What is the alternative if water cannot be fluoridated?
Brushing your teeth twice a day using family-strengh fluoride toothpaste – just a smear for infants and a pea-sized blob for children under eight. Over the past 20 years fluoride toothpaste use has brought about a massive reduction in dental decay. Fluoride can also be added to milk and to salt. Several areas of the country are testing schemes to provide fluoridated milk in school nurseries in areas of poor dental health. Salt fluoridation has been used quite extensively in countries such as France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Jamaica. In areas where water supplies cannot be fluoridated for technical reasons in parts of Scotland, for example this could be a feasible new approach. But generally, salt fluoridation is very much a second best to water fluoridation.
