SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
In other words, what happens when a population suddenly stops taking fluoride in their drinking water, like Juneau's citizenry did?
Now, thanks to a recent study led by first author and public health researcher Jennifer Meyer from the University of Alaska Anchorage, we've got new insights into the subsequent effects.
In the study, Meyer assessed Medicaid dental claim billing records for two groups of children and adolescents aged 18 or under.
One of these groups represented what the researchers call "optimal" community water fluoridation (CWF) exposure: 853 non-adult patients on behalf of whom Medicaid dental claims were filed in 2003, years before the fluoride cessation began in 2007.
The other group was made up of 1,052 non-adult patients from families who similarly met Medicaid income requirements, and who made the same kind of dental claims almost a decade later, in 2012.
[...] "By taking the fluoride out of the water supply... the trade-off for that is children are going to experience one additional caries procedure per year, at a ballpark (cost) of US$300 more per child," Meyer explained to KTOO News.
Reference: Jennifer Meyer, Vasileios Margaritis & Aaron Mendelsohn, Consequences of community water fluoridation cessation for Medicaid-eligible children and adolescents in Juneau, Alaska, BMC Oral Health, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12903-018-0684-2
(Score: 1) by nyscof on Tuesday December 17 2019, @10:56AM
The Meyer study is a very poorly controlled and unblinded study that can neither rule out or rule in that tooth decay went up after fluoridation ended.
Seven weaknesses:
1) The Juneau study looked at a single city at two times separated by 9 years. There is no information on what happened before, between, or after the two study years.
2) There is no control information from comparison populations who did not have a change in fluoridation status.
3) This study design was even weaker than the debunked Calgary cessation study where omitted information revealed decay increased at the same rate while the city was fluoridated as after cessation.
4) Decay rates in Calgary and its comparison city Edmonton rose rapidly while both were fluoridated, demonstrating that factors other than fluoridation were causing a general increase. The same may have occurred in Juneau but Meyer's study was unable to control for such a background rise.
5) The Juneau study failed to account for an increase in Medicaid reimbursement rates between the pre-cessation and post-cessation study years. Higher reimbursement often increases number of patients treated, number of teeth treated, and cost of treatment.
6) The study was not blinded. The dentists in Juneau knew that fluoridation had ceased. They may have altered their treatment practices to compensate for what they expected would be an increase in decay. For example, placing more prophylactic fillings or more aggressively treating early stages of decay.
7) From this study, it is not possible to make any strong conclusions about the actual effect of fluoridation cessation in Juneau.
Over 400 studies now link fluoride to neurological effects. See http://FluorideAlert.org/issues/health/braing [fluoridealert.org]
Fluoride is neither a nutrient nor essential for healthy teeth. Consuming a fluoride-free died does not cause tooth decay. It was unknown that fluoride gets into the brain when fluoridation began in 1945. Now that we know it does, it must stop being added to public water supplies.