Latest news with #DrLisaSimon
The Independent
6 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
Kids will develop 25.4 million more cavities if fluoride is banned nationwide, study finds
A national ban on the mineral fluoride in U.S. public drinking water could result in a decayed tooth for one out of every three children, researchers said on Friday. A model estimating the potential impact on children's dental health and its costs found that it would result in a 7.5 percent increase in tooth decay, translating to 25.4 million more teeth. It would also cost an additional $9.8 billion over the course of five years, and $19.4 billion after 10 years. 'Fluoride replaces weaker ions within tooth enamel, making it stronger and less susceptible to tooth decay caused by bacteria,' Dr. Lisa Simon, a founding member of the system and a physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital, said in a statement. 'There's strong evidence from other countries and cities, such as Calgary in Canada, showing that when fluoride is eliminated, dental disease increases. Our study offers a window into what would happen in the United States if water fluoridation ceased.' Simon was the senior author of the findings, which were published on Friday in the journal JAMA Health Forum. Fluoride, a naturally occurring mineral found in the soil and water, has been used to help strengthen tooth enamel for decades. It was first added to public water systems in 1945. It has been deemed one of 10 great public health interventions of the 20th century because of the dramatic decline in cavities since then. Recently, however, states have acted to implement their own bans. The first was in Utah, and Florida followed suit a few weeks later. The bans come as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., told The Associated Press last month that he would instruct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop recommending fluoridation in drinking water. Kennedy has cited a widely controversial study related to IQ that has been criticized by experts. But dentists say doing so would be costly to the health of Americans — and especially low-income or rural families who may rely on fluoride in drinking water as a cost-effective way to protect their teeth. Children with limited access to dental care are expected to be the most affected by a ban. 'Dental cavities disproportionately affect disadvantaged children,' Dr. Tomitra Latimer, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said in a statement. 'That includes kids with autism, Down syndrome or cerebral palsy, who may take sugary medications or struggle with brushing.' The authors of the JAMA study found that a national ban would substantially increase dental decay and costs, particularly for publicly insured and uninsured children. To develop the model, the researchers used detailed oral health and water fluoridation data in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey that was collected from 8,484 children ages 19 and below. Then, they simulated two scenarios over periods of five and 10 years. One would maintain current fluoride levels, and the second would eliminate fluoride from public drinking water. They ran the simulation 1,000 times. The number of fluorosis cases — the discoloring of tooth enamel due to excessive fluoride intake — decreased by 0.2 million. The study did not look at cognitive effects from fluoride exposure, saying that current levels of fluoride in public water are not associated with worse neurobehavioral outcomes. The current recommended fluoride level in public water systems is 0.7 milligrams per liter. 'We know fluoride works. We're able to show just how much it works for most communities and how much people stand to lose if we get rid of it,' said Simon. 'Extensive research confirms the recommended level significantly reduces dental cavities without posing health risks,' Latimer said.
