In a recent letter, A/Professor Wendell Evans from the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Sydney, applauds the introduction of water fluoridation to Port Macquarie.
Professor Evans cites two studies which would encourage many readers to accept his erroneous assertions that water fluoridation is “entirely safe and cost-effective”, and also offers substantial oral health benefits for children, adults and seniors.
Evans states that his research group published results for 2003 showing that children from the Blue Mountains “were 75 per cent less likely to have any decayed teeth” ten years after the introduction of fluoridation.
For the period 1990 to 2003, C. Neurath’s (2005; Fluoride, 38(4), pp. 324-5) analysis of cavity rates for 12 year old children in 24 countries shows similar rates of decline in both fluoridated (including Australia) and non-fluoridated countries. Neurath concluded that water fluoridation cannot be credited with the observed reduction in dental caries.
Australia’s 2004-2006 National Oral Health survey provided an opportunity for objective comparison between Queensland (largely unfluoridated) and other states which had been extensively fluoridated for decades. There are no significant statistical differences for dental outcomes among the respective age categories. Clearly, dental decay outcomes for Queensland were no worse than for the fluoridated states.
Professor Evans and NSW’s Centre for Oral Health Strategy are in denial. As a researcher, Evans knows that good science seeks to reveal the truth. His team could usefully investigate the physiological reason(s) for the one to one and a half year delay in eruption of permanent teeth among Australian children in long-fluoridated communities. Toxic levels of fluoride ingestion are involved in promoting this physiological abnormality in addition to causing unwanted dental fluorosis.
Both effects are proof of harm.
John Lusk
Dunbogan
