Citizens for Safe Water Metro Moncton

Dental fluorosis is the term used to describe teeth that have absorbed excessive amounts of fluoride during the year's when teeth are developing (typically  - 8 years old).

Dental fluorosis is usually described as either mild, moderate or severe based on the amount of permanent discoloration and changes to enamel structure such as hypo and hyper mineralization, pitting, and enamel flaking and breaking. 
 

• Mild dental fluorosis is characterized by less than 50% of teeth surfaces permanently discoloured with white cloudy markings.

• Moderate dental fluorosis is characterized by more than 50% of teeth surfaces permanently discoloured with white cloudy and/or yellow and/or brown markings.

• Severe dental fluorosis is characterized by more than 50% of teeth surfaces permanently discoloured with significant amounts of yellow, brown markings as well as pitting and funny shaped teeth due to pieces of enamel breaking off.
  
  
  
  
   

Like most evidence based perspectives on the effects of fluoridated water, the most rigorous published research is at odds with claims about dental fluorosis coming from the dental and public health associations in the US, Canada and the handful of other developed countries where water fluoridation is still endorsed.

For example, US and Canadian dental and public health associations routinely claim that less than 5% of their populations develop moderate and severe degrees of dental fluorosis, yet the year 2015 Cochrane Review and year 2000 York Review, considered to be the two most rigorous scientific reviews that ever looked at the prevalence of dental fluorosis in fluoridated regions both found that that at least 12% of children growing up in fluoridated regions will develop moderate levels of dental fluorosis with 40% of the children developing mild levels of dental fluorosis. 

Unlike fluoride's chronic adverse effects on internal tissues, dental fluorosis is visible, and it is the one condition that fluoride promoting dental and public health agencies admit is a risk from excessive exposure to fluoride.

 

These agencies do provide guidelines to minimize exposure to fluoride, but ironically their guidelines only 






 

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From here you can see a document from the CDC with a link to the original Web page and highlighted text demonstrating how the CDC basically covers their butt from any liability in the event that formula fed babies in the states end up developing dental fluorosis.

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At the end of the CDC document  is a note from Citizens for Safe Water specifying that even though the CDC (like Health Canada) claim that moderate and severe degrees of dental fluorosis occur in less than 5% of the population, two of the most rigorous scientific systematic reviews on the effects of water fluoridation (Year 2000 York Review) and (Year 2015 Cochrane Review) found that moderate degrees of dental fluorosis develop with 12% of kids growing in fluoridated regions.


From here, you also can see a three page document showing on page 1,  how babies fed formula mixed with fluoridated water receive daily amounts of fluoride that exceed the Canadian Dental Association’s daily limits, and far surpass  amounts of fluoride found in breast milk. On page 2. And 3. of this doc, we provide the formulas, and references needed for making the calculations in the table on page 1.