The Department of Health's view

doi:10.1136/bmj.39374.501771.BE

BMJ 2007;335:840 (27 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.39374.501771.BE

Letters

Fluoridation

The Department of Health's view

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Cheng et al's article on fluoridation of water supplies providesa welcome opportunity to restate our view that fluoridationhas reduced the burden of dental disease and offers the potentialto address persistent inequalities in oral health.¹ As withother health measures, safety should continue to be monitoredand the ethical dimension discussed.

We first address the doubts expressed about the Department ofHealth's objectivity. The Department of Health, in 1999, commissionedthe University of York to undertake a systematic review of fluoridation.²The York team considered 735 research studies that met theirrelevance criteria and found no conclusive evidence of a causalrelation between fluoridation and systemic illness. Nevertheless,we accepted their primary recommendation—that the evidencebase for fluoridation needed strengthening—and respondedwith a commitment to sponsor further research. In 2001, we askedthe Medical Research Council (MRC) to identify and prioritisethe research needed to inform public policy . . . [Full text of this article]