CNN
6 days ago
- Business
- CNN
Removing fluoride from public drinking water may lead to millions more cavities in US children, study estimates
Water availabilityFacebookTweetLink Follow The longstanding public health practice of adding fluoride to public drinking water systems in the United States is facing new challenges and bans in some places, and experts have warned that the change would come with significant costs – both to the health of children and the health care system. A new modeling study, published Friday in JAMA Health Forum, estimates that removing fluoride from public water in the US would lead to 25.4 million excess decayed teeth in children and adolescents within five years, along with $9.8 billion in health care costs. After 10 years, these impacts would more than double to nearly 54 million excess decayed teeth and $19.4 billion in costs. That translates to one additional decayed tooth for every three children in the US – but the costs wouldn't be spread evenly, said Dr. Lisa Simon, an internal medicine physician with Brigham and Women's Hospital and co-author of the new study. 'We know that the people who have the most benefit from fluoride are people who otherwise struggle to access dental care,' says Simon, who has been researching dental policy for a decade. 'When we think about those 25 million decayed teeth, they're much more likely to appear in the mouths of children who are publicly insured by Medicaid or come from otherwise low-income families.' Fluoride is a mineral that can be found naturally in some foods and groundwater. It can help prevent tooth decay by strengthening the protective outer layer of enamel that can be worn away by acids formed by bacteria, plaque and sugars in the mouth. Adding fluoride to public water systems started in the US in 1945 and has been hailed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as one of the 10 greatest health interventions in America in the 20th century In 2022, close to two-thirds of the US population was served by community water systems that had fluoride added to them, according to CDC data. But US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in April that he would tell the CDC to stop recommending that fluoride be added to public drinking water, and lawmakers in two states – Utah and Florida – have banned the practice this year. To estimate the effects of removing fluoride from community water, Simon and co-author Dr. Sung Eun Choi from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine assessed clinical oral health data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to create a nationally representative sample of US children. At baseline, the data showed that about 1 in 5 children between the ages of 2 and 5 were estimated to have dental caries, a chronic infectious disease involving tooth decay and cavities, along with more than half of children ages 6 to 12 and more than 57% of teenagers. But removing fluoride would raise those prevalence rates by more than 7 percentage points, the researchers found. 'This is a huge cost for our country and it's all avoidable. There is no better replacement for the time-tested, doctor trusted use of fluoride in community water programs,' Dr. Brett Kessler, president of the American Dental Association, said in a statement. 'No amount of political rhetoric or misinformation will change that good oral health depends on proper nutrition, oral hygiene and optimally fluoridated water, or fluoride supplements if community water programs lack fluoride.' On the campaign trail last fall, Kennedy called fluoride 'industrial waste' and claimed that exposure has resulted in a wide variety of health problems, including cancer – claims that both the American Cancer Society and the CDC have disagreed with. And in April, HHS and the US Environmental Protection Agency announced that they would study the potential health risks of fluoride in drinking water – a review centered around a government study from last year concluding that higher levels of fluoride are linked to lowered IQ in children. In the new modeling study, researchers found that only about 1.5% of US children in 2016 had exposure to this excess level of fluoride – considered to be above 1.5 milligrams per liter – that posed risk for fluorosis, a condition that leaves streaks or spots on teeth, or other harms. Meanwhile, about 40% of US children had access to optimal fluoride levels that effectively prevent tooth decay – between 0.6 and 1.5 milligrams per liter – while about 46% had access to even lower levels. The authors of the new study did not assess the neurocognitive effects of fluoride because 'current federal guidance does not find an association' at the levels used in public drinking water. They found that removing fluoride would only help prevent about 200,000 cases of fluorosis over five years. Tooth decay can mean a lot of things, Simon said, but their model was picking up cases that would likely need at least a filling along with severe cavities that could turn into a root canal or a tooth extraction – the costs of which would be borne by families, insurers and the government. 'Talking about money, which is really important, is only one way to measure that cost,' Simon said. 'It's also a cost in terms of children being in pain, children not being able to eat, children missing school or not being able to pay attention in school because their teeth hurt, parents missing work, children losing teeth that are supposed to stay with them for their entire lives, and those children growing into older adults who are more likely to be missing teeth with all of the health consequences that entails.' Forecasts in the new modeling study mirror real-life impacts that were measured in other parts of the world after fluoride was removed from drinking water. Calgary, Alberta, stopped putting fluoride in its water in 2011, and a study found that children there had more cavities than those in cities that kept fluoride. Calgary will resume fluoridation this year. Simon worries the effects in the US might be even greater because of health inequities that are especially pronounced in the dental care system. 'We've had fluoridated water for so long and it's worked so well that we've stopped appreciating the amazing things it's done,' she said. 'When something has been a success story for 80 years … you don't know which kid never got a cavity because they were exposed to fluoride, and we don't know which older adults aren't wearing dentures because of that.'
