Dentists Say You Need Fluoride - Science Says You Don't

The Centers for Disease Report concludes that fluoride ingestion does not reduce tooth decay.  But dentists continue to espouse old beliefs.

Dentists unfamiliarity with current fluoride science is reported by several university researchers at major dental research meetings. While dentists and fluoride manufacturers flourish, tooth decay rates creep upward.  

Most dentists are trained to use politics and not science to promote fluoridation, according to Armfield and Melbye in the Journal of the American Dental Association . The researchers write: “Studies of dentists’ attitudes about water fluoridation suggest that a lack of knowledge and preparedness are barriers to discussing the topic …

Parents are directed towards dentists for fluoride advice, but over 26% of dentists responding to a University of Texas (UT) survey feel unqualified to assess a patient's fluoride needs. Only 2% of Houston public dental clinics used American Dental Association approved fluoride products and techniques, according to another UT survey.

"California Public Health Professionals display positive attitudes toward use of fluorides, but demonstrate a lack of knowledge," according to a University of California study.

More evidence that dentists don't keep up with current fluoride research was  presented at the 2003 American Association of Dental Research meeting. Over, 55.% of dentists surveyed erroneously “perceived a greater role for systemic fluorides than topical fluorides in caries prevention,” according to a UT study funded by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Actually, CDC fluoride recommendations say, “Fluoride works primarily after teeth have erupted.” and ingested fluoride leads to disfiguring dental fluorosis, white spotted, yellow or brown permanently stained teeth.

”...it often take two decades before new knowledge is integrated into (dental) clinical practice..”, according to the Forsyth Center for Evidence-Based Dentistry.

Most of what dentistry does is not supported by valid science, according to  a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Conference on Tooth Decay

Even pro-fluoride dental researchers worry that the lack of evidence-based-dentistry practiced in the US will hurt their reputations. For example, Dentist Amid Ismail, Professor, University of Michigan School of Dentistry, in a report to the NIH panel wrote, "If the current weak trend of caries research in the United States continues, history will be harsh on all of us for our failure to use our knowledge and resources to reduce, if not eliminate, the burden of one of the world's most prevalent diseases."

A chasm is growing between the practice of dentistry in the US and the oral health needs of the nation. According to Mertz and O’Neil in “Health Affairs,” By many measures, the practice of dentistry has improved for the dentist over the past decade. Hours of work are down, and compensation is increasing. However, there is a growing disconnect between the dominant pattern of practice of the profession and the oral health needs of the nation."

Scientists tell us that American children are over-fluoridated and should cut back on fluoride use; yet tooth decay rates in the US continue to climb and dentists continue to instigate fluoridation schemes in our cities and towns. Fluoridating water supplies is a waste of money, endangers children's health and is ineffective. And there is no evidence that switching to bottled water has increased cavities.

Cavities increase in people with severe fluoride overdose according to the dental textbook, Dentistry, Dental Practice and the Community, by Burt and Eklund. But few practicing dentists seem to know this. Burt and Eklund explain that fluoride concentrations in drinking water, form a J-shaped curve. With increasing fluoride levels, cavity experience diminishes to a certain point and then starts to rise again. The true relationship between water fluoride levels and dental decay is the J-shaped curve, with the turning point in the J being something between 3 and 4 times the optimal level, they write. Studies show this level is already exceeded by many American children