Newly Updated Fluoride Resources Online
Good news for people who want to educate themselves and their communities about fluoride and fluoridation! Some of the most respected voices in health and medicine have newly updated fluoride resources online.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently updated its website, including all of its web pages on fluoride and oral health. Advocates will be pleased to know that CDC’s web address for fluoridation information is the same as it was before: www.cdc.gov/fluoridation.
Features that users have long appreciated, like Frequently Asked Questions About Fluoridation, remain available on the CDC’s updated website. Why is this notable? People sometimes believe, for example, that using fluoride toothpaste makes it unnecessary for a community to provide its residents with fluoridated water. This FAQ provides information that corrects that misconception, pointing out that both forms of fluoride “work together to prevent cavities.” “Together, the two sources offer more protection than using either one alone.”
We are especially pleased to see that the revamped CDC website devotes a full page to its Scientific Statement on Community Water Fluoridation. This statement can be downloaded as a PDF, making it easy to share with stakeholders, public officials and folks interested in the science behind the statement.
The National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has also updated its Fluoride Fact Sheet For Health Professionals, which is a key online resource. While acknowledging potential harms of exposure to unusually high levels of fluoride, the fact sheet explains how a dose of fluoride capable of causing systemic toxicity “would be virtually impossible to achieve from water or toothpaste containing standard levels of added fluoride.”
In this resource, the NIH provides important context on studies that have begun to look for an association between fluoride and cognitive deficits in children. Many experts consider these studies “to be weak and methodologically flawed,” as the fact sheet points out. In addition, NIH explains that a 2023 meta-analysis found that fluoride exposure at concentrations “similar to that used in fluoridated community drinking water in the United States is not associated with lower IQ scores.”
The Campaign for Dental Health
Last but not least, the American Academy of Pediatrics Campaign for Dental Health recently updated its page on fluoride and IQ scores. The Campaign’s blog is another good vehicle for the latest information. Beyond sharing news about fluoride-related policy, the blog takes a deeper look at how the quality of fluoride research can vary significantly.
No matter what you may be looking for, you can’t go wrong with any of these evidence-based online sources of information on fluoride and fluoridation.