CNN
7 days ago
- Business
- CNN
Removing fluoride from public drinking water may lead to millions more cavities in US children, study estimates
Water availabilityFacebookTweetLink Follow The longstanding public health practice of adding fluoride to public drinking water systems in the United States is facing new challenges and bans in some places, and experts have warned that the change would come with significant costs – both to the health of children and the health care system. A new modeling study, published Friday in JAMA Health Forum, estimates that removing fluoride from public water in the US would lead to 25.4 million excess decayed teeth in children and adolescents within five years, along with $9.8 billion in health care costs. After 10 years, these impacts would more than double to nearly 54 million excess decayed teeth and $19.4 billion in costs. That translates to one additional decayed tooth for every three children in the US – but the costs wouldn't be spread evenly, said Dr. Lisa Simon, an internal medicine physician with Brigham and Women's Hospital and co-author of the new study. 'We know that the people who have the most benefit from fluoride are people who otherwise struggle to access dental care,' says Simon, who has been researching dental policy for a decade. 'When we think about those 25 million decayed teeth, they're much more likely to appear in the mouths of children who are publicly insured by Medicaid or come from otherwise low-income families.' Fluoride is a mineral that can be found naturally in some foods and groundwater. It can help prevent tooth decay by strengthening the protective outer layer of enamel that can be worn away by acids formed by bacteria, plaque and sugars in the mouth. Adding fluoride to public water systems started in the US in 1945 and has been hailed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as one of the 10 greatest health interventions in America in the 20th century In 2022, close to two-thirds of the US population was served by community water systems that had fluoride added to them, according to CDC data. But US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in April that he would tell the CDC to stop recommending that fluoride be added to public drinking water, and lawmakers in two states – Utah and Florida – have banned the practice this year. To estimate the effects of removing fluoride from community water, Simon and co-author Dr. Sung Eun Choi from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine assessed clinical oral health data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to create a nationally representative sample of US children. At baseline, the data showed that about 1 in 5 children between the ages of 2 and 5 were estimated to have dental caries, a chronic infectious disease involving tooth decay and cavities, along with more than half of children ages 6 to 12 and more than 57% of teenagers. But removing fluoride would raise those prevalence rates by more than 7 percentage points, the researchers found. 'This is a huge cost for our country and it's all avoidable. There is no better replacement for the time-tested, doctor trusted use of fluoride in community water programs,' Dr. Brett Kessler, president of the American Dental Association, said in a statement. 'No amount of political rhetoric or misinformation will change that good oral health depends on proper nutrition, oral hygiene and optimally fluoridated water, or fluoride supplements if community water programs lack fluoride.' On the campaign trail last fall, Kennedy called fluoride 'industrial waste' and claimed that exposure has resulted in a wide variety of health problems, including cancer – claims that both the American Cancer Society and the CDC have disagreed with. And in April, HHS and the US Environmental Protection Agency announced that they would study the potential health risks of fluoride in drinking water – a review centered around a government study from last year concluding that higher levels of fluoride are linked to lowered IQ in children. In the new modeling study, researchers found that only about 1.5% of US children in 2016 had exposure to this excess level of fluoride – considered to be above 1.5 milligrams per liter – that posed risk for fluorosis, a condition that leaves streaks or spots on teeth, or other harms. Meanwhile, about 40% of US children had access to optimal fluoride levels that effectively prevent tooth decay – between 0.6 and 1.5 milligrams per liter – while about 46% had access to even lower levels. The authors of the new study did not assess the neurocognitive effects of fluoride because 'current federal guidance does not find an association' at the levels used in public drinking water. They found that removing fluoride would only help prevent about 200,000 cases of fluorosis over five years. Tooth decay can mean a lot of things, Simon said, but their model was picking up cases that would likely need at least a filling along with severe cavities that could turn into a root canal or a tooth extraction – the costs of which would be borne by families, insurers and the government. 'Talking about money, which is really important, is only one way to measure that cost,' Simon said. 'It's also a cost in terms of children being in pain, children not being able to eat, children missing school or not being able to pay attention in school because their teeth hurt, parents missing work, children losing teeth that are supposed to stay with them for their entire lives, and those children growing into older adults who are more likely to be missing teeth with all of the health consequences that entails.' Forecasts in the new modeling study mirror real-life impacts that were measured in other parts of the world after fluoride was removed from drinking water. Calgary, Alberta, stopped putting fluoride in its water in 2011, and a study found that children there had more cavities than those in cities that kept fluoride. Calgary will resume fluoridation this year. Simon worries the effects in the US might be even greater because of health inequities that are especially pronounced in the dental care system. 'We've had fluoridated water for so long and it's worked so well that we've stopped appreciating the amazing things it's done,' she said. 'When something has been a success story for 80 years … you don't know which kid never got a cavity because they were exposed to fluoride, and we don't know which older adults aren't wearing dentures because of that.'
