By Dr Michael W Easley
Volunteer director of the National Fluoride Centre at Oral Health America.
Fluoridation has worked in US for 64 years.
COMMUNITY water fluoridation started in the US nearly 64 years ago.
Every year since, the number of US communities fluoridating their local water supplies has steadily increased - today, some 16,500 water systems provide fluoridated water for the benefit of America's children and adults.
Approximately 195 million people now drink optimally fluoridated water in the US. Forty-three of our largest 50 cities are fluoridated, including New York, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, Miami, Chicago and Washington DC.
So for UK residents travelling to the US, the chances are that they will almost certainly be drinking I fluoridated water during their stay. In October 2007, when the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California commenced fluoridation of its entire supply net work, an estimated 11 million additional Californians stood to benefit for the first time from this public health measure. And San Diego (California) city councillors voted unanimously to authorise the city's mayor to proceed with fluoridation of water supplies for the 90 per cent of San Diego's population not already benefiting. Fluoridation is supported as a safe and effective method of reducing tooth decay in children and adults by the US Public Health Service, the American Medical Association and the American Dental Association. As in the UK, we have our anti-fluoridation groups. Like yours, they make all manner of claims that are unsupported by any credible scientific evidence. They often use scare
tactics to oppose a tried and tested public health measure (fluoridation)that was declared by the US Centers for Disease Control to be one of the ten great public health achievements of the 20th century.
Opponents wrongly claim that fluoridation is ineffective. In the past eight years, three major scientific reviews of the evidence have shown that fluoridation does make a significant difference to dental health (the UK's own York report, a US task force review published in 2002 and an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council report in 2007). Of course, now that over 70 per cent of the US residents connected to public water supplies are drinking fluoridated water, it has now become more difficult to make accurate comparisons between fluoridated and non-fluoridated areas. Many beverages and food products made with fluoridated water in our major cities are widely distributed to people living in non-fluoridated areas. Called the 'halo effect', the benefits of fluoridation stretch well beyond the areas that are technically 'fluoridated'. Children and adults living in non-fluoridated areas now experience less tooth decay because of this. As someone who has devoted his professional life to improving the public's health, I commend fluoridation to the citizens of Southampton. I drink fluoridated water every day and have no concerns that it may be harmful to me, my family or anyone else. I also have no doubt that the fluoridation of Southampton's water would result in a measurable reduction in children's teeth decay within five or six years after it began.
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What the 'York Review' on the fluoridation of drinking water really found.
"We are concerned about the continuing misinterpretations of the evidence and think it is important that decision makers are aware of what the review really found. As such, we urge interested parties to read the review conclusions in full at http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/summary.pdf.
We were unable to discover any reliable good-quality evidence in the fluoridation literature world-wide.
What evidence we found suggested that water fluoridation was likely to have a beneficial effect, but that the range could be anywhere from a substantial benefit to a slight disbenefit to children's teeth.
This beneficial effect comes at the expense of an increase in the prevalence of fluorosis (mottled teeth). The quality of this evidence was poor."
Bit different from Easley's statement
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2 comments:
To get at the truth in the fluoride debate, all you need to do is remove the sentences which contain any statements about "Anti_fluoridation Groups" and replace it with "Pro Fluoridaton Groups" These idiots in the UK and USA who really think that we should believe their total bunkum because the "claim" to be "experts" provide no science, not data and no good reason why we should believe anything they say. They are a vested intrest co-ilition, some because they are private dentists who make a lot of money out of repairing damage caused by fluoride and fluoridation or they benefit directly from producers of fluorosilicates. There may be a sub group who actually know the truth about fluoride, but who are totally scared shitless to admit their misgivings in case " blind orthodoxy" destroys their lifes and careers. Luckily there are i am told, plenty of seats still available on the hell bound train and those in the BDA the ADA and the BFS plus many other individuals who suffer from individual and collective blindness or deafness already have prebooked places. Sayanora Scumbags.
Does anyone have any information on the Fluoridation trials run in Southampton in the 1980's?
There was a woman (whom I seem to recal was called June) on G floor of the General Hospital back then whose job it was to tally the results.
In conversation she pointed out that the trials were scrapped due to results which were suggesting that there was a distict link between added fluoride in the water and an increase in cases of conductive hearing loss.
These were findings uncovered within the city that led to non acceptance of a fluoridation program. Surely these findings are just as valid today?
Also, who are the Fluoride Lobbyists and who is getting paid for this?
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