don't believe in science_ !". But if they say the second thing, and you are unhappy with the policy, they have to say "too bad, we have decided that your preferences are wrong, and that this is better for society. If you don't like it, the next election is in a few years". And then they have to deal with a bunch of people being mean and angry at them, and they run the risk of not getting re-elected. Which they _should_ run the risk of for controversial decisions. If the decisions were obviously correct, they wouldn't be controversial. If decisions are controversial, that means we should be very careful about them. EDIT: here's a fun thought experiment that illustrates what I mean when I say that there are important nonscientific factors to balance against: Let's say for the sake of argument that the health benefits of fluoridating water are obvious. As a judge or policymaker, how do you judge that benefit against the precedence of saying "it's ok to put something in the water just because the government wanted to"? It could be the case that fluoridating water opens up the legal precedent for the government to start putting other things in the water 'for our own good'. (joke example) maybe they start putting Ozempic in the water to help curb obesity, and then 20 years from now we find out we all have crippling chronic health conditions as a result. A policymaker could reasonably say "yes, the benefits of fluoridating water is obvious, but the tail risk of this being used as an argument to put other, less beneficial things in the water supply is too great. So we are not going to permit fluoridating water. It's just not worth the _political_ risk in the future". They could say that. They might be correct. They might be wrong. But saying that would not be _unreasonable_ . And, on the other side, anyone complaining about such a hypothetical by saying "wow, look at these dumb politicians, they're denying obvious science", that _would_ be an unreasonable criticism. They're not denying obvious science. They're balancing the benefits of obvious science against other, non-science-based costs I don't think this is an unreasonable hypothetical concern, either. I have personally heard, in real life, relatively politically well connected people discuss tainting the water supplies with both lithium and estrogen. Lithium, because it has anti-depressant functions and populations with drinking water that is high in naturally occurring lithium rates have lower rates of un-aliving themselves. Estrogen, because violent crime correlates with testosterone, so if we suppress the population's testosterone, we will have lower crime rates. Both of these ideas strike me as horrendously Orwellian, but these very smart people I know discuss them seriously, and they use water fluoridation as one of their primary arguments for why this should be reasonable. Quite honestly, I would rather everyone have bad dental hygiene if that's what it takes to stop policymakers from secretly feminizing us in a weird attempt to control crime rates.

[@michaelmcchesney6645]

@@rzeqdw While Joss Whedon may have some reprehensible personal qualities, he has also made some outstanding TV shows and movies. While I would hate to post spoilers for a 20-year-old movie, there is a plot in Serenity (2005) that is very similar to adding chemicals to a water supply to reduce aggression. In the real world, I think we could adopt a simple rule. Whenever a government policy designed "for the people's own good" requires that the people never learn that the policy is in effect, then the government should not be allowed to implement it. That isn't to say that the government can't keep information confidential/top secret. The American public knows that the CIA engages in espionage; we don't need to know the identities of our spies and confidential sources. Thanks for pointing out my typo. It has been corrected.

[@Zenerd775]

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

[@Hdogdog7]

I don't think anyone really finds birth control controversial except for religious extremists.

[@Zenerd775]

@@Hdogdog7 it’s a standard teaching for Catholicism. Anyone that got married in a Cathedral probably told their Bishop they wouldn’t use it. I know not all Catholics are concerned about it but the official stance remains.

[@alakazaam4292]

What a deep cut. Whoa you’re so keen on sarcasm. You must read so much and be up to date on the most things. Sam is such a genius for giving us that very deep cut. I bet no one else got it besides you and me.

[@rzeqdw]

Hormonal birth control, specifically, is actually quite controversial amongst people familiar with the literature. There are lots of under-discussed side effects and potential environmental contamination concerns. For example: hormonal birth control seems to strongly modify mate selection by messing with MHC compatibility signals. This is a problem because what ends up happening is that women who are on birth control will be attracted to some men, marry them, and then quit birth control in order to have children. For a significant number of those cases, they wake up suddenly unattracted to their spouses. At the margins, this causes marital strife and unhappiness All other forms of birth control are obviously and (should be) uncontroversially good though

[@corruptedpoison1]

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

[@freesk8]

Bellingham doesn't, either.