CNN
7 days ago
- Business
- CNN
Removing fluoride from public drinking water may lead to millions more cavities in US children, study estimates
Water availabilityFacebookTweetLink Follow The longstanding public health practice of adding fluoride to public drinking water systems in the United States is facing new challenges and bans in some places, and experts have warned that the change would come with significant costs – both to the health of children and the health care system. A new modeling study, published Friday in JAMA Health Forum, estimates that removing fluoride from public water in the US would lead to 25.4 million excess decayed teeth in children and adolescents within five years, along with $9.8 billion in health care costs. After 10 years, these impacts would more than double to nearly 54 million excess decayed teeth and $19.4 billion in costs. That translates to one additional decayed tooth for every three children in the US – but the costs wouldn't be spread evenly, said Dr. Lisa Simon, an internal medicine physician with Brigham and Women's Hospital and co-author of the new study. 'We know that the people who have the most benefit from fluoride are people who otherwise struggle to access dental care,' says Simon, who has been researching dental policy for a decade. 'When we think about those 25 million decayed teeth, they're much more likely to appear in the mouths of children who are publicly insured by Medicaid or come from otherwise low-income families.' Fluoride is a mineral that can be found naturally in some foods and groundwater. It can help prevent tooth decay by strengthening the protective outer layer of enamel that can be worn away by acids formed by bacteria, plaque and sugars in the mouth. Adding fluoride to public water systems started in the US in 1945 and has been hailed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as one of the 10 greatest health interventions in America in the 20th century In 2022, close to two-thirds of the US population was served by community water systems that had fluoride added to them, according to CDC data. But US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in April that he would tell the CDC to stop recommending that fluoride be added to public drinking water, and lawmakers in two states – Utah and Florida – have banned the practice this year. To estimate the effects of removing fluoride from community water, Simon and co-author Dr. Sung Eun Choi from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine assessed clinical oral health data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to create a nationally representative sample of US children. At baseline, the data showed that about 1 in 5 children between the ages of 2 and 5 were estimated to have dental caries, a chronic infectious disease involving tooth decay and cavities, along with more than half of children ages 6 to 12 and more than 57% of teenagers. But removing fluoride would raise those prevalence rates by more than 7 percentage points, the researchers found. 'This is a huge cost for our country and it's all avoidable. There is no better replacement for the time-tested, doctor trusted use of fluoride in community water programs,' Dr. Brett Kessler, president of the American Dental Association, said in a statement. 'No amount of political rhetoric or misinformation will change that good oral health depends on proper nutrition, oral hygiene and optimally fluoridated water, or fluoride supplements if community water programs lack fluoride.' On the campaign trail last fall, Kennedy called fluoride 'industrial waste' and claimed that exposure has resulted in a wide variety of health problems, including cancer – claims that both the American Cancer Society and the CDC have disagreed with. And in April, HHS and the US Environmental Protection Agency announced that they would study the potential health risks of fluoride in drinking water – a review centered around a government study from last year concluding that higher levels of fluoride are linked to lowered IQ in children. In the new modeling study, researchers found that only about 1.5% of US children in 2016 had exposure to this excess level of fluoride – considered to be above 1.5 milligrams per liter – that posed risk for fluorosis, a condition that leaves streaks or spots on teeth, or other harms. Meanwhile, about 40% of US children had access to optimal fluoride levels that effectively prevent tooth decay – between 0.6 and 1.5 milligrams per liter – while about 46% had access to even lower levels. The authors of the new study did not assess the neurocognitive effects of fluoride because 'current federal guidance does not find an association' at the levels used in public drinking water. They found that removing fluoride would only help prevent about 200,000 cases of fluorosis over five years. Tooth decay can mean a lot of things, Simon said, but their model was picking up cases that would likely need at least a filling along with severe cavities that could turn into a root canal or a tooth extraction – the costs of which would be borne by families, insurers and the government. 