Final report of local studies on water fluoridation in Brantford.

Abstract

DRANTFQRD completed ten years of water fluoridation on June 20th, 1955. The decision to undertake fluoridation was made by the City Council in 1944 after two years of public discussion had resulted in wide-spread acceptance of the relationship between fluorine and tooth decay. The epoch-making studies of Trendley Dean and his co-workers (1) were endorsed at a time when this newer knowledge had nowhere been harnessed to the service of public health. With the benefit of hindsight, it is now apparent that the Brantford City Council of 1944 made three decisions of public health importance to the future welfare of the city. They decided to halt the high rate of destruction of human teeth, from which Brantford had suffered since it was a hamlet; that the rate of tooth destruction in 1955 among permanent resident school children should be less than half it was in 1944 and that when the children of to-day became the adults of tomorrow, they should continue to enjoy a lessened incidence of dental caries (2). Brantford undertook its study of water fluoridation within its own limited resources and without benefit of a suitable control city. The Department of National Health and Welfare came to the scientific rescue of the project early in 1948 and began its own parallel and independent studies, using Brantford as the pilot city and Sarnia and Stratford as two controls (3). The appended report is therefore the result of local studies contrasting