[@Sasquatchmedic]

@@freesk8Stay away from the East..! Dont come here effing up normalicy.

[@jefffinkbonner9551]

@@freesk8 I’m almost certain Bellingham does. The question to not fluoridate the water came up a few years ago, and all the totally humble people at city hall near about had aneurysms while lecturing everyone about how they could be so stupid.

[@freesk8]

@@jefffinkbonner9551 I worked pretty hard on the anti-fluoridation effort in Bellingham in the late '90's. But I moved out about 2005. So sad if they went fluoride.

[@kwowka]

American politics confuses me. Imagine what you could do if you put this energy towards actual real problems.

[@hugolouessard3914]

Well most european countries don't add fluor to tapwater sadly, so on this one we can't say anything

[@kwowka]

@@hugolouessard3914 I’m? Not European???

[@torianemoia]

nothing that benefits the capital class

[@Kevin-zv6ds]

Ugh. This is actually a real problem and has been a point of bitter discussion amongst my people for as long as I can remember. You're right, but at the same time completely wrong as this is longstanding debate is a real problem.

[@snowcat9308]

Yeah, we could overthrow the ruling class and actually make America fair. There's a good reason the wealthiest country on earth has so many misinformed people running around and wasting their energy on nothing.

[@halbronk7133]

1:25 "Your teeth, unlike your other bones, don't self-repair" Big F- appears on screen. LOL

[@Seraph.G]

0:10 NC MENTION!!!!

[@LoganShmogan]

Hey we're finally known for more than just cancer

[@thecolorgrae_35]

RAHHHHHHHH

[@RavenTwoSix.]

“They’re after our precious bodily fluids”

[@handlemonium]

You fired your writer!? Nooooo not Ben!

[@eman7blue]

amy wrote this video

[@handlemonium]

@@eman7blue Ah nice to know! I picked on Ben because Sam egged on him during a recent Jet Lag episode.

[@CatWhisperer570]

Is that why the beginning of the video said "Portland, the only of the country's 50 largest cities...."? I thought the Florida joke was phunny. Get it? Haha

[@InstantDeath-34]

As a Portland resident, I can confirm that our water tastes better.

[@WesternGolfAlliance]

HOW did you do this video without a SINGLE Dr. Strangelove reference?!?

[@joshualfalken]

“I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids" - General Jack D. Ripper

[@zermysplayground6096]

This is one of the longest strings of bad takes Sams ever done

[@IStillLikeIke]

Really dislike how you casually summarize the overturning of Chevron deference very incompletely and call it a bad decision. It's clearly complicated and this was just a bad decision on your part.

[@nicholaslewis8594]

Nah

[@rzeqdw]

I've found, as a foreigner in America who can enjoy the political detachment of not being allowed to vote, that most peoples' opinions of court cases have nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not those decisions are reasonable, and everything to do with whether or not those decisions result in their preferred outcomes. Most of the people who are opposed to overturning Chevron (at least the ones I've met) don't even really understand what Chevron is, or why it would be good or bad. They just understand (correctly) that it will result in several regulatory things they like, going away. This is very frustrating to me, because I want to scream "then make congress do their jobs right, and put it into the law". As best I can tell, the correct interpretation of Chevron is "congress is too lazy to do their jobs properly, and too scared of the negative PR of taking any position on anything, so they use Chevron to punt controversial decisions to unelected bodies so that they can't be criticised". I am against such a policy. Controversial decisions _should_ be criticised, and good leadership looks like tanking that criticism and saying "too bad, you're overruled" At the risk of opening up another third rail, this is why I am pro choice but also glad that Roe got overturned. Such an important cultural policy decision should be made by elected representatives, not interpreted into law by judges. If 50 years ago, congress had just _made a law_ like what we pay them to do, then no amount of judicial activism could have undone it. (Of course, if you dig into it, you quickly realize that the reason they _didn't_ do it that way was because they _couldn't_, and the reason why they _couldn't_ is because a large number of Americans are very strongly opposed to it. The correct way to handle that in a democracy is engage logic, reason, and rhetoric, and build consensus for them to change their minds and adopt a more pro-choice position, and then vote on it. It's not to just go behind their backs and sneak it in through the courts. This is very important, because politics is downstream of culture, so if you change politics without changing the culture, then the politics can snap back as soon as you look away)

