FAN Bulletin 825

July 1, 2007

Dear All,

In a front page article and in an editorial the Melbourne Age bemoans the fact that despite being fluoridated for many years their children are facing a dental crisis. Despite a lack of any scientific evidence to support the argument, the editorial (see below) claims that this is partially caused by more kids drinking bottled water. Ironically, the scientists who make this claim, Armfield and Spencer, in their own 2004 study of 10,000 children in South Australia, found no difference in permanent tooth decay between those children who had consumed bottled water (or rain water) all their lives and those who had drunk fluoridated water all their lives.

It is also ironic that while the Melbourne establishment is trying to cover up the failure of water fluoridation to solve the problem of tooth decay by clutching at the straw of bottled water consumption, Victorian authorities are trying to send Melbourne’s fluoridated water to Geelong where all and sundry have made it absolutely clear for several years that they do not want fluoridated water.

Paul Connett

EDITORIAL

Deliver our children from tooth trauma
July 1, 2007

MOST of us remember losing our baby teeth: wiggling them until we managed to extract them; hoping for a dollar or two from the Tooth Fairy; speaking with a slight speech impediment through the new gap. But as we report on page 1, children today are facing a far more miserable memory: having some or even all of their baby teeth removed under general anesthetic because of dental decay.

And the culprit? Poor diet and, particularly, too much sugar.

We have heard for some time about the problem we have with childhood obesity, and its potential health consequences. But tooth decay is also a serious problem, putting young children through the trauma of major surgery to treat it. According to the Dental Health Services Victoria survey, the average child starting primary school has already lost three or four teeth to decay.

The study also found that parents are confused about nutrition for their children - the food and drink products that are good for them, and those that are not. For example, the experts say that another reason for the rise in caries is more children drinking bottled water instead of tap water with fluoride.

Last month, The Sunday Age revealed that while the focus has been on reducing fat in our diets to fight expanding waistlines, the sugar content of some basic grocery items - soups, cereals, tomato sauce and ice-cream, to name a few - has been steadily increasing over the past 20 years.

There is certainly no shortage of nutritional information available, it’s just a matter of how clear it is and how easily the average person is able to make sense of it. As we also report today, food manufacturers will soon be free to make specific health claims in their labelling - which the European Union is cracking down on because of concerns about insufficient scientific evidence to back up the claims.

We would hope that any such move by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand would be undertaken with great care, in the knowledge that allowing these claims as marketing tools - even if scientifically supported - may only add to people’s confusion about what’s in their food and what they should be eating as part of a healthy diet.

We know that we have a serious problem with children (and adults, for that matter) who are overweight and obese. We also know that diet, along with lifestyle changes and insufficient exercise, is an important piece in that puzzle.

These are serious health issues that need urgent attention from governments, food manufacturers and the public so that we all know what we’re putting in our mouths, and we can make informed choices about our diet.

Perhaps the way food is labelled needs to be overhauled. Perhaps we need to invest in better public education about food and health. There might also be a need to clamp down on celebrity endorsement of some foods, and the way they are advertised to children on television, the internet and other media.

These options should all be canvassed in a broad, open debate, so that we can spare young children the trauma of having their rotten baby teeth pulled out.