CHARBONNEAU – Fluoridation could save our public dental plan billions

NOW THAT WE are all paying for a national dental plan, it would be a good idea to reduce costs by fluoridating more of Canadian water supplies.

The cost of the public dental plan is $13 billion.

Except for a deluded few who like to quote dubious internet cranks, the benefits of fluoridation are well recognized.

Fluoridation is recommended by the Canadian and American Dental Associations, Canada’s chief dental officer and the World Health Organization. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have called fluoridation one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century.

Only one-third of Canadians have fluoridated water supplies, so there’s lots of room for savings. Twenty-five million Canadians have poorer dental health because of lack of fluoridation.

According to Professors Juliet Guichon and Ian Mitchell of the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary: “Fluoridation reduces dental decay by approximately 25 per cent.(Globe and Mail, 8 Jan 2024).”

I estimate that if two-thirds of Canadians have  dental decay reduced by 25 per cent, that’s a potential savings of $2 billion.

Ottawa, Toronto, Halifax, Winnipeg and Edmonton, are just some of the cities that have fluoridated water. Too bad that Kamloops is not one of those cities.

One of the things that prompted me to move to Kamloops was its fluoridated water. It proved to be a good idea — my son had excellent dental health.

Then, in 2001, a referendum was held in Kamloops on whether to have water meters installed and fluoridation removed.

To bundle the two questions on one ballot was a bad idea. Cranky Kamloopsians thought that if water meters were a bad idea, so was fluoridation. They were wrong on both counts.

Kamloopsians bought into misinformation being promoted at the time that mining companies were dumping their pollution in our water. Like all the worst misinformation, there is an element of truth. Fluorides are the byproduct of mining and that product can be sold and added to water.

But to claim that mining companies are dumping fluorides would be like saying that iodine is being dumped into our salt by mining companies.

A lot of iodine is produced by brine-mining companies in Oklahoma, one of the largest in the world.

No one doubts the benefits of iodine which prevents iodine deficiency that affects about two billion people globally.  It’s the leading preventable cause of intellectual and developmental disabilities.

In Mexico, fluorides are added to salt. Mexicans receive the benefits of fluoridation without it being added to water supplies.

Kamloops’ objectors to fluoridation failed to mention that the greatest source of florides is mother nature. Kamloops water is naturally fluoridated to 0.5 parts per million. Only 0.2 ppm would have to be added to make the water effective in improving dental health.

Calgarians fell for similar misinformation and removed fluoridation in 2011. Professors Guichon and Mitchell noted that, after that, dental health declined:

“The children are all in need of dental surgery requiring general anaesthetic, a need that grew dramatically after water fluoridation ended in Calgary in 2011, as did the need for urgent intravenous-antibiotic therapy for treating infections originating in a tooth.”

Flourides would improve dental health but in this age of misinformation, propaganda tops health and savings.

David Charbonneau is a retired TRU electronics instructor who hosts a blog at http://www.eyeviewkamloops.wordpress.com.