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AP unravels the dental floss racket

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by LongTimeListener, Aug 4, 2016.

  1. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Medical benefits of dental floss unproven

    This has been making the rounds for a couple days. Turns out there has never been any scientific backing to recommend that people floss.

    Poynter did an article on the AP reporter who broke it into the open. On a tip from his son's dentist, he filed a FOIA request last year with HHS, because all recommendations must have scientific reasoning; in its next guidelines, the group quietly eliminated the flossing recommendation.

    How an AP reporter took down flossing

    So go ahead and leave that gristle dangling. It looks AND tastes good!
     
    doctorquant likes this.
  2. Vombatus

    Vombatus Well-Known Member

    What's the strangest thing you've used to floss?

    At work, I've folded over a post-it note, and used the fold to avoid a paper cut.
     
  3. Riptide

    Riptide Well-Known Member

    Tie between a penknife blade and a chewed-off fingernail. My friend said.
     
    Donny in his element likes this.
  4. spikechiquet

    spikechiquet Well-Known Member

    Pretty sure I've used questionable-where-it-was-before string
     
  5. SpeedTchr

    SpeedTchr Well-Known Member

    Church bulletin... funeral program...Playboy cover...dinner knife (not recommended)
     
    Vombatus likes this.
  6. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    If our Federal government recommends anything related to your life, there is a good chance you are better off doing the exact opposite.

    This was part of the ridiculous dietary guidelines that they are constantly changing, based on people actually questioning them (like in this case) or a new industry group stepping up to buy off some politicians with cash to get the recommendations changed. There is no reason that our Federal government should be in the business of creating and keeping costly bureaucracies that give quack advice and have the net effect of shifting economic activity around for what are largely corrupt reasons. But people have accepted this nonsense for decades and unfortunately it became entrenched. It's not about whether flossing is or isn't beneficial. It's about the fact that people should be trying to figure that out on their own, based on how much they care about it. We shouldn't be wasting public money creating and keeping a bureaucracy in business for things like this. Big Brother doesn't have the answers, and to the extent it stifles people figuring out the truth by putting an official imprimatur on things that are wrong, it is actually potentially dangerous.
     
    Hokie_pokie and YankeeFan like this.
  7. Vombatus

    Vombatus Well-Known Member

    Did you short floss stocks recently?
     
  8. Hokie_pokie

    Hokie_pokie Well-Known Member

    Blue Horseshoe hates dental floss.
     
  9. dixiehack

    dixiehack Well-Known Member

    Wasn't this like the entire economy of Pueblo, Colo., back in the 80s?
     
    Donny in his element likes this.
  10. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

  11. Machine Head

    Machine Head Well-Known Member

    Welcome to things inside my head in the 70s:

     
    cyclingwriter2 likes this.
  12. cyclingwriter2

    cyclingwriter2 Well-Known Member

    Glad this got posted.
     
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