Fluoride in Water Reduces Cavities and Need for Treatment

 

Fluoride in Alberta

James A. Dickinson, a professor of medicine at the University of Calgary, said the rates of dental treatments under anesthesia have risen steadily in Calgary since the loss of fluoridation.

“We are concerned about avoidable and potentially life-threatening disease, pain, suffering, misery and expense experienced especially by very young children and their families due to dental decay,” Dickinson said in an emailed statement.

“In just eight years after fluoridation ended in 2011, the need for intravenous antibiotic therapy by children to avoid death by infection rose 700 per cent at the Alberta Children’s Hospital.”

According to Dickinson, a recent University of Alberta study shows that for children under five years old, the rate of dental treatments under anesthesia doubled from 22 per 100,000 in 2010-11 to 45 per 100,000 in 2018-19.  For kids aged six to 11, the rates rose from 14 per 100,000 to 19 per 100,000.

The rates stayed the same over that time period in Edmonton, where the water is fluoridated.

“Since fluoridation ceased, the cavities (holes) in teeth are more numerous and larger. These might require filling or extractions,” Dickinson said.

“They are occurring earlier in a child’s life so that treatment can require general anesthesia.