Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 25, 1991 TAG: 9103230306
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jane E. Brody
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But debates still rage about the wisdom of trying to prevent tooth decay by adding fluorides to municipal drinking water.
Currently, residents of Suffolk County on Long Island in New York are fighting over a health department resolution to promote fluoridation of public water supplies.
It is a measure that most experts hail as one of the most cost-effective means of protecting the public's health but that others damn as a misguided effort that could cause illness and death.
Furthermore, its detractors say, fluoridation does not work half as well as its supporters believe.
The undercurrent of distrust about the safety of water fluoridation is considered the main reason that public health objectives to extend fluoridation have repeatedly failed. The goal for 1990 set a decade earlier by the U.S. Public Health Service in its report, "Promoting Health/Preventing Disease: Objectives for the Nation," was to bring the benefits of fluoridated water to 95 percent of Americans who use community water.
But the latest tally shows only about 60 percent are served by water systems that are "optimally" fluoridated.
The goal to reach 95 percent has now been extended to the year 2000 and there is reason to believe that this, too, will not be met. Last year a government-ordered study suggested that very high 6 1 HEALTH Health levels of fluorides in drinking water could cause cancer in male rats, a finding that further fueled the already heated opposition to fluoridation.
Public water supplies and bottled water may or may not contain fluoride. Some bottled water is filtered tap water that may come from a fluoridated supply, and some spring and well water may be naturally fluoridated. The only ways to tell are to have the water tested or to write the bottler.
In the Roanoke Valley, Salem and Roanoke city add fluoride to their centrally treated municipal water. Roanoke County, which has de-centralized system of wells for some residents, does not add fluoride to water, but some well water has naturally occuring amounts of the mineral.
The potential benefits of fluorides were first noted early in this century. In 1945, Grand Rapids, Mich., became the first municipalty to have tiny amounts of fluoride added to its drinking water.
The effect on the children who subsequently grew up in Grand Rapids was dramatic: a reduction of up to 65 percent in the number of dental caries among school-age children who drank the fluoridated water since birth.
Such benefits were repeatedly demonstrated in the early days of fluoridation in many states and countries and today are widely believed responsible for the fact that millions of American children now reach their teens without a single cavity.
While better overall nutrition and improved dental hygiene may have helped, dental experts note that snacking on carbohydrates without brushing afterward, a major factor in promoting decay, has become a way of life among American youths, and large numbers still do not get routine preventive care either at home or from dental professionals.
Furthermore, fluoride-induced resistance to decay appears to be lifelong because the strengthening effects of fluoride are built into the children's permanent teeth. Indeed, fluoride has been credited with the 30 percent decrease in the number of adults who need dentures.
All told, the American Dental Association estimates that for every $1 spent on fluoridation, at least $50 is saved in future dental expenses.
Bones may also benefit from low levels of fluoride in drinking water. Adults who live in areas where the water is naturally high in fluorides have been shown to be less susceptible to osteoporosis, the loss of bone with age that causes shortening of the spinal column and fractures.
As for the safety of fluorides, which are added at a level of 0.7 to 1.2 parts per million parts of water, scores of studies among people here and in other countries have turned up no evidence of a relationship between fluoridation at normal levels and cancer or any other disease or disorder.
There seems to be little factual reason to abandon the well-established value of fluoride to dental health.
Keep in mind that when the Food and Drug Administration sought to ban saccharin after it caused cancer in laboratory animals the public rallied to keep this artificial sweetener in the food supply even though it had never been shown to help people lose or maintain their weight or help people with diabetes control their disease.
by CNB