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Fluoride: Journal of the International Society for Fluoride Research (ISFR)

Volume 26; Year 1993; Pages 263-266.

WHO data on dental caries and natural fluoride levels.

R Ziegelbecker and RC Ziegelbecker
Graz, Austria.

EXCERPT:

Data collected in 1987 from World Health Organization data banks contradict earlier reports of an inverse relationship between dental caries prevalence and drinking water levels...

It can be seen that dental caries prevalence does not change significantly with variation in water fluoride content. In most of the countries the relationship tends to be direct rather than inverse: dental caries increases as water fluoride increases. That finding conflicts with the widespread belief, based on highly selected data in the early studies of Dean and others, that drinking water fluoride reduces dental caries as the fluoride concentration increases toward the claimed "optimum" of one part per million (ppm). But our finding is in accord with some other studies (5-7). The belief in an inverse caries-fluoride relationship was reinforced by the numerous "fluoridation trials." But they, too, have been shown to be based upon highly selected data.

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