[@AubriGryphon]

So, you're a bit wrong in the video title. There's a sizable patch of Texas and Oklahoma where cities don't add fluoride to their municipal water -- they remove it! The natural fluoride level in the available water is well above the recommended limit, causing the stained "Texas Teeth" that put H. Trendley Dean on the trail of fluoride's effect on dental health in the first place. (While the affected children's teeth were discolored, they had practically no cavities.)

[@AubriGryphon]

Example: Amarillo, TX neither adds nor removes it, as the natural fluoride level is around 0.8.

[@Br3ttM]

Anti-vaxxers were associated with people on the left quite strongly until 2021. There have been conservative and libertarian groups that have opposed them, especially the requirements for kids to have them to go to school, but other than religious groups, the stereotypical anti-vaxxer was a white upper-middle class liberal. In particular, the West coast had some children die of diseases like whooping cough ~10 years ago because of lower vaccination rates.

[@jyrki21]

🎯 Exactly, and it was really just COVID that reversed these positions. But in truth the hippies and the survivalists have a fair bit in common.

[@rzeqdw]

This is one that has been very amusing to me, because I didn't grow up in America, but I moved here in 2012. So I've been here long enough to see the complete political inversion but, since I didn't grow up in it, it stands out to me in a way that it doesn't to Americans. Almost all of the populist criticisms of covid policies that get denounced as far right conspiracy theories, I could have said them to _any_ democrat I knew in 2012 and they would unquestioningly agree. But now, in 2024, if you say that to any _republican_ they will unquestioningly agree, and if you say it to any democrat, they'll scream at you. Nobody on either side seems to realize that everything's flipped turned upside down Honestly, I have a sneaking suspicion that if I bothered to look at stats about anti-vaxxer sentiment, it would still work out that the majority of anti-vaxxers are bougie white liberals who shop at whole foods, and the whole memeplex of "anti-vax = far right conspiracist" is just a media invention. But, I mean, I understand the basics of immunity so I have better things to do than care about how other people mess up their health. I'm not gonna catch it, because i got my shots

[@chadmighster]

Hawaii also does not fluoridate its water.

[@RealCreepaTime]

2:12 "One September day in 2012, the city council unanimously voted to fluoridate Portland's water in 2014" lol Then later "...the level Portland city council voted for in 2012"

[@goldfishkaden1539]

they voted in 2012, the law would go into place in 2014. similar to how they voted yes in 1978 and no in 1980 ‘before’ fluoride ever hit the water supply. He said it correctly in the video you just misconstrued it.

[@Br3ttM]

@@goldfishkaden1539 Normally you want to say something like "beginning in" or "taking effect in" when talking about laws to avoid this kind of confusion, and also to show that it remains in effect afterward, rather than only covering that single year. People familiar with how new laws work would likely expect that to be stated, and in this case assume that's what the second year is.

[@moss8336]

2:55 WICHITA KANSAS MENTIONED!!!!!!!

[@ayenul]

Well this video aged like milk

[@KrolPawi]

What happened?

[@OddityProgidy]

@@KrolPawirfk happened

[@RandomDeforge]

you missed an opportunity to include statistics about the dental health of the population living in the non-fluorinated areas and whether they are actually better or worse off.

[@ross123540]

It’s not a question. Yes they are better off.

[@Welgeldiguniekalias]

@@ross123540 It makes literally no difference to dental health, which is reason enough not to do it, since adding fluoride is not free.

