Fluoride allergy sometimes possible

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33944, 10 September 1975, Page 16

Fluoride allergy sometimes possible

People could be allergic to fluoridated water, according to the Borrow Dental Milk Foundation in England.

The founder of the organisation (Mr E. W. Borrow) wrote to “The Press” after reading reports of a girl in Timaru who had developed a serious skin infection, allegedly attributed to her use of fluoridated water.

“It would be necessary to know a great deal more about this case before passing judgment, but what has been shown is that a rare case might occur where an allergy to fluoride makes its use unwise. It has never been denied that this might be the case,” Mr Borrow said. The foundation considered that this emphasised the need for an alternative method of administering fluoride which could be easily controlled in use. It would be applied for the specific number of years during which the chemical was i known to be effective in

i building up. resistance to tooth decay. NO DANGER “The selective method of fluoridising milk specifically intended for children up to 12 years of age, which the foundation advocates, can be operated in schools or children’s welfare centres in such a way that there is no danger of excess doses. “Because fluoride is only really beneficial if taken during the first 12 years of life, unnecessary, and unjustifiable, risks are involved in making everyone drink this potent chemical via the kitchen tap for the whole of their natural lives,” Mr Borrow said.

The Timaru case was by no means the first where fluoride had been suspected of having ill effects on people specially susceptible to it, he said. The Borrow Foundation believed that the treatment of public water supplies with fluoride was totally “unscientific,” and a matter of “bureaucratic expediency,” rather than an acceptable way of combating dental decay. ‘SAFEST WAY’ “It reiterates that the selective method we have developed, and publicised throughout the world—the

fluoridising of milk for child-ren-—is the safest and most practicable way of tackling this problem. The World Health Organisation, at its recent Geneva congress, called for more consideration of the use of milk as a means of administering fluoride,” Mr Borrow said. The Medical Officer of Health for the Department of Health in Christchurch (Dr L. F. Jepson) said that it was the first time he had- heard of the organisation, and also the first time he had heard that people could be allergic to fluoride. Mr Borrow said that the foundation was established in Britain and registered in 1971, as a non-profit making trust to promote the use of fluoridised milk.

“A major advantage of the fluoridation of milk is that adults and parents who disagree with any compulsory form of medication can opt out,” Mr Borrow said. The objects of the foundation are to set up research centres, to carry out research programmes and clinical trials, and to institute pilot schemes to test the feasibility of this method, and to carry out with the dental and medical professions the publication of analytical results, and to help to finance parallel studies.