Seattle USA Already Fluoridated but still have decay

Children's Oral Disease Can and Should be Prevented
By Tracy E. Garland Feb 21 2006
February is Children's Dental Health Month, a good time to pause and assess our children's oral health. The statistics are startling. --Oral disease is almost entirely preventable, but has been on the rise in Washington for the last decade. --Rates of decay for toddlers in our state are substantially higher than for the country as a whole. One-year-olds here are five times as likely and two-year-olds twice as likely to have oral disease. --Oral disease is the most common chronic childhood disease, five times more common than asthma --Nationwide 65 percent of adolescents age 16 to 19 have had tooth decay or fillings in permanent teeth, and more than 51 million hours of school time are lost each year due to dental-related issues. The Surgeon General has called oral disease a silent epidemic. It's an epidemic that we must end if we truly care about the future of our children. As we embark on statewide efforts to improve early childhood learning, we also need to make certain each child is healthy so they can learn. Oral health is a great marker for tracking our commitment to children's health and to their educational success.
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