Health

Southampton residents face fluoride row

by Rachel Nixon | February 16, 2009 at 10:21 am

565 views | 2 Recommendations | 5 comments

A health authority in southern England is planning to add fluoride to the drinking water of almost 200,000 residents in an attempt to improve the health of children's teeth.

The board of the South Central Strategic Health Authority, which covers towns including Southampton, is due to make a decision on February 26th, but not everyone is happy about the move.

While many health experts argue that adding fluoride will help improve children's teeth, critics believe it is a coercive form of "mass medication" with unproven benefits.

If fluoride is added it will increase the concentration of the chemical in Southampton's water twelvefold, from 0.08 parts per million (ppm) to one ppm.

Southampton Primary Care Trust believes this would "significantly improve the dental health of local people, particularly children", in a city that has some of the worst dental health in the country.

Fluoride is added to most brands of toothpaste but those with poor dental habits consequently fail to benefit from it. Fluoride works principally by making teeth more resistant to decay: in fluoridated areas 15 per cent more children have "decay-free" teeth.

Barry Cockroft, the chief dental officer for England, describe fluoridation as the "perfect public health measure", but others have expressed concern about health problems arising from fluoride exposure.

A petition has been set up to protest against the measure. At time of writing 283 people had signed up.

Health authorities can now force water companies to add fluoride to water supplies. Six million of England's 45 million residents reportedly receive fluoridated tap water.

Dental health is a serious concern in the UK. Last week LotusFlower reported on findings that one million people had carried out "DIY dentistry" because of lack of access to a National Health Service dentist.

What do you think? Should fluoride be added to drinking water? Should people have a choice? Should the UK think of the longer term and provide better dentistry services?

0 See all footage | View Slideshow

Share: email story | add to any | | facebook | stumbleupon

recommend This comment thread is now closed

Steven Mileham (not verified)

at 12:29 on February 16th, 2009

I'm absolutely for it, in the long run it improves the overall health of the nation. If there were a negative impact on health, then I certainly doubt that the council would consider putting it in the water. Financially it wouldn't make sense.

Yuliya Talmazan

at 12:40 on February 16th, 2009

Are not some people allergic to fluoride? This would make the water undrinkable for them.

JenniferBarthe

at 14:44 on February 16th, 2009

I used to think the same thing, but then I read that less than 1% of a control group tested in a mass US study, proved to be sensitive to fluoride. But if a person is proven to be sensitive to fluoride, here's what the Physician's Desk Reference, a popular reference book for medical doctors says the symptoms include:

"In hypersensitive individuals, fluorides occasionally cause skin eruptions such as atopic dermatitis, eczema or urticaria. Gastric distress, headache and weakness have also been reported. These hypersensitivity reactions usually disappear promptly after discontinuation of the fluoride."

Trackz

at 12:54 on February 16th, 2009

Trackz has contributed a photo to this story.

J-Mo (not verified)

at 14:52 on March 5th, 2009

Putting fluoride directly into the water system is a terrible idea. People use the water for anything. The only reason they seem to have is to help improve dental health when ingested so they need to target the sources for ingestion and not your entire water-line.

I would suggest they work with a bottled water company or pharmacy to offer free fluoride to all.

I have heard that fluoride is a toxic byproduct from metels and is generally expensive and tedious to dispose of so if this is the case then they could charge these companies a modest fee to take the fluoride off their hands and use that money to re-invest in proper fluoride distribution. This is opposite to what I hear is going on in the United States where the tax payers end up paying a 20,000% mark-up to buy the fluoride and have it forced it into the tap water.

A lot of that stuff could be bogus but the main point is to get a full understanding before you start dumping chemicals into the water system. Many people claim that fluorides harmful effects such as shortening the life span or causing worse dental problems are obviously false because life is longer in the US and dental health is improving. But what about the mental problems it might cause? In the US drug abuse and mental health problems are increasing as is the seemingly apathetic view.

In final, I would say to do what my dentist tells me... Brush your teeth twice a day and floss every other day. Those are the best ways to boost your dental health.