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UK Against Fluoridation

Sunday, February 24, 2008

USA - Campaign pushes dental care

Campaign pushes dental care
Kids missing school, suffering pain from untreated decay
By Susan Abram, Staff Writer Article
Last Updated: 02/22/2008 09:13:30 PM PST
PACOIMA - Dental disease among children is five times more prevalent than asthma in the San Fernando Valley and statewide, a result of poor nutrition, little education about oral health among parents and lack of access to dentists, community leaders said Friday. Dozens of nurses, teachers, pediatricians, dentists, and health promoters gathered at Meet Each Need with Dignity, an anti-poverty agency in Pacoima on Friday to discuss immediate plans to raise awareness about oral health in the community. They plan to flood churches, schools, day care centers and clinics with the message: Dental disease is preventable.
"The number one cause of missed school in LAUSD is dental disease," said Dr. Maritza Cabezas, a dentist with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
"We call this disease a silent epidemic because kids go to school with the pain, and parents don't know, teachers don't know and kids think it's normal," Cabezas said. "They don't know they are not supposed to be in pain. They learn to live with it. Dental disease can affect their self-esteem, the way they eat and sleep."
Cabezas said in some worst-case scenarios, children have died because of dental disease. Bacteria spreads through abscesses in the mouth, traveling to the brain.
Several state reports paint a grim picture of California's dental needs. While health providers grapple with diabetes, obesity and asthma, nearly 24 percent of all the state's children have
never been to a dentist. In California, almost two-thirds of the state's youngsters have dental disease by the time they reach third grade, making it the No. 1 health problem in children, according to a study by the Dental Health Foundation.
The study also found that 4 percent of the children, or 138,000, are in pain or have untreated tooth infections. Decayed teeth affect the way children eat, sleep and learn, school nurses and teachers say.
And 23 percent of all California children age 6 to 11 suffer from untreated cavities, according to the California HealthCare Foundation, which released its report this month.
"It's a big problem in California," Cabezas said. "In the survey, California ranked as the worst state except for Arkansas."
Another cause of the increase is a lack of access to affordable dental care, Cabezas and others said.
Few dental offices accept Denti-Cal, the state's payment program for the poor, disabled or elderly who receive Medi-Cal, because reimbursement rates are among the lowest. And Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently has considered slashing funding for those who already qualify for Denti-Cal to help shore up the state's budget deficit.
Offices that do accept Denti-Cal in the Valley are few and far between, community leaders said.
At Mission Community Hospital in San Fernando, there is a six- to eight-week waiting period for patients to see a dentist, said hygienist Audrey Simons.
"Children are a big issue, but we also see many senior adults whose health insurance doesn't cover dental" care, Simons said.
Friday's meeting was coordinated by the Valley Care Community Consortium, a group of health and mental health providers and schools. The group released its own study on the health needs in the San Fernando Valley last year, and found that 25 percent of San Fernando Valley adults did not go to the dentist for a year because they could not afford it.
Community leaders say the message about dental care must be passed on to children by parents. But some challenges remain, including cultural beliefs about dental care. In some countries, visiting a dentist is deemed a luxury or unimportant.
"A lot of parents think that just because a child is going to lose their baby teeth, they don't need to take care of them," Cabezas said. "If permanent teeth grow from from a decaying mouth, that is a problem."
Cabezas also said a baby's mouth is more prone to attracting bacteria until the age of 2. Baby spoons and bottles should not be shared between babies and toddlers or parents.
Oral disease is transmittable, "just like the flu," said doctor said. "Until we treat oral disease like an infectious disease, we will not win the battle."
Many parents also don't know that they need to brush their children's teeth for them until they are 7 years old. A baby's first dental visit should come at the sight of a first tooth, and tap water is better to cook with because it contains fluoride, Cabezas said.
"Dental disease affects your whole body," Cabezas said. "If you don't have a healthy mouth, you cannot have a healthy body."

The city of Los Angeles, California, has been fluoridated since the mid-1990s.NYSCOF

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