Since Oral Health policies in Brazil have been constructed according to circumstances and possibilities, they should be understood within a given context. The present analysis contextualizes several issues of the Brazilian Oral Health Policy, called "Smiling Brazil", and describes its present stage of development. Today it involves re-organizing basic oral health care by deploying Oral Health T...

OBJECTIVE To compare levels of water fluoridation in urban and rural distribution systems in Ontario. METHODS A random sample of 17 urban and 17 rural municipalities was taken from a list of 445 municipalities. The Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) website was used to identify the water treatment plants that supply these municipalities, and water quality reports published by each of t...

(Note by Dr. Andrew Saul: Fluoridation of water owes its continued existence more to politics than to science. If safety and effectiveness are truly considered, fluoride would be questionable even as a prescription drug. But to freely add it to public water supplies, often without any public vote whatsoever, is far beyond questionable. Mr. Meiers' discussion of the dangers of fluoride is import...

INTRODUCTION Osteogenic effects of therapeutic fluoride have been reported; however, the impact of exposure to low level water fluoridation on bone density is not clear. We investigated the effect of long-term exposure to fluoridated water from growth to young adulthood on bone mineral density (BMD). METHODS BMD was measured in 24 healthy women from Regina (fluoride 0.1 mg/L) and 33 from Sask...

Fluoride is an important element for mineralization of body tissues. The use of topical and systemic fluoride for oral health has resulted in major reductions in dental caries and its associated disability. Fluoridation of public water supplies has been endorsed by over 90 professional health organizations as the most effective dental public health measure in existence. Still, about half of the...

A telephone survey was carried out in 1994, in the Quebec City region, among 1006 people living in two municipalities where tap water is fluoridated and 1003 people living in two municipalities where there is no fluoridation. Knowledge of the main benefit associated with the use of fluoride (prevention of tooth decay) in drinking water was not different in fluorated versus non-fluoridated munic...

The following critical letters were published in the Austdian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health (Vol.21 Nos. 3 and 5 1997) following publication in that journal of NEW EVIDENCE ON FLUORIDATION, by M Diesendorf, J Colquhoun, B J Spittle, N E Everingham and F W Clutterbuck (reprinted in Fluoride Vo1.21 No.3 pages 179-185 August 1997). The authors' response to the critiques is on pages 166-...

With the aims of determining the prevalence dental fluorosis in the city of Aracaju, Sergipe State, 196 students were submitted to an oral exam, utilizing the Dean's index. It was concluded that the prevalence of dental fluorosis in students ranging from 5 to 15 years old in the city of Aracaju, Sergipe State was of 8.16%, not implying in a risk to public health. However, similar studies must b...

Similar to that which occurred in most developed countries, dental caries have shown a significant decline in Brazil over the last two decades. Water fluoridation, expansion of preventive programs at schools, and especially, the widespread use of fluoride dentifrice are discussed as factors related to this reduction in caries. Data from epidemiological surveys and historical facts are presented...