Elementary Schools Battle Tooth Decay

Kids and parents scared up some fun with Halloween recently, but now their teeth are in for a scary time as they eat up heaps of candy and sweets.

Fluoride is added to drinking water by some water districts to help prevent and fight tooth decay and county elementary students are offered a weekly fluoride rinse.

Years ago the dentists in the area felt the fluoride rinse was an important service the school district could provide for its students because so many of them don't get regular dental care, including brushing their teeth," said Sherry Harter, district health resource teacher.

Called the Swish Program, once each week students are given a measured amount of a sodium fluoride mouth rinse. They swish it around their mouth and then spit it back into the cup or into a sink.

"By participating in the 'Swish' Program we were able to give them some sort of prevention for cavities," Harter said.

Parental permission is required for the student's participation.

Almost all of the parents want their child to swish, Harter said.

The cities of Avon Park and Sebring use the fluoridation process to increase the level of fluoride in drinking water, but the town of Lake Placid does not.

The American Dental Association offers an explanation on how fluoride helps fight tooth decay.

When a person eats sugar or other refined carbohydrates, some oral bacteria produce acid that removes minerals from the surface of the tooth, a process known as demineralization. If the demineralization process continues for a period of time, it leads to a cavity. Fluoridation helps reverse the demineralization process, preventing the cavity.

The benefits and risks of introducing fluoride into water systems are up to debate.

The American Dental Association endorses the fluoridation of community water supplies and the use of fluoride-containing products as safe and effective measures for preventing tooth decay.

The ADA cites studies that prove water fluoridation continues to be effective in reducing dental decay by 15 to 40 percent

The Health Way House, of San Marcos, Calif., presents a Web site with an opposing view of the ADA's position called The Fluoride Debate.

According to Health Way House, one intriguing and disturbing fact about fluoridation is that over 90 percent of the agent used in U.S. fluoridation schemes is not pharmaceutical grade sodium fluoride, on which practically all toxicological testing has been performed, but industrial grade hexafluorosilicic acid obtained from the air pollution scrubbing systems of the superphosphate industry (e.g. Cargill Fertilizer).

Also, Health Way House questions the science used in the fluoride studies.

For a listing of 34 water systems in Highlands County, and whether or not fluoride is added, go to http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/MWF/Index.asp and then select Florida from the U.S. map and select Highlands County. Click on the name of the water system for details.