USA - Public Health 101: Ten Great Achievements?
9. Fluoridation of Drinking Water
Dental caries (which most of us refer to as cavities) can lead to incapacitating pain and severe infections. Extensive dental caries were common in the early 20th century in most of the US, but dentist Frederick McKay established a practice in Colorado Springs and noticed that many of his patients had stained teeth but seemed less susceptible to caries. Upon investigation, he concluded something in the public water supply was probably responsibile. When aluminum-company chemist HV Churchill identified high concentrations of fluoride in an Arkansas well where another dentist had noted mottled enamel on children's teeth, McKay sent him a water sample and found that it, too, contained high levels of fluoride. Further investigation by other researchers concluded that adjusting flouride levels confirmed that higher fluoride levels correlated with lower prevalence of caries and identified an optimum range of fluoride concentration (0.7-1.2ppm). Fluoridation of public water supplies was rapidly adopted and dental caries dropped dramatically during the second half of the 20th century. For 12-year-old US residents, the mean number of decayed, missing, or filled teeth fell from 4.0 in 1966-1970 to 1.3 in 1988-1994.
Not all communities have fluoridated water, and the rate at which fluoridation is spreading has slowed markedly. It's also important to note that while fluoridation has helped reduce the incidence of dental caries population-wide, adequate dental care is still essential for oral health - but not everyone practices sufficient dental hygiene or has access to dental professionals. In 2007, 12-year-old Deamonte Driver of Maryland died from a brain infection that originated in one of his teeth.
Go to web page to see the many comments. (Click title)
Dental caries (which most of us refer to as cavities) can lead to incapacitating pain and severe infections. Extensive dental caries were common in the early 20th century in most of the US, but dentist Frederick McKay established a practice in Colorado Springs and noticed that many of his patients had stained teeth but seemed less susceptible to caries. Upon investigation, he concluded something in the public water supply was probably responsibile. When aluminum-company chemist HV Churchill identified high concentrations of fluoride in an Arkansas well where another dentist had noted mottled enamel on children's teeth, McKay sent him a water sample and found that it, too, contained high levels of fluoride. Further investigation by other researchers concluded that adjusting flouride levels confirmed that higher fluoride levels correlated with lower prevalence of caries and identified an optimum range of fluoride concentration (0.7-1.2ppm). Fluoridation of public water supplies was rapidly adopted and dental caries dropped dramatically during the second half of the 20th century. For 12-year-old US residents, the mean number of decayed, missing, or filled teeth fell from 4.0 in 1966-1970 to 1.3 in 1988-1994.
Not all communities have fluoridated water, and the rate at which fluoridation is spreading has slowed markedly. It's also important to note that while fluoridation has helped reduce the incidence of dental caries population-wide, adequate dental care is still essential for oral health - but not everyone practices sufficient dental hygiene or has access to dental professionals. In 2007, 12-year-old Deamonte Driver of Maryland died from a brain infection that originated in one of his teeth.
Go to web page to see the many comments. (Click title)
posted by Bill at
10:20 AM
1 Comments:
The authors of this post have been censoring out my posts which link to the science. It seems the truth isn't really what they wanted to report. They probably thought they had an easy column to write - just copy what the CDC wrote and claim it as their own. Shameful that no research went into reproducing this error-laden article. I guess that's why you can't always trust the internet and the CDC to give you the truth.
By
FluorideNews, at 04 September, 2010
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