Green Party opposition to fluoridation can damage public health, writes Dick Ahlstrom, Science Editor
The less well off will suffer most if the Green Party gets its way and fluoride is taken out of our water supplies. Poorer people would experience more pain and discomfort and have poorer health outcomes if the protection afforded by fluoride was removed, according to a leading dental surgeon.
The Green Party's health spokesman, John Gormley, has said his party would end water fluoridation on entering any coalition government, but such a move would probably cause more social harm than good.
"Removing fluoride is not a risk-free option," said the Health Service Executive's principal dental surgeon in the west, Sligo-based Dr Joe Mullen.
Dr Mullen is also a member of the Irish Expert Body on Fluorides and Health set up by Government in 2004 to advise on the safety of water fluoridation.
The whole question about whether putting fluoride in our drinking water is a good or bad thing has surfaced yet again, this time in the context of the approaching general election. Mr Gormley has said he hopes to gain Fine Gael support to stop water fluoridation here, but it would be retrograde.
"You certainly will see a rise in dental decay bringing increased pain, increased suffering, lost days at work and other problems," Dr Mullen said.
The people who would suffer most were the poor.
"The clearest [ risk factor] with dental caries is poverty, which is true for so many other health issues," he said. It is more difficult for less well-off sectors of society to afford toothbrushes, toothpaste and to gain access to dental services.
"The great thing about water fluoridation is it gets to everybody, rich or poor," Dr Mullen said. "People on lower incomes benefit proportionately more than people on higher incomes."
The Health Act 1960 introduced fluoridation to Irish water supplies. It was a decision taken because of the bad state of dental hygiene here at the time, Dr Mullen added. "Back in 1960 dental health was a real problem in Ireland."
The potential value of mass fluoridation was first seen in the US when it was noted that people living in areas where there was a high natural fluoride level in drinking water had fewer dental caries than other areas.
Experiments there in 1945 showed that artificial fluoridation could also achieve these improvements and it was this work that encouraged the then Irish government to introduce fluoridation here.
Fluoridation was brought in to counteract bad dental hygiene and its introduction has had a significant impact. The best countries to study for comparative purposes are Northern Ireland and Scotland where water is not fluoridated, but where the general population has similarly bad eating habits when it comes to snack eating and sugary drinks, Dr Mullen said.
"We know from dozens of studies here and studies with Northern Ireland which show a 50 per cent difference in dental caries rates," he said.
Figures provided by the expert body show that in the 1960s the average rate of decayed, missing or filled teeth in five-year-olds here was 5.6 and 4.8 in Northern Ireland.
It is now 1.8 here compared to 4.5 in the North, where there is no fluoridation.
Stopping fluoridation would reverse this and increase dental problems here, Dr Mullen said. "We would expect to see our decay level equate to the North. I would expect to see an increase of 50 per cent."
Mr Gormley is extremely misleading in attempting to associate health risks such as bone cancers with fluoridation. The huge preponderance of studies done over the past 60 years indicate there are no health issues involved.
Some 350 million people worldwide drink fluoridated water and if there were health implications then there would be huge numbers of sick people to validate claims of a health impact.
It is also mischievous to cite a condition such as fluorosis as though it was a health risk. Fluorosis is a cosmetic condition, not a medical condition. It is caused by ingestion of too much fluoride and causes white marks to appear on the teeth.
The best way to avoid fluorosis is to keep strict control over fluoride levels in water and to control use by children of toothpastes containing fluoride. Large water supplies such as Dublin are monitored for fluoride minute by minute, Dr Mullen said.
"Even in the smallest supplies it is at least a daily measurement. There is a great deal of monitoring going on."
Mr Gormley also raised fears about using fluoridated tap water to mix formula for bottle-fed babies because of the dangers of fluorosis. Fluorosis is not a health risk and fluorosis is less of a risk where the fluoride in water is kept at proper levels.