USA - Dental group backs universal fluoridation
Dental group backs universal fluoridation
Posted: Monday, December 20, 2010 7:00 am | (21) Comments
My first response to the anti-fluoride letter was, “Hey, let’s do take the fluoride out of our water supply, this will help create more business for me and my fellow dentist colleagues!” But on second thought, I owe it to my profession to set the record straight.
There is no study in the Journal of the American Dental Association which says fluoride is bad for teeth. In fact, it states on its website that “the ADA supports universal fluoridation.”
Toothpaste is not designed to be ingested which is why young children should be monitored when brushing. Warning labels on toothpaste boxes are put there for the same reason they slap all those warning labels on a ladder. Can you say “litigious society”?
“Studies” that fluoride causes a myriad of physical ailments are generally performed by groups with an “axe to grind” about fluoride use — read: anti-fluoridation. Groups that do these studies hope to find fault with water fluoridation by using the same “logic” as the following: A rooster crows in the morning, the sun rises in the morning, therefore, the rooster crowing causes the sun to rise.
The letter author trumpets an “individual’s prerogative to personal health and medical treatment.” Would he also want to stop chlorination of our community water supplies to lower our risk of typhoid fever, diphtheria, etc.? After all, everyone knows chlorine is poisonous gas, too.
Conspiracy theorists never bother with the scientific facts. The scientific method is alive and well. Learn to use it.
Dr. Richard A. Stephey, Bloomington
Comment
PaulConnettPhD said on: December 20, 2010, 11:34 am
Before Dr. Richard A. Stephey repeats his hackneyed phrases about people opposed to fluoridation being unscientific and "conspiracy theorists" he should read a book co-authored by myself and two other scientists that was published this October. The book is titled "The Case Against Fluoride: How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep it There" (Chelsea Green publishers).
All three of us have had long scientific careers and are very familiar with the "scientific method." If Dr. Stephey is also familiar with the scientific method he will be shocked to find out just how poor the science is that purports to maintain that fluoridation is "safe" and "effective". Unfortunately, in my experience too many of the dentists and doctors who go before the public and assert, with enormous confidence, that fluoridation is "safe and effective" and further assert that fluoridation opponents are a bunch of nitwits, have not actually read the literature themselves but are simply parroting the information fed to them by their professional organizations. In my view this represents a massive betrayal of the public's trust.
Paul Connett, PhD
Posted: Monday, December 20, 2010 7:00 am | (21) Comments
My first response to the anti-fluoride letter was, “Hey, let’s do take the fluoride out of our water supply, this will help create more business for me and my fellow dentist colleagues!” But on second thought, I owe it to my profession to set the record straight.
There is no study in the Journal of the American Dental Association which says fluoride is bad for teeth. In fact, it states on its website that “the ADA supports universal fluoridation.”
Toothpaste is not designed to be ingested which is why young children should be monitored when brushing. Warning labels on toothpaste boxes are put there for the same reason they slap all those warning labels on a ladder. Can you say “litigious society”?
“Studies” that fluoride causes a myriad of physical ailments are generally performed by groups with an “axe to grind” about fluoride use — read: anti-fluoridation. Groups that do these studies hope to find fault with water fluoridation by using the same “logic” as the following: A rooster crows in the morning, the sun rises in the morning, therefore, the rooster crowing causes the sun to rise.
The letter author trumpets an “individual’s prerogative to personal health and medical treatment.” Would he also want to stop chlorination of our community water supplies to lower our risk of typhoid fever, diphtheria, etc.? After all, everyone knows chlorine is poisonous gas, too.
Conspiracy theorists never bother with the scientific facts. The scientific method is alive and well. Learn to use it.
Dr. Richard A. Stephey, Bloomington
Comment
PaulConnettPhD said on: December 20, 2010, 11:34 am
Before Dr. Richard A. Stephey repeats his hackneyed phrases about people opposed to fluoridation being unscientific and "conspiracy theorists" he should read a book co-authored by myself and two other scientists that was published this October. The book is titled "The Case Against Fluoride: How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep it There" (Chelsea Green publishers).
All three of us have had long scientific careers and are very familiar with the "scientific method." If Dr. Stephey is also familiar with the scientific method he will be shocked to find out just how poor the science is that purports to maintain that fluoridation is "safe" and "effective". Unfortunately, in my experience too many of the dentists and doctors who go before the public and assert, with enormous confidence, that fluoridation is "safe and effective" and further assert that fluoridation opponents are a bunch of nitwits, have not actually read the literature themselves but are simply parroting the information fed to them by their professional organizations. In my view this represents a massive betrayal of the public's trust.
Paul Connett, PhD
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