[@Hinodei]

​@@ross123540kzbin.info/www/bejne/qGjPYYWnbqprg7s

[@ross123540]

@@Welgeldiguniekalias clearly your wrong in saying it makes no difference.

[@katherenewedic8076]

@@ross123540 is that why kids die from tooth decay in areas where the water is treated? read much?

[@mattr8750]

wtf he's not allowed to consider the benefits of fluoride? That is LITERALLY NOT HOW MEDICINE WORKS! ALL treatments have side-effects. The question isn't whether or not there are any side effects, it is ALWAYS whether the side-effects outweigh the benefits!

[@Br3ttM]

Even if the judge ruled it did need to be controlled, that might not ban putting it in the water, just make the limit mandatory instead of a guideline.

[@OkapisRu1e]

A big part of the issue is medication without consent. Fluoride is neither an essential nutrient nor something that keeps the water sterile like chlorine. It falls better into the category of medicine, but then you are medicating (at least some) people without their consent. Even if you determine that the positives outweigh the negatives, you're doing so for a huge group of people, and that judgement won't work out the same for everyone. Also, the dosage is not controllable: people who work outside might drink three times the amount of water than an average desk worker and therefore get three times the amount of fluoride in their bodies.

[@rzeqdw]

I agree with you, but what people frequently don't realize is that politics and policy is not medicine, it's politics and policy. It is absolutely reasonable for a political entity, on just about literally any subject, to say "I don't care what the scientific costs and benefits are. We're doing this thing, because [non-scientific reason]". That's the whole point of democracy! We do things based on popular consent, and people are allowed to be wrong. Now obviously, I would think that most people would agree that we probably _shouldn't_ be making judgements on that basis. But we live in a system specifically designed to specifically make judgements on that basis.

[@rzeqdw]

@@OkapisRu1e > Also the dosage is not controllable I left this comment elsewhere on this video but I will agree and amplify that. My teeth are permanently messed up because as a kid, there was too much fluoride in my water. Even if fluoride is a very obvious public health benefit, just dumping it in the water is not responsible medicine, because you can't control the dosage. Some people, like me, will end up with gross-looking dental fluoridosis, which sucks. It seems to me that fluoridating toothpaste would be a much better way of doing this and, oh, cool, we already do that.

[@8stormy5]

This comment section, man. I'll never understand how people are "skeptical" enough to baselessly antagonize the safest, most-supported public health positions only to turn around and inject bleach at the drop of a hairpiece.

[@l0lLorenzol0l]

Some people are stupid. Like how people continue to repeat "inject bleach" literally 4 years after despite it never have been said or sugested.

[@Thefrogbread]

It’s the same people who think plants and magic rocks can cure any disease with

[@brianback3865]

Who's injecting bleach?

[@Thefrogbread]

@@brianback3865 me (it’s yummy)

[@EebstertheGreat]

The thing about fluoridating water is that it's probably the cheapest public health measure there is, maybe even less than vaccination. You can treat the entire population at shockingly low cost and essentially no risk, as most of the country has been doing for many decades. Even the startup cost is low (unlike with vaccines). Sure, it's not curing cancer or whatever, but it's a pretty dang good use of public funds.

[@pggp9242]

Kind of misleading on how the new major questions doctrine works. The court can still defer to admin agencies, it's only when the agency's interpretation results in a major question (of national importance, economic, etc). Then the court requires clear and explicit statutory language from congress enabling the agency with the proper authority. The fluoride case as far as I understand doesn't challenge the EPAs authority here but rather if the EPA is fulfilling it's current obligations under the law. Hate the major questions doctrine as much as the next guy and in no way supporting the Supreme court but I'm like 90% sure the major questions doctrine is not being used here.

[@michaelhargrove5930]

The US state of Hawaii did not flouridate its water when i lived there.

