To the Editor:
I certainly applaud the good intentions and information of the dentists speaking out in favor of fluoride. Clearly there is some support for their position, if mainly for children rather than adults.
A number of excellent dentists over the years have, with great effort, (and my expense) allowed me to maintain and retain dental health, I am indeed grateful.
However, I entered my teen years drinking some of the earliest municipally fluoridated water and my teeth were, and continue to be, frankly, a mess. My parents were either not available or too afraid themselves to take me to the dentist. Fluoride could not compensate for the result.
Before coming to Maine, I lived many years in poor urban neighborhoods, which are almost entirely “dental deserts.” As long as soda is cheaper than milk, courtesy largely of high fructose corn syrup, poor mothers who cannot afford to do otherwise, still load children with fruit juices and flavored milks, as do school lunches and vending machines.
What are the demographics of the children cited by the dentist’s article as doing better with water company supplied fluoride? Better-educated parents of any income group are more likely to see to overall dental care for their children, fluoride or not. The poorly educated, or the just plain poor, may not have that choice.
How do children’s better teeth statistics using the ubiquitous fluoride stack up against the equally ubiquitous low thyroid conditions found (especially) in adult women, and (especially) older ones? Are we sacrificing one age, one problem for another? A comparison study needs to be done.
It’s a little too glib to advise we just drink bottled water to avoid fluoride since there is no way to know if such water is free from fluoride. Too much of it is not from some pure spring, but from some city’s municipal water system.
Of course bottled water costs more, and the bottles clog our landfills, but that’s another letter.
Lynne Norris
Newcastle
