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UK Against Fluoridation

Monday, March 16, 2009

Editorial: Improving dental health requires responsibility, outreach

March 15, 2009 @ 12:00 AM
The Herald-Dispatch
Two-thirds of children in West Virginia have cavities by age 8. That is far, far too many.
West Virginians drink a lot of sugary soft drinks. They use a lot of tobacco products. Both are bad for their teeth.
Small children, too, suffer from "Mountain Dew mouth" because their parents put soft drinks and sugary fruit juices in baby bottles and sippy cups for their children to drink in bed. The habit of drinking sugary drinks starts young and continues into adulthood.
Couple that with the fact that relatively few children in West Virginia see a dentist regularly and you have a prescription for dental problems in a large number of people in this state. But it's not just here. It's in Appalachia as a whole.
As reported by Laura Wilcox in The Herald-Dispatch a week ago, experts say many factors contribute to bad teeth, including a lack of fluoride, access to care and preventive action.
Experts say there is no single solution to the dental care problem, but many efforts are making a difference, said Bobbi Jo Muto, community oral health coordinator for the Robert C. Byrd Center for Rural Health at Marshall University.
One recently announced was a $500,000 grant for children's oral health in West Virginia. Grant money will provide increased access to preventive services for youth through school-community partnerships.
Muto told Wilcox that preventive care should be a priority in the region.
"If we can just make people realize they don't have to lose their teeth. They don't have to have a cavity. It's 100 percent preventable, and yet we have all these children with rampant decay," she said.
It's another of those areas that come down to parents taking responsibility for their children's dental health, just as they take responsibility for other aspects of health. That means instructing them in good dental care, making sure they see a dentist and being aware of what they eat and drink.

West Virginia is 92% fluoridation:NYSCOF

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