USA - City Authority gains fluoridation advocate
Board sets wheels in motion to study particulars of putting additive into water supply
By William Kibler, bkibler@altoonamirror.com
The Altoona Hospital Partnership for a Healthy Community may have a better chance than it did two years ago in persuading the Altoona City Authority to fluoridate its water to help reduce cavities.The authority now has a member who’s a fluoridation advocate — former Altoona Mayor Tom Martin.“It’s a disgrace we don’t have it,” said Martin at a meeting at the hospital Monday.........................
—Dr. James Smith, Dental Care Associates, who has an “idealist” attitude that gets him “beat up” at dental conferences:Fluoride works, but with mass fluoridation, you can’t adjust dosage for body size or seasonal differences in amounts ingested. You also can’t adjust to offset what students may get in school for part of the year or what people get in toothpaste and rinses. It’s like giving everyone an arbitrary dose of blood pressure medicine. And why should residents pay for fluoride in water they use to wash cars and dishes?
By William Kibler, bkibler@altoonamirror.com
The Altoona Hospital Partnership for a Healthy Community may have a better chance than it did two years ago in persuading the Altoona City Authority to fluoridate its water to help reduce cavities.The authority now has a member who’s a fluoridation advocate — former Altoona Mayor Tom Martin.“It’s a disgrace we don’t have it,” said Martin at a meeting at the hospital Monday.........................
—Dr. James Smith, Dental Care Associates, who has an “idealist” attitude that gets him “beat up” at dental conferences:Fluoride works, but with mass fluoridation, you can’t adjust dosage for body size or seasonal differences in amounts ingested. You also can’t adjust to offset what students may get in school for part of the year or what people get in toothpaste and rinses. It’s like giving everyone an arbitrary dose of blood pressure medicine. And why should residents pay for fluoride in water they use to wash cars and dishes?
posted by Bill at
9:59 AM
1 Comments:
Dr. James Smith most definitely is not an ideologue, but is in fact a pragmatist. Kudos to this man for his rational insight about fluoridation and for his courage he displays in trying to explain to his peers what is so obvious to many of the rest of us. With fluoridation, you can't control the dose, and because the dose can't be controlled, the dosage (i.e., dose divided by body mass in kilograms) too cannot be controlled. Furthermore, there is no means by which to monitor and control for the effects of accumulating this substance in our bodies every day for many years. Fluoridation is an ineffective, obsolete public health policy whose time has gone.
Let the people who want to drink fluoridated water, drink it, but please stop forcing it on the millioni of people who would prefer not having to ingest it. Water with sodium fluoride in it is readily available throughout retail stores in communities across the country. Although there are ongoing efforts to change that, it still is available and affordable.
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Anonymous, at 12 February, 2007
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