Reduced fluoride levels indicate health risk

JOHN TUOHY mentions that at a recent conference of the Irish Dental Association, it was stated that “the level of dental cavities has declined dramatically since the early 1960s, particularly since the introduction of fluoridation” (Irish Examiner letters, October 30.

Before fluoridation there were up to 600 dentists practising in Ireland. If fluoridation brought about the promised 65% reduction in dental decay, many of these dentists should have gone on the dole or sought other careers. But that didn’t happen.

Today, there are up to 2,000 dentists in Ireland.

This huge increase in the number of dentists explains why we have an alleged decline in dental cavities. A great deal more dentists repairing dental cavities would tell us more about the dramatic decline in tooth decay and not the suspect fluoridation.

For six days in 1963, an American, Dr Harold Hodge, sang fluorinated Newburgh’s (a town in New York state) praises before the Supreme Court in Dublin.

The judge swallowed Hodge’s story and fluoridation was compulsorily imposed on the gullible Irish.

Today in Newburgh it is a different story.

The most visible effects from fluoridation are not fewer cavities but high rates of speckled and mottled teeth known as dental fluorosis. Newburgh also has the second highest rate of heart disease in the US.

Recently, the Irish Government reduced the dosage of fluoridation from 1ppm to 0.7ppm. That will achieve nothing since fluorides accumulate in the bones and organs of the body.

However, there must have been some evidence of a dangerous trend health-wise to force this reduction to 0.7ppm.

Patrick J Carroll

Lady Lane House

Waterford