Fluoridation Mandated Kentucky has staggering tooth decay rates. It’s clear they need dental care and not fluoride. But what’s solution – more fluoride – making more money for companies selling the fluoride varnish and more money to the dental professionals applying the stuff, having no evidence that children are fluoride-deficient.

Excerpts:
Staggering statistics about Kentucky kids’ poor oral health were brought to the governor’s attention when he was running for office four years ago, Beshear said. The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at UK sent the Beshears an assessment of the state’s dental health showing that half of Kentucky’s children had decay in their baby teeth; and nearly half of children ages 2, 3 and 4 had untreated dental problems. This is more than twice the national average, Beshear said last week.

Kentucky youths who seek to join the military and present a mouth full of cavities and gaps where teeth had been, are turned away in high numbers, says Dr. Steve Davis, the state’s interim commissioner of public health.


Over the course of the 2011-12 school year, two protective fluoride varnish treatments and educational materials for healthy dental practices will be offered to children in the first through the fifth grades at selected schools in 16 Appalachian Kentucky counties.



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