By Dr. Michael Wilkes
I write on behalf of the Yolo County Health Council, the group appointed to advise the Yolo County Board of Supervisors on all aspects of health in the County. Over the past several years we have carefully considered aspects related to the fluoridation of drinking water in our county. We have looked at current scientific evidence, read scholarly reports by learned bodies, and considered potential opposition to fluoridation from community members.
Many YCHC members are also health care providers who have seen first-hand the havoc that results with a child, family, and the community at large when tooth decay is uncontrolled. Pain, malnutrition, lost days of school and work, and economic loss are a few implications of poor dental health.
While there is still much medicine does not understand, water fluoridation is not one of them. We know a great deal about fluoridation. It is one of the most studied chemicals that enter the human body and over 70 percent of the nation’s children are now provided community fluoridated water. In California 277 water districts have chosen to fluoridate their public water, including West Sacramento and the city of Sacramento. This started over 60 years ago, and in that time public water fluoridation has significantly reduced tooth decay. Surely, in that time, given the attention focused on this problem, we would have learned if there were to be any risks or harms to the community.
Despite cries from alarmists and suggestions of conspiracy theories, when used at the recommended levels of 0.7 parts per million there are no harms, dangers or side effects.
While significantly higher doses can cause problems, we know that higher doses of other lifesaving drugs like aspirin, antibiotics, and even oxygen can also cause problems. So, care is taken to monitor doses to assure they are safe. This is easily done for fluoride.
Tooth decay is largely preventable for pennies per person. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization consider water fluoridation one of the greatest public health accomplishments of the past 100 years. Yet in Yolo County, just as in many developing nations, tooth decay remains the most common chronic disease of children aged 6 to 11 years (25 percent), and of adolescents aged 12 to 19 years (59 percent). In Yolo County, 25 percent of low-income kindergarteners screened for dental problems have untreated decay (2011-12 data).
Every single major health organization who has studied this issue in the region, the State and the Nation (American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, the American College of Pediatrics, the American Dental Association, and many more) strongly urges communities to fluoridate their drinking water. Locally support comes from UC Davis (including both the departments of pediatrics and public health), Kaiser Permanente Davis, Sutter Davis Hospital and Woodland Healthcare/ Dignity Health. Based on strong evidence, CDC recommends that local water fluoridation be a vital part of a population-based strategy for the prevention of tooth decay in communities.
The benefits of water fluoridation become even clearer when one looks at cost. The average cost for a community to fluoridate its water ranges from about 50 cents to $2 a year per person. Households in West Sacramento pay about 38 cents per month. The average cost for just one dental filling is over $100. This high cost results in most uninsured people deferring treatment, resulting in further pain and decay, and even higher costs.
While there are other methods of providing fluoride to children, water fluoridation is by far the most cost effective form and the most reliable. For every dollar invested in water fluoridation, over $38 is saved in dental treatments.
For all of these reasons the Yolo County Health Council unanimously voted to encourage you to strongly promote our children’s health, reduce health care costs, and improve growth and development by supporting the fluoridation of our community water. We urge you to stand strong on this issue knowing that the medical, dental, and public health communities strongly support this important intervention and will back you as you vote to improve the health of the public.
Dr. Michael Wilkes is the Chair of the Yolo County Health Council and a professor at the UC Davis School of Medicine.
If the City is going to drug our water, they have better put it to a vote.
“…
If the City is going to drug our water, they have better put it to a vote.”
Are you also going to call for a vote to remove the up to 0.36 ppm currently in our drinking water ?
[i]While significantly higher doses can cause problems, we know that higher doses of other lifesaving drugs like aspirin, antibiotics, and even oxygen can also cause problems.[/i]
The good Doctor seems to be blind to the point that we don’t put these other drugs in our water.
He also seems blind to the point that neither he nor other medical professionals advocating adding extra fluoride in the drinking water can monitor 100% of the tap-water drinking population for their total fluoride intake. For example, young children learning to brush their teeth often swallow the good-tasting fluoride-containing toothpaste. Add this to the amount of fluoride they are force-medicated with in the drinking water, and how can the good doctor make the claim that he is sure people are not getting too much fluoride? He cannot.
Both my adult kids have stained teeth from swallowing toothpaste when they were young.
frankly
“Both my adult kids have stained teeth from swallowing toothpaste when they were young”
This statement illustrates to me the hazards of keeping a substance with at least 200ppm and possibly as high as 5000 ppm for use by children in the home. It says absolutely nothing about the relative safety of 0.7 ppm in the water.