[@DrDawnieKildooDDSGreenValley]

The amount of fluoride in toothpaste is 1000 to 1500 parts per million

[@kingpin6173]

Which is kinda why you're not supposed to eat it. Fluoride only helps teeth while it's in contact with teeth. Adding it to drinking water won't do much unless you swirl it around your mouth a bunch before you swallow it, or hold it in your cheeks for hours on end like a hamster. If you want kids to not have cavities, make sure they're brushing their teeth. It's not hard. It's just good parenting.

[@jamespyle777]

Literally no Dr. Strangelove references?

[@andrewjgrimm]

8:00 Doo doo doo doo

[@reddcube]

I would much rather have Fluoride than Lead in my water.

[@nofxd52]

fyi, this case actually had its decision come out on the same day you released. Judge ruled that the EPA has to do a risk assessment.

[@ubadahoop]

Good! So crazy to me the tone of the videos and comments are acting like people are sooOoOooo crazy for being concerned about a chemical being added to their water that's scientifically proven to lower IQ. Lead was also a very normal and common thing for people to interact with. It has tons of great benefits just like fluoridating water. So does Asbestos and DDT. All of those have harms that aren't immediately evident but far outweigh the benefits. Not saying that's true for fluoride. Just that people ridiculing folks for being concerned about it need to chill. (That includes you Sam/Writer!!)

[@hourglass1988]

Fun fact I live in one of the places that doesn't add fluoride to their water. This is because I live in the rocky mountains and our water has something like 10X the amount of fluoride in it naturally that places that artificially add it have in theirs. I just like this fact because 'mountain spring water' is like the default image of the most pristine and untouched water. Fluoride however is a naturally occurring mineral that naturally leeches into water when its around.

[@opalhensley7566]

This collab is pure gold!

[@anotheraggieburneraccount]

College Station, Texas doesn't add fluoride to its water. Not one of the 50 largest, but its a metro area of around 300k people. of course, College Station also has natural fluoride since its water is from an aquifer.

[@detectiveslime2891]

Not half as interesting now.

[@drumset09]

After that un-florida joke I had to see who wrote this one. Amy. My money would have been on Ben.

[@interstellarsurfer]

Not the only city anymore. Abilene, TX stopped in September.

[@time2fly2124]

only city in the top 50 populated cities.

[@thomasrorke1775]

And Jacksonville

[@interstellarsurfer]

@@time2fly2124 Moving the goalposts. 👏

[@Sauce-b4e]

@@interstellarsurferthe video literally states “the only one of the top 50 cities in the us”. Not sure if Abilene falls under this grouping

[@goldfishkaden1539]

@@thomasrorke1775is there a new law? they still have fluoride

[@dalekcedar1490]

Yeah growing up in Portland it was weird how all the adults would talk about flouride like its such a big thing and then the dentist would put it on my teeth anyways LMAO

[@JD200_]

0:23 camera angle makes thumb look massive

[@8yourpets]

That's not the angle, that thumb is 8 inches long.

[@kaiserandvlad]

portland doesn't add fluoride to its water, just fentanyl

[@KelsomaticPDX]

1:25 TEETH ARE NOT BONES. They’re made of different stuff, have a different structure, and do different things. Unless you also consider fingernails bones, you should not consider teeth bones.

[@goldfishkaden1539]

they are apart of the skeletal system so close enough tbh

[@warman1944]

TIL that Gen. Jack D. Ripper is from Portland, OR.

[@zach.rigby1278]

How does fluoride apply itself to teeth? Is it through ingestion or just exposure to the surface of the tooth?

[@zach.rigby1278]

@@busimagen thank you for the information, why does it need to be in the water then? Couldn't we just be provided a mouthwash? I'm not trying to say I don't think it's a good idea to put in the water, but if there is any risk of getting sick in high concentrations why even risk it?

[@JustCallMeEm.]

@@zach.rigby1278you’re right, why do we add chlorine too, since if you have too much of that it’s corrosive. In fact, why don’t we just stop providing water at all, because after all drinking too much of that is toxic…

[@rzeqdw]

@@zach.rigby1278 IIRC most mouthwashes _do_ have fluoride in them

[@avidessauer154]

This video should be updated or partially retracted now that the judge has ruled (source google the verdict) TLDR: ruled sort of against EPA mostly just kicked the issue back to the EPA. The video seems to imply that the judge cannot defer to EPA, that's an incorrect reading, and clearly false given the verdict.

