Water Fluoridation

Health Canada's Chief Dental Officer Dr. Peter Cooney
insists community water fluoridation is the best way to reduce
dental cavities/caries; during a City of Thunder Bay (Ontario)
Council Meeting on July 20th, 2009, under questioning from
Thunder Bay Councillor Frank Pullia.
(8min. 51sec. 20-Jul-09)

Follow this arrow to read the exposé.

In 1992 Comox / Courtenay and Campbell River communities in British Columbia, Canada stopped fluoridating their water supplies. Two Canadian studies conducted by the same researchers on this same population / event could have ended debate about artificial water-fluoridation. How? By publishing all the results together in one place and time. Why publish data separately, five years apart? Taken together, this data showed water fluoridation is not successful at reducing dental cavities/caries. Other factors were responsible for the observed decline in dental caries, not fluoride. In fact, after fluoridation was turned off, cavity rates went down, as did dental fluorosis rates caused by too much ingested fluoride.

Gerardo Maupome´, D. Christopher Clark, Steven M. Levy & Jonathan Berkowitz, Patterns Of Dental Caries Following The Cessation Of Water Fluoridation, Community Dentistry And Oral Epidemiology, 2001, 29: 37–47
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Researchers compared prevalence and incidence of dental caries between fluoridation-ended and still-fluoridated communities in British Columbia, Canada. Data were collected on snacking, oral hygiene, exposure to fluoride technologies, and socio-economic level. The prevalence of dental caries decreased over time in the fluoridation-ended community while remaining unchanged in the still-fluoridated community. Quick assumption was made that multiple sources of alternative fluoride, besides water fluoridation, were responsible for dental caries decline in the fluoridation-ended community. No mention is made about any attempt to measure dental fluorosis in the fluoride-ended community to determine if fluoride was still being received through other sources. Why not, since that data was also available?

D. Christopher Clark, Jay D. Shulman, Gerardo Maupome´ & Steven M. Levy, Changes In Dental Fluorosis Following The Cessation Of Water Fluoridation, Community Dentistry And Oral Epidemiology, 2006 34: 197–204
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Five years later in the same Danish journal these researchers published the findings on the prevalence of dental fluorosis after water fluoridation ended. (Why a Danish journal when these are Canadian studies?) When fluoride was removed from the water supply the prevalence and severity of dental fluorosis decreased significantly. The use of fluoride supplements and fluoride dentifrice (fluoride toothpaste) also decreased during this same period.

Health Canada's Chief Dental Officer Cooney, as well as Clark and Levy (principal researchers on these two studies, and contributors on the six member Health Canada 2008 expert panel reviewing water fluoridation) are very well aware of such research, but still voted unanimously in support of municipal water fluoridation.

Why not tell the public the whole truth?

If the public was told the whole truth we would know the real 'merits' of water fluoridation.