The Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) is honoring the Kentucky Oral Health Program in recognition of National Dental Hygiene Month.
The Oral Health Program consists of 11 public health dental hygiene teams providing services in 28 Kentucky counties. These teams visit local schools to assess, clean and apply fluoride varnish and sealants to a child’s molars.
The fluoride varnish provides protectants for six months, and the sealants protect the chewing surface for the length of the sealant, which typically protects the surface of the teeth from decay. With a deficit of dental providers in some of Kentucky’s rural communities, this program fulfills a vital need with a mission to refer every child to a local dentist.
Kyle Isaacs, RDH (Session Lecturer); Christi Daugherty, RDH,(Public Health Dental Hygienist, Jessamine County); Stacy Trowbridge, RDH (Public Health Dental Hygienist, Barren River District Health Department); Babette Southard, RDH, MAH, BDH,(Former Administrator, DPH Public Health Hygiene Program) Jennifer Nettles (Public Health Dental Hygienist, Purchase District), Dr. Julie Watts McKee (State Dental Director), Dr. Sharlee Burch (Session Lecturer); Mary Jones, RDH (President, Kentucky Dental Hygienists’ Association).
“We are working not only with our heads and hands, but with our hearts. We have been touched by all of the children and unreal circumstances we come across,” said Dr. Julie McKee, DMD, director of the DPH Oral Health Program.
“Our work is helping children in Kentucky – but also changing each of us for the better.”
The public health dental hygiene teams have served approximately 25,000 Kentucky children providing 175,000 preventive dental services including oral hygiene instruction, dental risk assessment, patient education, nutrition counseling, tobacco counseling, varnish and sealants. These individuals embrace the needs of local communities to assure children can grow and learn without the distraction of poor dental health. If a child is in pain or cannot eat due to poor dental health, they cannot learn and grown to become healthy, productive Kentucky citizens.
The Oral Health Program was recognized recently at the Kentucky Dental Hygienists’ Association Public Health Symposium for being a trailblazer in the area of public dental health. The event was a continuing education that consisted of a panel discussion centered on the important work health department hygienists do within Kentucky communities.
The Kentucky Oral Health Program works with local health departments, dental hygienists, health educators and dentists throughout the state to educate Kentuckians about the importance of oral health and its link to one’s overall health. When Kentucky established an oral health program in 1928, it was the third state in the country to have a public dental health program. One of the program’s major efforts is water fluoridation. In 1951, the city of Maysville become the first Kentucky community to fluoridate its water supply. Today, Kentucky is a national leader with 96% of citizens having a fluoridated water.
Kentucky and Dr. McKee should recognize by now that fluoridation is not effective at improving dental health. The programs described in this article are effective and should be expanded, and fluoridation should be stopped.
Hardy Limeback, DDS, PhD former Head of Preventive Dentistry, University of Toronto, past President, Canadian Association of Dental Research
“The evidence that fluoride is more harmful than beneficial is now overwhelming . . .fluoride may be destroying our bones, our teeth, and our overall health.” . . . “The public should be told it doesn’t work by swallowing it.”
John Colquhoun, BDS, PhD former Chief Dental Officer, Auckland, NZ
“It is my best judgement, reached with a high degree of scientific certainty, that fluoridation is invalid in theory and ineffective in practice as a preventive of dental caries (tooth decay). It is dangerous to the health of consumers.”
Ole Blok Fejerskof, DDS, PhD, Dr. Odont. Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Biomedicine, University of Aarhus, former Director of the Danish National Research Foundation
“When it was thought that fluoride had to be present during tooth mineralization to ‘improve’ the biological apatite and the ‘caries resistance’ of the teeth, systemic fluoride administration was [thought to be] necessary for maximum benefit. . . . The ‘caries resistance’ concept was shown to be erroneous 25 years ago, but the new paradigm is not yet fully adopted in public health dentistry. . . .”
A.K. Susheela, PhD Chief of Fluoride and Fluorosis Research Laboratories, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
“The evidences we have provided on the harmful effects of fluoride on human health unequivocally prove the point that fluoride is disease-causing and not disease-preventing. Our scientific publications would not only stand the test of time but also before any judiciary in any part of the world, as it is based on biomedical research of highest standards.”
Kathleen Thiessen, PhD Director, Oak Ridge Center for Risk Analysis, Member National Research Council Panel on Fluoride in Drinking Water
“The available data, responsibly interpreted, indicate little or no beneficial effect of water fluoridation on oral health.”
On September 19, 2017 the results of a 12-year study of prenatal exposure to fluoride were revealed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). They are published on line in Environmental Health Perspectives: “Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6–12 Years of Age in Mexico.”
The study shows SIGNIFICANT REDUCTIONS IN CHILDREN’S IQ LINKED TO EXPOSURE OF MOTHERS TO FLUORIDE during pregnancy. Although this carefully controlled study was on Mexican mother-child pairs, the fluoride doses received by the study mothers were the same as typical doses received by American women who drink and cook with “optimally fluoridated” water during pregnancy. Therefore comparable reductions in IQ scores in American children born of those mothers would be expected.
The results of this NIH study make it clear that THERE IS NO BASIS FOR ASSUMING THAT CURRENT WATER “FLUORIDATION” POLICY IS SAFE. In the words of the study’s lead researcher:
“The potential risks associated with fluoride should be further studied, particularly among vulnerable populations such as pregnant women and children, and more research on fluoride’s impact on the developing brain is clearly needed.”