NBC News
The long -term effects of prohibiting fluoride in public drinking water throughout the country could cost billions of dollars to families, promoting millions of tooth decay, warned a new study.
The study, published this Friday in Jama Health Forum magazine, said that if the 50 states put an end to community fluoride programs in water, children in the United States could develop 25.4 million more caries in the next five years.
That is equivalent to a tooth with caries in 1 in 3 children.
The number of decay would be far duplicated in 10 years, to reach 53.8 million, according to the study.
“This is a tremendous increase,” said Dr. Tom Reid, president of the Wisconsin Dental Association. “Another proof that what we have been saying for more than 80 years is 100% true: the proper dosing of fluoride in community water prevents caries.” Reid did not participate in the new research.
Fluoride is subject to increasingly intense criticism despite its great ability to prevent decay. Two states, Utah and Florida, have already banned the addition of fluoride to public water systems.
Others, such as Kentucky, Massachusetts and Nebraska, could do it, all of them animated by the role of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Under the direction of Kennedy, the agency closed the oral health division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which provides funds to the states and local jurisdictions to promote good dental health practices, including the use of fluoride.
“We thought this was a really important moment to be able to address the debate with figures” about fluoride, said Dr. Lisa Simon, author of the study and doctor of the Mass General Brigham de Boston.
She and a colleague analyzed the data of 8,484 children, from birth to 19 years, of the National Health and Nutrition Survey (Nhanes), an annual exercise of the CDC that includes interviews about what people eat, and data on their blood tests, medical reviews and visits to the dentist.
The team created a model to predict what could happen in two situations: if all public water supply systems had optimal levels of fuoruro and if it was completely prohibited nationwide.
Empty those decay to correct the level of deterioration would cost money: 9.8 billion dollars in five years and 19.4 billion in a decade.
“Actually, it is a fairly conservative estimate,” said Simon, because he does not take into account other issues as if a child has to undergo general anesthesia, life costs of the replacement of prints and implants, or if parents have to miss work to take their children to emergencies by teeth pain.
(The FDA takes measures to withdraw from the drops and compressed fluorine compressed for children)
Caries goes beyond a simple cavity that must be used. In severe cases, teeth crack, which makes it difficult to chew food well. It can also cause gum diseases and generalized infections.
Simon assured that low -income families fighting to pay dental care and children with Medicaid would be disproportionately affected.
“The elimination of fluoride harms everyone, but more to children and their families,” he warned.
The possible consequences of a prohibition of fluoride are not only assumptions and estimates.
The Canadian city of Calgary, for example, experienced a significant increase in children in children after its leaders eliminated the fluoride from public water systems in 2011. A decade later, they voted in favor of re -establishing it.
“I hate seeing that we don’t learn from history,” said Reid. “There is no need an immense intellectual capacity to realize that there are communities that have done so and regret it.”
The United States has been adding fluoride to drinking water. CDC, as well as doctors and dentists, argue that this mineral is one of the greatest achievements of the twentieth century in public health.
But fluoride has been demonized, especially among the conservative groups that argue that it is a toxin that, in the best case, causes the discoloration of the teeth and, at the worst, the intelligence of children lies.
Kennedy frequently quotes a study published in 2019 that suggested that IQ levels were slightly lower in children whose mothers had higher measures of fluoride in the urine during pregnancy.
Jama’s new analysis did not include the possible cognitive effects – well or bad – of a total fluoride prohibition because the current levels in public water systems, the authors wrote, “are not definitely associated with worse neuroconductual results.”
They did analyze the issue of discoloration of the teeth. Excessive amounts of fluoride can cause white marks or sometimes brown in the teeth, called fluorosis. It is an aesthetic, not physical problem.
The study came to the conclusion that prohibiting community water fluoride would not involve a great reduction in the problem: it would only eliminate 200,000 cases in five years.
