Africa - I smell a rat whenever experts endorse commercial products
By Macharia GaithoPosted Monday, March 2 2009 at 17:35
..................The Kenya Dental Association, with considerable support from Colgate and other toothpaste brands, became a very strong advocate of fluoride, willingly lending its name to endorse toothpaste that had the chemical that allegedly strengthened teeth.
Behind all the marketing smoke, the dentists and the toothpaste vendors neglected to mention the very basic fact that in Kenya the problem was not lack of fluoride, but too much fluoride.
My understanding of science has always been pretty rudimentary, but even then I was able to garner from the protests of a few dentists who disagreed with their own association, that the stained teeth we see in Central Province and other places, was not due to poor dental hygiene, but too much fluoride.
Fluoride, in the right dose, is good for the teeth, but as we learn from a early age, too much of anything can be poison. At extreme concentrations, fluoride is responsible not just for stained and weak teeth, chipped teeth, but even brittle and deformed bones, hence the high number of bowlegs and stooped backs.
MARKETING, HOWEVER, CAN TRIumph over common sense, and so to date virtually all toothpaste available is impregnated with fluoride, when the priority in certain parts of the country should be on reducing the amount of the compound found naturally in the water.
And here is the moral and ethical issue: Should a professional association of medics get in the business of product endorsement unless that approval is strictly based only on the verified health or medical benefits?
..................The Kenya Dental Association, with considerable support from Colgate and other toothpaste brands, became a very strong advocate of fluoride, willingly lending its name to endorse toothpaste that had the chemical that allegedly strengthened teeth.
Behind all the marketing smoke, the dentists and the toothpaste vendors neglected to mention the very basic fact that in Kenya the problem was not lack of fluoride, but too much fluoride.
My understanding of science has always been pretty rudimentary, but even then I was able to garner from the protests of a few dentists who disagreed with their own association, that the stained teeth we see in Central Province and other places, was not due to poor dental hygiene, but too much fluoride.
Fluoride, in the right dose, is good for the teeth, but as we learn from a early age, too much of anything can be poison. At extreme concentrations, fluoride is responsible not just for stained and weak teeth, chipped teeth, but even brittle and deformed bones, hence the high number of bowlegs and stooped backs.
MARKETING, HOWEVER, CAN TRIumph over common sense, and so to date virtually all toothpaste available is impregnated with fluoride, when the priority in certain parts of the country should be on reducing the amount of the compound found naturally in the water.
And here is the moral and ethical issue: Should a professional association of medics get in the business of product endorsement unless that approval is strictly based only on the verified health or medical benefits?
posted by Bill at
9:34 AM
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