Frankly, how are you sure that is the case?
[i]Frankly, how are you sure that is the case?[/i]
Their dentist confirmed it.
[I]This statement illustrates to me the hazards of keeping a substance with at least 200ppm and possibly as high as 5000 ppm for use by children in the home. It says absolutely nothing about the relative safety of 0.7 ppm in the water.[/I]
Come on medwoman. Get the calculator out. 1/4 teaspoon of toothpaste twice a day compared to 2 liters of water a day?
Davis, the “no choice” City!
Frankly: [i]Both my adult kids have stained teeth from swallowing toothpaste when they were young.[/i]
Swallowing?? Do you mean maybe using too much toothpaste, topically?
I have some stains on my teeth. I think it’s because I grew up in an area where there was already natural fluoride in the drinking water (not added). I don’t think it has negatively impacted my life.
“Davis, the “no choice” City!”
No, you just don’t get the exact choice you might want, but you have a choice.
If the citizens of Davis do not get to vote on this issue*, then Davis will truly be “The No Choice City!”.
_________
*The bigger the Government, the smaller the Citizen!
[quote]Despite cries from alarmists and suggestions of conspiracy theories[/quote]
Give me a break. Calling all people opposed to this now-discredited mode of mass medication “alarmist” and “conspiracy theorists” is an old tactic to discredit opposition used by the fluoridationists starting 50 years. Over 4,000 professional scientists and medical and dental practioners have signed a petition opposing fluoridation of drinking water including a number of Nobel laureates and people whose scientific pedigree far exceeds Dr. Wilkes modest accomplishments. The EPA’s union of scientists including 100s of toxicologists have oppose fluoridation of drinking water. 97% of Europe and all of Japan do not use it. In the last several years, the provinces of Queensland in Australia and Ontario in Canada have ended mandatory fluoridation and dozens and dozens of their cities are now opting out. Israel recently ended mandatory fluoridation. In fact, over 80% of the people in the world who now drink fluoridated water are in the US and even here many cities have rejected fluoridation and ended the practice in recent years.
Perhaps if Dr. Wilkes offered one single shred of evidence that fluoridation reduces cavity rates, we could take his proselytizing more seriously. As it his, he simply repeats the same thing over and over and over…”Trust me, I am a doctor and the US medical profession is solidly behind this” . Well I remind the good doctor that this same US medical professions spends far more money on health care per capita than any other country in the world yet we are far down the list in life-expectancy and infant mortality rates. Perhaps it is time we stopped listening to our own home-grown “experts” and started looking overseas for modern health care guidance.
It addition to not having any scientific basis of efficacy in terms of reducing cavities, fluoridation of water is an environmental disaster. At a dosage of 0.7 ppm, Davis will be injecting about 12 tons of what the EPA would otherwise consider to be a hazardous waste into our the 11.5 million gallons of potable water per day that we deliver to residents. Yet of that 12 tons, only about 80 lbs is actually ingested by Davis residents in drinking water. Where does the rest go? On our lawns and parks and down into the sewer ending up in our wetlands. Can you possibly conceive of a less effective way of delivering a medicine to a constituency where about 99.67% of it is wasted? It would be like taking a bottle of 300 aspirin and consuming one, flushing 50 down the toilet or sink, spreading a 100 to 150 in your garden and lawn, and throwing the rest out at the park down the street. Does that sound like a well conceived medicine delivery plan to you?
“what the EPA would otherwise consider to be a hazardous waste”
The EPA only considers it a hazard at higher concentrations.
[quote]The EPA only considers it a hazard at higher concentrations. [/quote]
Pretty clever then disposing of it in the tap water system!
“Perfectly safe. Trust me! We’re helping the children!”
no side effects? What do you call [b]Dental fluorosis[/b]? And that is the only VISIBLE side effect.
If you find it hard to understand why people object to fluoridation then you obviously have no idea about respect for other people. It is really very simple – most people do not want someone spiking their drink or telling them they have to take a medication because they think it’s good. You cannot walk into someone’s house and put a fluoride tablet in a drink without their permission, so why on earth would it be alright to do it through the public water supply? We all pay for the water. If you want fluoride, then go eat some toothpaste, but what gives you the right to force your beliefs onto other people?