'Talking about money, which is really important, is only one way to measure that cost,' Simon said. 'It's also a cost in terms of children being in pain, children not being able to eat, children missing school or not being able to pay attention in school because their teeth hurt, parents missing work, children losing teeth that are supposed to stay with them for their entire lives, and those children growing into older adults who are more likely to be missing teeth with all of the health consequences that entails.' Forecasts in the new modeling study mirror real-life impacts that were measured in other parts of the world after fluoride was removed from drinking water. Calgary, Alberta, stopped putting fluoride in its water in 2011, and a study found that children there had more cavities than those in cities that kept fluoride. Calgary will resume fluoridation this year. Simon worries the effects in the US might be even greater because of health inequities that are especially pronounced in the dental care system. 'We've had fluoridated water for so long and it's worked so well that we've stopped appreciating the amazing things it's done,' she said. 'When something has been a success story for 80 years … you don't know which kid never got a cavity because they were exposed to fluoride, and we don't know which older adults aren't wearing dentures because of that.'
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Study shows rise in children's cavities if US removed fluoride from water
A new study published in Jama Health Forum estimates that if the US were to remove fluoride from public drinking water supplies – as Donald Trump's health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has advocated – American children would suffer an additional 25.4m cavities in five years. The additional cases represent a 7.5% increase in cavities, an added cost of $9.8bn and the loss of 2.9m quality-adjusted life years. Those cases would disproportionately be borne by children most at-risk for tooth decay – those on public health insurance or who lack insurance entirely. 'We know fluoride is remarkably effective at preventing tooth decay – it's one of the great public health success stories of the 20th century,' said Dr Lisa Simon, assistant professor at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and a dentist and an internist. However, she added, the US did not 'have great numbers to say: 'What is the value of all of that? What would happen if we were to take it all away?'' The study comes as Kennedy has made the end of water fluoridation a major policy of his time as the president's health secretary. Fluoride was most recently featured in the 'Maha report', led by Kennedy and published amid fanfare by the White House last week. The report was later found to have invented citations and mischaracterized research. Although the Maha report correctly characterized a recent metaanalysis on the dangers of high levels of fluoride, it downplayed fluoride's protective effects and did not comment further on cavities – a chronic condition that affects almost half of American kids. The new study finds that if fluoride were eliminated from water supplies, there would be 'one newly decayed tooth for every third child in America', Simon said. To conduct the new study, Simon and her coauthor, Harvard assistant professor of oral health and epidemiology Sung Choi, used nationally representative data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). They then used a statistical model to estimate the cost and prevalence of tooth decay in children aged 0-19-years-old after both five and 10 years. The data examined was from 2013-16 and the analysis was conducted between November and February this year. Kennedy argues the US should stop fluoridating water on the basis that it can negatively impact IQ, which is true at very high levels. At a recent stop in Utah Kennedy said: 'The evidence against fluoride is overwhelming.' Evidence that fluoride causes harm is not, in fact, overwhelming – though the science is nuanced. The best current evidence follows a medical adage: the dose makes the poison. Recent research shows that high levels of fluoride can have neurotoxic effects. However, those harms have not been found at levels below 1.5 parts per million – more than twice the level recommended by the CDC (0.7 parts per million). Sign up to First Thing Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion In his tenure, Kennedy has instructed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to review its guidance on fluoride, which still promotes its use in community water systems; eliminated the CDC's office of oral health, which made those recommendations; and acted as a cheerleader to states like Utah, which have banned fluoride. 'We're talking about quite low, very safe, very regulated levels of water fluoridation,' said Simon, adding that documented neurotoxic effects are at rates '10-15 times what people are exposed to in public water fluoridation.'