[@runnut5]

Not anymore! Now it will be all of them thanks to Trump's likely appointment of RFK Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services Yay cavities!

[@braveorslave]

I wish this was true. But to remove fluroide from our water is a huge task. This is where the fillibuster will come in.

[@SpacemanSpleef]

Oregon has actually only voted solid democrat on the presidential level since 1988. While it did go blue in 64, in 68, 72, 76, 80, and 84 it voted for Nixon, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Reagan respectively.

[@GammaJK]

He didn't say Oregon. He said Portland.

[@darthcryzin]

Anti Vax isn't really a conservative only issue though. Anecdotally I have encountered way more liberal anti vaxxers than conservative. Often they were liberal white women who were very helicopter parents.

[@Croz89]

I think before COVID anti-vax was definitely seen as an issue on the extreme left, the sort of people that think mobile phones cause cancer and food additives are all deadly poison.

[@thedapperdolphin1590]

It has become more of a conservative issue though since 2020. Vaccination rates in general, including for things like the flu, have dropped more for Republicans than Democrats since 2020. That’s what happens when many conservative politicians go on an anti-vax campaign for years.

[@AnotherPointOfView944]

Yes. "Educated" Karens.

[@cloudkitt]

covid pushed it more into a right thing, but previously you're correct that it was a very bipartisan group of nutters. Approaching from the right for "don't trust the gubment" reasons and from the left for "hippie all natural woo woo" reasons.

[@altrag]

I'd be willing to bet there's a hefty amount of selection bias there (because you generally encounter the most people in the places you regularly go - you have to put in effort to ensure a statistically viable sample set). Aside from that though, it also isn't terribly surprising. Anti-vax nonsense was very much a "hippie"/new-age idea until TFG made it a partisan purity test, and depending on what part of the country you're in it's entirely plausible that the 1990s / Jenny McCarthy influence is still strong. Also fun side-note: supplements are also a "hippie"/new-age idea for the most part, despite the type of people who typically hawk them online to support their sites/channels. The offline sales tend to have a different demographic distribution.

[@Generalofthe5001st]

There are some mistakes with the rivers on the thumbnail. The endorheic Sevier River is connected to the Virgin River, a tributary of the Colorado River. Similarly, the Truckee River is connected to the American River, and isn't connected to Lake Tahoe. Not to mention the course of the San Joaquin River, which is too far to the west, and crosses into the endorheic basins of the Tulare Basin and the Antelope Valley. The San Joaquin river should be more centrally located in the Central Valley, and curve off into the Sierra Nevada around Fresno.

[@sumeetdasgupta5528]

yeah portland makes sense. some strange strange people who dont get their flouride

[@taskdon769]

Maybe instead of lowering IQ that actually increase IQ.

[@erinrising2799]

if the fluoridation impacts IQ, wouldn't Portland residents have the highest IQ of any city?

[@PercivalDunlop]

How you tell stories is unmatched!

[@katherenewedic8076]

unmatched? gmafb

[@Gamer3427]

No idea if my area puts fluoride in our water. Partly because our local water is borderline undrinkable anyhow just off of how bad it tastes, so I'd be afraid to drink it extensively no matter what's been put in it or taken out of it.

[@pixelatedsoul]

Why do they claim Portland is the only US city that doesn't fluoridate their water? I'm from Hawaii, and the whole state does not fluoridate their water.

[@OptimumGaming149]

“50 largest cities”

[@coltentackett892]

Why would you need floride water if theres floride in your tooth paste tho? Also should probably add in what percentage of the population dosent brush their teeth and when brushing became widely encouraged.

