Research will offer truth about fluoride in water

I don’t understand Randy Johnson’s implication that I haven’t read the oral health section of the Canadian Health Measures Survey, since he quoted some of the same numbers I found there. Here is what is on page 41 of the report: “Table 39 shows that 59.8 per cent of the children have teeth that, according to Dean’s Index, are normal and another 23.5 per cent that are identified as questionable. 12.0 per cent have 1 or more teeth with fluorosis classified as very mild and 4.4 per cent “E” as mild.”

According to the survey, 16.4 per cent of kids had identifiable fluorosis. Since 40.2 per centper cent of the total kids had other than normal teeth, 16.4 per centper cent represents the “nearly half of the kids who showed damage” that I was referring to. If anything, I understated the problem, because I didn’t include any of those in the “questionable” category.

It it common for proponents of fluoridation to minimize the significance of the lesser degrees of fluorosis by claiming them to be only a cosmetic issue. We don’t know that to be the case, since there is virtually no research that has looked for correlations between dental fluorosis and other health effects. Thankfully, this research has finally been started and in a couple of years we are going to have better information. I hope that I’m worrying needlessly, because if not, there are going to be some massive lawsuits against all the organizations who have assured us that fluoridation is “safe and effective.” David Green Wallis Dr.