Canada - Dental woes plague northerners

Dental woes plague northerners
Children's teeth rotting By Janet French, The StarPhoenix February 18, 2012 2:06 AM After 29 years of peering in little mouths, Penny Griffith doesn't wince anymore.
The dental therapist with the Lac La Ronge Indian Band has become accustomed to seeing preschoolers' teeth in a state most of us would find shocking - all four baby molars pocked with deep pits, and front teeth black and stumpy, literally rotting away to nothing.
"It's an accepted thing - the front smile being black and stubby," the frankly spoken Griffith said. "It's so 'normal' here that it doesn't matter."
Like a rite of passage, many - some still in diapers - will take a trip south down Highway 2 and end up in Dr. Mohan Teekasingh's Saskatoon operating room, where the dentist will often drill and fill as many as six or eight teeth, and extract four to six more.
"A lot of these kids, unfortunately, live with the pain and take it as part of their normal existence," Teekasingh said.

Of the more than 1,900 Saskatchewan patients on a waiting list for dental work under general anesthetic, more than half are under age six and more than threequarters are age 10 or younger...............
THE FLUORIDE DEBATE
And then, there is the political lightning rod of water fluoridation. It has detractors, who argue citizens should be able to make their own choices about what chemicals are added to drinking water.

Water fluoridation is the most cost-effective way known to prevent dental disease. The Ministry of Health website says every $1 spent on water fluoridation can save $38 in downstream dental costs.

As if it is the lack of fluoride causing that extreme rotting of teeth.