The long -term effects of prohibiting public drinking water fluoride throughout the country could cost families billions of dollars and give rise to millions of rotten teeth, predict a new analysis.
The study, published on Friday in Jama Health Forum, shows that if the 50 states arrested community water fluoration programs, children in the United States could expect to develop 25.4 million caries in the next five years.
That is the equivalent of a decomposition tooth in 1 in 3 children.
The number of cavities would double in 10 years, to 53.8 million.
“That is a tremendous increase,” said Dr. Tom Reid, president of the Wisconsin Dental Association. “It is another proof that what we have been saying for more than 80 years is 100% precise: the adequate dosage of community water flow prevents cavities.” Reid did not participate in the new research.
Fluoride is under an increasingly intense fire despite its dramatic ability to prevent tooth decay.
Two states, Utah and Florida, have already banned the addition of fluoride to public water systems. Others, including Kentucky, Massachusetts and Nebraska, could continue, all driven by the new role of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Under Kennedy’s leadership, HHS destroyed the oral health division of disease control and prevention centers, which provides funds to local states and jurisdictions to promote good dental health practices, including the use of fluoride.
“We thought this was a really important moment to put some numbers to discussions” about fluoride, said Dr. Lisa Simon, author of the study and internal medicine doctor of General Mass Brigham in Boston.
She and a colleague analyzed data on 8,484 children, from birth to 19 years, from the National Health and Nutrition Exam Survey. Nhanes takes place every year for CDCs and includes interviews about what people eat and extensive details about their blood tests, medical exams and dental visits.
The team created a model to predict what could happen in two scenarios: if each public water system had optimal fluoride levels, and if there is a total national fluoride prohibition in water systems.
Filling those cavities to fix that level of decomposition would cost money: $ 9.8 billion in five years and $ 19.4 billion in a decade.
“It is actually a fairly conservative estimate,” Simon said, because it does not take into account related problems, as if a child has to go under general anesthesia, life costs of replacing fillings and implants, or if parents have to lose work to take children to the emergency room due to extreme molars pain.
Dental caries goes beyond a simple cavity that must be filled. In severe cases, teeth crack, which makes people huge food properly. It can also cause gum disease and generalized infection.
Simon said that low -income families fighting to pay dental care and children in Medicaid would be disproportionately affected.
“Darga everyone to eliminate fluoride, but it damages these children and families more,” he said.
Real world impacts
The possible consequences of fluoride prohibitions is not just mathematical magic.
The Canadian city of Calgary, for example, experienced a significant increase in children’s cavities after their leaders eliminated the fluoride from public water systems in 2011. In a decade, they voted to restore community fluoration.
“I hate to see us not learn from history,” Reid said. “Immense intellectual capacity is not needed to realize that, boy, there are communities that have done this and regret their decisions.”
The United States has been adding fluoride to drinking water for decades. CDC, as well as doctors and dentists, announce the mineral as one of the greatest public health achievements of the twentieth century.
But fluoride has been demonized, particularly among the conservative groups that argue that it is a toxin that, in the best case, is causing the discoloration of the teeth and, in the worst case, reducing the intelligence of children.
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 study is also included in the report “Make America Healy Again” recently published by the Secretary of Health.
The investigation, however, was far from conclusive. Similar studies were conducted in other countries with much higher levels of water fluoration than the US.
The new analysis did not include possible cognitive, good or bad effects, of a total prohibition of fluoride because the current levels of fluoride in public water systems, the authors wrote: “They are not definitely associated with worse neuroconductual results.”
They looked at the issue of teeth discoloration. Excessive amounts of fluoride can cause white marks or sometimes brown in the teeth called fluorosis. It is a cosmetic, not physical problem.
The modeling study found that prohibiting community water fluoration would not give a great boost to reduce fluorosis: only 200,000 cases less in five years.
