Don’t turn taps off on fluoridated water, dentists warn
Dental experts say fluoridated water is especially beneficial for immigrants on sugar-laced Canadian diets for the first time.
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Cutting fluoride from the water supply would hit many in this city’s immigrant communities right in the teeth, a University of Toronto dental expert says.
Unused to this country’s sugar-laced diets, new arrivals from many areas of the developing world need the proven tooth decay protection fluoridated water offers, says Dr. Michael Glogauer who specializes in oral diseases.
“It is extremely short-sighted,” Glogauer says of a cost-cutting proposal presented to the city Monday. “Especially in Toronto, which has a large number of immigrants coming into our environment, fluoridating the water is essential for that population.”
A review of the public works budget unveiled by KPMG listed the removal of water fluoridation as one potential money-saving measure.
The review said Toronto’s current system “reflects high water quality produced at lower than target cost, but costs could be further reduced by eliminating fluoridation.”
Glogauer, however, says there is overwhelming evidence — accepted by more than 90 per cent of dentists — that the municipal practice prevents tooth decay.
“Although there are a minority out there who don’t agree with it, the abundance of evidence clearly shows that fluoridating the water dramatically reduces the dental health care disease burden,” he says.
“I think that’s incontrovertible.”
A 2007 report from the city’s medical officer of health noted that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control had listed water fluoridation as one of the 20th century’s greatest public health achievements. That report recommended strongly that Toronto continue to provide the service.
Glogauer says calls to quit fluoridating water brought up by a small number of academic dentists arose several years ago when there was evidence that tooth decay among children had plummeted.
“But I can tell you that is absolutely not the case anymore,” says Glogauer, citing increased decay problems, especially among immigrant youngsters.
“For that population in particular I think it’s critical that our water be fluoridated so that those children . . . don’t have (tooth decay) as they come into adulthood.”
Fluoride is added in trace amounts — less than one part per million — to about 43 per cent of municipal water supplies across Canada.
But some, like U of T dental professor Dr. Hardy Limeback, have controversially argued there are legitimate health risks — including tooth and neurological damage — associated with over-ingestion of fluoride by infants.
As well, Limeback, head of preventive dentistry at the school, says modern toothpastes and rinses provide sufficient fluoride protection.
But Glogauer says any association between fluoride and infant ailments is extremely tenuous, and he notes that many new immigrants do not arrive here with the oral hygiene habits most established Canadians practise.
Dr. Julian Geller, a Toronto pediatric dentist, adds that many Canadian-born children do not brush their teeth or do so improperly.
“They’re crazy to think about taking it out,” says Geller, who has treated children for nearly five decades.
“They’re sitting down trying to come up with cost-saving measures . . . but the City of Toronto also supports and pays for dental care for certain groups in the city. Now think about it.”
Dr. Harry Hoediono, president of the Ontario Dental Association, says risks of dental disease among kindergarten children have doubled in Laval, Que., since that city dropped fluoridation eight years ago.
With files from Paul Moloney
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