[@TheStickCollector]

Interesting Time to see some comparisons between any two cities

[@F00Lsmack]

ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/completed/fluoride

[@OttoK_yt]

bizarre to pause this video in the first couple minutes to look up whether my city's water is fluoridated, find out it isn't, only to be directly called out at 5:03 as a place that voted to remove fluoridation

[@deuscoromat742]

How is it a bad thing that Chevron deference was overturned lol. Almost in the same breath he mentions the dismantlement of the administrative state insinuating that it's bad to dismantle. It's almost like a law is being judged based on the outcome of a particular case rather than the law itself...

[@alliegrey4364]

For other toxic things in groundwater, what the EPA does is set upper limits, not forbid any trace of it. So nothing would actually need to change if they did regulate it.

[@york2600]

Portland resident here. Left and right isn't a spectrum. It's a circle. The nutters meet on both extremes. Portland has the extreme left and Oregon has the extreme right and they jive pretty well on a TON of issues.

[@katherenewedic8076]

yes. there is definitely a consensus on things such as this, actual people want clean water, clean air, clean food, and just to live in peace

[@SocialDownclimber]

@@katherenewedic8076 If you are willing to dehumanise people who you disagree with, you are clearly on the wrong side of the issue.

[@ButzPunk]

It must be something to do with being supremely overconfident in one's rightness. To be an extremist of any kind, you need to hold a faith-based belief in your own infallibility. The same kind of faith which leads people to accept an anti-scientific worldview that makes everything they happen to already believe conveniently true.

[@iambicpentakill971]

Except for all of the things that they wildly disagree on. Agreement on a couple of issues doesn't make a circle

[@lawjef]

Getting your opinions from a social media influencer / comedy channel on whether the Chevron precedent struck the right balance between the administrative state and constitutional protections is tight!

[@PDXLibertarian]

Flouride was an industrial waste from aluminum smelting, and there was a big aluminum smelter in the Dalles, OR. They didn't want to take liability for fluoride waste disposal so there was this proposal to dump it in the water supply. Portlanders got wise to it in the 50's because so many workers worked at the aluminum plant.

[@elpusegato]

0:22 crazy thumb

[@hughjass1976]

"Fluoride can lower IQ" Are we sure they haven't been chugging fluoride in Portland?

[@katherenewedic8076]

no, but we're sure of a few other things

[@WaRLocK2204]

fluoride caused some discoloration on my tooth. Aside from costing $2000 to fix, it made me insecure for years

[@jacobrodesh9019]

I can’t wait to read all the peaceful, non argumentative comments

[@cartanfan-youtube]

Surely people around the world will be civil and respect the people of Portland’s decision, because surely people on the internet would never think their own way is the one correct way, and would realize they’re not from Portland and do not own it.

[@CandleWisp]

​@@cartanfan-youtube Welcome to the internet, where you don't get to be surrounded by yes men.

[@Duqustar]

Only clicked for my state of Oregon

[@Thee_Sinner]

Chevron was a terrible standard. It was the “we investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing” of judicial precedent.

[@ubadahoop]

Tell me you don't understand Chevron without telling me you don't understand Chevron.

[@Thee_Sinner]

@@ubadahoop Brilliant rebuttal lol

[@ubadahoop]

@@Thee_Sinner Thanks! Glad you agree you don't understand Chevron! 🤗

[@Curt_Sampson]

1:05 "...non-controversial wins as birth control and vaccines." Lol.

[@Stefi747]

Fluoride helps prevent cavities. Great, so we don't have to brush our teeth anymore? "No, you still have to brush" Ok great, yeah let's add redundant chemicals to our nations drinking water supply to supplement a basic dental hygiene practice that would be perfectly adequate for cavity prevention if done for two minutes twice a day. Truly a 400iq move

[@Thefrogbread]

It strengthens from the inside not the outside

[@Videolistener]

Wow. I’m a new subscriber and I like the science content, but not how you toss in snarky comments about an area I’m not sure you’re familiar with. Not about fluoride, but about Chevron deference. There are legitimate arguments on both sides Anyway, you’re a successful channel, but this is my 2c