National Water Center, Eureka Springs, Arkansas
         

National Water Center, Eureka Springs, AR

Updated: April 2014 Contact: Contact: NWC

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Fluoridation – Non-toxic Alternative

by Adrian Chang

The fluoridation issue usually comes about when the State Dental Hygienists spend most of their time counting missing, decayed and filled teeth for targeted age groups and come up with numbers to show that a dental crisis exists.  With the size of their staff, it is impossible to reach all the schools to obtain more accurate information.  The effectiveness of these hygienists was not appreciated when their entire Branch was about to be eliminated on June 2000.  Fortunately, when it was pointed out during the legislative hearings that we have a dental crisis yet we are eliminating the people who can fix the problem, our Governor found some money to continue their existence. 

Unfortunately, there is a saying that if you keep on doing things the same way, you can expect to get the same result.  So, I predict that we will still have a dental crisis during the next legislative session, with perhaps even worse numbers, in order to justify fluoridation since the State Dental Division will still be conducting business as usual.  This is the wrong approach.  If a team does not win, we have often changed the coach, instead of running the same plays over and over again.  Perhaps, we need another June Jones type who can fix the real problems with the resources given instead of resorting to fluoridation as an excuse.

We need to manage the effectiveness of our dental hygienists to get the most bang for our tax dollar.  Counting cavities and missing teeth is obviously not the answer and does not contribute to one iota of prevention.  This has not worked for Hawaii nor has it worked for other cities, such as Boston, that have been fluoridated for 22 years.  The real problem is that hygienists are teaching the wrong people at the wrong time.  They need to focus their attention to provide dental education to parents-to-be and young mothers.  Instead of trying to do it all themselves, they should be setting up a program to obtain the assistance of gynecologists and pediatricians.  Dental education should start with parents before a child is born, continue just after a child is born, with a reminder when baby starts teething.  Emphasis should be on proper diet, prevention of

baby-bottle-teeth decay (BBTD), and proper dental care.  By the time a child reaches school age, it is often too late when his/her teeth has already decayed and they become another statistic. The money that would be spent annually on fluoridation could best be used to provide dental care for parents in need. Attention to these two areas, BBTD and lack of dental care, could easily reduce cavities by a significant amount without having to resort to adding toxic fluoridation chemicals to our water.

Adrian Chang, (Background: B.S. Electrical Engineering and a retired Nuclear Engineer.)