If you do not understand this – maybe you should talk to your therapist or clergyman.
if teeth are being helped by “fluoride” – why is it that 97% of Europe’s population (that do NOT fluoridate) have about the same level of cavities as the few fluoridating ones?? See the WHO chart here: [url]http://fluoridefreesacramento.org/index.html[/url]
As far as these doctor and dentists promoting fluoride, I would ask if they have had toxicology training? Dentists really? [url]http://fluoridefreesacramento.org/html/dentists_etc.html[/url]
The new documentary film by Dr. David Kennedy (DDS) is called [b]FluorideGate[/b] – An American Tragedy. The film exposes the sordid truth about water fluoridation, and it has nothing to do with promoting dental health.
FluorideGate places particular focus on how water fluoridation can harm young children and minorities, as they tend to suffer the greatest health effects.
The film is packed with powerful testimonies from key insiders privy to how fluoride became an integral part of water treatment policy, and how the public was manipulated into accepting this forced medication.
See how a senior scientist at the EPA, was targeted and fired for leaking critical information back in the 1990s about the many dangers of fluoride, none of which were being publicly shared in accordance with the EPA’s mission and purpose.
It also includes background information on why minorities are more susceptible to harm from water fluoridation due to their bodies’ greater absorption of toxic lead and arsenic.
Watch Fluoridegate online now or learn more at: [url]www.FluorideGate.org[/url]
bviner
[quote] why is it that 97% of Europe’s population (that do NOT fluoridate) have about the same level of cavities as the few fluoridating ones??[/quote]
Fair question. I would say it is because many of them have chosen an alternative strategy to provide fluoride.
Many of them choose to fluoridate their salt. Others ensure that all of their children have ready access to free dental care. We have not chosen either of these strategies.
[quote]As far as these doctor and dentists promoting fluoride, I would ask if they have had toxicology training? Dentists really? http://fluoridefreesacramento….s_etc.html[/quote]
When I was in medical school, we did have a class in toxicology. One of the precepts of toxicology, and of medicine in general is that a substance can be beneficial or neutral in small amounts, and toxic in large quantities. From my reading, there is one, and only one demonstrated side effect of fluoride at anywhere near the level being recommended and that is fluorosis. This is, unless severe, which is rare in this country, a cosmetic effect at most. Cavities are not a cosmetic problem. When you consider that the cost of a single filling is around $125 or so and add the time lost from school, and parents loss of time from work you are looking a significant economic and medical consequences .
I would love to see a more comprehensive approach to this very common and significant medical problem.
If someone asked me to design such an approach, I would include:
1) Wholesome food for all
2) Minimal if any sweetened beverages, candy, sweets
3) Strict attention to dental hygiene
4) Free dental care for all
5) Free health care for all
6) Fluoride provided for free in the manner felt most appropriate by the pediatrician and dentist.
Now, how many of you would step up and support such a comprehensive plan with your tax dollars ?
I didn’t think so. But there is little doubt that such a plan would do much in terms of prevention and would greatly decrease over the course of a generation or two our ridiculously over priced health care system which still focuses on fixing a problem once it has arisen rather than preventing it in the first place.
Also, I would ask you the question, how many toxicologists have gone through medical training or dental training ?
To Dr. Wilkes:
Please cite one primary research paper that you approve to be correct (preferably one that is publicly assessable) and state your reason on how the conclusion of that research paper supports water fluoridation in our context.
My intention is to confirm whether each doctor who supports fluoridation read the actual paper themselves.
When one doctor read a report and 10 other doctors “trust” the conclusion of that first doctor, the amount of scrutiny is only worth that one doctor. The fact that the other 10 doctors agree but did not read the paper themselves add no value to the conclusion.
@alanpryor (a.k.a. “Frankly”?):
Alan, have you read this? Please read it and give a response here to its main points:
http://www.scienceinmedicine.org/policy/statements/fluoridation.pdf
Here’s a click-able link for the link I gave above:
[url]http://www.scienceinmedicine.org/policy/statements/fluoridation.pdf[/url]
The most toxic substances permeating Davis’ environment are ignorance and superstition followed closely by paranoia in third place .
biddlin ;>)/
Brian Riley: [i]@alanpryor (a.k.a. “Frankly”?):[/i]
Alan Pryor isn’t “Frankly”. Two different people.