Fluoridation Would Bring Benefits, but Raises Ethical Concerns

Adding fluoride to the island’s water supply would be both ‘effective and safe’, a report by the island’s Public Health body has found.

Broader health-related problems were identified concerning fluoride at high levels, however, no health-related risks were found when water was fluoridated within recommended levels.

Public Health was asked to produce the report after a Social Affairs Policy Review Committee looked into children’s oral health last year. The rapid review report was conducted by examining papers written on the issue from across the world.

While that committee backed introducing fluoride varnish for the island’s kids, DHSC Minster Lawrie Hooper moved an amendment for the research into adding fluoride to the island’s water supply.

The report outlines that about 10% of England receives fluoridated water, most of which (92%) receive it as part of a community water fluoridation scheme. The remaining 8% receive naturally fluoridated water due to the geology of the area in which they live. Other countries with fluoridation schemes include the USA, Canada, Ireland, Spain and Brazil.

It said: ‘All papers reviewed identified that water fluoridation was an effective measure to reduce dental caries within the population.’

However, it also noted that: ‘The biggest risk found in all studies was that of dental fluorosis. The extent to which this was considered a problem varied across the papers. Most papers considered it merely a cosmetic risk, and found no evidence of severe dental fluorosis (to the extent that tooth structures could be damaged) through exposure to artificially fluoridated water.’

In its report summarising its research, Public Health found that ‘water fluoridation is highly cost-effective’.

Recognising that people are fundamentally opposed to fluoride, the report does recognise that it does raise ethical issues as it is a ‘whole population intervention to which it is fairly difficult to opt out’.

In its conclusions, Public Health said that while there would be health benefits, this shouldn’t be the only consideration and recommended that if this was to be an area that the gov wanted to pursue, it should undertake a programme of work to properly inform any future policy decision.

You can find the report here.