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Dentists backs fluoridation in Southampton

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The British Dental Association (BDA) has written to the South Central Strategic Health Authority expressing strong support for its proposal to fluoridate the water in Southampton and parts of South West Hampshire.

The BDA believes that fluoridation of the water supply at the proposed one part per million is a safe and effective method of reducing dental decay in people of all ages and from all social backgrounds.

The BDA says it has drawn widely from the available scientific evidence.

It also agrees with the World Health Organization's (WHO's) position that the level of dental caries falls from seven at a fluoride concentration of 0.1mg to around 3.5 at a fluoride concentration of 1.0mg (i.e. one part per million).

Commenting on the proposal, BDA Scientific Adviser Professor Damien Walmsley said:
‘The BDA bases its support for the proposed scheme on solid research. This has been carried out nationally and internationally.

‘On a local level we have looked at the impact of fluoridation on the dental health of people living in Birmingham. Five-year-olds in Britain's second largest city have half the rate of tooth decay as their peers in Southampton where it isn't fluoridated.

‘I believe that if fluoridation were introduced in Southampton it could play a major role in helping to reduce the high rates of tooth decay there as it makes teeth more resistant to disease.'

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And five year olds in fluoridated Newcastle have more dental caries so what doe this prove? Also no where in the UK has DMFT/dmft rates of 7 so the comments made above are meaningless. Really the BDA should refer specifcally to the best avaialble evidence in systematic reviews. The York Review - still considered the most important review on this topic - cautions us from saying that water fluoridation is either effective or safe as the evidence base is too poor to make confident statements about this. I cannot understand why people think we can just ignore the evidence and continue to make such unsubstantiated statements about the benefits of water fluoridation.

Posted by ospika 4/2/09 at 18:55